GrandGirls Sleepover/Dressup and Visit to Great-Grandma

Shane's girls got together with cousin Taylee for some fun. After the grownups played games, the girls ended up having a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Cooper and Colton were invited too ... see what fun they missed! Dress-up and beauty shop! Here's an excerpt from Mom's email ...

Shane and Alicia came for dinner about 4:30, picking up Taylee on the way. We had salmon, rice-a-roni, jello with fresh strawberries, and rolls. Amy sent brownies and we had ice cream. We played a few hands of progressive rummy and then they left and the 3 girls stayed for a sleepover since there was no school today.

I just had my morning water aerobics and the girls are playing dress-up and doing art and craft projects. They didn't bring their snow gear or they would probably go out and play in the snow---but it is quite chilly. Rella is dressed up in a 50's "poodle skirt" and tells me her name is "Princess Watermelon." Taylee and Grandpa are making a car out of a cardboard box and drilling holes for the wheels to attach. We are going to play "beauty shop" doing the girls' hair. They asked if they got to do makeup too!

 Merrill and Lorrie are in St. George this weekend, so can't visit Mother, wanting us to pick up the slack. They go on Sundays. They left a message on our answering machine. We couldn't go yesterday, but will probably go tomorrow instead of Thurs. Or I got the idea during swimming that we could go today and take the girls for a visit and then Amy or whoever is picking them up wouldn't have to come as far---just a thought--I haven't run it by LaMar yet.

Well, you can see by the photos below that Mom's idea worked out ...

Too bad there aren't more pictures from the "beauty shop" playtime ... 

especially if makeup was involved!

What is the high score in that Scrabble game? Who won?

Uncle Dunk - Super Styles!

It was Easter 2010. Grandpa Norman (Rex) had been going through things in the house, cleaning out things and getting rid of stuff. There was this box of clothes, and Mom/Margie had Derek look through it to see if there was anything he might like before they were taken to D.I.  Derek tried some things on, a little family fashion show. That IS quite the jacket! Were there matching pants? Derek didn't keep anything, but I'm sure someone will consider it quite the find in the future.

Grandpa Norman was there at the Easter party - and little did we know that just 25 days later he would pass away.

Cousins, Costumes and Cookies

 

After Landon was born and Jen was a stay-at-home mom, she started sewing. A lot. So when Halloween rolled around, she made a little Pooh costume for Landon. Then she made another. And a Piglet costume too. Cute cousins dressed up. Lyssa and Landon as the Pooh Bears. Both Kellen and Janika tried on the Piglet costume. Landon wore his Pooh for Halloween, not sure if the cousins did, or if it was just dressing up at the time. The cousins looked "beary" cute though! It was Pooh x 2!

Scott and Amy's family also went out to Jen and Gray's house for some cookie decorating. 

SO MUCH candy ended up on those cookies!

Cousins, costumes and cookies ... Happy Halloween!

Twirly Girls

The Wonderful Westra Sisters! Wendy and Jenny were marching in parades in 1978 and 1979, dressed in these tiny, sparkly red costumes, and twirling a baton. Really, it was all in the wrist, we never even attempted a spin with fingers. It was more about the marching. A red bow on the back of the head, or a sparkly headband with a feather ... in the "winter" costume, note the white earmuffs and the red pom-pom on the shoes too.

The leader of this incredible group was our neighbor across the street from our Hermitage House. You can see the group really varied in age (and height).  We marched in several parades and participated in competitions and I'm sure Scott, Chris and Shane just loved coming to watch!

Here's some of Wendy's memories from her journal ...

• December 1978: My name is Wendy Westra. I am 10 years old. I take piano lessons and baton lessons... My sister, Jenny is 8 years old. Me and my sister made up a routine in baton lessons, We did it to "It's a Small World." Our teachers thought it was cute!
• February 1979: For baton I did a routine to "Music Machine." It was my favorite record but the record melted and I was really worried because we needed to listen to it to do the routine because it was my best one and there would be trophies and prizes! Now I will have to borrow our neighbors. 
• July 3, 1979: We went to swimming lessons and to primary and then we took a shower and ate lunch and started getting ready for the Children’s Parade in Provo. We ate there and saw Cannonball and Harvey and we won second place out of the teams like drill, baton, pom poms, etc. (Last year we won first). We goofed up but the judges thought we were cute both years, but everything turned out pretty good.
• July 4, 1979: It’s the 4th of July. We were in a parade at Murray in the morning. Mom and Dad, Chris, Scott, and Shane came and watched us. There were lots of horses and I’m glad we weren’t after them because they went to the bathroom all over! There were people dressed up like Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.
• July 18, 1979: We had a slumber party at Shauneen’s house for baton. We slept outside and everyone brought a treat. We played games and had a lot of fun. They have a trampoline that we played on. I didn’t fall asleep till 12:30.

There was even some video footage uncovered!

https://youtu.be/tIAgBv18dtU

**FLASH FORWARD TO THE FUTURE

In 2012, Mom/Margie uncovered the little red baton outfits in storage. 

She passed them on to Wendy, and the Jensen girls tried them on and had a little photoshoot. 

Janelle, Jaiden and Jenna

Wendy wrote "One thing I remember (probably a few days before the parade) is Shauneen Hadley telling all of us to wash our hair really well the night before the parade so that it would shine! Then she told us that after we washed it -- wash it again! I thought that was funny that we had to wash our hair not only once -- but twice -- to make it shine!"

That reminded Mom/Margie of a memory ... "Talking about washing your hair twice brought back memories of how my mother always shampooed us once, and rinsed, then shampooed a second time, then rinsed. Then she rinsed our hair either with lemon water or vinegar water. The way she would curl our hair when we were little is with little strips of rags. She would roll a strip of hair up with the small strip of rag, then tie the rag to hold the curl in place. She would do this overnight and take the rags out in the morning----and voila, curly hair." 

Maybe Wendy and Jen should resume a routine and perform it at a family function! *Ü*