Breaking News: American Girls Take Over Clinton

Warning: some photographs in this post may contain content that is too graphic for those suffering from PEDIOPHOBIA.

You have been warned. 

Saturday, June 16, 2012...just like any Saturday in June it seemed,  until seven girls and nine American Girl Dolls descended on the Maple Street house.  The ruse was a certain seven year old girl's birthday party.  But really they were intent on taking over the world...starting with Clinton, South Carolina.



This photo confirms what some of us have thought all along.  The American Girl Company is poised to take over the world.

But first the ruse.

It's not every day a girl turns seven. 
Anna requested an American Girl Party about 7 days before the actual party day. 
Super mom to the rescue.

There were the decorations:







And the goodie bags:


...complete with a cool rock star vest for each doll made from the material seen in the picture.  You can find this no sew tutorial at Free Sewing Patterns for American Girl Dolls.

And the cake:


Since when does a "7" look like an upside down "L"?  The answer...when an inexperienced cake decorator, aka me, does the cake.  I was hoping it would look like this except two tiered with the damask pattern:

But as you can plainly see I deserve to be featured in Cake Wrecks with what actually came to be.  But, hey, it was for a bunch of kids who really thought it was pretty.  That counts for something, right?

Finally the activities:


Here are the crafty materials used to make birthday crown for the dolls


And Anna making a template. If you scroll up you can see all the dolls with their finished crowns. Scary, I know. 
Notice the fabulous no sew rock star vest on Anna's doll.
La-Dee-Dah.

We also made matching bracelets for the dolls and girls from patterned duck tape.

The Menu:

The guests and birthday girl were served easy things for Super Mom to prepare.

• Pink Lemonade
• Bagel bites mini pizzas
• Chips
• Fruit Kabobs
• Not so fabulous red velvet cake and ice cream.

They ate it all up!



Presents were opened:



And the dolls were once again brought under our control...phew, we save Clinton and possibly the world from imminent destruction.



This breaking news has been brought to you by "I'll Tell You Later, Betty", your source for all news that is worth reading about...if you happen to be a fan.

Goodbye Mr. Chips...

The school year has ended.

Anna, our sweet girl, is saying goodbye to Mrs. Harmon.

She is the only teacher Anna has had at Clinton Elementary. We were fortunate that she decided to loop from kindergarten to first grade. Sadly, others won't get the chance to be lovingly taught by her for she is retiring this year. Now that doesn't mean she won't be teaching others. I suspect that will continue. Just not as an elementary teacher, sadly enough.

 A few weeks ago, Miss Crafty, otherwise known as Anna, was writing a card to Mrs. Harmon. When she showed us the completed note she had written our hearts melted reading it. So right then and there we decided this would be Mrs. Harmon's Teacher/Retirement gift. We set about finding some nice scrapbook paper and a suitable frame to commemorate what, I'm sure, many first graders have felt about Mrs. Harmon over the years. Anna just happened to capture it beautifully. 

 
Translation: Dear Miss Harmon, I wish we could stay and learn more with you. It was fun being your student. You're my favorite teacher to me. You are a best teacher a girl could have.



 sniff...sniff...

And to make matters more heart wrenching, our first born is no longer an elementary student.  We couldn't be more proud of Gavin this past school year.  He stepped up his academic game and discovered that studying really pays off.  He had some great teachers this year to help him as well. But he was especially fond of Mrs. Underwood, his science and math teacher.  She too is retiring this year.  When Gavin saw what Anna had done for Mrs. Harmon, he asked us if he could do something like that for Mrs. Underwood.  Gavin is our perfectionist.  I knew that this would be a challenge for him because he struggles his humanness.  Simple mistakes can upset his entire world (and thus ours too) and the aftermath can be exhausting both for him and us.  After three attempts at a thank you note, he was finally satisfied with what he had written. Blood, sweat and tears went into this, dear readers.


So our not so little boy is moving onto middle school.



When we moved to Clinton almost four years ago now, we were trepidatious about the education our kids would recieve in a small rural county in South Carolina.  And although we still struggle with living a world away from family and dear friends, we have come to learn that education comes in many forms and not just from one source.  Both our children have had elementary teachers that gave their all and were genuinely committed to our kids' welfare.  Along with our committment to our children's education, you couldn't ask for a better team.



 

Epic Bathroom Renovation

It is done.
The bathroom renovation that started in November of 2010 is done.
Collective heavy sigh.
Now, it is not the bathroom I had dreamed of.
It is not the bathroom I had hoped for.
Nor is it the bathroom I had planned on.
But...
it is the bathroom that is completed and much better than I had imagined it could be.

After firing the first contractor in July of 2011, we took a hiatus to recover from the "trauma" of a botched job. We didn't attempt to hire another contractor to finish it until December 2011. He (and I am quoting him) turned chicken shit into chicken salad. God bless him.

You might remember that we started demolition of this bathroom in the fall of 2010. We were sure then if the contractor was up to the job and so we asked him to hold off while we made some design decisions. He returned to begin the work in May of 2011. Have I told you we don't do change well?

So he came and he brought his undisciplined ADHD mind with him. Thank god for our plumber/electrician who was able to ask the right questions to us to help us process what the heck our contractor was doing AND not doing. The final straw came when I came home from work to find he had laid the shower tile in the wrong pattern. Who doesn't know what a subway tile pattern is in the age of subway tile?

