Hello My Name is...

Whew...I am back! Thanks to my sweet husband, he was able to save all the pictures, and everything up and running. Yea!


A few weeks ago, I was asked to sew a bunch of parts for sock monkeys. There is a summer camp for young women in our church, and this is a craft activity that they are going to do. All I needed to do was to cut and sew the parts, so they can stuff and put them together. The person asked me to do this got the idea from Sock & Glove there are a very easy to follow instructions in the book.

Near the end of it, I was getting very fast at sewing them. Then, I remembered the socks I bought a while ago were intended to make Rachel's leg warmers. I decided to make a sock monkey for her instead.

Since this monkey is for her, I thought it would be a good idea to include her in some of the decision making.

For example, I asked her what kind of eyes we should give the monkey, and we went through my button case. Here are my picks...




Cute, but predictable right? Here are the Rachel's picks...




Cute and unpredictable. The combination of different shapes and it is hard for you to tell by these pictures, but the red and aqua colored buttons are SO HUGE, that they would cover half the face of the monkey. She will look like an alien.

Every time she found new buttons for the eyes, she would hold them up to the monkey's face and laugh real hard. The laugh was so contagious that I started laughing too! I quickly realized that she was enjoying this but not serious about picking the eyes to give the monkey a pretty face.

So I said (imagine that I am using my "nice voice" and acting that I just discovered something amazing) "oh, look, there are these buttons that are perfect for her!" and picked the eyes and sewed them on.

Then, I was going back and forth about what to do with the nose. No nose? or this and that, there were a few options but I couldn't decide.
I asked Rachel, "What about her nose?"

She exclaimed, "NO nose!” followed by a giggle.

So, I said "Oh, look, if I do this, she can breathe better!" and quickly sewed two lines for the nose. Luckily she liked it too.

At last, the monkey was complete, except her name. I was talking to myself (loudly), "hmm...what should I name her..."

Then Rachel said, "Chef Boyardee!!" (Yes, I feed my kids chef Boyardee sometimes, don't judge me...) she was laughing so hard, she almost fell off the couch.

I said, "No, I want a different name... (the pause is for giving her the opportunity to come up with a different name)"

Again, she said "Chef Boyardee! hahahah". She was just so fond of her brilliant idea of coming up with such a name; she didn't let it go.

We repeated the same conversation a more few times, then, my son Michael who was watching TV there had enough. He said, "How about Lulu or Lala."

Ha! I liked the sounds of it, so did Rachel.

So, her name is....



Thanks to Michael, she didn't end up with the name "Chef Boyardee".
Rachel was just so pleased that she was in the important decision making process (even though they weren't the final picks. :) ) She held Lulu in her arms and went to play.