June 25, The Ideal Birthday

Hello people.

I've always thought that June 25 would be the ideal day for a girl to have a birthday.
Here's why:
1. it's one of the longest days of the year, so the daylight lasts a long time
2. it occurs near the beginning of summer vacation, which means no school to cramp your style on your birthday plus lots of free time to enjoy whatever gifts you get afterwards
3. early summer is usually nice and warm but not as hot as mid to late summer
4. the word "June" is pretty and doesn't take long to write
5. June 25th is exactly 6 months from Christmas, so present-receiving is as well spread out as it can possibly be
6. most people get diddly squat on their half birthdays, but people born on June 25 get gifts on their half birthdays every year
7. 2+5 = 7, and 7 is a lucky number
8. unlike people whose birthdays are early in a month, people born on the 25th have plenty of years to look forward to their golden birthdays
9. people born in June will be some of the youngest in their grade, so they can say stuff like, "I'm advanced for my age"
10. June 25 falls into the oak section of the Celtic tree calendar, and oaks are associated with strength, stability, and nobility

So, basically Julie is really lucky because her birthday is really close to the ideal: June 30. 5 days away and counting!

This post needs some images. I thought it would be interesting to do something similar to the birth flower thing Lily did, so here are our Celtic birth trees.

Me (Felicity): April 21
Willow - The Observer
Associations: imagination, intuition, and vision













Mom: May 18
Hawthorn - The Illusionist
Associations: contradiction, consequence, and relationships








Julie: June 30
Oak - The Stabilizer
Associations: strength, stability, and nobility









Bethany: August 8
Hazel - The Knower
Associations: creativity, purity, and honesty












Lily: October 15
Ivy - The Survivor
Associations: determination, change, and patience

It's Summer!

It's the first official day of summer and the longest day of the year! How exciting! Too bad it's so overcast today. We probably won't notice how long it takes the sun to set.

This time of year, lawns start to get brown spots, but the trees are lush and green with mature leaves. Lots of flowers are out too. Speaking of flowers, check out this link to an article about some highly unusual orchids. They look like animals! My personal favorite was the Holy Ghost Orchid.

6 Amazing Orchids

This post is still rather short, so enjoy these photos of our birth flowers. (Some of us are born in months that have multiple birth flowers, so we chose the one we liked best in these cases.)

Felicity: 

April's birth flower is the daisy. 

Daisies symbolize innocence, loyal love, and gratitude








Mom:

May's birth flower is the lily of the valley. 

Lilies of the valley symbolize happiness, humility, and sweetness.

Julie:

June's birth flower is the rose.

Roses symbolize love, beauty, and appreciation.

Bethany:

August's birth flower is the gladiolus.

Gladioli symbolize sincerity, strength, and infatuation.

Me (Lily):

October's birth flower is the marigold.

Marigolds symbolize grief, hopefulness, and grace.

The Wand Chooses the Witch

My sisters and I are all Harry Potter fans. We've often wondered what kind of wands would choose us if we were magical folk and not muggles. I looked up wand-matching quizzes online, and this was the first one that came up.

The Wand Selector

So, naturally, all 4 of us took the 25-question test. The creator of the quiz didn't want any direct links to the result pages. I wasn't sure if the same applied to screenshots or not, so I won't post those either. Hopefully the creator won't care that we directly quote her wand descriptions at times because I am not in the mood to get uber creative with my paraphrasing.


Bethany:

ash with phoenix feather: an ideal all purpose wand that is powerful, precise, and manageable
- indicates owner's strong magical abilities and inner personal strength.
- especially suitable for transfiguration and for work dealing with will-domination
- points to possible success in alchemy
- can be used in dark magic, though not for direct destruction (watch out that you don't get on her bad side, lol)



Me (Felicity):

cedar with dragon heartstring: a very strong and steady wand that is somewhat hard and inert
- especially suitable for transfiguration, though it is slightly lacking in precision (ha ha. Don't get too close to me when I'm transfiguring)
- a very powerful protective wand in both attack and defense
- may indicate the owner is of noble birth or from an old magical family (you know it)
- unsuitable for dark magic


Julie:

maple with unicorn hair: a pliable, light, and easy all-purpose wand
- especially suitable for charms
- adept at performing healing spells and for creating various "sweet and light" charms (er... I suppose this is better than "sour and dark" charms)
- not a wand that is much good for active battle spells (though I'm not sure why this is because maple supposedly has good "protective" qualities...)


Lily:

willow with unicorn hair: a soft and pliable wand
- especially suitable for charms and for connecting to the "otherworld"
- not suitable for spells that alter the structure of object directly but great for spells that alter objects' "spiritual structures" (I haven't a clue what this means...)
- indicates the owner has an ability to see hidden things, i.e. things "beyond common perception and understanding"
- excellent wand for invoking illusions and hallucinations

Birthday Clothes (not birthday suits - don't worry) ;)

As promised, here are some photos of us modeling our new clothes!

First are the matching tees Mom gave us for Christmas. They were on clearance on the American Girl website for quite a while, so Mom thought she'd take advantage of it. Felicity and I have each been to the American Girl place in Chicago with Mom, so she chose Chicago ones for us. We never took photos of ourselves in them when we took the other post-Christmas photos - don't ask me why. Aren't they cool? Perfect for the 4th of July, I'd say.

