Dance Party and a dress

When it gets cold around here during the winter, we break out the trusted dance party to get our energy out.

I haven’t posted much about Bella lately.  I thought this video of Oliver dancing with her, shows her getting to do her favorite thing….spinning!

Bella has been having an off winter.  She is still non-verbal, and always will be, so trying to figure out exactly what is going on has been hard.  To those of you who are new, I thought I would write a quick explanation of Bella.

Bella was born with a chromosome abnormality affecting chromosome 11 and 13.  She is the only one that has this particular makeup that we know of.  Which means we don't have much information on what to expect.   She has extremely low tone all over her body.  Basically meaning anything that has a muscle acts like it is extremely weak.  So this affects being able to sit, move, eat, etc.  She is non-verbal, nor does she have the capacity to use sign language.  We are working on an adaptive form of communication, but we have no way of knowing how far behind she is mentally.  We can tell there is thought process up in that head of hers, it's just really hard to be able to prove it.  It seems that at nine years old, Bella is more like a 6-9 month old.

Our holiday party was postponed due to an impending ice storm back in January.  And can I just say that the whole ice storm just totally threw me off for more than a week.  As I mentioned it was supposed to be a huge ice storm and it had a possibility of hitting early Friday morning.  So they cancelled school on Friday, they cancelled the holiday party on Saturday evening, they even cancelled churches on Sunday.  The ice storm came early Sunday morning and it was minor.
I was supposed to have all the kids out of the house on that Friday so I could have a much needed catch up day.  Then Saturday we had babysitters (grandparents) lined up to come over so we could get out to a much needed time away, not to mention what should have been a good party. 
Instead all of the kids were home on Friday.  On Saturday we did not get out to our party, nor even out of the house for that matter.  On Sunday my husband had to work all day, so again I had the kids stuck inside the house.  On Monday it was a holiday from school AND AGAIN all the kids were home and stuck inside the house. 

I think it took more than the next week to get my sanity back.  Also, if I’m being honest here, my house still hasn’t recovered.  I just haven’t had to energy to pick up after the kids anymore.

My “real job” has picked up and I’ve been working enough hours that we have justified putting Gray in school.  Here she is going off to school for her first day.

She has really enjoyed going to school and the first week she did great.  This is her second week and she is a little more hesitant to leave, instead wanting to stay home with mom.  I think it’s been great for her to get to play with kids her own age.

Our holiday party did get rescheduled and occurred this past weekend.  Even with the three week extension on making the dress, I was still running behind and finished it up on Saturday with only hours to spare.

I may have sewn the bodice twice.  The first time I got the dress all finished, tried it on, and ….blaahh.  The top just wasn’t right.  So I took the bodice all apart and modified it to look a little less school marmish, but still keeping things covered up.

I meant to get pictures of us all dressed up.  The party location was at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.  Would have been a great spot for pictures.  Zero were taken.  I guess that just shows you we were having such a great time we forgot to take pictures.

In Progress

We got hit with a major "weather story" ice storm a couple weekends ago.  I say that because the ice storm was predicted but did not come to fruition, at least not as much as they claimed it would.  What it did do.  It canceled school and it also canceled our holiday party.  The holiday party has been rescheduled and I am still slowly working on my new dress.

The other new project we have been working on around here is our basement stairs.  And my we I mean my husband has been doing more of the working and I have been watching the kiddos and trying to keep them out of his way.

Here are the stairs as they currently stand.  All primed and ready to go.

Now the question is.....where to go from here.  I have a few ideas and my husband has an idea of his own.

My husband would like them to stay all white, matching the trim color, and then adding either a runner or carpet stair treads.  And if I can find the right runner for the right price....I'm on board.  But I also want to look at just painting the stairs.  Or you could paint the risers either in different colors or using some type of pattern.

So for now we sit with primed stairs, just waiting for a decision.

Happy Halloween

Oliver picked Batman this year for his costume....and the rest of us followed along.

I did make all five costumes this year.  It was a lot of work, but as I stated earlier, they look so much better when they resemble clothing versus store bought.  And the added bonus is you can wear them more...I do believe Oliver's costume will now be in rotation as pajamas!!

