Proof

Because I don't think she is going to believe me one day when I tell her of all the ways I use to find her during nap time. ;)

although I don't think anything will ever top finding her with her chairs in the bed!

Ready or Not

It's that time again! She's been giving me all the signs. Hold on to your hats folks, its going to be a bumpy ride. We are going to start POTTY TRAINING!!!!!!

She's Ready...

I'm Not.

Pottery training is the one thing I've encountered thus far in parenting that I have not enjoyed. I started potty training Anna Cate the day after her first birthday. She was cloth diapered and had started to take her diapers off when they were wet. It has been a different story with Caroline. Cloth diapering didn't work out so great with her for several different reasons. And using disposable diapers has been bliss. I'm selfishly not ready to deal with the messiness and accidents of potty training and I've come up with some really great reasons all summer for delaying the inevitable. I'm out of excuses. Yesterday Caroline brought me a clean diaper from her room and signed "please" because she needed to be changed. Ok, little one, I hear you loud and clear!

We are prepared and ready to start:

Basket full of books on the potty? Check!

Training pants? Check!

Eager and excited big sister to help? Check!

Ready or not...here we go!

Dressmaking 101

For all of you ladies out there who sew, I thought I'd pass along this little "experiment" I tried over the summer. My sweet husband gave me a gift certificate for Mother's Day to a local boutique to pick out a custom-made dress. With my sister's wedding coming up, he knew I was going to need some new dresses for bridal showers and so forth.

Most of you locals are probably already aware about this darling little boutique. But me? I live under a BIG ROCK. When I opened my gift certificate I was like, "Huh? What?"

I'm not going to share the boutique's name because I don't want to take any business away from her, but there is another company based in Charleston, LulaKate, who makes very similar dresses (just to give you an idea).

I don't know if I was more surprised that I had never heard of this boutique before, or that my deer hunting, Carhart wearing, comes-home-with-muddy-shoes-every-evening-husband not only knew about it, but walked in and bought the gift certificate for me! :)

Once I walked in to pick out my dress, I wanted one of every design.

They. are. precious!

Absolutely adorable!!!!!!

However, they do come with a nice price tag. Being the DIY addict that I am, I decided to see if I could make some similar for myself.

I found some McCalls patterns on sale at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents that looked similar to the dresses I wanted to make. There is a local fabric store that sells a wide selection of duponi silk for $12.00 a yard so I bought 2 yards for each dress. I then tweaked the patterns by adding ruffles where I wanted them to look like the dresses I had seen in the boutique.

And here are the results!

Using the McCall Pattern M4440:

My version:

What I changed in the pattern to make this dress:

-added a ruffle to the top of the dress

-cut out a slight sweetheart neckline (instead of making it straight across)

-added a sash from a contrasting fabric

Using the McCall Pattern: Laura Ashley M6024

My version:

What I changed in the pattern to make this dress:

#1) used Top A & Bottom C (refer to pattern)

#2) ignored the pattern's design for the ruffles and instead just made a standard 2-inch ruffle for the top of the dress. I measured the length from the top where it meets the skirt, all the way around the neckline back to the other side where the top meets the skirt. Multiply that number by 2.5 to find out how long to make your strip of fabric so that when it ruffles up, it will be the correct length.

#3) I also added about 5 inches to the tie to make it wrap around the front of the dress and tie to the side.

*********************

And guess what?

I'm sharing all of this today because I just found out Hobby Lobby is having their 99 cent sale again for all of their McCall patterns this week!!!

If anybody is interested in trying this yourself, let me just encourage you by saying that this was the first time I have ever sewn anything for myself. I have to say, it wasn't as hard as I expected it to be! Each dress took a total of about 4 hours from cutting out the pattern pieces to trying the actual dress on. The total cost for each dress was around $30. People, that is a 10th of what the original dresses in the boutique that I saw were priced!!!

This is totally addicting and I ended up making dresses for my sisters to wear as well! I also have several other designs that I'm working on right now and will share once they are finished. Good luck sewing and let me know if you make one yourself!! :)

An Afternoon Tea & Stroll

Even though they are blurry, I love these pictures because they capture a bit of the every day details that make up our little life right now.

Anna Cate's favorite pink dress that she has asked to wear every. single. day. this summer.

Caroline trying to be just as big as her sister and copying everything Anna Cate does.

Anna Cate in her role as big sister, not only loving and doting on Caroline, but taking care of Caroline's doll too when Caroline is neglecting her responsibilities as a mother! :)

Happily Ever After

We are recovering from a whirlwind summer of wedding planning, parties, and bridal showers. Charlee and Robbie were married this past Saturday and started their Happily Ever After!

It was a beautiful wedding and I had grand plans for taking pictures all day. Unfortunately, this was one of the only pictures I had time for on Saturday, but it is my favorite. Anna Cate was a fabulous flower girl and didn't know what to do with herself with all weekend. She loved every minute of the dressing up and playing out the cinderella fairy tale. To top it all off, she got to dance with her daddy all night long and never left the dance floor once we got to the reception! Hopefully we will have more pictures from the photographer to share soon!

Beach Pictures

As soon as our suitcases were unpacked Friday afternoon, we headed to the beach to stick our toes in the sand.

Will has We have a "no bikini" rule, but I found the most adorable bathing suit pattern in a recent issue of Sew Beautiful Magazine and couldn't resist making a matching pair for the girls! I promised Will I would only use them for pictures and then they would be put up for the rest of the summer. He said they were ok because they didn't really look like bikinis. Whew! :) Anna Cate loves her bathing suit and calls it her green "teenie." Hilarious!

I wanted to get a picture of each girl as they walked onto the beach and felt the sand between their toes for the first time this summer.

Anna Cates was an old pro...

...but you can see how far Caroline got before she noticed something felt different.

She would take a couple of steps ...

...and then look down at her feet.

Question:

"Caroline, what do you think of the sand?"

Answer:

This look of mixed confusion and disgust.

She warmed up to the sand after a few minutes and then had no problem being covered in it for the rest of the week. And I do mean from head to toe and everything in between!

Anna Cate lived in her pink sunglasses all week and looked like a little diva walking around the pool with her shades on. There was a group of ladies who we'd see each morning at the pool who called her "Miss Hollywood."

Love this picture of Anna Cate holding Caroline's hand by the water.

Oh to have eyes so blue, cheeks so rosy, and lips so red. I know I'm biased because she is my baby girl, but she has the most beautiful coloring. Wonder if that hair is going to stay red?

And is this not the most hilarious look that Caroline is shooting the camera? It is a typical Caroline expression...priceless!!

I learned what a little dare devil we have on our hands. Caroline has absolutely no fear of the ocean. She loves to sit in the surf and let the waves wash onto her. She happened to get a little too brave one evening...

Before the wave:

And after:

We had a wonderful week away relaxing with family and playing in the sun and sand!

Sneak Peek

Of all the reasons to love going on vacation, my most favorite part is getting to come back home. We rolled in this afternoon and even though I have plenty of bags to unpack, loads of laundry to wash, and an empty fridge to fill, I couldn't help but download our beach pictures once the girls were in bed.

More to come tomorrow...