Amelia & I visit the American Girl doll store!

Yesterday I got to take my 8-year-old niece, Amelia, to the American Girl Boutique and Bistro in Alpharetta. There she selected her Christmas gift, a new American Girl doll named Julie, and also got to enjoy tea!

I think that in a perfect world Amelia would have liked one of each, but the first doll she really oohed and aahed over was Julie, which surprised me since Julie is a doll whose story is set in the 1970s. Although *I* was drawn to Caroline and the other frilly-dressed dolls, I had told myself this was *Amelia's* doll and I was not going to impose my preference on her. (Although I did point out that Marie-Grace had a hoop skirt, sigh, but I let it go at that.) After about three full runs through the entire store, no small feat, it was back to Julie, and yes, she was the one Amelia wanted. "This is the best day of my life!" she said, which of course made me laugh!

As soon as we left the store Amelia wanted to take her doll out of the box, so we stopped for more photos. Amelia thinks people were simply smiling at her doll all day. I'm pretty sure they were smiling at her, too, since my sister, Rhonda, had dressed her in a cute red velvet and white fur Christmas dress, accessorized by sparkly silver shoes and jingle bells in her hair!

The store itself was much, much more than I had imagined, and I learned afterward that both Amelia and I had envisioned just a big square room with shelves of dolls. Instead, we found an amazing array of bright, colorful rooms displaying vignettes of all sorts of beautiful American Girl dolls and accessories. The sales staff was on-the-spot when needed, in the background when not needed, and tremendously helpful. Amelia wanted to take her actual doll out of the box to touch the hair before committing to her (the hair is obviously big with Amelia), and a nice saleswoman told us sure, she'd be glad to let us do that. I don't know if the American Girl doll store has high hiring standards for their employees or what, but every single person we encountered was cheerful and helpful. It was such a striking difference from what I usually see that it really made an impression on me!

We had a few hours to spend at the mall while waiting for teatime, which begins at 2 p.m., so we had a snack at Chick-fil-A, and then Amelia and Julie rode the merry go round. Also, you won't be surprised to hear that I found out online I could sign up for Northpoint Mall e-mails and then get a free $10 gift card from the mall office if I came by showing more than $75 in receipts for the day (easy to do at Christmas), so of course we took advantage of that. I let Amelia use the gift card to buy some accessories for Julie.

Soon, it was time for tea, and Amelia was very, very happy to learn they provided a special seat at the table for Julie, who even got her own little cup and saucer!

Here's Amelia expertly pouring water for her tea. And tomorrow I'll show you the unique (and fun) menu we enjoyed!