We Interrupt Christmas...

...to bring you Thomas Paine!  I have been gone so long that I don't even remember my last few posts, but I think I mentioned that I received a lovely phone call one afternoon. Always love to hear a "little person's" voice at the end of the line. This particular call came from Harrison. He was calling to tell me he was doing a "wax museum" project at school and his particular historical person was Thomas Paine. A large part of the project was that he needed a costume and was calling to ask for my help!

I LOVE the fact that the kids (and their parents) come to me often when something like this comes up. Their motto is "give it to Nana. Nana can fix...or make...anything!" That always makes me feel so good but also puts a lot of pressure on these old shoulders as I NEVER want to let anyone down.

So, the very next day, I was picking the kids up from school any way so, after our usual stop at the yogurt shop, Harrison and I hit the Internet to decide just what he should look like. Then, we looked through the pattern books to see if we could find any pattern that I could Jerry-rig to look like Thomas Paine. We had a few ideas and I let daughter #3 know and we kind of decided to meet at JoAnns as soon as she could. Well, life seems to always get in the way of my "best laid plans" and we fast forward to early on a Sunday morning-when the project was due the next day- and I am having conniptions. You probably know by now that I am a "yesterday" girl. My brain was racing. I only knew for sure that I could start on the ruffled bib and cuffs so start I did while waiting to hear when we could meet and get to a store for the rest of the outfit. I did know that I had made Har knickers for an Irish gentleman outfit years ago but surely they wouldn't still fit. I finally hear from my daughter and she asks about a vest I had mentioned that I thought I had and says Har can use her brown blazer and that they were coming over to see what it looked like all put together.

And, it probably would have been fine...but, not on Nana's watch. All of a sudden, I had one of my RARE "aha" moments and ran to my costume Rubbermaids. I just knew that somewhere in there I must have something we could use. And, ahhhh, I spy my Mary Poppins brown, long coat just as they pull into the driveway. And then, I find the camel colored corduroy vest with gold buttons that I made as a gift for my hubby when we were first married and I knew we could do Thomas Paine. Har fit the coat perfectly...just had to cut off some length and re-hem. We pulled the vest real tight in the back, added the ruffles and cuffs and he slipped into those knickers from pre-school. All I can say is that I must have made them HUGE back then, because he could STILL get into them.

As we were mulling the shoes-knew we were going to add long white socks-and hair, visions of Olive Oyl popped into my head. I ran and got my OO army boots and we added a gold fun -foam buckle. Then for the hair, I grabbed my OO wig which was a bit worse for the wear but would serve the purpose if pulled back into a low pony tail and, voila, it could have been Thomas himself standing in front of us!

Yay! Once again, Nana to the rescue...and this should serve as just one more reminder why I hate to throw anything away...you never know when you just might need to be Thomas Paine...or anyone else. Love that I can do this for them!!

And now, we are home and back to reality. I am having a bit of a rough re-entry but I have big plans for today so we shall see. I have so much of our wonderful, relaxing vacation to share so I will be back. Stay tuned.