Chicklet's Easter Dress

Well at first I didn't quite know where to start. Then I thought for sure I'd ruined it. Then I realized this could work... And finally I was done with it and it came out much better than I feared it would when I was hacking away at it with the scissors! ;)

She had untied the bows at the shoulders just before this pic was taken and I had a grabby baby in one arm and a clingy son on one leg and after a few failed attempts to retye the bows one-handed while fending off cute little grabbers, I just snapped the pic as-is. ;) It's even cuter when the bows are tied!

First I cut armholes out of the waistband of the skirt.

Then I turned it inside out, laid the shoulder strap ribbons in place along the skirt waistband at the armhole cuts, and sewed those armholes and then zig-zagged the edges. The skirt is made of cotton gauze and the built in slip is a knit polyester/nylon. The waist is elastic. I just kept those features and made them work for the dress.

Then I turned it right side out. I used 2 yards of ribbon for the straps. I cut it in half and sealed the ends so I had two 1-yard lengths. I could have cut those in half before sewing but I waited until after I sewed them in to cut them in half. No reason why I waited to cut, I just did. Lol! So they were these big loops like way too huge straps which I tied a little knot in to try on her real quick. That's why the silly knot in this pic instead of bows.

When I tried it on her I decided the armholes were too floppy and big and I'd messed up on the strap placement but I thought topstitching creatively could fix all those problems. I cut my gigantic ribbon loops to make tieable straps- the way they are supposed to be- and heat-sealed the ends. Then I topstitched all the way around the armholes and front and back of the neck, scrunching the fabric up tight to gather it in just in the bottoms of the armholes. It worked wonderfully and surprisingly it came out much better than I'd feared! I was worried that I had made a real disaster of it but God blessed me and allowed it to be fixable. Here's a pic of the finished topstitching:

And a full pic of it laying on the table:

So there you have it. My almost-disaster turned out pretty cute! I will have to get some better pics of Chicklet wearing it for Easter. :) Now I just have to make a peasant top to go under it. The t-shirt she's wearing in the pic does look pretty nice with it though, I must say. What do you think?

~Mirage

Easter Sewing Plans

Well this weekend my goal is to get some sewing done!!! Seriously need to get my older daughter's Easter dress made (wanna see a pic of what I'm going to make it out of? Wanna wanna? Wait for it...) and my younger two's outfits washed up. My son's came from WalMart and is going to dual-duty for my brother's wedding this spring. My baby's dress is a beautiful brand new with tags dress that I actually swapped for on SwapMamas.com. (As an aside, if you're thinking of joining SwapMamas you should know that they are totally revamping their system and relaunching in about a month so if you don't want to deal with their growing pains in the meantime you can wait until the relaunch.)
We have searched for an Easter dress for my oldest and come up empty. We found a few stunningly beautiful ones that when I examined them closer turned out to be pathetic quality and/or workmanship. Since I don't want her Easter dress to fall apart in the wash, I decided to be brave and sew her one. Ahhh! I'm not that great at sewing. I understand the basics but pattern instructions confuse me. I think whoever writes the directions on those things gets a thrill out of making things seem harder than they have to be and scaring off would-be budding seamstresses. I have once or twice just ignored the instructions and pieced the item together without them.
But I digress; I was going to tell you about the dress for my daughter. I am not really good at sewing and I can count on one hand everything I've sewn since I had kids that wasn't a plain skirt. I can also count on one hand all the dresses I've made in my entire lifetime. Scary thought. Considering the fact that I not only have to sew my oldest's Easter dress this weekend, but also a formal skirt for myself for something I have to do in a few days. Jury duty. I don't think my full flowery go-to skirts are quite what they have in mind when they said to wear something court-friendly. Maybe it doesn't matter but to share a little secret I'm kind of paranoid about doing something wrong since someone I know told me about a mom who got arrested for contempt of court because she couldn't find a babysitter! Eeek! So that's got me all in worry mode that if I do something they deem inappropriate they're going to arrest me or something. I'm kinda shy so I think if they merely gave me the dissaproving eye I may well just wet myself in terror. Okay maybe not quite that bad but you get the drift, I aim to please. ;)

Now where was I? Oh yes, the dress! I happened to have swapped (yes on SwapMamas again) for a lovely spring skirt that is definately way too small for me back in the middle of the winter and saved it. See?

