Doll Diaries: Cute Stuffies and Cool Horses

Mom recently visited the toy isle in Walgreens. Its spread of Valentine's Day stuffed animals was quite extensive, from traditional teddy bears to hippos to llamas, and from Beanie-Baby-sized animals to jumbos. Mom already has several Valentine's Day-themed stuffed animals (regular-sized Maltese, Poodle, and teddy bears), so she resisted their charm. It's too bad she didn't at least take photos, though. I'd have loved to have seen the llamas!

I couldn't find any photos of the llamas online, sadly, but I did come across photos of some other cute Valentine's Day stuffed animals. Here are my 18 favorites (since it's about to be Valentine's Day 2018) for your viewing pleasure.

Aw! Forget the candy and flowers. In my mind, these all blow them out of the water. <3

Like Mom, who resisted the Walgreens stuffies, we didn't go totally crazy and add any more horses to our HI2 herd last week. A different buddy was selling a high-stat bay Anglo Arabian mare she'd caught (How she can bear to part with her best wild-caught horses?!), but we were good and didn't express interest. (Even though we were interested, let me tell you! It's a good thing the mare didn't have a more exciting coat color!)

Bethany and I have, however, removed any lingering doubts about keeping our two new stallions. They now have names and tack!

Meet the Volante the Alter Real!

His name is a term for playing music in a flying, light manner. I think it suits an agile horse with feathered companions perfectly!

Also let me officially introduce you to Ghirardelli the Ardennais!

His previous name was Coffeehouse Blend, a fitting name for a horse his color, but I changed it because I'm way more fond of cocoa beans than coffee beans. He gets blue tack because the Ghirardelli logo is blue and gold. =) (Sidenote: we seem to have misplaced our finely crafted English saddle. We either put it on a random horse and forgot about it or accidentally sold it. That's why the halter's metal fastenings don't match the saddle's. This is incentive to finally reach Constructing level 5 and craft ourselves another one...)

We spent most of our HI2 playing time last week in the eastern mountains. We hadn't visited Alpine Labyrinth, Star Ledge, or the Mines of More or Less in quite some time, but we managed never to get very lost, thank goodness. XD

Just in case you were wondering, it is possible to flute a wild horse from on a mountain bridge. Ours happened to be a brown Welsh Cob, so we had Pepsi switch to our brown Welsh Cob stallion, Landslide, for the screenshot. =)

We found a lovely 5/6 +66 wild Highland out in the mountains too. We surrendered her to the humane society rather than auctioning her, so hopefully she found a home.

Once out of the mountains, Aspen and Felicity found our first wild Dutch Tuigpaard!

That left foreleg marking sure is unique!

And finally, when Felicity went to auction the Tuigpaard, she noticed two more great mares going to the foreign bidder. She bid to keep them on the game. Lucky for us, we got them both. We're planning to surrender them both once they reach 1000 exp, since we have the slots to spare right now.

In the meantime, Napoleon and Solitaire aren't the only equines of their respective breeds hanging out on our ranch isle. Napoleon doesn't really care, because he knows the Welshie is too short to stick around permanently.