Texas Shows and Poodle Skirts

My daughter is in 4th grade. Her music teacher decided to make Texas the theme for the 4th grade music program this Spring. I think the kids only had like 2 weeks to work on the show, and when you only have music 1-2 times a week, that isn't much! The first time I heard about the show was when I got a notification that the program date had changed. Changed? Ummm....I didn't even know there was A show!! In this notification, attire was only mentioned with the sentence, "I would like for the kids to not wear shorts and t-shirts" then it was mentioned girls in another teacher's class could wear prairie skirts. I asked Jennifer what she was supposed to wear, all excited that I could make a prairie skirt (they're super-easy!!). She said she was supposed to wear a poodle skirt, according to her teacher. I scratched my head for a really long time, and not because I had lice or fleas either! What in the world do poodle skirts have to do with a music program about Texas??? Jennifer said her class was doing the song "Wooly Bully". Ok, now I'm REALLY confused!!! What in the world does "Wooly Bully" have to do with Texas???? Isn't that a 1950's sock-hop song? Ah HA! THAT'S where the "poodle skirt" fits in, but still...this is TEXAS!!!
So I oblige. I couldn't get ahold of the teacher, so I end up going to the store, seeing some polka dot fabric on sale, and purchased blue with white polka dots. I purchased some lime green felt rick-rack and a few iron-on rhinestones. I had white fabric and white chenille at home. Oh yeah, I purchased some tiny check lime green gingham and some lime green tulle. My daughter is obsessed with lime green and blue these days. I worked hard making her a full-circle poodle skirt, complete with white poodle decked out in chenille and the leash/collar were made of the lime-green rick-rack and the rhinestones decorated the collar portion. If I say so, it came out really cute. To add fullness, the gingham was used to make the petticoat and the lime green tulle was sewn on the bottom of that so it barely peeked out under the blue poodle skirt. To complete the look, Jennifer had some lime green and blue beaded bracelets, a pair of white sunglasses, and wore her hair in a high ponytail. She had tulle for a belt, hair ribbon, and a neck scarf. She looked really...umm..."Californiaish".
So after neglecting ALL my other responsibilities for the 2 days it took me to make all that, we show up at the program, still not quite done, but done enough we hope nobody else notices. As it turns out, Jennifer was the ONLY student dressed like that. ALL the other 80+ kids were in blue jeans, bandanas, cowboy hats, prairie skirts, boots, etc. ALL western wear!! Umm....oops!!! But in my defense, Jennifer insisted her music teacher specifically said, "Poodle Skirt"!!! See, that's just proof that us moms should ALWAYS listen to our gut!! When you have that urge to scratch your head in confusion, that generally means, "DON'T!" ;)
I think I covered well...when I got those quizzical looks from other parents there about Jennifer's attire, I just nicely replied, "Oh, She's playing the part of a Hollywood Queen who just relocated to Texas and doesn't quite fit in yet!"
I still say she was cute. They DID do "Wooly Bully" and basically, she was the only one dressed to match the song...all the other kids were out of place. hehehe
Here's some pictures:

Amazing Boldness

I had two specific conversations with Matthew recently. One was the day before his fifth birthday. It went as follows:

Matthew: Mom, can I have a cookie please??
Me: No.
Matthew: But why?
Me: Because you've already eaten a lot and you need to wait for dinner.
Matthew: (shrugs, mutters under his breath and walks off)

A few minutes later I see Matthew pulling a chair over to the cabinets where I keep the cookies.

Me: Matthew, what are you doing??
Matthew: I'm getting a cookie.
Me: Did I say you could have a cookie??
Matthew: No, but you will.

Ok, tell me how 4 year olds about to turn five can be so bold??? FYI, no, he did not get the cookie. I put my foot down and it stayed down!!

Then, the following morning, he wakes up and comes running to me...

Matthew: MOM!!!! Do I go to school today???
Me: No, you don't start school until after summer and when football starts.
Matthew: But I'm five!
Me: I know you're five. Happy Birthday!! But you have to wait until a new school year starts before you go and that won't happen for 4 more months.
Matthew: How many hours is that??
Me: Lots of hours!
Matthew: (shrugs and runs over to the computer)

A few minutes later:

Matthew: MOM!!! You LIED to me!!!!
Me: What? What did I lie to you about?
Matthew: You said I'm five today. But I'm not. When I'm five I can reach, but I can't reach, so I'm still four, I'm not five, you lied!
Me: Oh, Matthew, turning five doesn't mean you miraculously shoot upward and catch up with Daddy in height. You only grow about this much (holding fingers to show about an inch) every year, so it will be a few years before you can reach that high.
Matthew: Well, I still say you lied to me, I'm five and I can't drive either!

I love having conversations with kids at this age. It's so funny how their mind works!

Who do I look like?

Crafting

I have been a busy bee most of the month of March. I made a lot of stuff for my daughter's dance studio for company competition coming up. When I originally set out to do some of the stuff, I tried to find ways to cut costs. First on the list was table covers. We had 3 tables that didn't match and two chairs for each table. To make them seem more uniform, covers were created (by scratch, no pattern, thank you very much!). I didn't have a lot of fabric to work with, and I didn't have a lot of cash to invest in fabric, so I created the "illusion" of white table toppers on black table cloths. It didn't come out perfect, but it'll do the trick. Here's a picture:


Next order of business was to cover the mismatched chairs...

You can see through the chair fabric with the flash of the camera. On stage, however, it's fine.

Then I needed to find out how to create realistic-looking pizza. I ended up creating one out of fleece:


The last thing was to create some type of trays with wine glasses on them. I went an extra step and put cellophane inside the glasses to create the look of actually having liquid in them. The trays were made out of cardboard boxes and painted black, trimmed in black ribbon, and I even had an elastic band on the bottom for the girls to slip their hands through so they could balance them and dance at the same time. :) You can't see the "filled" look in this picture, but against stage lights, it's a different look!



All of these things were made for the song "That's Amore".

My daughter is also dancing to "Pink Panther" and they're wearing black jazz pants, a pink/white/black shirt, and fedora hats. The hats were a bit boring, so taking the inspiration from the ties on the shirt, I created a hat band and then created a flower using the colors from the shirt out of fabric. I went crazy on the flowers. Never did this before, but it was fun and I thought it came out really cute! :)


That's how I've been spending my time lately!
So what I've learned lately??? You can get carried away with what starts out as ONE small project! I ended up doing almost the entire production! Crazy me!