The End of an Era...

Although Lia's love of American Girl Dolls has been well documented over the years on my blog, I just couldn't resist including this final picture that I took today.  Although Lia outgrew "playing" with her AG Dolls in about 3rd grade, modern technology helped to stretch out the use of her dolls for many more years.  Thanks to her friend, Alyssa, teaching her how to make stop motion videos to put on YouTube, Lia faithfully wrote, made, and posted many videos on her channel during her 4th and 5th grade years of life.  And, once again, thanks to Alyssa introducing her to the concept of taking artistic photos of her dolls to put on Instagram, Lia faithfully posted many, many pictures during her 6th and 7th grade years and even acquired over 600 followers!  But then something happened half way through her 7th grade year:  Lia became a teenager and grew up over night.  The last pictures she took of one of her dolls was after the big snowstorm that we had this past February which coincidentally was the same month that she turned 13.  As a result, her Instagram account basically became inactive over night and her dolls just sat untouched and unchanged in her mega dollhouse for the past six months.

After informing Ella that the AG dollhouse was now officially hers, I realized that we needed to clear out Lia's dolls to make room for Ella's dolls and her imaginative play.  This especially became apparent after Ella piled all of Lia's dolls into one massive pile in one of the dollhouse bedrooms where they remained untouched for a few weeks.  The time had come to move these dolls permanently out of the dollhouse to make sure that they were stored in a safe place.  And so today, while Lia's friend, Alyssa, was over, I asked the two girls to dress all of Lia's dolls in their original meet outfits and to comb their hair before putting them away in 3-tiered, storage cart in her closet.  Although Lia initially groaned at the request, Alyssa happily agreed and then the two girls worked for almost an hour to dress and tidy up these dolls before putting them away for the long run.  As hard as it is for me to see this wonderful and long season of Lia's life come to an end, I was just so grateful that she was able to complete this final activity with her beloved friend at her side who has been her biggest AGD playmate for many years.  These girls fell in love with these dolls at the same time and literally spent hours and hours of their lives playing with them and making videos and taking pictures of them together. And although a part of me is so sad to watch these girls grow up and outgrow their dolls, I am just grateful that they were able to close this wonderful chapter of their lives together.