Happy Darwin Day!

Remember Charles Darwin!

The Epic Saga of the Felicity dolls

Childhood Felicity

Felicity #2 Before

Felicity #2 with new head

Cobaltcat: When I was around 9 or 10 I got Felicity as a child when she first came out. She had firey red hair and loved horses- man I loved her! Since I was so careful of Kirsten and her bun braids I brushed the heck out of Childhood Felicity and played with her hair like crazy... which included ripping out like half her hair! I searched and searched for the same gorgeous red hair to replace it and bought a couple wigs and nothing would do. I tried making her a modern girl.. eh not working. In the process I bought another Felicity... I don't know why... just because I liked Felicity I guess and I wanted a newer Felicity (it REALLY bothered me that I brushed out my childhood doll's pin curls for some reason). So I have Felicity #2 and rename my childhood doll. After a hideous attempt to improve my old doll she is off to Dr. Robin's Dolly Hospital for some spa treatment. Meanwhile, Felicity #2 started bothering me. She looked transitional or PC but her hair was darker and her face looked misshapen or something. My mom thinks maybe her eyes are uneven. I don't know why I bought the doll.  It's hard to see in the picture but something is off with her face. Or I am extremely picky and losing my marbles.
Well recently a Felicity head came up on eBay. It was perfect! Gorgeous.  It was a Mattel Felicity with really dark hair but I didn't care. I thought up a brilliant plan. I can use it for Felicity #2 and use Felicity #2's wig on Childhood Felicity! I got the new head and put it on Felicity #2's body ("Yay! Looks Great!"), and removed the hair ("ack not so good") off of her old head. Of course now that I look at old pictures of Childhood Felicity I'm thinking.. oh man I should have left her alone :P I still have her old wig around in case I change my mind. Obviously I have been over thinking this whole conundrum.

* Moving the pictures is hard on Blogger!

We found Cochon!!

Felicity's Wardrobe, AG website

Our beloved Cochan

Hi! I know it's been a few days. Not much new here. However, we found our parrot that got lost named Cochon (French for "pig")!! We don't normally put him in a cage because we're not a huge fan of caged plastic birds but knowing our luck, we lost him (and we aren't a fan of lost plastic birds either) and we finally found him today in Felicity's wardrobe. We almost called AG to see if we could get another bird! How did he get there? I think he wanted to visit with the little bird that visits Felicity's bird feeder. Anyway, we are very happy that he is back with us. Cochan is still rather clumsy and falls a lot but we don't care.  Boy is he tiny though. If you have an AG parrot find a safe spot to keep him so he doesn't get lost or eaten by the dog!

However luckily this gave us a topic for today to learn something!  Birds! Parrots! What kind of Parrot is Cochon?

Cochon is all green but for red on his head and the tip of his wings. We are no aviary expert but we suspect maybe he's a Red-Crowned Amazon parrot. (Or maybe he's a Red-lored Amazon? Or a Red-Crowned Parakeet?) We have seen plenty of pictures with red-headed parrots but we can't seem to find the one with red on the wing. Maybe it is an AG easier-to-flock-and-paint hybrid.

If it he is a Red-Crowned Amazon, he is very endangered parrot found in Mexico though they can be found in the southern United States in abundant woodlands with a lot of trees. Sadly they are endangered due to habitat destruction and the illegal pet bird trade. So in theory we shouldn't be having him for a pet but he is a special case because he is part of the American Girl flocked plastic bird breeding program in China. So don't support the illegal pet trade. If you want a parrot make sure you get them the right way and do your research.

Roger Moore Glandauer, royalty free

Red-Crowned Amazons are social birds and they like to be in big flocks together. They like to munch on berries, fruits and seeds. They are about 12 inches long and usually have about 4 eggs in their nest. They are good at mimicking sounds and are known as affectionate pets. If you want to learn more about parrots check out these websites:
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=1669

http://www.avianweb.com/redcrownedamazon.html

http://californiaparrotproject.org/red_crowned_parrot.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-crowned_Amazon

Cobaltcat is not a parrot expert so this is just for general reference only.

Amber (My AG #26) is wearing the Licorice Play Outfit, Kanani necklace,  Singing Star Shoes, and holding Cécile's Parrot which all can be found on American Girl's website or on the secondary market.

A visit from Cho

Hi! Cho Jess is from China and she came over to tell us about Chinese New Year. We also did crafts to celebrate it. Chinese New Year is coming up on January 23. In the Chinese Lunar Calender it will be the year 4710 (some say it's a different year but around this time).  It is the biggest traditional holiday in China and goes on for 15 days. It basically marks the end of winter.  In preparation for Chinese New Year, people do things to give them a fresh start such as cleaning the house and getting a haircut. Cho talked to Ivy and said you might want to check the business you go to that are run by Chinese families (such as a restaurant like The Happy Panda) because they might either be closed or they might have extra special things going on to celebrate the new year. The Chinese also have a 12 year cycle of animals that has one that represents each year. This year was the year of the rabbit, but now it's going to be the year of the dragon. Cho helped us make dragon masks that we found on a Disney Printable website. (For dolls you might want to make one for yourself and scale one down to around 33-35% to match their size).  Cobaltcat did an oops by not getting the hole right but we'll fix that. We will later color them too. We also made a couple red paper lanterns for decoration. We would have made more but our printer ran out of ink. It was a lot of cutting and taping but it was worth it. Since we didn't have enough ink to print more lanterns, we put the Chinese Zodiac Wheel we printed earlier in the middle with the dragon on the top. They generally put red lanterns up on the 15th day of the New Year. They are red to symbolize good luck- that is why you often see many red things when it comes to Chinese pictures, decorations and clothing. Fireworks are also very common to scare away evil spirits!

