dolly makeovers

A friend's neighbor passed down two older American Girl dolls in much-loved condition to her daughter.  I volunteered to bring them home and see if we could pretty them up a bit for their second generation of playtime.  Turns out that I took rather lousy pictures throughout this process, but I thought I'd share anyway--the dolls really came out pretty well! 

Our starting point:

Kirsten and Molly, dirty, with ratty hair and lots of stray pencil and marker marks.  Plus Kirsten was missing a leg.

some of Kirsten's pencil marks

Molly was actually in pretty decent shape. 

I started by cleaning all of the marks off of both dolls' vinyl with a magic eraser.  Then I deep conditioned their wigs with a good downy dunk. 

Both dolls then got their limbs re-strung (plus Kirsten got a spare leg from Ebay). 

loose-limbed Molly

loose and missing-limbed Kirsten

Kirsten, unstuffed for limb restringing

Molly unstuffed for restringing 

Yay! I can stand on my own two feet again!

Molly, feeling much better 

Molly came to my friend wearing Samantha's school dress, and Kirsten in her meet outfit.  I washed the clothes they came with, and fixed the stretched out elastic on Kirsten's bonnet.  I knit each dolly a skirt and sewed them a matching tank, just for some variety, should they decide to go time traveling and not stick to their historical time periods. ;)

all ready to go back home!

Molly cleaned up beautifully, and I took quite a liking to her!  I had never been interested in any of the dolls with bangs, but Molly is precious.  Kirsten's hair is like straw, it's so brittle, so she'll need to have braids pretty much full time or I fear she'll need a new wig soon.  We could take care of that, though. ;)  They're not in mint condition, by far, but they're such sweet dolls! I'm so glad we got them ready to take on the new life they have ahead of them being loved by another little girl!

Wrap Up: The Bee Tree

We buzzed our way through the Five in a Row unit on Patricia Polacco's The Bee Tree over the past couple of weeks!  Despite quite a nasty interruption from the influenza virus, we made it through almost everything I had planned, and really enjoyed this row!

The highlight of this row for us was a field trip to Baton Rouge to tour the children's exhibitions at the American Beekeeping Federation's annual convention.

trying on beekeeper gear

live bees!

dress up! Jono held the flower for bees H&C

made bee hats and rolled beeswax candles

looked at more beekeeping equipment and asked a TON of questions 

and we wandered across the street from the convention center to check out the river!  

For social studies, we found Michigan on the map, discussed peninsulas, and then colored and labeled a map of Michigan and the surrounding great lakes.

In language arts, we just reviewed onomatopoeia.  We checked out favorite onomatopoeia book out of the library again and enjoyed it.  I should just buy that one--I think this is the 3rd time we've checked it out!

For art, we did some fine arts.  In the book, a group of traveling musicians joins the race to follow the bee to its tree.  They were string players, so we listened to the strings section in The Story of the Orchestra.

We had a lot of fun with math.  We spent some time nailing down shape names and description for those harder shapes, starting with hexagons, of course.  We played some free printable games that were super fun for this--Shape bingo and Name that Shape.  We played the Fill in the Hexagon Game on a different day using our pattern blocks.  Then we used that hexagon pattern block to stamp honeycomb!

my favorite part is Jono's name, with each letter made into a bee (bottom left)

For science, of course, we learned about bees. We read several books about bees, beehives, honey production, and beekeeping.  I had them paint these bees and then tell me what body parts they remembered the names of for labeling. 

In non-FIAR news, we began a new artist for picture study.  We studied our last bird painting by John James Audubon and did our first work by Claude Monet.  We read the book Claude Monet: the Painter Who Stopped the Trains and then studied one of the pictures mentioned in the book.  The kids really enjoyed both the story and the painting.  I think this artist will be popular!

Jonathan also started a new extracurricular this  month.  He's playing Upward basketball this winter.  He has had two practices and one game and has loved every minute of it so far! 

Thank you for following along with us! 

AG bunk beds

Homebound with sick kids this weekend, I decided to tackle a project I've been planning for a while.  I cutsied up (yes, that's a real verb) the two Ikea duktig doll beds we have for our American Girl dolls. They come very practical and plain, but I had seen some Etsy sellers with cute bedding for them and a few ideas on Pinterest for painting them and bunking them to take up less floor space, so that was the plan.  Hazel and I picked out fabric at Hobby Lobby on Friday while we were in Baton Rouge.  We chose four coordinating prints in yellows and grays to match the TV room, since dolls live in that room.  Here are the various tutorials and ideas that I mushed together for our beds:

• mattresses: Ana White's doll mattress sewing tutorial. I stuffed ours with 2" foam cut to size.  I did not tuft ours.
• bunking: this post on Ikea Hackers was the goal, and I found exactly those brackets at Home Depot.  They were a giant pain to hammer in, and my pinky finger still hurts from where I missed, but they worked. If you go looking for them in Home Depot and have as limited a knowledge of hardware as I do, this is what you can look for:

• bedding: I used some of the ideas from this blog for bedding, but rectangle blankets, pillows, and pillow cases are pretty straightforward

Now, pics of ours!

