ta dah!

This is gonna be a long one....

But it's packed w/ cuteness so it should be worth it. :o)

First off, as if the girls didn't have enough activites in their schedules, we've added soccer! Arissa & Mallory started 2 weeks ago, and Mariah starts next week (because until now her Girl Scout meeting conflicted w/ the practice time). They love it! Arissa comes home and her face is so red it looks like she's majorly sunburnt! There's several boys on her team and she gives them a run for their money.

Mallory prefers to socialize, but she has fun too:

Last Sunday the girls performed at the Del Mar Fair!

I thought this was Arissa when I uploaded it, but then I realized it's not :o)

But this is:

And then Wednesday was the end-of-year Drill Team Banquet. Last year, it was a potluck (boo). This year, it was at Souplantation (yea!!)!

In my habit of procrastinating, I had to rush and make thank u gifts at the last minute.

For the parents that drove Arissa around during the year, and helped her backstage when I was busy w/ Mallory & Mariah, we took this:

Wrapped it up and made it this:

For one of the older girls who helped Arissa learn routines during the year, we made this:

They're my go-to quick-and-easy gift to make...flower pens.

And then, the piece de resistance....

Jesse worked all night on it, hence this on our kitchen table:

he slept on the floor by the computer so that every 30 minutes during the night he could stick another dvd in our burner so we could end up with these:

DVDs of a little movie/montage that Jesse & I put together (I uploaded it, see the end of the post)

The front:

The back:

And then....forgive me if I'm over-excited about this. But I worked on this next one for over a month. I've had it done since the beginning of the year, saving it for this occasion.

This was the Howard Family gift to Sherry, the dance instructor:

I took this:

And turned it

into

this:

A knitted Sherry's Gotta Dance Drill Team doll.

I used the photo as a guide and tried to replicate every detail (and there were a LOT of details)....

from the neck bow...

to the purple heart-shaped earrings & jacket buttons....

to the required "high pony tail" and "curled" hair (I had to find a crimped yarn to mimic the curls)....

to the identical hair fluffy....

to (and this is my favorite part) the logo on the back of the jackets:

("Gotta Dance")

Isn't she cute???

She was quite the hit at the banquet! I was so happy everyone loved her so much....and also a little embarrassed because I don't like attention being drawn to me.

Here was her entrance into the world:

So that was that. My doll was a success....the food was delicious....oh yeah and Arissa won a bunch of awards. :o) Certificates, medals, pins, flowers, trophies, and gifts from all the other girls. A photo-keychain, a tote bag w/ a picture of the team on it, a shirt, cards, pictures from throughout the year, and more. She felt like quite the movie-star. :o)