Cho also showed us some envelops with money that is given out during the New Year. One envelope had a Koi fish on it to symbolize success. They are so pretty! Cobaltcat remembers reading that they breed koi to look beautiful on the top of their head and body since they are usually put in places where you see them from above.

This would be a great time to read some American Girl Julie books to learn about Chinese New Year and Chinese culture thanks to her friend Ivy Ling such as Happy New Year Julie!,  Good Luck, Ivy!, and The Puzzle of the Paper Daughter. There are also other good books like Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat by acclaimed author Amy Tan (she also has a lot of great longer books for adults), watch Mulan (though not really accurate) and get some Chinese food to eat for take out.





Gung Hay Fat Choi!

Hello! Today we are enjoying our new light box that we have thought about getting for years. We've suffered from the winter blahs for years so we thought we might give it a try. It has a full spectrum of 10,000 Lux (whatever that means) that is suppose to help your body when there isn't much sun outside. It suggests using it for about 30 minutes to 1 hour a day. It is suppose to help you become less lethargic and a little more happier. Hopefully this is not woo and it will work. If not we have a cool light box. If you want to learn more, check online or talk to a doctor. We are far from being doctors though Amber's uncle is a doctor and she thinks that counts but it does not!

Speaking of Amber, Amber thought the box was hilarious and really big. As you can see on the picture on left she is looking really close at the light. Do not do this! You are not suppose to look directly at the light. It is suppose to be at an angle.

Amber also thought this box would also be a wonderful tool to use to make shadow puppets and artsy shadow pictures. Amber made her hands like a bird and all sorts of things. Very fun.

In other news it has been a little snowy and rainy. We are also trying to sell some things on a forum (AGPT) because Cobaltcat (CC) has acquired entirely too much stuff! She got a bit too happy shopping and buying books, clothes and AG art supplies. She hasn't even tried to color in the Art Studios so we wonders why she even bought it! She also has a couple duplicates on some items. Not sure how that happened. Unfortunately CC is still not doing a very good job of keeping her grubby hands off of eBay. Though she did finally buy a postal scale to weigh all the stuff so she doesn't have to deal with the snotty post office ladies who always seem to think she's a dummy and treats her that way. She is slowing learning, bit by bit. Hopefully sometime she will be able to get everything write and print the shipping labels online and all that. But she does not trust her math so she still prefers to double check at the post office.

CC also needs to work on her photography. Amber complained that her pictures always seem to be at the wrong height. "Look at this one!" she says. You can see up my nose!"

It's hard to give up things but when money is tight and your spending is not good you need to do what you need to do.

McKanani Version 2!: Warm-up Outfit Review

So Kanani is back in town and what is she wearing? The exclusive McKenna Warm-Up outfit that everyone wants but you can only get it if you spend like $200 (including taxes and all that) on her starter collection because they won't sell it as a single item as a clever marketing scheme. Well luckily we snatched this up on eBay for around $40 and we HAD to get it! Now I am seeing other warm-up outfits go for much higher than that.  I mean we do sorta want to add McKenna to the family but right now we're enjoying Kanani and friends. The outfit is cute. The top is more pink (I thought it was purple for some reason) and the bottom is orange. It has a tie-dye dipped effect but it's actually what do you call it- printed? on and the color is only on one side. Kanani's kukunut lei goes great with the jacket though it would not be at all practical for warm-up practice. The pants are a bit snug as AG seems to like to use the least amount of material possible and charge more lately. I do like the little trendy scrunch up sides (whatever they're called)- they remind me of a few pants I have had in the past. The shoes are pink and accented by a super bright greenish-yellow. I don't know why they chose this color. Maybe it's suppose to be a copy of a reflective strap on a shoe? Or maybe they didn't want it too matchy-matchy? I could only get the shoes on without socks. Of course you can use the excuse that McKenna doesn't need socks since she's going to gymnastics but super tight shoes go along with the super-tight pants and super-tight shirt theory. However I was able to get the Pretty and Plaid shirt under the sweatshirt. I love that blue shirt. I always seem to have a doll wearing it one way or another.
However all in all I recommend this outfit

Learning about Mochi!

The mochi Kanani sent us.

Today Kanani gave us some cupcakes. Well we first thought they were cupcakes, tell we noticed it said Mochi on it. We thought it was just some brand or something but later found out it's a type of sweet treat made especially in Japan and Hawaii!

I  (Morgan in my Saami outfit.. that is for another post..) decided to look it up on the web what these non-cupcake mochi things were about before we tried them.

Looking for Mochi

In Wikipedia it says Mochi is "Mochi (Japanese: 餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice (not to be confused with gluten) pounded into paste and molded into shape..... While also eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and is commonly sold and eaten during that time. Similar snacks are prominent in Hawaii..." and other countries.  Here's a Link.

Ahh! I see now.  It's a sweet rice. I tried to find some pictures that looked like the mochi Kanani sent us. We must have some particularly fancy mochi by the look of it. The mochi does look a bit like sushi in some pictures. They even have cookbooks on how to make Hawaiian mochi, such as this one by Jean Watanabe Hee. Looking at Mochi recipes on the web I notice some have a lot of butter, and some are even non-desserts like mochi with fried chicken. We don't eat chicken but if we did I bet it would probably taste pretty good. They even have mochi in caramel corn. Yum! The original mochi from Japan has an azuki bean paste but it comes in many different flavors including chocolate peanut butter, mango, strawberry and hazelnut. It all sounds so good. Wonder what flavors Kanani gave us?
Have you ever tried mochi?