New Old Dolls

About a week ago Brian and Allie went up in the attic and brought down a chest filled with some of my Barbies and Cabbage Patch dolls.  I imagine they've been living in Texas attics for the last 13 or 14 years, so I was shocked to see that they weren't all melted together!  They are actually in great condition!  I washed the clothes and gave the Barbies a bath and brushed out their hair.  Maybe I enjoyed the hair brushing a little more than I care to admit. Allie has totally enjoyed playing with all her new 30 year old dolls!

Look Grandma!  These are the matching child and doll outfits you gave Allie for Christmas!

We also found some of the kids' old baby clothes for the dolls to wear

The Barbies are a big hit!  And their clothes remind me of how big a deal poofy sleeves were in the 80s.  Remember poofy sleeves?  I know we've all worked hard to forget...

You never know what kind of fashion statement Allie will be making.  I'm not sure what to call this one!

 Allie was super excited about her second week of ballet.  And she got a fun surprise when we arrived at the studio:  her best friend from school joined the class!

Mommy's first attempt at a bun

Ready for ballet class!

From Football to Ballet

On Sunday, April 7th the boys had their first flag football game of the season and Grandpa was here to watch it!  Their games were at the same time, but luckily the two fields were side by side.  Brian is coaching Spence's team, which is made up of Preschool and Kindergarteners.  The first play of the game was hilarious.  Spence's team was on offense, they snapped the ball, and the kid with the ball took off running, but Spence and the other 3 kids on his team just stood there!  Later he told me he was supposed to guard that spot.  Ha!

 Today Allie started a ballet class.  She had so much fun!  Even though she wants to play football next year, I think she'll do great at dance too!

 

Catching Up With March and April

This is one of those catch up posts where I share pictures from the last month and a half!

 Toward the end of Spring Break, our Momsnext group volunteered with Lunches of Love, an organization in a neighboring town that provides sack lunches for school age kids during holidays, summer break, and weekends.  This is such a fun and meaningful activity that we enjoy taking part in!  Even kids Allie's age can help out!  And speaking of the princess...

 It started with us coloring in her new princess coloring book, then escalated to making a crown, and before I knew it we were crafting a princess dress out of a paper bag!  So much fun!  The gloves were her idea.  And see the tape?  She found out the hard way that this dress wasn't made for bending over.  That meant I had to be at her beck and call for the entire time she wore the dress!

 From princess to bug catcher!  One day I decided to clean up the pile of leaves and acorns I had been sweeping off the back porch all winter.  Under the pile it was nice and moist.  Allie grabbed a bucket and started collecting rolly pollies and worms.  She was pretty upset that she couldn't keep them all.

 Exhibit A in "Evidence that a quiet child is probably up to something."  She was very proud of her work and called to me in the kitchen, "Mommy come see what I did!"  Those are scary words.  So I was relieved to see that it was just stickers.  We actually left them up almost a week!

Here Allie was helping me make homemade cinnamon swirl bread.  Yummy!

 Allie loves the college kids so much that sometimes it's hard to make her go to bed while they are at our house.  This night she fell asleep right between two of the girls.  Precious!

 Easter Sunday we had our neighbor friends and some ladies from church over for lunch.  I just love seeing these kids together!  Gianna is one of Allie's besties! 

The first weekend of April Grandpa visited!  We had a great time with him!  He came down to watch Coleman and Spence play football.  (See the next post for those pictures.)  These pictures were taken outside our church the Sunday Grandpa was here.

 Allie has decided she likes pig tails.  They are really cute, but curly hair is extremely hard to part evenly!  Especially curly hair on a wiggly child!