our creating girl

so, something is going on with my camera, as in...it's not working! if it was working, i would post the cutest picture of our little aftie working away at my sewing machine. picture this...a very intense little blondie with head bent over my desk, feet a few inches off the floor, brightly colored fabric all over, etc...

grandma showed her how to sew with a machine while we were in houston. she has been working away on some little sleeping bags for her webkinz. she saw the idea at our friend's garage sale last saturday.

she and ella have been working all week on different projects for their webkinz. they've made bunk beds out of shoeboxes, a bed out of a cake mix box with cotton balls glued all over it, and now sleeping bags. really, they are super cute. i was planning on photographing their creations...i'll have to get ryan on the case.

today was the last day of swimming lessons. ella advanced to level 2 for next year. level 1 includes splashing in the 2 ft pool. afton was in level 3 this summer and did amazingly well. she could almost swim across the narrow end of the pool, but not quite, so she will do level 3 again next summer. when she realized that she is not advancing to level 4, there were some awfully big tears streaming down her little cheeks. i felt so bad and tried to reassure her that she had done so well and had learned so much and wowie wow wow, we think you're great, etc, etc. but she wasn't really convinced.

one more thing about aftie...she has my creativity and ryan's willpower and know-how to actually get it done. she is quite incredible. i used to dream of making flip-flops out of cardboard(i'll bet you never thought of that), or a doll house out of a shoe box, but i had no idea how to go about starting the project. then when i decided to be a famous designer and make millions of dollars designing haute couture, i ran into a problem...i couldn't sew. or draw. or pass my textiles class. of course it's probably my parent's fault, since they wouldn't send me to parson's in nyc. thanks a lot mom and dad. how am i supposed to be an amazing designer if i have to study at rick's college? come on. anyway, i think my aftie is going to be able to do anything she puts her mind to.

p.s. i got the camera fixed. something to do with the batteries. just call me sherlock.