So my super secret sneaky plot is to turn it into a pillowcase style dress for my daughter's Easter dress. :D See how well I cheat? Lol! If I can manage not to mess it up too bad it should be fairly easy and not time consuming. The PROBLEM with this style of dress is that, as per my opinions on modesty mentioned in the previous post, I think a pillow case dress is going to be a mite skimpy. So I want to mommy-rig a plain white muslin peasant top for her to wear underneath, using this pattern as a guide:

So we shall see if this takes my time and effort quota into "shoulda-just-made-a-whole-dress-from-scratch" territory. I'll keep you posted...

My Immodest Past (and The Modesty Survey)

I don't remember how or when it was that I stumbled upon The Modesty Survey, but I do remember that it was a great encouragement to me, a little convicting, and it gave me some motivation in an area of my life I had been neglecting for quite a few years.
As a little bit of background for you, when I was a toddler my mom put me in jeans. I just didn't like the feel of them pinching my middle, and lavished in the praise I received from everyone I met when I wore dresses. What toddler doesn't like to be told she looks like a princess? So one morning my mom was getting me dressed and I told her I didn't want any more pants at all. Only dresses. I think it took a while before she realized I was serious. I wore sweatpants to bed when all my nightgowns were dirty and rarely did I wear any sort of pants for day-clothes. My dear Nana made my sister and I each a new dress each Christmas and Easter so I wore my pretty made-with-love dresses everywhere all the time. It just felt right. Then when I was a few weeks shy of my 13th birthday we moved and I had to start all over with making friends. My first friend, and for a long time my only friend, lived on a ranch. Baling hay and branding calves were all in a day's work for her, and being in her company I began to be invited to ride horses and such, and she would add, "And um... wear jeans, OK?" because she just couldn't imagine how I'd be able to do anything safely in a dress. So I bought jeans. And wore them when I was visiting my friend. And despite still doing farm chores in dresses at home, pretty soon, when the majority of my public activities went from being done in dresses to being done in jeans, I just only really kept up with buying a dress that fit for Church. The majority of my wardrobe became jeans and tank tops. Practical for sweating out in the sun riding horses but not really modest. But I wasn't thinking of that back then. I am ashamed to admit that my focus was not on being modest. I was becoming a hormone-laden teenager and began to dress to draw the eye and unfortunately I got it. I had alot of guys trying to flirt with me until they realized I wasn't going to do what I was advertising (by my attire) for. I can't say as it really hit with all clarity until I was much older. Teenagers are by nature (or culture?) very insecure, selfish, and attention-seeking. Despite being a Christian, I was no exception. I thought that if boys didn't flirt with me and try to get me out of my clothes then I must be ugly. I was told that they would do just that if I were to show more of myself by wearing less. And so I did. But I always felt uncomfortable, fidgety, and guilty when I was not wearing a modest outfit.
For a little while in my mid-teens, my parents started driving 2 hours to church every weekend to go to a Mennonite-like church. We were expected (by my parents) to wear long dressed and a bandana on our heads to church so as to not offend the congregation or cause their younger members to stumble. I remember that despite the brevity of our time with that congregation, seeing the other teenaged girls dressed so contrastingly to popular culture, and also contrastingly so full of confidence and joy and beautiful radiance, it made a deep impression on  me.
I did not immediately switch back to all dresses. In fact it was long after I was married, and not too distant in the past, when I began to wear skirts often once again. I did have a slow journey to more modest pants-and-shirt wearing before I wound up back in skirts. Part of what propelled me back toward modest dress was the previously mentioned Modesty Survey. I think I was feeling convicted about modesty from a sermon I heard and did a search online to find out if a woman in pants is really a stumbling block to a man! I didn't really expect to find a clear answer, so imagine my shock when I found The Modesty Survey! The quotes, the details, the honesty and vulnerability of the men... well it's really something that I think will blow you away or boost your modesty resolve as it did for me.
Click HERE to view The Modesty Survey for yourself. First take note of how many signatures there are of men supporting us women in choosing to dress modestly. I love that. This is a survey of 1,600 teen boys and men. First click on Overview and read about the men who took the survey and how to read the survey. Then go back and click Survey Results. Select a category from the left column and a "question" from the right column and scroll down to see the graph results and statements from men on this concept. Hearing how some men feel about some types of dress, and about modesty and women in general, brought me to tears. Tears of hope and regret. If only someone had showed this to me as an insecure teen! How much of those awkward guilty fidgety days spent out in public trying to look like a piece of hot sex so I would be worth something (backwards much?!) would have been avoided! How much confidence would I have gained and inner beauty been able to shine through if I had only known! And yes my Daddy did try to tell me how guys think but I wasn't really close to my dad and with the whole world telling me otherwise, I honestly didn't believe him. Or maybe I didn't care, or didn't want to. I thought that whatever his ideas and opinions were, they were of people my dad's age. He wouldn't know anything about what real guys my age now this decade think. Times have changed... I wish there had been a Modesty Survey for me back then. But it's not too late to raise my daughters to be confident modest women! I wasn't raised to wear dresses, grew away from my parents, was expected to date and wear makeup. My parents' change of heart on these matters didn't come until I was around 16 years old. But my own daughters are still tiny. I have a head start at being able to nurture modesty and confidence in them. I have the advantage of knowing now that what I do now and in the future affects my future relationship with my kids, whether they will try my and their father's words of experience on life.