I really am the world's worst spray painter. I will not be giving you close-up pictures of my paint job. From a distance, they look relatively uniform and white.  Good enough. 

Mattresses fit perfectly! 

blanket and pillows

It's official--these dolls have nicer bedding than I do!

Emily sleeps up top with Gracie.  Jack and Jess share the bottom bunk.  They're brother and sister, so that's totally above board. ;) 

Cozy!

and just for your entertainment, Hazel makes Penny the horse play the part of pack mule librarian.  She's wearing a purse stuffed with the books that came with mini-Isabelle and mini-Marie-Grace.  Poor Penny. I should  make her some saddle bags.  Surely that would be more comfortable! 

Thanks for looking!

Christmas American Girl crafting

Hazel received a couple of new-to-her (from Craigslist) American Girl horses for Christmas.  I got a pretty good deal on them, but they're not pristine, which is fine, given how rough she is on belongings.  The larger horse was also missing the saddle that she had originally come with, so I had a couple of projects I wanted to do for the horses before they were gifted.

First, hay bales! I followed Ana White's plans for burlap plush hay bales.  They turned out cute, which is good, since they were a GIANT PAIN.  Seriously.  Never sewing with burlap again.  I think these could have been done with a glue gun with much less frustration.  Live and learn.

Second, I made blankets for both horsies.  Don't they look warm and cheerful?

The pattern for the blankets is here.  I made the foal's blanket by slowly cutting down the pattern for the larger one and laying the paper pattern across her back, then cutting it down some more, and some more, until it looked the right size.  Good enough.

My last project was a replacement saddle for Penny, the big horse.  I used the template provided by this blogger, but used different materials than she did.  I bought a quarter yard of that fabric that has sheepy fleece stuff on one side and faux suede on the other (I'm sure there's a name for that, but I don't know what it is!) and made the saddle out of that. The main saddle piece has the suede-y side up and the fleecy side down.  The seat part is fleecy side up.  I sewed the seat part on to the saddle part and that was pretty much it! I bought some cute braided trim at Joann (a yard, and I didn't use it all), put two small grommets in the saddle and ran the trim under the saddle and out through the grommets to be straps for the stirrups.  Does that make any sense?  Stirrups are just 1.5" d-rings, but I should have gone up a size.  I took a doll shoe with me to Joann for sizing, but cowgirl boots are bulkier and they barely fit.  I used a needle and thread to tack the ribbon in place to hold the d-rings.  Seriously, 15 minute project, easy peasy, and SUPER cute.  This also could have been done with hot glue or fabric glue just as easily, if anyone is in need of a dolly horse saddle and doesn't sew.

When Hazel and I went to the American Girl store in Washington, D.C. at Thanksgiving, I very sneakily purchased the Western Riding Outfit to complete the set.  Gracie looks adorable in it, and Hazel has really enjoyed having horses to play with, with her dolls!

Our Favorite Christmas Books

We are Christmas book-aholics over here.  I thought I'd take a minute and share some of our favorites with you.

For several years, our most loved Christmas books were board books.  My kids are now old enough to listen to and enjoy longer stories, but these four are still favorites:

• B is for Bethlehem is out of print, but lovely if you ever come across one.
• Christmas in the Manger is my favorite for a very first Christmas book.  Perfect for infants and toddlers to go along with a Little People or other nativity scene that can be played with
• The Story of Christmas
• The Night Before Christmas--We still like our board book version of this poem well enough that we haven't upgraded to a "big kid" one.  

We like to focus in early December on reading about the historical person of St Nicholas.  We don't "do" Santa here, but we discuss how the modern Santa Claus has his roots in St Nicholas and then we're free to enjoy the season with Santa around every turn, in stores, in books, in movies, etc, knowing where that came from, and not waiting for him to bring us presents on Christmas Eve.  To aid us in those conversations, we have a couple of books on St Nicholas.  I prefer Saint Nicholas: the Real Story of the Christmas Legend (red, below) to The Legend of St Nicholas: a Story of Christmas Giving (blue), but I don't super love either of them.  The red one is better for a younger audience for sure.  This is the first year that mine have sat through the blue one willingly.  I'm still on the lookout for an even better version, and if I find it, I'll update!  Our other favorite resource on this is the super silly Veggie Tales video on St Nicholas. Streams on Netflix!