First up Bella had her costume parade and party at school.  Bella was Harley Quinn, and Batman caught her and sent her to jail.

Oliver a.k.a. Batman, had his school trunk or treat event on Thursday evening.  He actually had more fun playing with his friends and forgot to go around and trick or treat.

Gray had a small Halloween Party at her school on Friday, but she wasn't too excited about walking around in her costume.  She was excited about eating cupcakes, and even swiped one from the girls plate next to her.

And then of course Saturday was Halloween itself.  The whole family got dressed up in our costumes to go out and trick or treat.

Meet the "Batman Family"

Batman, his sidekick Robin, and the villains:  Harley Quinn, The Riddler, and Catwoman.

That evening The Riddler and Catwoman went out to enjoy some adult fun, which included watching the Kansas City Royals win.  It was a fun evening out with friends.  But man are we getting too old to stay out late!

Someone was told he had to wait until after Halloween to wear his siblings costumes.  He was so excited to be Robin after wearing his Batman costume for weeks ahead of time.  Doesn't matter that Robin's costume fit his one year old sister or includes a dress.

Happy Valentines Day

I received some pretty pink roses for Valentines this year.  We had sick kids at home, so I knew getting a babysitter was not going to be a choice.  I had received an email from our local grocery store who was running a special on a pre-cooked meal that looked pretty good.  I hinted around to my husband that might make a good choice to eat at home.  I was guessing he was wishing he could just stop by and pick up one of those heart shaped pizza’s at Papa Murphys instead.

But he surprised me and offered to make us dinner, he had even stopped off at the grocery store and bought all the ingredients needed.  I’m thinking this is the first time he has cooked us dinner, especially a 5 course meal.  I’m not saying he never cooks.  He normally grills, will make tacos, burgers, frozen pizza, etc.  He is the usual breakfast cooker.  But this is the first time, he put thought into a meal for the two of us. It turned out great and was very sweet of him!

For the kids this year I quickly sewed up some pajamas.  I was all about the practical gifts, they get enough candy at school.  And for some reason our kids can’t get enough pajamas.  I even have them wear their pjs two nights in a row, and it seems like there is never enough.  Maybe it’s because we are particular about their pajamas and have favorites…after those are dirty my husband usually starts putting them in mismatched sets.  I have never figured out what is so difficult about finding the shirt and pants that have coordinating prints!

Here are some snapshots of the kids opening up their valentines.

In the bottom left hand corner you can just catch a glimpse of Bella’s pajamas, they are bright and colorful.  Trying to get us out of the drab cold depressing winter blues!

Oliver put his pajamas on right away.  His fireman hat was actually bought really cheap after Halloween a couple years ago.  He has really been into fighting fires recently, and trying to put them out with pretend water.   Not too mention playing with the many different fire trucks he has.  So his fireman hat and pajamas were a fitting choice.

That was our valentine’s day/weekend.  Pretty relaxed and mostly spent indoors at home.

Thank you to my family….I love you all!!

Snow Week

Last week was a crazy week of snow, more snow, cold weather, and sickness, which all meant kids at home.  Add to that potty training – zoo style, which is what it felt like here last week, living in a zoo.  And finally a Kindergarten Musical.

I had a few plans for this week, being Valentine’s week and all.  But in all honesty I think I will be catching up on everything that got dropped last week.  We will see if I can sneak a few quick projects in.

I volunteered to help with my daughter’s Kindergarten Musical, which meant I sewed up three kimono’s for costumes.  This is were the purple silk dragon print came from.

 

The musical finally happened on Friday after being postponed due to the snow days. 

It was quite a production and they did a great job!

Olivia Pope-Scandal-Loungewear

Is anyone else obsessed with the show Scandal?  I just started watching it this summer and it’s my favorite show to watch while I’m on the elliptical.  It keeps me so entertained, I don’t realize how long or how hard I am going.

A lot of people follow the main character’s business attire, but I am very jealous of her loungewear.  It’s always silk and cashmere, and she is always drinking a glass of wine at night.

