Our Family: Our Doll Factory

It is summer vacation and I have two little girls (age 6 and 7) out of school. Every day they ask me, "what can I do, Mom?" They really don't like it when I tell them to finish their job chart, or give them an extra job to keep them busy. I think they are perfectly capable of finding something to do themselves.

Last week they came up with their own idea of what to do, so I said o.k. My girls wanted to make their own baby dolls. First we drew pictures of what they should look like. Then we looked for scraps of material in my craft box to make the bodies. I drew the pattern and the girls cut it out as well as the fabric pieces. They both helped sew, and stuffed their dolls themselves. I think it took four days to get this far. We only do a little each day.

Their favorite days have been making the faces, hair, and blankets. They picked out button eyes, and we used iron-on adhesive to attach felt noses and lips. For hair, they cut lengths of yarn they picked out themselves. Miriam picked black. Emily picked a varigated brown and pink yarn. I sewed it down the middle of the head and we made pigtails.

Today they wanted to make blankets for their new baby dolls. I had some small flannel receiving blankets Olivia has grown out of. They each picked their favorite two. They did a pretty good job sewing the edges together on my sewing machine. They even topstitched all by themselves with zig-zags around the edge to finish their blankets. This is a shot of the girls' new dolls next to MY NEW DOLL. :)

Doll making is going to be an ongoing project. The girls have plans for clothes and have already picked out which scraps they want to use to make outfits for their new dolls. At least they came up with the idea of what to do themselves. If I'm lucky I won't hear "Mom, what can I do?" for a few more weeks! Here are the dolls with their new blankets - pink on one side, and yellow on the other.

Not to seem like we have so much extra time on our hands...
I'm also helping Adam to potty train. He is doing a lot better today after we went shopping for bribes and prizes when he goes in the potty. It's funny what a difference motivation makes. Yesterday he was wet all day. Today, he is thrilled to put that sticker on the chart. He has one more sticker to add and then he gets to pick out a prize!

Olivia has slept a lot today so that is why I am writing now instead of feeding her a bottle. They say you should put the babies "back to sleep" and not on their tummies. My baby won't sleep on her back. She wakes up screaming and then I get to hold her. If I put her down again, she is fine for about 5 minutes, and then she wakes up again. I discovered she will actually sleep (and is a lot more comfortable) if I put her on her tummy. She doesn't get over-tired and I get things done too. Isn't she precious?