The growing girl and christmas gifts

We have been going back and forth about what our (almost) 9 year old daughter wants for Christmas. She says one thing and then it changes. This is so not like her. She is really in that in between stage of babyish things and more sophisticated toys. She started out "really" wanting baby alive. She thought that it would really feel like she was a mom if she had to change dirty diapers. Although after last night talking it over she decided that she would rather have amazing allysen. I did some research on that doll today and she is for ages 4-8. Her cost is about 70.00. My dilemma is that I do not want to purchase this doll and her end up not enjoying it.

She is also in love with Limited too. She has a few gifts under the tree from there and she is already talking about what they could be. I just don't know if we are ready to make the plunge into mp3 players and 'are you kidding me' phones and text messaging tools. She is too young for this... right! I am sensing that feeling of not letting her grow older without a fight.

Last night we rode home with Kerrie and her mom from cheer leading practice. I heard Carly telling Kerrie that she didn't like dolls anymore. WHAT??? She loves dolls. Just last week I found her with about 10 of them on our couch. She said that they were all on a plane ride to Antarctica and they were watching the in flight movie. I later asked her about what she told Kerrie and she said that Kerrie would laugh at her if she knew that she still liked dolls.

Okay I know I am rambling about this but really...

What should I do? Should I spend the money on amazing allysen and not worry if she grows out of it too quickly. We don't usually spend a lot of money at Christmas. Our son is already receiving a PS2. This is going in our family room and really for the whole fam. We have pushed games away for so long but now he is really interested. His Leapster is just not getting played anymore. What can I say our kids hang out with our teens.