THE PENNSGATE KIDS

I'm changing things up a bit.  My blog (random thoughts and such) has moved to:
http://barbsagthoughts.blogspot.com/

This blog will be devoted to the kids who live in Pennsgate Pennsylvania, a medium sized, semi-rural, town outside of Philadelphia.  Bree, Luke, Billy, Inga and Jacob all look forward to telling you about their lives, interests and families.

Christmas is so cool!  You'al know I want to be a pilot like my great-great Grandma...well Aunt Terrie found me a flight jacket just like the WASPs wore.  Plus I got a Snoopy Flying Ace toy.  Gotta go, I'm gonna kick Luke's butt in Battleship.

Sinterklaas found us!  Momma and Poppa said he would but America is so far from home I worried he would forget us.  My favorite gift is my polar bear sweater from Aunt Lisa.

Billy is soooo wrong if he thinks he can beat me at battleship!  My favorite gift actually lasted the whole month - the Lego Advent calendar...Yoda Santa is awesome!

I miss my Mom, this is my first Christmas without her.  At least Sasha is home on leave.  She heard that Mrs. Mac was teaching me to sew so she bought me my own sewing machine.  Daddy bought me Kirsten, maybe I can learn to make some clothes for her.

I don't understand.  Everyone says Trouble is the perfect game for me.  I hate learning English!!!  I want to go home...

Aw, Jacob, we didn't know you were so unhappy.  Lets grab some gingersnaps and take our puppies for a walk...

Sorry Mr. Lucas

A long time ago in a dolliverse far, far away...

DARTH WALLET

EPISODE ONE

A NEW PET

Luke really wanted an iguana and since his birthday is next week I picked one up for him yesterday.  John and my dear friends at AGPT helped Luke name him so without further ado let me formally introduce Darth Wallet....

Gotta love everyone's sense of humor...

And just because Luke is so cute:

  

New Guy in Town

There's someone living in Pennsgate that you haven't met yet.  This is Lucius Ian MacKenzie, better known as Luke.  He's very excited because his birthday is right around the corner (August 25th).  His best friend is a Husky puppy named Chusku ( a Lenape word for "he wades through the water") but called Chewie for short.  Luke lives with his grandparents in a log cabin home that they built back in the seventies.

Luke loves playing in the woods around Pennsgate.  If he's not playing out-of-doors, he's reading outdoor adventures.  Scott, Luke's grandfather, often takes him fishing.  As a member of the Pennsgate Webelos Pack Luke has a lot of opportunities to learn and practice all sorts of outdoor skills.  He's also shaping up to be a pretty good soccer player on the local youth team.

When Luke plays indoors he really enjoys Legos and has started on the Master Builder Academy program.  He's also a wiz at Lego Indiana Jones on his PS3.  Amy, Luke's grandmother, is teaching him to cook and bake - he likes that because he gets to eat what he makes!

School is also fun for Luke.  Sometimes he gets lonely without any brothers or sisters so he enjoys hanging with his buddies during recess.  He does well in his classes but, of course, he would rather be outside.

         

Sheeeeeeeeeee's Back

Honest, I didn't fall off the face of the earth; I just didn't have the gumption to post anything.  If it's not happy I really don't want to write about it.

Anyway, Terrie recently made me aware of a little girl who really deserved a Josefina doll.  (For the non-AG readers, that's a little girl living in 1824 in what is now New Mexico.)  I had recently shuffled my collection and needed to find a home for my Josefina.  Kismet!

Here's Keersten's blog about Megan opening Josefina.  This is really one to smile about.

http://www.leapintoart.com/

Commodore 64 ???

Okay, I'm more than old, I'm past old...

CBS news this morning told me that the Commodore 64 is being resurrected with new guts in the old style case...

I taught myself BASIC computer language on my Commodore 64 and wrote my first 'real' program (a Yatzee rip-off) on the same machine in the early 1980s.

I used that computer to track the training of my Air Force unit when the military didn't have desk top units...

I'm more than old, I'm past old...

Bald Eagles

John and I have been watching the live feed of the Bald Eagle nest provided by the Raptor Resource Project:

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/decorah_eagle_xcel.html&medium=3064708

We were lucky enough to watch the third eaglet hatch on the live stream last night.  (The first two we only saw by watching the re-cap videos.)  As I've mentioned before I was very active at our local nature center (ended up being my first 'real' job) back in the 70's but these days I can't get around like I used to so watching a live feed like this is really special to me.

Bald Eagles were once so common in my area (Southeastern PA) that they were hunted as pests.  The only way I saw a Bald Eagle was by looking at mounted specimens or films of them out west.  Then in 1973 or 1974, a pair nested near the nature center.  It was an exciting time, but one we couldn't share for fear of the nest being disturbed.  Now I can sit in the comfort of my own home and watch life in the nest as it happens.

What a great time to be alive!

Spring Fashions

I'm a terrible doll mom...until yesterday my kids where still wearing their warm fall clothes.  Since this winter never wanted to end I felt justified. (Really I was just lazy!)  Last week I got my latest order from Terrie at All Dolled Up and the weather has finally turned more seasonable so the kids are now ready for spring.

Some of you know that my original three girls are Abby, Bree and Connie, known as the 'ABC Club'.  They wanted a way to show off their club so "Aunt Terrie' sewed them sleeveless hoodies:

Each hoodie has the girls initial embroidered in her signature color with top stitching to match.  Connie loves that the hoodie has real pockets because she can tuck her toy bunny in there and still have her hands free for whatever the girls get up to.

In addition to the monogrammed initial, each jacket also has 'ABC Club' embroidered on the back, again in each girls signature color:

That's Bree wearing her hoodie and a cozy flannel shirt that Terrie also stitched up for her.

My Minerva loves basketball and soccer and dreams one day of playing for her High School team, the Pennsgate Bucks.  Today she's going to help Jacob work on his lay-up shot (his sweat suit is from another source, not Terrie):

Since she is only nine, the official school letterman jacket doesn't come in her size so Aunt Terrie made her one just like the big kids wear.

She even included the embroidered Bucks emblem on the back:

...and a close-up:

Minerva is my custom mini-me (Elizabeth with 41's wig) so she loves to hang out at the local Nature Center and participate in their Ranger Rick club:

In addition to raccoons, Minerva loves to watch the dragonflies at the Nature Center's pond so Aunt Terrie added this wonderful embroidery to the back of the jacket:

Not to be outdone, Inga is also ready for Spring in her 'Sunday Best' dress.  This is Terrie's interpretation of an actual dress from the 1840s.  My photography really does not do this dress justice:

BTW, Inga is the other half of the custom - she is a #41 with Elizabeth's wig.

Here are some images of the original antique dress:

You can see more at A Victorian Elegance:   http://www.victorianelegance.com/1800.html


I wanted to show Jacob in the neat 1840s clothes that Terrie made for him but he stayed out shooting hoops.