Treasures

Yesterday, I started getting the place cleaned up and back in order. I was cleaning out Tess’s closet as it had stuff in it that had been stored there for a long time. I found a small trunk in there that used to be Katie’s — I think it somehow got stuck in there when she moved out in June. Anyway, it was full of old doll clothes. The second trunk of doll clothes we have found in the past couple of years. So, I took it to Bethany and she was immediately in the trunk going through everything. It was a treasure chest to her and she spent several hours looking at all the clothes, trying them on her dolls and figuring out which things needed to be washed.

All of her dolls were pulled off the daybed in her room as I had to take the mattress to use for another bed until we could get a new one. They were in a pile on her floor — actually, this is not all of the dolls as some are in cradles. But, there sure were a lot of dolls on the floor and many of them needed to be dressed. Of course, Bethany was happy to dress every one of them in some new clothes from the trunk.

Some of the dolls are actually Sarah’s or Caroline’s, but Bethany wanted to dress all of them or change their clothes so they could have something new on — new to the dolls, of course. Not really new.

I love it when my children are so involved and happy in their play. I watched her all afternoon, play and dress and go through all the things in the trunk with such joy. Funny how something so old and so small can make a child so happy.

She actually found an old doll dress that had belonged to me when I was young, and I had given it to my older kids. Can’t believe it is still around.

She dressed, Emma, in a new outfit that she found. Emma has been a favorite doll of Bethany’s for a long time.

We also found a couple of dolls of Abigail’s in the top of the closet that she stored there. Bethany really liked this doll.  It was one of Abigail’s favorites.