I am drafting a sort of statement of modesty for myself and my girls. It's a work in progress. Perhaps I'll share it in my next post. :)

A Beautiful Rainy Morning

Today is a beautiful rainy day. I'm tired after being up late watching movies with my Better Half and then waking up every hour or two to feed the little one. She's 7 months old now and I've been pondering how to get her to sleep longer at night. She sometimes, pretty rarely, wakes only 2 or 3 times in a night. I am praying those nights become more frequent and the nights of hourly waking less frequent. My kids have all woken up many times a night as babies so this is not unexpected. It's a stage. Other, beautiful parts of babyhood make up for the lack of sleep. :) Giggles and smiles and seeing her learn how to roll around and sit and eat mushed up babyfood. She says "da da da da da da!" but doesn't seem to connect it with her Dada yet. She's so beautiful! Her smiles are amazing! And she's getting ticklish... ;)

My 2 1/2 year old son has been really testing his limits. He's wearing me pretty thin. I lose my temper alot and yell. Then I regret it and pray for grace. Again. He's also talking alot more. He's still kind of hard to understand. He often says things that would be a good sentence if they were in the proper order. Like this morning he was pointing to the bathtub and said to me, "Mama, take a bath where we this it is!" Makes sense in an adorably jumbled up way. ;) If it were in the right order it would be a really good sentence for a 2 year old. He is still so lovey and is always climbing in my lap and giving out hugs and kisses. He has trouble with colors (I hope he's not colorblind- my FIL is!) but he's getting to know all his body parts and we're working on telling the difference between a penny and a quarter.

My 4 1/2 year old daughter is turning into an amazingly helpful and motivated young lady. SHe's 4 so of course she has her moments, but I can see how far she's come since the "terrible twos" and it's a beautiful sight! She loves to help, loves to learn. She has a strong desire to be in charge of every detail so that is something we are trying to tame. She drives her brother nuts trying to puppet his every move. She loves to take care of her siblings which is such a blessing! She thinks she's so special when I ask her to "babysit" the baby for me while I use the bathroom or put the wash into the dryer. She's learning the different coins and how to buckle her own seatbelt. She still draws. For HOURS every day. She loves drawing so much! She has scissors now which she uses to cut out the things she draws. We've had a couple locks of hair find their way into the blades but if a little bit of uneven hair is the worst thing that ever gets accidentally cut, well we're in good shape. ;)
So here I sit today, staring out at the rain and thinking how thankful I am for my little family! :)

REVIEW: "Journey To Riverbend" by Henry McLaughlin (Tyndale)

TITLE: Journey To Riverbend

AUTHOR: Henry McLaughlin

GENRE: Christian Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4143-3942-9
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: "Michael Archer is nothing if not a man of his word. Though he was unable to save Ben Carstairs, Michael is determined to carry out Ben’s dying wish: to be reconciled with his father. Unfortunately, Sam Carstairs, one of the most ruthless businessmen on the frontier, has no use for his own son, much less a man of God seeking reconciliation.
Soon after arriving in Riverbend, Michael meets and falls for the stunning Rachel Stone while waiting for Sam to return from a business trip. Beautiful yet guarded, Rachel seems to be running from a past as dark as Michael’s.

