Skittle heads!

Turn away now, Setsu-P, because they're Baby Alive dolls.  Failbook does have a Baby Alive group similar to my favorite Cabbage Patch group, but unlike the Cabbie group it's pretty dead.  Where else is a fat thirtysomething gonna share her dolls but here, LOL!  This first one is Katie Cat.  Hey, I used to know a little girl who called herself Katie Cat!  

A couple'a y'all might remember how I said these dolls had no collecting allure, right?  Any of y'all got a tissue so I can wipe that egg off my face???  LOL, my opinions on Snackin' Sara are the same as ever, but my opinions on this line as a whole have changed quite a bit over the years.  Indeed, if Cabbage Patch Kids didn't exist then my bedroom would likely be dominated by Baby Alive, I've grown to like these dolls that much.  I still owe Lulu Achoo a review, by the way.  She's not even in stores anymore, and I still want to review her.  Then there's Little Maya and Princess Pipp Petals, and now I have Katie Cat.  Katie is a little more deluxe like Lulu and Princess are, but she's not battery-run like Lulu is.  She came with two little outfits and some accessories, all cat-themed.

Two of the accessories (a cape and a mask) have a vague superhero theme.  Katie Cat can be Underdog's sidekick, maybe.

Speed of lightning, roar of thunder!  Fighting all who rob and plunder...ahem, her box says she's a super BFF, so I can live with that.  Katie is also a drink-and-wet doll, and she came with her own bottle and diapers if I choose to go that way.  The bottle has milk and a cookie on it, and a cat face.  So cute!

Y'all may have noticed that Katie is wearing one of her diapers.  This is because she doesn't have anything else covering her butt.  Lulu's pajamas cover her rear, Princess has molded panties, and Maya's clothes are printed onto her torso.  So Katie's diapers are appreciated.  These are legit paper-and-plastic diapers, by the way, meant to be discarded after one use.  I'd always wondered why Wal-Mart carried diapers for these dolls, and now I know.

This second one is Better Now Bella, not to be confused with my dog Bella.  I'm a little miffed that I couldn't find the one with dark brown hair.  I think she's so cute!

The doll I've got looks a lot like Lulu Achoo.  Even their gimmick is similar...no, they don't favor as much as I thought!  Note that Lulu is the younger child, but she's got the bigger head!

I love my Bella's perky ponytail, and her vinyl is prettier than Lulu's.  Better Now Bella is a get-well doll and is accompanied by various doctor's tools (stethoscope, otoscope, thermometer) and some other odds and ends.  Dig this x-ray!

Quick biology lesson for those who don't know:  there are two bones in the lower arm, the radius and the ulna.  To differentiate between the two, hold your arm out in front of you with your wrist straight and your thumb facing up.  The Ulna is Under, LOL!  Bella has broken her right ulna, which I think is kinda a feat, especially if the radius is NOT broken.  Often the ulna gets broken when someone is holding their arms up to ward off an attack, thus why this fracture is often called a nightstick injury.  I've also heard of this injury being inflicted during natural disasters, particularly when someone put up their arms to guard their face from flying debris.  But if the child holds their arm just wrong during a fall then that can also break the ulna, so that's the explanation I'm going with for Bella.  I don't want to pretend my doll is an abuse victim...or a tornado survivor.  Both of those are hellish experiences for kids.  But either way we've got an x-ray of Bella's broken arm.  The inverse side shows the same arm, all healed up.  No overgrown lump of bone or anything.

Shudder, orthopedics is fascinating, but some of those real x-rays make me wanna puke.  Anyway, Bella's injured arm is ensconced in a cast, like so.  It's an above-the-elbow or "long" cast, and it's got a strap that serves as a sling of sorts.

When I broke my ankle I had a tie-dyed cast!  I'm willing to bet that Bella's favorite color is aqua, thus her aqua cast.  Or that's what I'm gonna pretend.  For the record, the Caucasian doll (seen above) has a yellow cast, and the Afro-American doll sports a lavender cast.  Again, I can dig those choices.  I've said this before, but if you've gotta have something to help heal you, may as well have it in a color that cheers you up.  My walker is pink, for example.  Now...in addition to having a broken arm Bella can develop a boo-boo on her other arm.  Bella comes with an ice bag to heal that, and the ice bag is double-sided.

Sounds like Bella is something of a klutz, just like Yours Truly.  Klutz or no, Bella also came with some doctor's tools that anyone needs for a basic checkup. 

