What I love about summer is the absence of schedules. And long days outside doing whatever you want to do. Obviously, so do my kids. How about waking up in the morning and deciding to put on a Halloween monkey costume three sizes too small? Here’s my Mia in full bed head with dirty feet, playing for hours with her dolls and ponies …
Summer is in full swing!
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
Oh Meg, this looks like my backyard scene 26 years ago!! My little Jessica, with her blond curly hair, and her sister, with wavy strawberry red/blonde hair, would play for hours outside with their My Little Pony and Breyer horses. There were “farms” created and “mudpie pie” mashes from the backyard dirt too. And I believe I see a little yellow dinosaur??? Yep, there were always a few favorite dinosaurs in the mix at our house as well. We also had a large tyrannosaurus rex and alligator that used to wear the doll clothes as my girls preferred them to the actual doll. Instead of a monkey outfit, Jessica used to dress up regularly in my old ballet recital tutu which she claimed one Halloween and wore until the tulle fell apart!
One word of caution: This led, I believe, to a serious many year onset of “Horse Fever” in both girls requiring us to trade up Breyers for a large pony and a horse. Then, instead of hours of backyard play, there were hours of barn life with their friends. We live in town so this meant lots of driving back and forth and carpooling for years. We were never so happy as to buy Kelley a truck when she turned 16 so she could tote herself and sister out to the barn, haul hay, feed, and tack! So add truck to the list of expenses. But, it is all good and they learned a lot about animals and had many a night sleeping in the pastures with friends under the stars resting their head on their horses neck! Oh, and that comes with the ownership too: overnights mean hauling your pony or horse over to the friends house for a sleepover and endless hours trail riding and bareback riding. And be prepared for Santa to make visits to these 4 legged friends as well and leave stockings bulging with goodies! Just sayin’.
Enjoy your carefree summer days!!
Oh Winnie, I love these images of your years past! Trex and alligators should most certainly be in doll clothes and sleepovers with four-legged friends does sound like true-blue farmgirls. Ah, the adventures of little girls. 🙂
When I was Mia’s age, in the mid 50’s, I hated dolls but loved stuffed animals, which I dressed in all my doll’s clothes. And I also dressed our real live animals in doll and baby clothes also. Even my, gulp, pet alligator, the “greatest gift of all” from my crazy Uncle Loren. He was also the one to give me hand tooled red cowboy boots, very rare indeed in rural southern Maryland. The alligator was actually mailed from Florida, and my mother was furious. It got really tame and I actually could play with it like a doll if I gently rubbed it belly until it got sleepy. Needless to say , one day the alligator ” disappeared”. I don’t know what my parents actually did with him, but they were kind to animals, so my guess is he was let go in a nearby pond or stream. Lord knows ,he’s probably some 25 foot giant now. ( they do live kinda forever)
It must be a farmgirl thing to dress an alligator in doll attire. I would not be too keen on a pet alligator either. Maybe I’ll get Mia the stuffed kind. I love that the gator mysteriously disappeared.
Oh Meg! Thank you for totally making my day! Mia is just too precious 🙂 I am so glad that you snapped this photo of her. The photo reminds me of a picture my parents took of my little brother brushing his teeth in his Yogi Bear costume 🙂
Thanks for sharing Winnie 🙂 I loved reading about Jessica and her sister.
Something about Halloween costumes, they never do grow old. 🙂
And that’s what summer should be all about!
This is beautiful! And as it should be for children in the summer!
Ah, I remember those days-not a care in the world:)