Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo!

Since Thursday last week I have been working on a project (well, two really) that is near and dear to my heart.  Making my granddaughters happy.  No, we haven;t had any tea parties in October, but I have been doing something that is very Octobery.  Making costumes.  Last month I was looking up little witch costumes, in fact, I had been dreaming of one and designing one for Lily since I was in England with Sara.  Or was I in Logan with Lizzy?  I think it was in England and I was trying to explain to Sara this cute little witchey costume that I had in mind for Lily for Halloween.  Well, there I was getting it all designed in my head and even had a couple of pictures to help me turn it into a reality when Morgan told me that Leah and Lily wanted to be princesses for Halloween.  I should have realized the impact Disney has on my little sweethearts.  So, I shelved my witch plans and decided to do what they want and make princess costumes for them this year.  I got the pattern a couple of weeks ago and on Thursday and Friday last week I sewed Leah's beautiful dress, which she has told me is her Sleeping Beauty dress. 

 When I first started Leah's dress, she was ecstatic and couldn't wait to try it on.  She would whirl and twirl all over the basement and cried when the fittings were done and she had to take it off.  Now it is all done, and we couldn't get her to smile for anything when we took these pictures tonight.  I guess Sleeping Beauty was really sleepy and needed to get home and have her beauty rest.  But you can see why she would love this dress.  It's pink and pretty poofy!
I got a good rest on Sunday and then on Monday and Tuesday I tackled Lily's dress.  I wanted something different from Leah's dress, but cute and charming to match Lily's cute and charming personality.  Her's was to be the Cinderella dress, according to Leah.  So blue was the color for Lily, and this is what I came up with.  Here she is posing with her pumpkin.   How do you like it?

When they come over to my house and I'm doing something downstairs, all they want to watch on the TV is Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  I've heard them both about five times each this last week.  I did the poofy tutu underskirts today and now the dresses are cute as can be.  I just need to take each of the tutu elastics in a couple of inches because they work their way down and are soon showing below the hem of the skirts. 
The girls, M & A, Zack and Sara are all headed to Disneyland next week.  The dresses are going with them and Leah and Lily will be able to wear them on one of their days in the Magic Kingdom.  How fun is that going to be?  I told Morgan that she can't let the girls eat in them, so she's going to pack shorts and T-shirts along to change into for lunch and when they get tired of wearing the costumes.  I'm sure they will want to wear them when they get to meet the Disney Princesses and get pictures taken. 

Pretty fun to be the Fairy godmother this week and make all their dreams come true.  As far as dresses, that is. 
On a totally different note.  We picked apples last week.  We must have picked a total of two or three bushels which I juiced two days later.  I did six batches of apples at 80 minutes each and I got 18 quarts!  YUM!  I don't think it's really worth my time to juice all of the apples, but when they are just hanging there on the tree and you know they're going to go to waste if you don't use them, it makes me feel guilty, so I do it. 

On a sad note.  I snowed a week ago and many of the branches on our trees cracked under the weight and fell off the trees.  We woke up Friday morning to a terrible mess all over our lawn.  The weeping willow and Box Elder in back both lost major branches too.  I felt terrible about the early storm.  Later Alan reported to me that our raspberries were hit really hard.   And below is the picture of how I felt when I heard that bad news.

I had just been over cleaning out the dead canes and was going to get them tied up the next day.  It looks like almost two-thirds of the canes were broken off because they had full foliage and the weight of the snow was too much for them.  Darn it!  I just can't win with my raspberries. And as Scarlett would say, "I can't think about it anymore. There will be berries next year.  After all, tomorrow is another day!" 
And that is the way my last week has gone,  busy busy busy!