The otoscope (left) doesn't do anything but is good for a game of make-believe.  The thermometer (center) is one of those jobs that scans one's forehead, and it doesn't do anything either (Lulu's thermometer beeps when put to her forehead).  As to the stethoscope, it can legit be worn, though I look like a nutcase when I wear it.  While this toy doesn't work as a stethoscope should, it does interact with the doll to a certain extent.  The business end has a heart-shaped button on the back like so...

...and when it's pressed the reverse side changes faces like so.

Based on those icons we can make Bella better over and over again.  These tools can also be used on other Baby Alive dolls.  Lulu's tools are specifically for Lulu and won't interact with any other doll.  Drat, I need to find Lulu's tools so I can get her review done!

Lastly, I wanted a redhead because of course I did, and Dottie Doodles fits that bill perfectly.  The red-haired, blue-eyed combo brings Bea Spells-a-Lot to mind, LOL.

Dottie is the only one in my bunch who wears glasses, and right now she's the only one with plastic hair.  She's also only my second Baby Alive doll who legit "does something."  When one sticks Dottie's pacifier in her mouth her eyes slide shut like so.  She doesn't babble or run on batteries like Lulu does, but she does have a gimmick.  See?

It's hard to see underneath those glasses, but Dottie sports freckles.  She doesn't have as many freckles as Princess does, but they're there!

Dottie is on the Snack 'n' Snuggle accessory pack that Treesa sent, by the way.  See?

These accessories are good for any Baby Alive doll, though.  Again, see?

Mmmm!  

Hey, I just now realized that none of my Baby Alive dolls are blonde!  They're not as motley a bunch as some of my other doll groups, but there's some variation here, and none of them are blonde.

I like this version of Breakfast Time Baby, so she may end up being my first blonde.  Her hair is sandy, like that of some Cabbage Patch Kids. 

Truth be told, I'd like to find a brown-eyed blonde.  Hasbro did make a few, like Magical Mixer...who is almost as slack-jawed as Snackin' Sara.

There's also Magical Styles, who comes with extra outfits like I like.  So that's two.  Two blonde dolls with brown eyes.  What a shame, 'cause I know there are plenty of people out there with that combo.  I also didn't find many with brown hair and blue eyes, and that kinda peeves me since I have brown hair and blue eyes.  Most of the brunettes that I saw are like Katie and Maya (brown-eyed), or like Bella and Lulu (green-eyed), OR they have darker skin (I'm ridiculously pale and can't tan worth a dern).  And do ANY Baby Alive dolls have gray eyes???  The odd Cabbage Patch Kid does, though admittedly gray eyes aren't common on Cabbies, at least not during the Coleco days.  But anyway, my collection is...I'm fairly happy with where it is.  I wouldn't mind owning an Afro-American Baby Alive doll, but I'm willing to bide my time.

Love and Skittles,
RagingMoon1987

So random, January/February '26

Another winter is almost behind us!  Winter is a part of God's natural cycle, but that's hard to appreciate when the cold makes one's joints ache.  I understand Daddy a little better now, as he was always cranky during winter.  Not mean, mind y'all, just grumpier than usual, and he'd always say "I'm not mad at y'all, I just hurt."  It sucks, and I'm glad it's almost over for another year.  Indeed, except for that bad cold snap in January it's been a pretty chill winter for the Bootheel.  That said, the ants aren't out yet.  They never come out until after the last freeze.

'Nuff chatter, let's get down to business.  On January 3rd I was able to get this lovely little trio together for a picture.

Y'all know how I like odd groupings, and these three are it.  The one in pink white is an obvious Li'l Miss doll, Li'l Miss Candi Stripes.  I'll be unoriginal and call her just "Candi," cutesy spelling and all.  I knew that she had stripey hair, but I had no idea that her clothes changed color too!!!

I know, I know, I said Li'l Miss Magic Hair was my favorite of the Li'l Miss dolls, but I ended up liking Candi's smiling eyes better.  I remember Treesa being surprised by teeth on a doll once, and I too was surprised to see that Candi has teeth showing.

Being an early nineties doll often means having big bangs, and this is what Candi looked like when I pulled her out of her box.  Thus why her bangs are currently bound with an elastic.

