Girls' Weekend 2016

This year, our girls' weekend ended up being quite a bit later than usual. We all had a lot going on and so we celebrated Rugrat's birthday at lunch and then headed off to Eureka Springs, AR.

We had just about made it there when a deer suddenly walked out of the night into my hood. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't just told Chick about 30 minutes earlier that I was going slow and trying to watch because deer were bad to come out at that time.

And it still wouldn't have been as bad if about 45 minutes before that, Hubby had not called to tell me that someone pulled out of a parking lot in front of my son on the main road consequently totaling the Civic he was driving (the air bag even activated). Fortunately, he was okay and the van was still fine to drive -- just not pretty. God was watching over us all.

Despite it's horrendous beginning, we still enjoyed our time together. We enjoyed the Christmas parade there and lots of shopping and sight seeing.

We even managed the short trip up to Branson one day.

Yeah. They certainly look like they're having a horrible time.

Big Doll #3

 Last Saturday, we went out to check out the Neighborhood Garage Sale going on in a subdivision a couple of blocks over from us. It was rainy though and we weren't really into it. Neither were the sellers.

As it turned out, we only one thing despite checking out several all throughout the neighborhood. That was a "big doll" that Rugrat found at one. I looked up the brand name later and found out that it was an Our Generation doll -- Target's knockoff of American Girls. Works for us.

Unfortunately, her hair was a M-E-S-S. Two little braids that hung from the front of her head had survived but everything else was pretty tangled. I went ahead and took down her two little braids and got ready to do a Downy Dunk.

If you don't remember, I discovered Downy Dunking when trying to untangle the other two dolls' hair. You don't actually have to use a specific name brand of fabric softener. Any will do. Mine was a Dollar Tree fabric softener.

This time, however, I remembered to take pictures. Here she is getting ready for treatment (her first blonde big doll):

You can see just how tangled it is. The kinky parts are where the two little braids were.

I got to work with a good tv show going to work by. Here she is with half done.

I always prefer to stand them up overnight to dry. That way, they aren't lying on it and it all dries hanging down too.

The next day, I just ran a brush through the now dry, untangled hair and here it is:

The next step, in my opinion, is to prevent further tangles. I always think the little clear rubber bands they put on doll hair for packaging look much better than what I have available.

Then one day it occurred to me to buy some of the tiny little bright colored rubber bands in the ethnic section. They are so small that they work perfectly for doll hair too. I would have preferred clear but didn't see those until a day or two after I bought the colorful ones. Oh well.

And here she is with her cute little braids that will prevent or, at the very least, reduce the tangles she'll get while Rugrat is loving on her.

So there you have it. Pictures of the Downy Dunk in action.

Zoo Day and Girl Scouts

 A few weeks ago, we got to enjoy Rugrat's first patch earning program at the zoo. We began in a small auditorium type room with a boatload of other Daisy's. A lot of the Daisy's from our troop came too. We all dressed in our new green Troop 358 t-shirts.

The lady in charge showed us a lot of animals and talked about important things like habitat, environment, shelter needs, and diets

In fact, when she asked if anyone knew what a "diet" meant, Rugrat blurted out to me loudly (in a voice that carried across the auditorium room) -- "I know what that is. It's soda!" That was followed by laughter across the room and even the lady had to chuckle.

After shaking my head in my hand, I looked up to find a thumbs up from our troop leader who thought it was great.

Later, we all went out back and made a treat for the birds -- a sweet gum ball covered in lard and rolled in seeds.

It was a fun time for all our Daisy's. But getting them to all stand still and look at a camera was a little more difficult.

 The program fee included entrance to the zoo so of course we had to go check out Rugrat's favorite animals.

By the time we got home, we were ready for a more substantial lunch than the snack of french fries and a slurpee that we shared at the zoo.

It was a pretty good first go around as patch earning programs go.

New Dress

One of the things in Rugrat's Easter basket was a knockoff American Girl type doll. She actually refers to it as her "big doll." And it has long brown hair and came with it's own glasses too.

We weren't real sure how much she might actually play with it but she seems to like it quite a bit.

I had hoped to be able to take advantage of the girl's clothes at Kohl's with a matching outfit for a doll attached to them. Currently, however, all they have is pajamas with matching outfits so I'll guess we'll wait on that.

Hence, the search I recently did to find some clothing patterns for it. Most of them were kind of cheesy to be honest and the others were just either very long (not terribly printable) or unclear.

Then I came across this site. It's actually a collection of retired American Girl historical clothing patterns. I wasn't really looking to make a historical outfit for her doll but I was looking for basic pattern pieces like bodices and skirts. Bingo!

The same night, I cut out the pieces to make her doll this little dress. I sewed it up Monday night while Hubby was gone to a meeting.

She knew I had cut out  the pieces for it so when she got up and saw that it was done, we of course had to let her try it on. It took less than two hours including cutting and sewing time.

I wish my clothes were that quick and easy to make.

(I've also wondered about the feasibility of using Velcro to fasten them. Hmmmm)

Braids!!

 We made our first attempt at braids this morning. Rugrat had short hair for her time before us but it grew quite quickly (in fact, I'm thinking it must have been a feat for them to keep it short). She has had to get over having it brushed and fixed in the morning. Until we got a kid's all-in-one shampoo plus conditioner to use, she would have a few (very few) tangles which would result in great weeping and wailing. Now the one tangle she sometimes has results in a prune face and the word "tangle" before we go on to the business of putting it up.

