Return of the Value Girls

About twelve years ago, I was in the Young Women's Presidency in the ward I was living in and for a brief period I was the Personal Progress adviser.  While I was the Personal Progress adviser, I had the inspiration to make what I called "Value Girls".  I did a blog post about them a couple of years ago.  Basically they were paper dolls that I came up with to represent each value.  I loved the idea of the value girls, but the idea of paper dolls didn't translate over very well, at least how I envisioned it.  So, for the past twelve years, I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head.  I've wanted to turn them into dolls, but I'm not that creative. 

Firebolt and I worked on Personal Progress together.  Her to earn her Young Womanhood Medallion and me to re-earn mine.  Again, the value girls came to my mind.  I wanted to figure a way to bring my vision to life and use it for one of my 10 hour projects.  Then it hit me, make them out of felt. 

It took A LOT of work to pull it off, but I'm really happy with the end result.  I had to enlarge the dolls to be able to get the detail into the outfits that I wanted.  I decided to take it one step further than just doing value girls.  Meow-meow kept asking what I was making so I decided to make some "value boys" for him to play with. 

Well, I got the dolls made, passed off my 10 hour project, and received my Young Womanhood Medallion.  But now I had all of these really cool dolls and their outfits just sitting there and me wondering what I was going to do with them.  Then it hit me, make a quiet book.......

I finished it last night.  Here is my end result.

September 2017

Whelp, here we are, the final chapter in the 2017 year in review, September.  September is MY month.  So, without further ado, here is the September happenings.

Family night shenanigans in the back yard.

looking a hot mess after doing yard work

I found some interesting rocks out in the yard.  Not sure if they were there before we bought the house or if they were rocks that we brought with us and the kids just put them in weird places.  Either way, I'm curious to cut them and see what's inside.

There was football games.  Sadly we had a really crappy football season.  But I did get some cool pics even though we lost the games.

I turned 44.  I tell people that I'm old enough to know better but young enough to not care.  I figured that if I had to turn 44, I was going to blow out 44 candles.

YC's birthday is the day after mine.  He's 17 now!!  He's growing up way too fast!!

Birthday buddies

My visiting teachers gave me an awesome birthday present

More football.  I'm hoping that this coming season will be better.  It was a bit chilly outside so I didn't think to put on sunblock.  BIG mistake.  If we had won, the sunburn would have been worth it.  Sigh.
But again, despite the loss, I got some good pics.

Meow-meow being hilarious.
Playing in my mermaid blanket

 Playing hide-and-go-seek....

We went to Comic-Con

Nathan took the two youngest girls to a daddy/daughter fund raiser.

Firebolt and her friend wore pretty much the same outfit to school, and no, it was not planned.

And finally, the cats.

Well, that's all she wrote, the fat lady has sung, then end has come.  Until next year.  I hope everyone has a great 2018