Interestingly, Candi didn't come with shoes.  I think she's the only Li'l Miss doll that didn't.  That's fine and dandy for summer and for the beachy clothes that Candi is wearing, but during a Midwestern winter it looks uncomfortable.  I can probably find some shoes somewhere, though.  Candi is probably used to it anyway, as she hails from a place in Kansas called Rossville.  Rossville's latitude is higher than Malden's is.  Not much, but enuff to make winters a smidge harsher.  Add to that the fact that the temperatures here in Malden wildly fluctuated during late December and early January.  On the 3rd it was cold and overcast, and by the 7th it was sixty degrees and threatening rain.  ANYWAY, the tall girl in the middle is Selene, and she's a Famosa doll.  Her city of origin is Scottsdale, Arizona.  Unlike Rossville, I've heard of Scottsdale.  With eyes like this, Selene LOOKS like she should be from Roswell, New Mexico.

NGL, I like Famosa dolls almost as much as I do Furga dolls.  Like Furga, Famosa dolls are proving to be quite diverse.  My Selene isn't wearing her original clothes, but she's unique enuff without 'em and she looks nice in white so I'll not worry about original clothes for now.  Selene is Nancy's friend, and she's...well, an alien of some stripe!  Her eyes once glowed green, just like Emerald the Enchanting Witch's eyes did.

I don't think they glow anymore, but they do sparkle.  I also love Selene's hair; it's this unusual silver blue color.

The last little doll is Italian, but is NOT a Furga doll.  She has just as much personality, but this one is from Italocremona.  I've chosen to call her "Cassandra," and her former home is Totowa, New Jersey.

Cass has some sass!  Here it's possible to see that, at least in Cassandra's case, Italocremona eyes are more realistic than Furga eyes.

On the evening of January 4th I took Candi outside to see if her color-change feature still worked.  Her instructions imply that she'll stop working over time, especially if she's exposed to extreme temperatures..  It was forty-one degrees outside that evening, so I crippled out with her.

Forty-one degrees...the weather we had not long after that made forty-one degrees look like a heat wave.  Anyway, the color change began before I even had the door shut.  As y'all can see, Candi's clothes and hair have turned pink and orange as they should.  Her lips also shifted; inside they were bubblegum pink, but when exposed to cool temps they turn fuchsia. 

I wonder how warm she'll have to be before her clothes turn white again.  Casa Pizarro is comfortably warm, but Candi's clothes remained pink and orange when I brought her inside, and they didn't change until I touched her.  I'll have to wait until summer, I guess!

January 10th.  Candela Laura pops in.

My phone's battery was too low for a flash, but I took the picture anyway.  Candela Laura looks the same regardless of the lighting.

January 11th.  These dolls are all standing on top of my great-grandfather's bookcase.  There's about thirty-five years worth of doll history in that lineup.

Okay.  The pink bunch consists of Alexis (Pretty Crazy Curls), Flower Magic Mary, Surprise Hat Susie, and Twist 'n' Style Tiffany.  Then there's Billie, Mosi, Dell, Zelia, and Camille.  Crystabella rounds out the bunch.  The black thing behind Tiffany and Billie is Grandpa's old globe, long out of date but still fascinating.  I think this bunch is interesting, by the way, as one YouTuber I ran into notes that dolls this size were at one time kinda unique.  They weren't American Girls, and they weren't Barbie, and in the nineties dolls didn't come in this size unless they were glitzy toddler dolls.  Note that my four glitzy toddler dolls do vary in size a bit; Alexis is the tallest and Tiffany is the shortest.  Please forgive the dust and the terrible angle; the bookshelf is six feet tall, and I'm both five-seven and standing slumped.

I haven't yet thrown Candi into the mix (there's no more room on the top of the bookcase), and I haven't thrown in my other two new fourteen-inchers either for the same reason.  January 16th.  Kenya is on the left, and Philly girl Olivia is on the right.  Olivia is an I'm a Wow doll, the smaller counterpart to the I'm a Girly dolls.

Bet y'all forgot I had an I'm a Girly, LOL!  Robyn is still around, but Olivia is not analogous to her, not in appearance, anyway.  She's got blue hair like I like, plus highlights that change color in the sun.  As for Kenya, she's cute.  I'll be reviewing her...someday.  I've had zero energy lately.

January 22nd.  One of my favorite YouTubers had dropped a new video, and I was about to share a soda pop with Rubia Emilia. 

