What a blessing they have! I would rather see parents buying tons of books and reading them to their kids then tons of toys. Books are way better and teaches them to grow up loving to read especially if they see parents reading books themselves and to them. I loved looking after little ones and I loved reading to them, haveing them snuggling beside you and looking at the pictures and loving what was being read to them. Going to the library and picking out books together and bringing them home. One little boy I looked after his mom and I had decided that he wouldn't get candy at grocery store, instead they had the Franklin books and so we bought those instead, one book at a time and which one should we get this time? He loved it tons and tons. One mom I worked for, I loved her idea at easter instead of huge amount of candy which isn't good she bought the wooden train tracks for her two boys and hid them just like you would the eggs or candy and they loved them. Christmas the same mom bought books and they had some really good books, well worth buying books. Keep it up and read tons to your kids and also yourselves too.

donna, have you googled for free doll clothing patterns? I found quite a few of them when I was sewing for Emerson. I found more for the larger dolls than the Wellies. You get a simple bodice, sleeve, tights, etc, and go from there. The hardest part was the shoes. I am tempted to buy a package of those pre cut soles and make a few. I tried winging if for the shoes and it was a hit or miss. I am tempted to buy one of the knock off dolls from WM or Target. I actually liked the ones from Target. Really, what does it ultimately matter? I do see that there is better articulation of the AG doll. And, the hair is better rooted. It really is a bit better made, but I wonder just how much it really matters. When I was a girl I remember playing with baby dolls up until about 8 years old or so. Then, the fashion dolls took us into a couple more years when we sewed for them. I don't even think that my grand daughter gets out her Wellie much. Perhaps if she had a friend to play with, but she doesn't. There is no kid culture on the street where they live and her parents. have not cultured a friendship with any of the kids she spends the day with at day care. I do see that the girls at day care will gravitate to the dolls that they have there while the boys are usually shoving something around or chasing each other. There is a camera and I can watch her and her little brother at day care. I am a bit confused by the nature of the AG dolls. On the one hand, they are not toddlers, yet they don't really seem much like young girls, either. There is something about the hair that puts them into an odd age relation. Still I can see that they are fun to sew for and so darned cute!!!! I am tempted to buy one just because it is fun to sew for them. I am a grandmother now and I still want to play with dolls! it is a lot easier to find something sew for a doll than for a real person. When I was sewing for the Wellie one thing that I found was so different from times past is that it is almost impossible to buy ribbon by the yard anymore. Used to be that you could go into the store and have them cut any length of various ribbons that you wanted. Now, you have to buy a reel of cheap quality ribbon when what you might want is one foot of three different ones. I ended up buying a bag of ribbons on Amazon. Much the same is true with the small trims. My local store is so badly kept and so badly stocked, so it may be better at some others. You see these lovely little creations that some have sewn for the dolls but finding those little embellishments is often difficult. Seriously, my local store has shelves that are falling down and merchandise that is spilling off of them, empty dislplays and shopping carts full of fabric bolts, buttons all over the floor and it is stacked to the ceiling with fleece. It really is awful. The corporation just does not invest enough in hired help to keep things running. There is no competition, so what does it matter? I think it matters in that it turns away customers who are just going to go online for what they want, not just fabric, but notions and crafty things as well.

Oh, I have more clothes than the three t-shirts left in the livingroom closet. The clothes in there were things I never wore anymore and kept hanging onto. I have a chiffarobe (sp?)that holds my daily clothes according to season. Like lynn, I'm getting ready to shift the summer clothes out of that and into storage(which there is never enough of); then put the winter things in. BUT - I also purged alot of my winter clothing so I get to buy all new! Good luck with that it's always hard for me to find clothes I like, but anyway. The cube idea is a good one. I'll remember that when I remodel the big closet.

I still have a set of "Word Books" left over from my children's school days and in regard to "outdated" information, I would disagree. I haven't surveyed a volume, but I think that at least 90% of the information in the book does not go out of date, nor is inaccurate. Since my set has been published, there has been considerable history that is missing. I have some history updates that was available in yearly update books. I stopped buying the updates after a few years. My set is over 30 years old, but we did not toss it out. While doing genealogy research, i still refer to these books on occasion. For example, while checking incidents that some of my ancestors were involved in, I found myself going to this encyclopedia to answer question of where was the battle of Cowpens and what was the outcome; Who was that guy called Baron DeKalb? I have two ancestors with that name. I was checking dates to see if those were possible matches to tentative family data. In the World Book, I discovered that Lafayette and George Washington bunked in the same house during a winter at Valley Forge. Stuff like this does not go out of date. A do admit it; I'm out of date. I do not have a smart phone. I'd love to have one. It would be nice to do internet searches for answers, but I could not bring myself to spend the monthly charges for the features I'd want. Instead, I get by with a simple cell phone at 10% the cost of smart phone charges. I have found there is a wealth of misinformation on the internet. It's convenient, but one must filter the data to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, I do envy those with smart phones. Those are much smaller than a set of encyclopedias.