Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time start thinking about the upcoming Christmas Holiday. My little Galloway family is traveling back East to good old New Jersey this year. I'm very excited. We are going to be recording my Dad's (Lenny Smith) next album while we are home. My Mom is kicking us all out of the house during the holidays (for good reason) so Daniel had to go rent some studio space elsewhere for two days. I'll be bringing home my uke for this recording and I think they are going to get Jon to play some keyboards. It's going to be a madhouse of people and instruments. Very exciting.
Another exciting event I am really looking forward to is that my sister Megan is giving birth to her first child! And it's a boy! The first grandson on the Smith side. After five girls we are finally getting a boy! After the New Year Jon is going to take Rosemary and Esther back to San Diego with him and I'm going to get to spend some good sister time with Megs in New York. I can't wait for that too.
So, the Christmas preparations continue. My girls are getting American Girl dolls for Christmas from their Grandma and 
Paka so I'm sewing their dolls a bunch of clothes. Why? Well, first of all, the American Doll clothes are really cool, but kind of pricey, and second, because I can! It's actually been really fun for me to make doll clothes--something a little different. You can find some great doll patterns out there and they are even starting to make historical doll clothes patterns. I won the Felicity doll pattern off of Ebay and there are a lot of patterns in there! I never understood the reasoning behind why the company would sell patterns that go with the dolls. They discontinued them, which is smart on their behalf, but I'm not complaining! And so the doll clothes sewing continues.....
Love, Rachel
PS- A wonderful Christmas idea for your crafty children: Go to Michael's or your local craft store and stock up on tons of little items: clothes pins, sparkles, glitter glue, pipe cleaners, yarn, etc. Throw them into an unfinished wood box (which the kids can later paint and decorate) and you have a cool, fun project with lots of play value and is nice to your pocketbook. For those of you who have tons of fabric, add chunks of fabric to the stash. Kids love to cut up fabric and paste it onto clothes pins to make little "dolls."