When I got the first braid this morning, she ran her hand over it and commented on it several times.

"Beautiful." and "Like it." were the things I heard most. It wasn't as neat as I like but I figured this was her intro to getting it braided and I would probably put it in a ponytail before the day was over anyway. Her hair is so fine that I would be surprised if it stays in the braids for too long.

It makes me happy that she had such a positive reaction though. Maybe we're starting to get past the "hair styling is 'torture'" to the "what should we do with my hair today" stage.

Old Time Photo Session

This is not some group of ladies from our ancestry.


These are the pictures from our Old Time Photo session in Branson.

I think Chick probably made the best choice of dress. She truly looks like she stepped out of a history book to me. Plus it just looks really good on her.


The photographer noticed that I laughed every time this picture of Rugrat popped up when we were reviewing them. It captures her personality to me.



And here we all are in the color version...


A fun way to end our Girl's Retreat!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

This is the largest McDonald's in the world (or so they claim) in Vinita, Oklahoma. It stretches across the freeway there such that while you are eating in the dining room, you are looking out at the cars driving on the turnpike towards you and then disappearing underneath you.

Below is Chick and Rugrat standing in front of the window there.


This is where we had our lunch on the way up to Branson (it is on a toll road and your choices are McDonald's or the gas station).

Our Girl's Retreat

A couple of weeks ago, I, the Chick, and Rugrat all made our way to Branson, MO to meet up with my mom. We had originally planned for it to include my sister-in-law and the daughter of my mom's husband as well but life and work got in the way.

My mom wanted to go ahead with it and the Chick and I were kind of excited about going, so we just went ahead with hopes that we could organize it a little earlier so that all of us could go next time.

We had wanted to see one show (things are kind of expensive there) and my mom had gone enough with others that she had seen Dixie Stampede twice already so her only desire was that it not be that again. We settled on a show and went to it. Guess where we went...


It wasn't my fault. Really.

When Mom found out that we might be able to go to the Christmas version, she decided she would like to see that one. Apparently, one of the showings she went to before was supposed to be the Christmas one but turned out not to be. The Chick and I had been to the original show when she was in about the 5th grade in Myrtle Beach on a class field trip, so the Christmas version was new to us as well.

We showed up a little over an hour before showtime only to find out that they were 'sold out.' After finding out that we were leaving, the woman ran to the back, then returned saying she had found us four seats that ended up being very nice seats in my opinion. We were essentially on the 50-yard line (except the 50 yard line would have been at the end of the arena rather than in the center on one side or the other) so we basically directly faced the 'stage.'

I am claustrophobic so I really needed to be at the end of a row and that's where we were plus it was below a waiter's station so we had extra space for Rugrat if she got antsy. The lady was also nice enough to throw in a souvenir boot cup for each of us (special drinks come in them and they usually cost a couple of dollars a piece).

I wasn't sure how the Rugrat would respond to the show but she was into it. She didn't start asking if it was time to leave until about half an hour before it ended when her tummy was full and they were finishing everything up. It began with some falling snow and she turned to me and asked if we were outside. And she loved getting to 'stampede' by banging on the table. I got a flag for us. My mom and Chick sat there picking at each other and having fun being silly. We had a great time even though we had ruled out the whole show to begin with so I'm really glad we went.

Afterward, we drove through their light display. It wasn't even close to as massive as the one in James Island County Park in Charleston, SC but it was nice. And it put me in the Christmas spirit.

We also, of course, engaged in Branson's most famous tourist activity -- shopping. Chick got several more of her gifts taken care of. I got a couple of things too but it was more fun to me to look at everything.

On our last day we went to an Old Time Photo session. This post is getting rather long so I'll show the pictures from it on Thursday.

I'm glad we got to go. I had a lot of fun and the Chick chattered all the way home about how much she enjoyed it.

The Chick's New Do

Now that we have gotten back from our South Carolina visit, I am 'allowed' to share about the Chick's new hair style. But first she had to have her own little reveal to her friends.

We were watching old "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" tv show episodes one night and had been discussing how to get the Chick's hair cut.

It is terribly thick (much like Mama's) and grows very fast (much like Mama's) and she really doesn't like to mess with it too much (unlike her Mama). In fact, most of the time, I have to tell her to go brush it or do something with it. Usually that involves a ponytail -- actually that was pretty much all she did with it.

The Chick is a home body at heart and she is just as happy to lay around in her pjs all day as to do anything else. Her hair has always reflected that to some degree. She went with practicality and ease over too much girly-ness and effort.

So, as we were discussing this and watching old episodes, she mentioned that she really liked Willow's (the character) new college hairstyle. We talked about it that day and then trekked down to the local salon the next day or two with a printed picture of Willow.

By the time it was finished, the hair that had been cut off was in little haystacks on the floor around the chair. And the stylist did something that encouraged me to tip her well -- she instructed my daughter about how to fix it that way. I have actually paid extra before to get the stylist to do that and gotten nothing from it. So I was pretty happy with the lady.

The Chick was very happy too. Her hair is in short layers now. This is what it looks like when straightened completely. I really like it this way.

The way that she wanted to style it (like Willow's) is to straighten it and flip the ends out. I don't have a picture of it that way at hand but when she does it, it kind of reminds me of this girl:

minus the pink of course. It looks good on her and fits her personality really well too. It is cute and fun and a little different than every other teen. Just like her.

To work, she can just comb it out and let it dry and it looks nice enough. But any other time she straightens it and flips (her favorite way).

I'm thinking we may have finally hit on something.