Now around my house I hardly get to drink a glass of wine at night.  In fact most days I go to sleep as soon as my kids go to bed.  Mainly because my children wake up at 5 in the morning.  So I usually get to wear my loungewear in the morning.  And most of my pajamas are pretty pathetic.  So I sewed myself a new pair.

My greatest pleasure is getting the time to drink my morning coffee and catch up on my blogs while the kids watch their morning cartoons.

My Olivia Pope Inspiration.

For the pajama set I bought this pattern recently.  Mainly because I loved the shirt with the lace, and the pattern itself was on sale for $1.

I used some black lace from a shirt I already owned and a very soft cotton jersey.  It’s super comfortable, but maybe a tad on the big side, I might have to take it in.  You can tell it’s the middle of winter….I am pale as can be.

The pants I made from a leftover silk I had bought for a different project.  You wouldn’t typically think of purple dragons as a pajama pant, but the fabric was so buttery soft and I had a couple yards extra, I just had to use it.  My only complaint about the pattern is that it called for 1/2” elastic at the waist.  I like wider elastic as I think it feels more comfortable.  I had already cut out my pattern before I noticed the elastic size.  I would have preferred 1” elastic, but I was able to get 3/4” to work.  Next time I will cut the fabric higher so I can fit in wider elastic.  Also make sure to measure you hips and use the pattern size that corresponds correctly.  When I measured my hips it said I needed to make a medium.  Which sounded about right.  When I saw in the parenthesis next to Medium that it was for a size (14-16) I thought that was crazy.  But in the end it was correct.  Not sure why patterns show larger sizes than the stores have (in the store I am a size 6-8).  I also added some length to the legs, to make sure I had enough room for my pants to hit the ground.

Just like Olivia, I love my pajama pants to puddle on the floor.  I can’t stand buying store bought pajamas and having them shrink up.  Which even for my 5’-4” frame tends to happen a lot.

It was an extremely quick sew, I highly recommend this pattern.  And we all need some fancy and practical sleepwear.

How I wore it

Well folks, this is how I decided to wear my tulle skirt to the Holiday party.  I am sad to report I did not get any pictures of my husband and I dressed up for the event.

I have never before gotten so many compliments on anything I have worn.  I got stopped by strangers to tell me they loved the skirt.  Although I will warn you it was only liked by the females.  The guys were a different story.

When I came down the stairs my husband looked at my outfit and said “Well you are going to stand out!”  And another gentlemen at the party jokingly asked where the other half of my wedding dress was?  So the guys definitely didn’t get it.

My son said I looked pretty, and then wanted to wear his sisters tutu costume so he could be pretty too.  To the horror of his father of course!

It definitely stood out among the crowd and I urge you to make one or buy one if you are on the fence.  Although a bit of caution – the tulle is extremely full of static.  Every time I stood next to someone to talk to them, my layers of tulle would drift up and stick to them.  I was constantly forcing my skirt to go down and stay put.  I have heard that spraying hairspray will help with the static electricity, but I didn’t do it before I left and didn’t have any on me there. 

On Trend Friday–Tulle Skirts

This weekend we have my husband’s work holiday party.  When I was trying to come up with something to wear, I kept seeing these pictures of tulle skirts everywhere.  I thought it was a really easy and inexpensive skirt that would work great for a holiday party, so I jumped on board with the idea.

My first mistake was that I ordered the fabric online to include the amount of yardage before I fully read through any of the tutorials.  I had just assumed I would make a gathered waist and I would have plenty of yardage.  I had also envisioned doing a chiffon layer with lots of tulle underneath.  I got 3 yards of tulle and 3 yards of chiffon.  I’ll give you a hint…...it was not enough.

Once I got the fabric and was prepared to sew it together I finally looked at few tutorials like this one from Cotton & Curls.

Once I saw all the tutorials were for circle skirts, which helps keep the bulk down around your waist, I quickly noticed I did not have near enough fabric.  In fact once I did the math I realized I had to run to the store and get 12 more yards of tulle.  I also realized I was not going to be able to overlay the chiffon and instead it would go under the layers of tulle.

