Small Successes-June 10th

Celebrating the little things in life that add up.

I've been hitting the crafts a little hard this past week. So bear with the pictures of my latest endeavors.

1.  Inspired by our decision to visit Williamsburg in the fall, I decided to see if I could make each of the girls a dress for their Colonial American Girl dolls.  Ellie's dress was the first attempt and it took me three days to complete.  I spent a lot of time freaking out about how much I despise my uncooperative swewing maching trying to get the sewing machine to work properly and then a little more time trying to figure out just how the oddly shaped pieces would actually form a dress.  The poor assembly instructions didn't help my frustration level.  In the end, I learned that being patient and taking things slowly helped the job to move along quickly.  When I got guilted into making a second dress for Madeline around to making Madeline's doll dress it took me only 6 hours from start to finish.  Madeline's dress is made better, too.

2. Since I had the sewing machine out already, I decided to make little bands to convert the short sleeved soccer jerseys for Madeline's team into tanks.  I had seen these simple looking velcro bands in a sporting goods store last fall, but I didn't want to pay $5 for something that looked incredibly simple to make.  I was talking to some of my fellow soccer moms about them at the girls' scrimmage last week and they thought it would be great if the whole team had them for their tournament this weekend.  So I grabbed some soccer ball ribbon and velcro from the local craft store and whipped up 12 pairs of sleeve holders.

3. Ellie graduated from pre-K on Tuesday morning and I can now say that I officially never forgot anything school related for Ellie this year, unless we count those few times where I forgot to bring her book bag to school, but I'm not counting those since it wasn't something big like cupcakes for the class.  I can't believe my baby is going to be in kindergarten in three months.  In the picture to the right of this you can see Ellie running to accept her diploma.


Bonus 1: I survived hosting Madeline's team party at our house. The house stayed surprisingly clean despite having about 50 people over.  I still need to mop my kitchen floor but I won't say anything about it if you don't.  I think everyone had a great time and I'm glad we offered to have the party.

Bonus 2: I'm almost on top of my laundry backlog.  I have three loads to go and I'm done.  I had quite the mountain of laundry to be folded on my living room floor yesterday. I suspect it was about 8 loads worth of clothing and towels.

Bonus 3: My final craft project of the week was making Ellie a rosary.  She loves her one decade good deed beads, but it doesn't cut it for praying the entire rosary.  She's now thrilled to have her own five decade rosary that's every bit as colorful and fun as her good deed beads.  This morning she insisted that Madeline pray with her.