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So I had the bright idea that I would take the girls to the grand opening of the new American Girl Store in Park Meadows. Not one of my better ideas!
So we had to get up early to take Wyatt to meet his Boy Scout troop for a snow cave camp-out. Unfortunately for Stryder that meant that he would have to come with the girls and me since Jason is working and was asleep during the day.
We dropped Wyatt and headed for the mall. We got there at 8:45 and we couldn’t believe the line. I knew it would be busy, but NEVER expected that it would be that long.
We got in line and it was so cold!! The wind was blowing, and it was freezing. We made it to 10:50, and the kids were cold, Chloe had to use the restroom, and the line had NOT MOVED AT ALL!! They wanted to leave, but come back after lunch to check how long the line was. So I agreed.
I wanted to go to Old Navy to look for some shorts for them. Spent a little while trying on shorts, and each one got an outfit. Stryder was excited that he found a Marvin the Martian shirt. I told Stryder before we left that he got to choose where we had lunch. Of course I thought that we would be in and out of the American Girl store by then! HA!!! Since the girls wanted to see how long the lines were again, he choose Subway at the mall. Back to the mall we go!
After lunch we went back down to check out the lines! They weren’t as long as this morning, but still long. The girls wanted to stay and wait again. I wanted to leave and tried my best to get them to agree to come back next week during the week. Chloe finally agreed to go home, and Olivia broke down in tears. She wanted so badly to stay. She kept saying “I never get to go to the doll store!” I just didn’t have the hear to make her go. We got there at 1:45, and by 2:30 we had moved a good bit. However it wasn’t close enough. There were some girls behind us that were the same age as Chloe and Olivia, so that helped pass the time. They all had their dolls to play with. Their moms, and I took turn taking the kids to go get hot chocolate at Borders, and bathroom breaks. So instead of having to leave our place in line we just held the spots for each other. That was a HUGE help.
At 5:00pm we got in the store.  For a total of 5 hours 15 minutes in line! The girls were so excited. They got to look at all the dolls, and pick out 2 outfits each! Thanks to Grammy!! They also got t-shirts that say American Girl Denver. They were so tired, but were really good. And Stryder, well what can I say, he was so good. He didn’t really complain at all!! Grammy was so impressed that she is going to buy him a DS game for being such a trooper!!
I took a few pictures,[flickr album=72157623598507657 num=14 size=Square]

With the Laster pack down to one old, grumpy blind dog, the kids certainly had a legitimate gripe. It’s hard to play fetch with a blind dog. Steph and I spent some time looking at breeds that would be a good fit for our family. We settled on a possibility of a rat terrier (or rattie). There is a breeder (10 kitty farm) down south of Pueblo so we all loaded up and drove south the day after Christmas. We really weren’t sure about these dogs because of our lack of exposure to them. However once we got there that was shortlived, and we just fell in love with them. We spent a good amount of time deciding between “riley” and “rosalee”. Both had a great temperament with the kids, but the end decision was that rosalee liked to climb so we went with the more grounded “riley”. All the way home was spent brainstorming names, and in the end Oliver was decided on ( we call him Ollie).

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You can find more of Ollie and the family Here

With snow still on the ground it was a little chilly, but the kids seemed to have a great time.  Wyatt worked in the House of Fear haunted house again this year.  He took his friend Molly with him.  They said it was a lot of fun.  Stryder dressed up as some kind of masked creature.  We still aren’t sure exactly what he was.  Chloe was a 70′s chick, and Olivia was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  Jason walked around with the kids while I stayed home and gave out candy.  We put our fire bowl in the drive way, and I had a nice fire to sit in front of while I gave out candy.  It was also nice for the other parents out with their kids to warm up by before going off to other houses. Had a nice surprise when Troy, Leah and their kids stopped by to do a little trick or treating with us.   All in all it was a fun night.  Here are a few pictures.

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