A room full of....BARBIES!

When my sister (3 years younger than me) and I were growing up, the thing we liked to do most was play Barbies. In our old house, when we were much younger because we moved when I was in 3rd grade, we had them in the basement to play with in a big box. We maybe had one house, but I don't remember for sure. When we moved into a little bigger house at the ripe old age of 8, there were a few extra rooms to play with. And with the persuasion of an 8 and a 5 year old- my parents gave in and the Barbie room emerged. Nope, it wasn't a toy room. It was just a Barbie room. Of course since we had a whole room, when birthdays and Christmas came, Barbie stuff was all that we asked for. From a new house to a new car to a new local hang out (you know, the Barbie McDonalds, post office, movie theater), my sister and I couldn't get enough! We saved all of our allowance to buy stuff for our room. Our friends loved it too and would always want to play Barbies when they were over. It was great. It was one of the few things my sister and I actually enjoyed doing together and didn't kill each other- well sometimes fights would erupt in Barbie land. And when Matell didn't make something we wanted (like a Barbie airplane...because they were getting sick of taking our Barbie camper on all their vacations), we made it ourselves! We made an airplane out of cardboard and flew those Barbies wherever they wanted to go :)

Eventually, the room that the Barbie's started in got too small and we wanted to expand! My parents agreed and we spent two days moving all the Barbie stuff to the room across the hall in the basement. The old Barbie room became the office and the new Barbie room- well it took the whole thing to brand new heights. More room to drive the cars around and of course, the availability for more houses and spots to shop/entertain the Barbies. It was amazing.

Now wait, you might be thinking to yourself, "Wow, these girls sound like they were spoiled rotten!". I will assure you, while we might have been a little spoiled, these Barbies were all we ever got and wanted to almost always had to spend our own money on it if it wasn't a birthday or Christmas. So not only did the Barbie room give us a spot to play together and get along...but it also made us learn the fundamentals of earning and saving our own money for something that we wanted. Love that.

Ok, now to the relevant part and the real reason I'm blogging about this----the Barbie room still exists!! Yes, even though my mom has two 20+ year old daughters, it has moved upstairs into a room that also serves a guest room, but it's still there with the houses set up, some Barbies out and lots of storage in the closets. But who plays in it? No one :( Which is why my mom had the brilliant idea to invite our nieces (and nephews) over to see if they wanted to play in it and get some use out of it!! So Sunday, Libbie (8), Ben (5), Maren (4) and Kenlie (3) all came over to see this room I have been telling them about for a long time and play!!!!!!

Here they are checking out the room!! My sister did an awesome job of cleaning it up and setting all the Barbies up. See how she "set them up" in the grocery store on the left side of this picture? One is shopping and one is behind the register! They loved it!

Here is the doughnut shop (on the dresser- and Ashley Kelly's arrow from Pi Phi---haha not sure why I have that!!), then another house and playground/park on the ground. My sister did a great job of setting everything up!

Another shot of the grocery store!

We have a movie theater too!! Love it!!

Here are 3 of them playing and having a good time! I think this was when Maren went downstairs with Uncle Jimmy to play pin ball. And she was REALLY good!

Finally- Kelly's roller coaster ride! (Kelly is the baby!) So fun!

For a little refresher for those of you that are like me and played Barbies forever ago and can't remember anyone's name except Barbie and Ken...here is a refresher with pictures of the Barbie "family tree".

Of course, you have Barbie at the top of it all, with a dotted line to her boyfriend, Ken. That's the easy part and not technically Barbie's family! So then you have Skipper- who is Barbie's oldest sister. Then Todd and Stacie, who are her twin brother and sister...but Stacie actually used to be Tutti...but her name changed in 1992. Then finally, you have Kelly who is the baby sister of Barbie and super cute! Kelly's clothes and her little friends are so adorable- my sister and I have strollers for Kelly and everything.

Anyways, moral of the story- Barbies are awesome! They always were and always will be in my eyes :)