American Girl Place of Chicago tees

That photo refuses to center. Arg. I'm sick of trying to fix it. Now on to the birthday gift clothes!

First up are our 3 new casual tees. They were advertised on eBay as fitting 18" slim dolls like Julie, and they do fit her quite well. As you can see, they are a little more snug on us AG dolls but still look great.

white and black tee

white and pink tee

white and red tee, denim jeans

The dark blue denim jeans Felicity is wearing in the above photo are also new. They are from ____ on eBay. Not only do they fit great and have amazingly accurate details (gold stitching, pockets, belt loops), but they also have a snap fastener, which will hold up much better than velcro.

Next up is another eBay purchase. I've had my eye on this shirt and skirt ensemble for a long time. It's made by the same Hong Kong-based eBay store that our 2 lovely pink and blue spring dresses came from. The skirt has a super tight waist band, which makes it a little hard to get on. It's worth it as cute as it is, I'd say, and the elastic will hopefully stretch out a bit in time.

turtleneck shirt and checkered skirt

Next, check out Julie in this sweet spring dress for 18" slim dolls. Pink really is a good color on her. Oh, how I wish it fit me!

pink floral dress

Up last are the 3 complete outfits made by American Girl.

This first one, the Frosty Party Outfit, was an eBay purchase. We all admired it in the catalogue back in 2011-2012 and are tickled pink to add it to our wardrobe. The soft, sparkly sweater will have to wait for winter, but the headband, skirt, and shoes are definitely going to be worn a ton long before then.

Frosty Party Outfit

According to Grandma, the last two outfits were bought directly from the American Girl website back sometime in mid to late 2012 when some sort of discount was being offered. First is the Weekend Fun Outfit. It came with a white vest, which Felicity refused to wear, lol. I think it looks better without it too. The floral shirt, pink sandals, and stretchy pink headband are all awesome. The capris are comfy once they're on. However, they are a little tough to get all the way on because they are rather narrow in the lower leg area.

Weekend Fun Outfit

Finally, here I am in the Feeling Great Outfit. I foresee this one being worn a ton too because it is so comfortable and will mix and match well. It comes with a wide stretchy headband to keep hair out of your face and pink and purple athletic shoes. No socks, but we often don't bother with them anyway.

Feeling Great Outfit

Thanks, Mom! We are 4 lucky dolls.

<3 Lily









Better Late Than Never

Mom's birthday has come and gone without us posting anything about it, but let the records show that we did see her briefly yesterday to wish her a happy birthday. :)

She was busy, busy, busy yesterday. She spent a big chunk of the day (8:00 to 3:30) doing greyhound-related stuff with her aunt: first the morning walk and then the annual Greyhound Spring Fling. Then she went to the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness, with her mom. After that it was time for supper, presents, and cake (well, pie, actually. Dutch apple with whipped cream, to be more specific). 

What's awesome about Mom's birthday is that we often get stuff too! This year was no exception. Unfortunately, by the time all that was done, it was after 9:30, and she was too tired to do anything with us other than show us the new doll clothes she received. We will take pictures when we try them on so that we can make a post about it later. 

The weather yesterday was summer-like: high around 80 degrees, lots of sun, fluffy clouds. Luckily, there was also a cool breeze at times to keep the heat from being intolerable. What a beautiful day!

No word yet as to whether she's going to spend real $ on HI2 or if we'll be stuck paying exorbitant amounts of virtual $ to reinstate our subscription... We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Anyway, if you're reading this, Mom, thank you for treasuring us long past the age when it is "cool" to have dolls. You will always be a kid at heart no matter how old you get, and we love you for that. <3 <3 <3 <3 Have a great year!

Your dolls, 
Julie, Felicity, Lily, and Bethany

Horse Isle 2 Screenshot Fun

Hi peeps.

Well, our free 1 month subscription token to Horse Isle 2 expires in a few hours. We're keeping our fingers crossed that Mom will use some of her birthday money to help us out with a yearly subscription. (Her birthday is tomorrow, by the way! How lucky she is that it's on a Saturday this year!) We promised her that if she does dish out the $$ for the subscription, we will share with her. She can even buy or catch her own horses if she wants. :)

Here are a few entertaining screenshots we've taken over the 30 days we've had the free sub token:

Duck overload

Nose to nose with a wild Kathiawari

Decisions, decisions

A frequent sight: mining gems in the caves

Ye shall not pass.

Not something you see every day...

That's a meteorite, not... what else it looks like ;)

Green-eyed dog named BaskerVille

Lily's horse Yetta sniffing calla lilies

Hasta Luego,
Felicity

Our Yard in Spring

Okay, it's about time somebody posted something, so I will take a turn. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some photos of plants and flowers growing in our yard. Mom took them in early May - everything is maturing quickly and already looks different than these photos.

baby maple leaves

baby oak leaves, which are as soft as they look :)

myrtle

odd buds

pretty weeds

looking up

violets

weeping cherry

weeping cherry up close

That's all for now!