So Spacious! So Purple!

To make room for potential new horses in 2019, it was time to upgrade. We replaced this platinum barn:

with this diamond barn:

All barns on HI2 may look the same size from the outside, but like something out of Harry Potter, each progressively more expensive model gets magically bigger on the inside. Yay, the herd instantly gained room to grow!

Our final horses of 2018 have names and tack at long last now too. Here they are!

Ianthe

Oriana

Altai

We recently fluted this silver bay Rocky Mountain Horse and were so hoping for great stats and/or a great personality.

Nope, not this one.

A few days later we fluted another one on the same island!

Not this one either. :(

Such a shame - she's so pretty!

*Sighs* Oh well, none of us are exactly suffering from a lack of mares with luxurious manes.

Bethany and I did some livery stalking this morning. We visited two +5/6 mares for longer than we probably should have. 

The first one was this smoky black Morab:

Her striped hooves and golden eyes are so cool! She's +75 too, which is quite respectable. Just because I was curious, here is the smoky black Morab avatar:

and here is the black Morab avatar:

Smoky blacks are black horses carrying one cream gene. Just like in real life, the smoky black avatar looks a bit faded in comparison to black. Well done, HI2!

The second horse we lingered over was this red dun Spanish Barb:

She's not as elegant as the Morab, but I think HI2's Spanish Barbs are still pretty cute in their own coarse, sinewy, happy way. 

(Love ya, Fort.)

Her avatar, while not at all obviously red dun (I'd have guessed a bright chestnut) is definitely more exciting than the smoky black's:

And she's +74, just one stat point shy of the Morab.

Since we already have Morabs and a very special Spanish Barb in the herd, we figured we'd better be good and resist their charms. When we checked back half an hour later, both were gone. I hope that means they are both now happily adopted! =) 

We'll just have to keep patiently waiting for our first horse of 2019! I sure wonder what he or she will be like!

AG's 2019 Girl of the Year

Well, we've nearly made it through two weeks of 2019 now, so it's past time somebody commented on American Girl's new 2019 Girl of the Year doll. Felicity's been dragging her feet, so I will do it instead.

Here she is, Blaire Wilson:

This doll combines a lighter-than-usual light skin tone with the Josephina face mold, AG's new green eyes (darker and more gray from a distance than Felicity's), and curly red hair. She lives on a family farm and restaurant, and her signature outfit is this impractical bee-patterned white sundress with non-matching strappy purple sandals. (I'd probably ruin them both my first day on a farm or cooking for a restaurant, but maybe she has mud and stain-repelling superpowers?)

At least one of her other available outfits includes overalls and wellies.

The ribbon choker, though? Really?

Gotta say, I love her hair! It's way more our style than Luciana's side-bangs and purple streak.

I wish she had freckles and a different eye color to make her stand out more from AG's very limited selection of red heads, though. Right now the only other red-headed options are:

Felicity. 

Her hair is technically auburn, and her eyes are a striking light green. (Forgive me for this screenshot, Felicity, but this is how your clones come now. That skirt is as still as horrible as ever.)

Truly Me # 65: straight red hair and blue eyes

 Truly Me #61: wavy red hair and green eyes

(I'm not counting AG's one Truly Me doll with "light red" hair and blue eyes. To me that's strawberry blond like my hair.)

No freckles to be found on any of them! Bethany and I will try not to be offended. Maybe AG thought it was too soon to have another another reddish-haired doll with freckles after Saige.

I have not read Blaire's story, but my first impression is of a sugary-sweet, girly farm girl who skips around singing and collecting eggs in a cute wicker basket. I'm guessing Felicity is thinking along the same lines, hence her instant dislike. XD

And finally, to address the elephant in the room, my sisters and I all had an instant aversion to this doll's name. Blaire, however it's spelled, will forever be associated with the horror film Blair Witch Project in our minds, hence it will never jive as an appropriate name for a sweet, pretty farm girl. I think it even surpasses McKenna as our least favorite AG name of all time, and that's saying something. ;^)

So, yeah, we have no worries about Blaire joining our family. Her bee-bedecked dress (Mom, like me, does not find bees cute), her similarities (appearance-wise only) to Felicity, and her horror-film-esque name are all strikes against her. She's a very nice-looking doll, though, so I bet she'll be one of AG's more popular ones!