Growing up!

Sabrina is wearing the dress I made for her while Ryan is wearing the gift
that Sabrina gave him for Father's Day.

Now that she is 8 she gets to go to Achievement Day activities at church, where she made the gift. She was instructed to get a 'cast-off' tie from Dad and bring it to the activity before Father's Day. I was given the scoop on what the girls were going to be doing with the ties -- adding whatever embellishment they wanted, pom-poms, lace, fringe, ribbon, etc. When she was leaving for the activity, I advised her that she should not hold back any of her creative juices; pick whatever she liked to put on the tie. Sabrina chose fringe. It is a one-of-a-kind tie for a great dad from a one-of-a-kind daughter. Ryan did what any loving dad would do and proudly wore it to church on Father's Day.

Sonia Vallejo practicing for school.

During the last 2 weeks of second grade, they study a unit called "Apple Valley" which is where they turn back time to 1857 and behave as though they are a part of a one room school. All of the students get new names and ages and are separated into families. Sabrina became "Sonia Vallejo, age 14, oldest daughter in the family who live on a ranch just outside of town." As Sonia, she wore pioneer clothes - the same dress every day. (Well, that is not exactly the case, I didn't have this dress made in time, so for the first 3 days she wore the dress shown in the picture with Ryan with an apron over it, and then when I got this one finished, she wore it for the rest of the school year.) They got to learn 1850s songs and as a "Challenge Task" she took her violin to school and played 'I've been workin' on the Railroad.' A couple days later she sang 'Shoo Fly' and when I went in to help with the celebration, Mrs. Baggerly, aka Miss Virginia Pritchett, said Sabrina was the first student of hers to ever sing a song for a "Challenge Task".

Ready for summer!

Sabrina decided that she needed her hair cut. She wanted "bangs and hair as short as her ears so she could look more childish". Our neighbor (and Sabrina's primary teacher) cut her hair and convinced her that it would look better as a bob about chin length. It is so cute! Although, I'm afraid she may become vain with all of her looking in the mirror that she's done in the last 45 minutes since her hair was cut. About 6 inches were cut off.