I was going to have to sew my tulle together, since the length of skirt I had chosen did not lend itself to the easier cutting version.  I thought I would try out transparent thread, so that you wouldn’t be able to see that the tulle was sewn together.  After an hour of fighting with the transparent thread and only accomplishing one seam, I decided the stubborn thread wasn’t worth it, and just used ivory to match the tulle.  If you get up really close you can see the thread, but most people will never notice it.

Except I haven’t even begun to tell you about the hardest part of making the tulle skirt.  Cutting 15 yards of tulle.  A huge nightmare.  I mean huge nightmare.  All I can say is if you take on this type of a skirt, be prepared to pin the tulle together and have a very luge cutting surface to lay it all out on.  Or maybe find out exactly the yardage you need for each skirt layer.  I had a total of 6 layers for my skirt, 4 tulle, 1 chiffon, and 1 lining.  In my instance I needed 4 yards for each layer.  I should have had the fabric store cut my tulle pieces into 4 yard increments.  Then I could have just cut each layer out of that.  Instead I was trying to stack up multiple layers of tulle that were all attached together and not laying flat.  Like I said, a huge nightmare.  (If anyone else did the math, yes you would see in the end I had some funky layers underneath that were not exactly cut out of 4 yards.  Again do the math and find out how much you need before you order/buy the fabric).

Also find out the exact length you want before you cut out the fabric.  Because my cutting was going so horrible, I left everything long so I would hopefully not mess anything up.  In the end, I kept cutting and cutting, sewing and sewing to get all my hems in the correct location after I had attached the skirt to the waistband.  And the whole while, upset with myself for not cutting it out correctly the first time.

So what did we learn?

1.  Find a tutorial you want to follow and get everything measured out for your body size and skirt length, then figure out how much fabric you will need to accomplish this.

2.  Find out how to correctly use transparent thread on your sewing machine, or just skip it and use a matching color – no one will notice.

3.  Get your fabric cut into sizes that correctly correspond to each skirt layer.  Cut each layer individually and to the correct length.

4.  Assemble and sew your skirt according to your tutorial of choice.

5.  Go out and celebrate in your new party ready skirt!

Speaking of number 5 – what to pair with my new skirt with is my currently dilemma.  I ended up having quite a few choices to pull from.

Somebody please help me decide!  I know the middle two choices in each row are out….but I really can’t decide between the rest.

And realize that in these shoes, I will also be sitting a lot of the night.  I have a huge love/hate relationship with high heels!

8 Days Till Christmas

Teacher Gifts.

Every year I struggle with what to make or give for teacher gifts.  We have a lot of teachers that are a part of our kids’ lives, so that makes for quite a few gifts.

This year I decided on Christmas pillow covers.

I made 20 covers for the kids to give as gifts.  I had them pose for the personalized gift tags I made to go along with the pillows, and they were each in charge of delivering the gifts.

Merry Christmas to all the teachers, you make the world a better place!

Finishing Up

A lot of the time I will work on a project and get it 90% done.  And it will stay that way FOREVER.  Something more excited comes along, or something else seems more important.

Well I finally knocked the 10% left to go on this project.

Remember my cape I made earlier this fall?

I finally decided to add a few more buttons and finish up the back.

Now it’s finally ready to be worn.

Fox Hat and Baggy Pants

I made a stocking hat for my son months ago.  Back when I had made him this little fox shirt, and I thought a fox stocking cap would look cute with it.  But I wasn’t really happy with the hat, I thought it had turned out too big and gathered and that it might look better on my daughter.

Except my son found the hat and loves to wear it.  He wears it all the time indoors and out.  And I think he likes the fact that it is a little baggy around his head.

He likes to style the hat off his head.  And loves to take it off and on.

It definitely makes me happy that he likes wearing something I made!

And as for the baggy pants.  I tried to make him a pair of pants with this as the inspiration.

It did not turn out like the picture above.  I dropped the crotch too much, the legs are too baggy, and you can’t even see the bottom ankle band because the pants are too long.  I guess in another year when he grows in to them it might look like the photo above, but they are comfortable (I lined them so they are super warm for the winter), and he doesn’t mind the bagginess.  So he should get a lot of wear out of them.