Homemade American Girl Doll Accessories

Reagan has been talking about wanting a bed for her AG doll. She found the catalogue before I could recycle it and went through circling everything she wanted her her doll, Lily for Christmas. The bed she wants is $110!

I convinced her that it might be fun if we tried to make a bed for Lily. Reagan was hesitant because she really, really, wants the AG doll bed, but her love of creating and inventing won out. Plus, she likes the closet we made for Lily a couple of months ago. Reagan also thought that Lily needed a shower, so we set out to make one too.

We had a few moments of rainy weather this week and last Friday it poured all day. While Carter napped, Reagan and I went to work.

For about $8 out-of-pocket, we made Lily her own unique canopy bed and shower:

Canopy Bed:

We used the box that Lily came in as the base of the bed. We went to Michaels and bought wooden dowels, which I cut in half and Reagan painted white.

Reagan's favorite color is now yellow, so we used yellow fabric I had to cover a foam pad that we used as a mattress and some extra to make Lily a pillow. Reagan stuffed the pillow using some batting I had in my craft closet.

I also had some craft wire, yellow tulle and ribbon, which we used to make the canopy.

Shower:

For the shower, we used a box I got at Costco, covered it with the vinyl peel-and-stick tiles we bought at Lowes, and cut a wooden dowel to size for the shower bar. At Dollar Tree we found a hose spray attachment, which we used for the shower head, and a shower curtain, we cut down to size for the box.

Reagan even made Lily a body puff using a bit from a big one and a rubber band.

I had a lot of fun making these projects with Reagan.

Cousins in Maine

My sister, Laurel, niece, Bella (9), and nephew, Lucas, (5-1/2), came out for a visit earlier this month. We took them up to the center of Maine to Jeff's family's cabins on the lake. It's rural; the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away and the start of the 100 miles of wilderness of the Appalachian Trail is on the mountain on the other side of the lake.

The kids had a blast swimming, tubing, boating, hiking and just playing in the woods and being together.

All of the kids had fun driving the boat:

On the really rainy day, we went into town and went shopping and had lunch. The kids collected rocks,

and Carter found another mud puddle to play in.

We went on some hikes:

Up to the "bluff" where we could see the whole lake,

And out to the trestle, which is 150 high over a small dam, a bit rickety and thankfully, no trains came by while we were on it.

It was a great visit, too short and we can't wait for them to come back next summer.

Santa's Village

Up in the White Moutains of New Hampshire is Santa's Village, which is where my Mom & I took the kids when she was out visiting. We set out really early one Sunday morning, as Jefferson is a 2-hour drive from my house. We arrived just before the park opened.

Santa's Village was beautiful. The scenery was gorgeous and the park was very well maintained. Christmas music played throughout the park, but I never heard the same song twice. It was a busy, but not at all crowded day. The weather was perfect; not too hot, or cold or windy or cloudy. A perfect 10.

I took over 200 pictures that day, but have selected a few, okay a little more than a few...

We went on rides:

Carter did not enjoy his first ride of the day:

Met Santa Claus:

Played reindeer games:

Found out how tall the kids were:

Posed for pictures:

Carter of course, managed to find some water to play in:

Played the Elfabet game and graduated from Elfabet University:

They had 26 Elves, one for each letter of the "Elfabet" hidden all over the park. Each person was given a card, which they punched when they found each elf with a letter. Once you found all the elves, you turned your card in for a certificate and a hackey sack. Another brillant idea. Kids and adults had fun finding the elves and punching their cards.

Even the trash cans were cute. You lifted the penguins' top hat to throw trash away. All the kids loved using them, so the park was spotless. Brilliant idea. I wanted to take one home with me.

Swim

I didn't realize it had been 2 weeks since I last posted. My parents, sister Laurel and her 2 kids, Bella and Lucas have been out visiting us and I just ran out of time to blog about our days. We had a great time showing them New Hampshire and Maine.

Reagan is on the swim team here in town and while my parents were out, she had a swim meet. It was only her second meet, but she did really well and improved from her first meet.

Reagan swam in the 25m freestyle and the 25m backstroke. She came in 3rd in the freestyle and 2nd in the backstroke.

Freestyle:

Backstroke:

The cheering section:

Carter kept trying to get into the pool and I finally was able to distract him with a puddle of water he could splash in. In a few years, I think he'll be swimming with the team too.

We did a lot of fun things over the past 2 weeks and I'll try to blog about all our fun over the next few days.

Snakes, Mud and a Lost Tooth

After the big 4th of July bash, I was too tired to blog about it and there were too many great pictures from the day that I wouldn't be able to pick a few to post. So, if you want to check out the party, go to my Father-In-Law's website at http://gallery.jonrickphoto.com/p385732303 .

Yesterday it was absolutely gorgeous here. Perfect summer weather: hot, a few puffy clouds in the sky and a slight breeze. After Reagan's swim practice, we went to a reptile program at our public library. It was packed, but they had plenty of reptiles to go around. Carter was not too excited to sit still for the presentation, so I took him outside the room to run. What he ended up doing was throwing a fit after he ate all of his banana and I ran out. So, there we were in the library with Carter rolling around on the floor screaming "BANANA" over and over at the top of his lungs. Luckily, I had some apple slices, which pacified him, but I digress.

Carter and I made it back inside just in time for my favorite reptiles, snakes.

Unfortunately, my children do not share my phobia of snakes, so they were more than interested in looking, touching and holding the snakes. I wasn't happy to be in the same room with them (the snakes, not the kids).

After a quick lunch at home, we set off to a park which not only has a playground, but also has a separate "spray and play" water area. It looks really cool, is really cool, but did not hold Reagan's interest for long or Carter's at all. So we went over to the playground.

Reagan wanted to take her brother down the slide, which they've done together many times before without incident. Yesterday, however, it was the slide of doom.

This is how they looked at the top.

In the middle, something went horribly wrong and they ended up rolling over one another, with Carter bumping his head and getting a bruise and Reagan losing her front tooth! Out it popped. We had no idea it was even loose. She only shed a little blood and was fine.

So to cheer up the troops, I took them down to the stream and mud at the bottom of the park.

This was a MUCH bigger hit than the failed spray and play. They were the only kids down there and they had a blast. For once, the only thing Carter tried to eat was the clover.