When word reaches town that Sam has been kidnapped on the stagecoach home, Michael offers to join the search party formed by the local sheriff. With a budding romance behind him and a dangerous rescue ahead of him, he sets out on the trail, determined to complete his journey no matter the cost."

MY REVIEW:

Well, it has been a very long time since I've been impressed by a work of Christian fiction and I was thus quite surprised to find myself enjoying this book very much!

There are three main characters in this book. Sam Carstairs is all set to be the villain of the tale and winds up a victim of the consequences of his own evil choices. I flip-flopped between detesting him, and pitying him, and even occasionally admiring him. Rachel Stone struggles to continue being a new creation in Christ after being rescued from a life of prostitution. Caught in the middle between the townsfolk's unforgiveness of her past and the Redeemer's forgiveness, she strives to keep a right perspective. Michael Archer has a difficult past of his own but now he's on a mission to make amends with stranger Sam Carstairs on behalf of his estranged and now-deceased son Ben Carstairs. Michael arrives in Riverbend to find that Sam is out of town, and while he's passing the time until Sam returns he falls in love with Rachel. Rachel isn't sure if she has it in her to ever love and trust a man again. Sam doesn't arrive home on the stage- he's been kidnapped! Michael joins the search for Sam and the book takes a turn for the sinister and suspenseful...
As I said I was quite impressed with this book. It keeps it's Christian focus. I find alot of Christian fiction novels throw God in there as an afterthought but this book does not. The main characters were a little less defined than I like and the who's who was a tad hard to follow at times. The story was gripping and I was up until 3am trying to finish this book because I couldn't put it down. There were a few parts that were a bit too descriptive and/or unnecessarily gruesome for me so I would not recommend this book for immature readers. Overall I liked it very much and give it 5 stars out of 5.

I reviewed this book for Tyndale publishers in exchange for a free review copy of the book. No other compensation was received and I was not told what to say. My opinions, good and bad, are my own and have not been coached or influenced in any way.

You can read the first chapter HERE.

April Giveaways!

This is my last giveaway linky. it's a pain in the neck to upkeep when maybe 3 or 4 people use it so I quit. I have better things to do with my time... like tickle this cute boy who is climbing me right now... ;)

~*~

Mommy Moments: A child who begs to change diapers?!

~Mommy Moments~
Moments that are the essence of motherhood

My 4 1/2 year old daughter sees me changing her siblings' diapers at least a dozen times a day. And I always try to make diaper changes a sweet time. I know you're thinking, it's poo and pee, how can it be sweet? Well it's not about the poo and pee, it's about the one on one face time opportunity. Not that I'm not cooing in my kids' face acting like a silly goose at other times of the day... ;) It's just that it kind of takes the ick out of diaper changes if I'm distracted by kissing little toes and tickling little tummies and kissing little cheeks while I do it. So I've made it a habit to be so distracted- but don't give me too much credit here. I didn't really do it conciously, but I've just always loved the specialness that makes up for the ick and somehow wound up with this really handy habit of being so busy loving on, praising, singing to, and being silly with my babies.
My 4 1/2 year old Chicklet was no exception herself, in fact her diapers were the start of it. I would play "this little piggy" on one foot when I first put her on the changing table, then after changing her while singing some silly song, I would blow raspberries on her belly before snapping her onesie up and finishing off with a round of kisses on her chubby little cheeks and "this little piggy" on the other foot.
Well apparently in doing this I must have somehow made changing diapers look like a FUN and COVETED experience!!!! LOL!!!!! Because Chicklet began begging me to let her change the baby's diaper a few months ago. I made sure to only let her change wet ones- scared of the disaster that could happen if I were to let her change a #2. I also like to avoid letting her change her brother's diaper just because, well, he's a boy and they're pretty close in age. Not that she thinks anything of the difference, being only 4 1/2, but I think it just makes ME feel weird for her to be changing his diaper when they're so close in age, like it might be something he'd be embarrassed about when he gets older and finds out his only-2-years-older sister changed his diaper as a kid. Might be kinda awkward, KWIM? I haven't made a big deal about it and try to not act like I'm specifically keeping her from changing HIS diapers because I don't want it to be an issue in her mind. So when she asks to change a diaper I sort of reluctantly taught her how to change Babykins' diapers and sometimes allow her to change the wet ones with supervision. She BEGS me all the time to please let her change a diaper, and even CRIED over it one afternoon when I changed the baby for nap without asking her if she wanted to do it.


