Chickens!!!

Mom and Camille were dying to have chickens. Mom did a ton of research; I did none. Pretty much all I knew about chickens was that they laid eggs. We bought our chicks from D and B. I had picked out what kind of chick I wanted ahead of time; a barred rock.
We all named our chickens ahead of time (characters from our favorite books) and picked out what kind we wanted. From left to right: Chevrolet, Pigwidgeon, Fabrizia, and Madame Eanesco.

In this picture, we had had them for several weeks. Here is one of when we first got them:

They were just little balls of fluff! Here is the awesome chicken tractor Daddy made for them, complete with a chicken waterer:

Cross Stitch Bookmark

For Easter, I received a cross stitch bookmark kit; it contained lots of cross stitch fabric, tons of unsorted thread (yikes!), and instructions for 12 different flowers-of-the-month.  First, I had to sort all the thread; I counted over 40 colors! I started with April's flower, the Sweet Pea. My good friend, Emily, was in the hospital for some surgery. Her birthday was towards the end of month, so I thought I had plenty of time. It turns out, after working on the bookmark everyday and listening to terrible audios, it took three weeks! I still can not believe it took that long! Instead of stitching "April" across the top, I stitched Emily's name.

Hailey's Dress

For Hailey's birthday, I wanted to make her a dress for her doll. After finding some inspiration from a doll dress store on Ebay, I decided I wanted to make a party dress out of some sort of leftover silk. I used the navy silk that I used to my Regency ball dress and planned out how I wanted to do it. I reallly wanted to make it close fitting, but none of the patterns that we have are very good at making sure they fit just right. So with this dress, I tried it on the doll lots of times and pinned it together on her.
I got it to fit pretty well by making darts in the front, but it really makes the doll has a big bust. Definitely won't do it that way again....
By the time I was almost finished, I realized that I pulled in the front too much and didn't have room for velcro in the back; the back edges just touched. So I made a lace up back and hand-sewed all the eyelets. I also made a cute flower with the hot glue gun.

Chocolate Bar

Almost right after we got Barbie, we knew we needed to get another horse; the several pasture pals that we tried just weren't working out. We went back to J and K Farms and re-fell in love with Chocolate. Mom wanted to get Chocolate from the start, but I new that I couldn't afford her. Grandma Pat stepped in and said that she would pay for her if I could afford to keep another horse. By taking several more students, I figured that I could.
We really love Chocolate and her and Barbie get along perfectly without any problem. Chocolate was overweight, but is much better now after dieting and exercise.
When we got her, she hated lunging and tried very hard to get out of trotting. Now that she has lost weight, I think she actually likes it. She always comes right up and stands still while you put the halter on. She used to toss her head, but doesn't mind at all now. She also is way easier to handle when lunging, and doesn't refuse when you ask her to go faster.