Others that mama never minds reading again and again,  year after year include:

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• The Sweet Smell of Christmas
• The Legend of the Candy Cane
• Pete the Cat Saves Christmas 
• Mortimer's Christmas Manger
• The Polar Express
• Cajun Night Before Christmas (OK, I tire of reading this just because my Cajun accent is horrid and it's HARD! But it's too fun not to include in the list.)

Also, in the spirit of there never being enough Christmas books, I requested a few at the library that had been recommended by others.  We have found a few winners among them!

• Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree--I'm pretty sure this will be next year's Christmas book purchase.  Too fun!!
• The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey (tear jerker!!)
• An Orange for Frankie (another tear jerker)
• Great Joy 

Of course, we have our fair share of groan-worthy Christmas books, too.  You know--the ones that I consider hiding in the night (and still might!) like the book that comes with the Elf on the Shelf, anyone with me on that one? But mostly, Christmas books bring us much joy, and we love to share them with our friends!  

Any favorites of yours that you think we ought to try? I'm all ears! 

wrap up: The Glorious Flight (and the rest of November)

We took the first week of November off from Five in a Row and did a week-long geography project that I saw on Pinterest on landforms.  We read library books and watched youtube videos about the different landforms and decorated a couple of them each day.  At the end of the week, we put them together for a landform flip book.  They are so cute!

A front view:

One my favorite scenes:

clouds and rain on Hazel's hills

And another:

the BEST penguin, polar bear, and whale EVER

Last week, we did the Five in a Row unit on The Glorious Flight.  Adorable book about the first flight across the English Channel by French pilot Louis Bleriot.  We spent a day on geography, locating the English channel and coloring a map of it. We continued social studies with some discussion comparing life then (1910s) and now as we looked at the illustrations in the book.

We spent a day learning about flight with the relevant Magic School Bus episode and making paper airplanes.  That was a HUGE hit, and there have been several more made in the days since.

VERY serious Charlie

The art lesson from the manual was on perspective, especially how things appear different when you're looking up at them or looking down on them.  We took our book with us to lunch at Chick-fil-A in the mall, which is on the second floor.  We read the book while we ate and looked at the illustrations in the story that showed different perspectives and then practiced looking down onto the lower level of the mall and discussing how different things looked from where we were than when we were down below.  Then we went downstairs and looked up.  It was really simple, yet effective!

My favorite parts of this row, however, were the go-along books!  We checked out quite the basketful this time and found some really fun ones.  Our favorites:

The Wondrous Whirligig
The Flyers

The Flyers included this page in the back that showed a short history of flight including the Louis Bleriot crossing the English Channel and the Wright Brothers' flight several years before that.  Kids were really drawn to this.

We did not get to everything I had planned for this row.  Honestly, it's been a trying few weeks at Chaos Academy and we're often doing well to get the basics (reading, writing, math) done!  I read a blog post last week about how many homeschoolers want to quit in November and February.  Boy has that been true here lately. Whew!  I took some of the advice in the post to heart and have changed pace again for this week with another Five in a Row break.  We're just enjoying some Thanksgiving books and simple crafts and trying to get ready for our trip to see grandparents over the holiday.

Our Thankful Tree

some little pilgrim and indian finger puppets 

We will have a field trip related to Glorious Flight while we're visiting grandparents though! We plan to follow up our week learning about the history of flight with a trip to the National Air and Space museum.  Should be fun!

I think we plan to take most of December to do Christmas books and crafts, so Five in a Row may be on the back burner until after the first of the year.  I'll post if we do anything newsworthy, but I don't make any promises.  Thanks for following along with us!

Halloween 2013

Again this year, the boys just wanted a new superhero costume from Target so they could amp up their dress up games.  Hazel is the only one who still wants me to sew for her, which frankly, is fine by me.

This year, she was dead set on Princess Celestia from the My Little Pony cartoon.  She is obsessed with MLP.  I tried my best to talk her into one of the ponies that did not have a horn or a crown or jewelry or any of the extra junk that the princesses have.  Nothing doing.  She was only interested in Princess Celestia.

We did our best, and I think we did OK!

I started with these two tutorials: one and two, and used them as a base for wings, mane, tail, ears, horn, and cutie mark. I used a purchased white sweat suit, though.  No sewing a hoodie for me, thankyouverymuch.   The necklace and crown I totally winged, using sparkly craft foam with velcro dots and "jewels" hot glued on.  She's pleased, therefore so am I!

with her protectors, Iron Man and Wolverine