I'm Back...again.

I'm probably the worst blogger ever when it comes to unexplained blogging sabbaticals. I haven't written since JULY! How crazy is that?! Here's the thing, stuff happened. I probably won't go into great detail on all the "stuff" but I'm back and here's a quick run down of what we've been up to...

*Most importantly, I'm still pregnant. We had a couple complications  (given my history, no real surprises there) but everything is going well now and I'm already huge which is good...mostly. 

*Joshua has a new civi job...this one takes a little explanation. His old civi job fired him. Yup. Fired. He's never been fired before and despite the fact that they always gave him glowing reviews and he's never had a complaint, they fired him...basically, they were tired of having to work around his Guard schedule and responsibilities so when he came back from his two week AT, they let him go. I wasn't surprised because they've been anti-military since day one but I was angry and if I think about it too much now, I'm still angry...but I'm also grateful. He hated that place. They were HORRIBLE. Not everyone who worked there of course but yeah, horrible is the only word for it. Just to give you an idea of the atmosphere, before he deployed they were interviewing people for an open position and he overheard one of the managers say that there was "no chance in hell we're hiring that guy-he's another Guard guy and that's the last thing we need." Then, when Joshua returned from deployment, several of his co-workers thought it was funny to surprise him with loud noises just to see if they could make him jump. Classy, right?! Anyway, I say I'm grateful because his new job is better. I mean it's not hard to be better than his old job but it's WAY better. Like God did an awesome thing better. The hours are a little odd but we're good with odd and he enjoys the work.

*We've started with our new homeschool group and curriculum-Classical Conversations if you're interested. It couldn't be going better. I'm tutoring the 4/5 yr old class which has been a blast and the boy is amazing us with how much he's learning. Actually, our little 2 yr old princess is even trying to get in on the action sometimes.

(1st day of CC-our homeschool group which meets once a week and our 1st day of homeschool at home-yup, in pjs)

(our favorite project this semester...we created a multi-level eco-system...I plan to write a post with more details to come but if you want to build one yourself, you can find the step-by-step tutorial we followed here)

*I was asked to be a pattern tester for a new "ruffle top" which I loved making but unfortunately in the process my sewing machine died :( so now I'm at a bit of a standstill when it comes to sewing.

(here's the finished project...once the pattern is available for purchase, I'll post a link to it)

*The boy is, at this very moment, on vacation with his grandparents at Disney World. I'm jealous. I'm really jealous. But I'm also really pregnant and on travel restrictions...kinda going crazy with cabin fever. I have, however, enjoyed the one-on-one time with our princess. We switched some of the kids furniture around in preparation for Baby 3.0 so now the princess is in a big girl bed and loving it-still waiting to find out the gender but Joshua's trying to convince me not to wait so we'll see if that changes.

That's been us the last couple of months. I plan on spending the next week reading all the blogs I love and have been missing to get caught up on your lives!

PS>I just got a pic from Grandma of our little man and a couple of his cousins at Disney World's Pirate's League...so wish I was with him!

Parisian/Marie Custom Disney Dress

Our daughter's favorite Disney character is Marie from Aristocats so it was without question that I would have to make her a Marie dress.

If you saw the Pirate Minnie Dress I made last month, you'll see that I used the same pattern with just a few modifications.

Once again, I made a 2T dress although our daughter really fits an 18mos dress better because...

A-I want her to be able to wear it to Disney World this fall

&

B-I always prefer too big to too small.

I spun the skirt around to put the ruffle panel in the back rather than the front.

I took out the loops in the back and made it a true halter top with an open back.

I elongated the bodice and took an equal length (about 3 inches) off the skirt so that I could fit a fuller-sized Marie on the bodice and give it an almost flapper-like low waist.

Because the skirt was shortened, the number of ruffle layers in the ruffle panel in the back was essentially cut in half.

If you want to make this dress yourself, you can find wonderful step-by-step directions with the pattern from Fairytale Pattern Designs on Craftsy and the embroidery design from Etsy.

If I had it to do over again, I might skit the ruffle panel altogether in the back and and take some of the extra fullness out of the skirt but that's just me being picky.

Pirate Minnie Pattern Review

I'm embracing my new embroidery machine with gusto. I made this Pirate Minnie dress by using the Minnie Pirate Face embroidery design from Etsy seller glitzystitches and the really great "Irelyn" dress pattern (with tutorial) from Fairytale Pattern Designs. They both made it so simple to download the design and the pattern. With the pattern, there's also step by step directions which are easy enough for even the most novice of sewers to follow. 

Disclaimer: My pirate princess is wearing a pettiskirt under the dress so some of the fullness is from that and not the dress. Also, I did adjust the pattern a bit to make it longer-I used the 2T pattern despite the fact that our daughter fits an 18 month dress. I wanted her to be able to wear it longer and I thought a full-length skirt would look more "pirate."

The only aspect of the dress that was a pain was the ruffles. For this itty bitty 2T dress, there were about 10 yards of ruffles. I thought I was smart and bought a ruffler presser foot to make life easier. I have never hated an inanimate object more than that thing. I bought a "low-shank universal ruffler foot" that claimed it would work on any Brother machine (it was about $20  at Joanne's while the only machine-specific foot I could find was online and over $60). It lied. It bent two needles and jammed my motor with an E6 code a dozen times before I cursed it and went back to ruffling by hand. Before anyone asks, I tried different strength needles, rethreaded everything every time it stopped and adjusted the thread tension repeatedly. I also wasn't sewing too fast and made sure the needle screw wasn't being jarred loose. 

All that to say, if you don't already have a ruffler foot you love, be prepared to do a ton of ruffles by hand and if you don't know how to ruffle by hand, it's easily explained in the pattern directions that come with the Irelyn design.

Time Flies

Hello blogging world...you may (or may not) have noticed my total desertion of this page for the last month (and a half). To be honest, nothing major really happened to drive me away. I just needed a break. I needed to focus on my family and myself. 

Here's a (hopefully) quick breakdown to catch you up...

We cracked down on homeschooling and have officially decided to go with Classical Conversations next year and are super excited about it. 

We had a snow-pocalypse that was a ton of fun...

I got a new .22 rifle for Valentine's Day and we took some good friends shooting... (the boy and one of his best friends had a blast)

I escaped. I took a long weekend and flew down to El Paso (thereby leaving the children alone with Joshua for the first time ever!) to visit this awesome lady...

(cell phone pic...eh, sorry)

Joshua and I had a weekend away...hotel, theater tickets (Cathy Rigby's Peter Pan-I highly recommend seeing it!-that woman is in better shape at 60 than I am today!), dinner out...the basics

In related news, the boy also got to see Peter Pan as his first broadway show with his Grandma. He LOVED it!...he wasn't so much a fan of the pics I insisted we take before he left but I couldn't resist. I love my bow-tie-lovin', suspender-wearing little man!

Also, I've been on a sewing kick...big time. I made a couple new dresses for the girl...

(she was less than thrilled to do pics at that particular moment)

(I got the hat from Halo Heaven)

And finally, the biggest news (for me at least) was that I finally got my much coveted Brother PE-770 Embroidery Machine!!! I'm in love! This was the first thing I made...

So that's what we've been up to...kind of a crazy busy season for us but a good one.