It was a xanax kind of moment, my friends. If only I had had one. But I called him and told him he was done and to pick up his tools the next day. I hated doing it but had to do it. Nicest guy you'd ever meet. Just don't have him do detail work if you hire him. Having paid him a good chunk of money we wondered if this was going to be the world's most expensive cheap looking bathroom ever. So for several months we had a bathroom with no working anything while we decided what to do next.

In comes the plumber/electrician who asked all the right questions. Now he's someone I can trust. And he measures twice (maybe even three or four times) and cuts once. He kindly came in and cleaned up someone else's mess.

So without further ado, I give you befores and afters...







Oh and this scary thing...


has been replaced by this...


Some details I like...


Shampoo cubby in the shower



I love the style of this vanity. Where did I get such a gorgeous thing? Costco



Added glass knobs to the vanity. Did you know Hobby Lobby has a ton of unique handles and knobs?


Enamored with my spa hotel light fixture


And the last detail I want to share with you is the shower curtain. I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I came home with the perfect shower curtain only to find it was about 14 inches too short. We needed an 84 inch long curtain. They are generally sold in length of 72 inches. Grrrrrr.

All the extra long shower curtains were tacky, plastic and expensive. So the simplest solution was to add length to a regular shower curtain. I had considered buying regular drapes to use as a shower curtain but I would have had to learn how to do button holes or punch grommets. I wasn't up for that learning curve. But, as luck would have it, I found a table runner at Target on clearance and it was the perfect dimensions for what I needed. Thank you Target for once again coming to my rescue. I sewed that baby on there and, voila, an extra long, one of a kind shower curtain.

And....scene.

The Summer of Six

Our baby is six.
How can that be?



She insisted on writing her own invitations.
Such a big girl...sniff, sniff.


Her request for a party was simple. A texas sheet cake with horses all over it.
Check.


A pinata.
Check.
If you remember her 5th birthday you know how I feel about pinatas.



No living rainbow colored horses were killed at this birthday party


Pink and Orange Decorations.
Check.


Classic tissue paper pom poms.
Love 'em.


And girlfriends.
Check.


We all sang "Happy Birthday" and made it official. She is now six years old...sniff, sniff.

Christmas in Clinton 2009

The spirit of Christmas is alive and well in our little house this season.
Here's some proof that we're no scrooges around here.

Anna & Gavin the night we decorated our tree.

Hillbillies on Parade
(Otherwise known as the Clinton Christmas Parade)


Anna, our artist, drew a manger scene complete with lady bug.
Because everyone knows any self-respecting manager scene has to have a lady bug!

The Professor got his own Snuggie as a gift from the French Club...awwww.

We went to Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville
to see a fabulous light display.
While we were there the kids got to see Santa, rosy cheeks and all.
Curious who our other child is? No, we didn't adopt.
It's Gavin and Anna's friend, Henry, who came along.

I made the cutest reindeer pops, from none other than moon pies, for Anna's class party.

Anna was a "heavenly host" in her preschool Christmas pageant.
Her future husband, Shane, was a shepherd.

And, while the kids and the Professor were on vacation,
they made the annual gingerbread house.

So here we are on Christmas eve. Our first Christmas spent in Clinton. Elfie has defected back to the North Pole leaving behind Christmas pajamas for all who wanted them plus "Santa Buddies", a movie which the kids had been dying to see. Santa's cookies have been baked and are cooling. All the presents are under the tree wrapped. All that's left is to sit and watch "A Christmas Story" and wait for Santa to make his magic at our little house in our little town in South Carolina. Merry Christmas ya'll.

News flash: Kenmore sees the light of day after over 365 days!

For the first time in eight years, I was by myself in my own house for five days. And I loved every minute of it. Now don't get me wrong, I love my family. I enjoy their company...most of the time. But Mama needed some rejuvenation on many levels and she got it. Even though I worked that week, I came home to our little house and pretended to be a woman who had no obligations to anyone but herself. It was divine.

I decided I was going to sew. Some of you know that I had aspirations around this at some point. My hope was when we moved here that's what I would be doing - designing and sewing and hopefully, selling. But we didn't count on being in such a little house. Put four people in this house and there is no room for sewing. Unless you are very organized and efficient at it, which I am neither of those things. So, I hadn't sewn for over a year. The living room look like it had exploded.



I started off easy, deciding to forgo patterns and do a elastic waist skirt for Anna Mae that my sister-in-law, Laurie, turned me onto. Here are the two skirts finished. I haven't got my little monkey to model them for me yet.



The sugar skull fabric is called "Glitter Skull" by Alexander Henry and is a bit longer than the other but both are good for school clothes. Oooh, but now I've got a sewing itch that needs to be scratched. I have got to have a plan so 365 days or more don't pass by me again. Hear me now believe me later: I shall sew before school starts again...somehow.

How could someone not be inspired by such fun fabric? Oh, and five glorious days to yourself, yeah...that did help.


Perfect skirt to start off your school days in the bible belt don't you think?

Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday Party

We must have been all mad.

I know we were. Mad for a little girl named Anna Mae who turned four on June 16th. On the 13th of June in the late afternoon South Carolina heat we had a Mad Hatter's tea party under the canopy of a beautiful beech tree generously loaned to us by our wonderful friends and neighbors. Here's a little digital scrapbook documenting the occasion...the only thing missing was you...



Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We're all tuckered out now and resting up for the next unbirthday to come along.