Swengle Studios and pineapple Fanta for the win!  Swengle Studios specializes in tornadoes, but he does other odd meteorological phenomena too, and he dumbs it down for idjit galoots like me.  For the record, I've since changed Rubia's first name to "Joyita."  That sticks with my old shipwreck theme, and I never really liked the name "Rubia."  So Joyita Emilia she is.

January 25th.  It was bitterly cold outside by then, I was recovering from the other type of cold, and Cotton Candy Mia wanted to show off her new hair bow.

We wear hair bows in Casa Pizarro.  Hair bows are cool.  LOL, this one was a freebie; it accompanied two larger bows that Mama got for me.

January 30th.  Random pic of Joyita Emilia. 

Joyita had her new pacifier by then, as well as an outfit change, but I was still waiting for the shoes.

February 4th.  A tale of two Sindy dolls.

Crimp and Style Sindy is on the left, and the wary brunette on the right is the late-model Pedigree that y'all met on Valentine's Day, before I put her in the pink dress.

February 6th.  Bella (one of my dogs) took five years off my life when she got her head caught in the bars of the dog kennel, and Uncle Man-Child didn't help when he told me Bella wasn't moving.  She ended up being fine.  This lovely young lady then turned up in the mail.

She's a chimera, a 2025 Barbie Basics head on what appears to be a Shani body.  These Basics are supposed to have Made to Move bodies.  Still, whoever rebodied this doll took the time to match a head to a body, because both parts are very pale.  "Amy" will be this doll's name, for reasons that might be obvious to some of y'all.

February 11th.  It was unseasonably warm after that cold snap, and I had spring fever.  Ayla Diamond thus fell victim to an early spring redress.

Etsy shop is MiniMediMo.  I'm with Miss Emily, by the way; these little babies need to be made with open eyes!  I'd hoped the Valentine's Day wave would have some awake and alert little ones, but no dice.

February 14th.  It was cool and rainy, perfect for cuddling dollies.  Enter Sandy Eden. 

Sandy is a bean-butt baby, my second.  Mama told me that she'd ordered a cute outfit for a bean-butt girl, but I didn't have a girl...or so I thought.  I forgot that Taniyah Yasmin can wear bean-butt clothes too.

February 17th.  I had my Baby Alive dolls (numbering four by then) on the couch, and Lily took a liking to them. 

Lily likes my dolls for some reason.  Doesn't matter who I've got scattered about.  She rubs them and purrs, like she's marking them as her own.  Maybe she likes them because they smell like me.  I dunno. 

February 18th.  My new dolls of the day struck a pose.  Better Now Bella is on the left, and her friend Ingrid Jessica is a Hasbro-era bean-butt baby. 

They're both Hasbro, come to think of it!

February 22nd.  Two of the Philadelphia bunch get acquainted. 

Treesa sent me both of these, albeit in different packages.  Alexandria Florida is the Cabbie, and Lina is the Magic Nursery baby.  They don't have much in common, but they're cute, and deeply appreciated gifts.  Indeed, I have several Magic Nursery dolls, but Lina remains my favorite.

February 24th, another sitting down image, since that's about all I can do nowadays.  These two are Gary Collier and Autumn Leah, and apologies for our unkempt bed.  Mama and I both hit the sack not long after I took this picture.

Mama isn't Gary Collier's biggest fan, but she likes Autumn Leah okay.  When she saw Gary from a more flattering angle she warmed to him.  He'd fallen backwards when she first saw him, see, and since Gary's mouth is a little open he looks kinda, sorta, really DEAD when his head lolls back.  

February 25th.  This is literally a spur-of-the-moment picture, caught when I was riding to work.

Shelley is the blonde and Sindy is the aforementioned brunette.  The blue expanse behind them is my knee, sheathed in its usual denim.  Seriously, I live in blue jeans, practically.  Sindy has already been redressed, by the way, but I won't show that until mid-March.

Same day, different dolls.  I was inspired by this image to pair up my matching two dolls.  

I've got two Magic Nursery babies and like 'em both, but I was piddle-pooting around with Lina around then, so she and Pineberry got to sit together.

That rings down the curtain on another winter, for the most part.  I know some of y'all are still dealing with snow and I don't envy you in the slightest, but for me it's time to shake out my T-shirts and make sure my flashlight has batteries when severe storms come to call.  No more sandals because my ankles need some support, but that's life, and my doll kids can wear sandals.