Crafty Day

I am just going to start by saying that I am convinced having one child is just as hard as having five children. At least with more than one child they have built in buddies to play with. One child is exhausting. They want to have your attention and play every waking minute of the day. I did manage to sneak away to write this blog while she was eating dinner. This needs to be quick however b/c I have been informed that next up is game time.

So today was our designated crafty day. I got up early to get my 4 mile run in on the treadmill before Alexis was even awake. Then I got Alexis up and we went and picked up my grandma. Alexis had an American Girl craft that required sewing and since I don't sew (just like I don't cook), we needed reinforcements. My grandma is amazing at all things crafty. Clearly this talent was NOT passed on to me (or my mother). When I called my grandma, I was not sure she would even want to come considering our past drama at the start of the year. Actually I was not sure we would ever be talking again, but she came to the triplets 5 year B.D party in May and that broke the 5 months of no contact. Turns out that was enough time to put aside our differences and pick up as if nothing had ever happened. I had mentioned to Alexis several times in the planning of girl week that we should have a crafty day and invite my grandma but I wasn't sure....  It was Alexis who urged me just to make the call. My grandma said yes. So we drove 50 minutes to pick her up. Then we came home and craft time began. Alexis and my grandma worked on her American girl purse with sewn on flowers and I did some scrapbooking. We took a break at lunch time and ate at Applebee's. This is not my favorite place to eat but it does have under 550 calorie options which makes it easy to count calories and eat out. After lunch we spent another couple hours working on our crafts. Alexis was a little hard to focus near the end as she was bouncing all over the place. I think she was on some sort of sugar high b/c she was eating candy during crafty time (I was not... I had some raw carrots and just thought about how much I would rather be having candy).  Finally we were all a little tired of doing crafts and drove my grandma home. I think this was a great day. I enjoyed spending time with Alexis and my grandma. I think it was good for my grandma to get out of the house b/c she gets lonely. It was also good for my heart and soul to finally feel like we are at peace with one another again. It was weighing heavily on my heart that given how unpredictable life is, we could wait until too late to make amends. I am glad that did not happen.

I love that my 84 year old grandma is still willing to have crafty day with her 8 year old great-granddaughter!!! How cool is that! Since Alexis was making American Girl stuff, I did a few American Girl themed pages of Alexis' 8th birthday (which was American Girl themed).

 Here Alexis has more flowers done and I did a page of the boys at West Park one day while we were waiting for Alexis to finish with gymnastics practice.

 Here is her finished product. Don't ask me why she is posing like that.........

 She wanted me to show the inside.

Here are the other 2 American Girl pages I did. Alexis just took this picture which is why I look so tired with crazy hair. Long but fun day!

 These were the first 2 pages I did today. Yes I realize that this page is of the triplets 4th birthday and they are now 5 but I realized one day I never did a page when they turned 4....now I have!!

Once Alexis and I got back home we had a quick snack, but there was no time for dinner b/c Alexis wanted to go to the pool. Luckily the sky started to look dark and although I don't think it rained/stormed, I at least convinced her that we needed to go home b/c it might rain (and I was hungry....)

We both have now been fed and she is standing over my shoulder waiting for me to get done blogging for the day so that we can play games. I think she said we are playing Trouble. Did I mention I am tired. EXHAUSTED!!