Another Lonely Doll

Fisher Price My Friend Mandy as Edith the Lonely Doll

A lovely letter arrived yesterday from the IRS--always exactly who you want to hear from! So, I spent the better part of two days documenting our adoption costs, translating sheaves of Chinese receipts, converting RMB to US dollars. I GUESS you can call that writing! We also stopped by the court house today to "re-adopt" our son so he can have a birth certificate here in America, instead of having to order it from China whenever he needs a copy. The records office is a happy place for us; we are always happy to add a new family member. Just trying to talk the husband into one more baby girl...

I did have a little time to straighten up our bedroom, now doing triple duty as my office and studio as well, since we couldn't sell our house. Our oldest is now living in my old office because our house is too small. I'm a messy worker, so our room gets REALLY messy. My husband has been incredibly tolerant, but after a while it gets so I can't work in there at all. I also started on a new My Friend Mandy redo.

I may have mentioned this before in my blog, but about a year ago I bought a box of distressed Mandy dolls and have been happy redoing them for about a year now. I have mostly stuck to storybook themes, though I did do one as Shirley Temple. They have been popular enough that people sometimes email me requests! So, the current Mandy is really messed up. She has holes in her body cloth and her hair needs to be replaced. This is exciting to someone like me, since I can change her hair color if I want. What will I do? I think I've picked a story!

One of my past Mandy makeovers involved my favorite theme. You guessed it: The Lonely Doll! Mandy made a great Edith and purchased and vintage bears served as her family well. She was dispatched to a young girl's birthday party, along with the stories, and I sincerely hope she is enjoying them as much as I would have as a girl.

So, keep looking for future Mandy makeovers. Let's hope the IRS has everything they need now so we can get our tax credit!