Oh.My.Goodness.

I really suck at keeping up the blog.  So.  Let's start with the most pressing piece of information that has happened in July. 

I GOT A JOB!!  YIPEE!  Not that I didn't love love love spending time with Miss SassyPants, but I'm much better as a working mom.  For some reason, I'm just way more efficient with a forty hour a week job added to my plate.  The problem I faced staying at home was that the days I spent accomplishing my list of ToDos- A was left to watch TV and color and pretty much just hang out so I felt miserable guilty for not stimulating her better.  And then the days that I devoted the day to Addy- I felt horribly guilty for not being able to keep up with the normal day to day things.  It was weird.  I had soo much time on my hands, but I didn't know how to use it efficiently.  The time I got to spend with Addy is so precious to me.  Losing that job I hated and that company I won't name was the best thing to ever happen to me this year.

And now I have a great job with a fabulous growing company doing something I love.  Life is good. 

Now if I can just get the blogging down.  :)  Next up:  Hubs' birthday bash and our trip to the beach!!

We've had a great summer.

Fourth of July!

Finally! A got a chance to celebrate the fourth of July!  Last year she was very sick with a virus- which was really not fun at all.  This year- we decided to stay local and take it easy.  I felt that she needed a festive July 4th outfit and had some cool fabric given to me by my neighbor so I made her this:

This is what I get for sticking the camera in her face.   You have to be sneaky when getting pics with this one.

Okay much better.  

First tailgate experience!  I think she liked it.

And now for her very first fireworks show!!!  I was way more excited than she was...

As you can tell by the look of disgust on her face....

Here is how the conversation went:

Me:  OOOOOOHHH look at the fireworks!!!!!  DO you like the FIREWORKS??!!!!

A:  NOoooo.  Want go night night!!

Hm.  The ONE time my kid wants to actually go to bed.

Oh well. At least I had fun.

I made the outfit using a combo of a pillowcase dress pattern and a shorts pattern.  Then I just shirred the bottom of the shorts to create the bloomer effect. 

Hope everyone had a happy 4th!

Summer means...

SHORTS! 

I decided to try and make A something besides a dress and settled on shorts.  Of course, the normal sewing novice would research patterns and follow some sort of direction...not me.   Nope.  I have to do things the hard way.  I took a pair of A's shorts that fit and traced around the pattern. 

My first attempt:
I love this fabric...but not sure what's going on with the crotch...

Um.  Yeah.  Not the fit I'm looking for and those teeny tiny ruffles?  TEDIOUS and may cause random acts of cussing.   But overall a meh sewing performance, and are great night night shorts.

Attempt Two:

Let's just take a moment to appreciate what an ADORABLE and hilarious kid I have.  .......
Okay the shorts.  Attempt two was much better, but the crotch was still weird and the back wasn't high enough to cover her diaper butt.  A toddler in low riders is not high fashion in my humble opinion.  And diapers don't come in low rider cut.  So we need to try again. 

Finally.  I came to my senses and googled a tutorial.  WHAT I was thinking by trying to do it on my own is anybody's guess.  So I found this tutorial at Crafterhours.blogspot.com and went to work. 

Attempt three:

Ahahahaha getting better!  You can see from the huge cheese grin on A's face that she likes her flower shorts.  She is obsessed with flowers so these were kind of special to her.  Please ignore the huge ski foot in the picture.  It's not mine.  I have sweet perfectly pedicured dainty feet I swear.  The back of these were still a little short because I didn't follow directions exactly and forgot to make the back crotch longer.  So onto attempt four.  Good thing I have a lot of time on my hands.


And I decided to make a full summer outfit!

 Walmart had this fabric on sale for really cheeeeap.  The top half was green with frogs, bugs, and rainbows, and the bottom half was the blue plaid.  I used this tutorial for the top and then made some shorts with drawstrings to keep them from falling down.  For some reason when I'm using elastic thread it isn't as elasticy as I thought it would be so the drawstring is helpful.

She wore this outfit to school today!  She loves the frogs and bugs.  I can't stop LOLing at her cheese grin.  So funny. 

So that's the end of my experience with shorts sewing.  Finally I feel confident to whip up a pair quickly if needed.  I know I could always go to Target or WalMart and buy shorts for the cost of making them, but what fun would that be?