At the beginning of this week I asked Chicklet if she could think of ways that people tell each other they love them without using words. She looked confused. I told her that when I pet her hair or rub her back I'm telling her I love her without words. She was confused for a minute before a big grin took over her sweet little face and she ran up to me to hug me, saying, "We can say love with HUGS!" A moment later she added, "And KISSES!" I asked if she could think of anything else and she giggled and tickled me, saying, "Yep! Tickles too!"
Thursday morning I was reading my Bible and having prayer time. I had just changed Bug's diaper and given the kids a sippy and a cheese stick in bed to tide them over until I finished my prayer time. My computer is pretty much right outside of their bedroom so I hear everything that goes on and I heard it loud and clear when a short time later Bug hollered out that he messed his diaper. I answered back that I'm almost done my God-time and I'll change him in a minute. Well I'd just finished my prayers when I heard the timer buzz and the toddlers charged out of the bedroom like a herd of stampeding... toddlers. I opened my mouth to verbally direct my little dude to the changing table for a fix on that poo diap but before I could say a word, my daughter says to me, "Mommy, I changed brother's poopy diaper!"
Mommy about had a panic attack. I wondered how much poo was smeared where and opened my mouth to scold her for changing a diaper without supervision, and she KNOWS she only changes wet ones, and HOW MUCH POOP is smeared wherever she changed him, and...
But she again cut me off before I could say anything.

"I did it because I love him."

I froze and tears welled up in my eyes. I was about to chew her out and it's a good thing she unknowingly put me in my place before I did. Wow. Just wow.
Sometimes as parents we worry if we're doing it right, doing enough, doing too much... We hope we're not screwing them up. We pray that God will cover the areas we lack in with His grace. And then there are moments like this when we're just so humbled and amazed and honored to be given this task of raising these little souls.
I'm praising God for these little blessings- especially a certain daughter who knows that love is more than words. ~♥~

Dear New Mama, (Too Much or Unwanted Advice)

(image from photobucket.com)

Dear New Mama,
   Congratulations on your precious new little blessing! I know you're hearing all kinds of advice from everyone right now. Everything you read says something new. Everyone who loves you will want to give you helpful , and even people you don't know will see your precious newborn as a good reason to give you advice. As you're hearing all of these tidbits, some of wisdom and some just born from a need to know it all, it can be hard to know how to respond, to not be hurt or offended or worried by it all. It can be hard not to snap at the well-meaning advice givers that 'I can figure this out on my own thankyouverymuch so leave me alone!' Take a deep breath, say a prayer for grace, and listen with a smile. Then thank them for their opinion, if they persist you can say you will take it home to ponder. Pray and ponder. You can keep the good parts and leave the bad ones. Some advice will be really good and some will be really bad. Something that helped someone else might not help you and vice versa. The best way to weed through it all with a peaceful heart and come out the other side with confidence that you are doing the right thing is to pray and ponder. And most of those advice givers will never know if you take their advice or not.
   Then there are the advice givers who are closer to home. Friends and family. They might follow through to see if you followed their advice. They are a little trickier. They can be frustrating. "Did you ever try what I said...?" Usually they can be handled with a sweetly spoken, 'Yes, thank you for telling me about that! We tried alot of things and what we're doing right now is really working well.' Sometimes though you will have to put your foot down. It won't be easy. Keep in mind that while it is important to preserve the peace within the extended family, it is not to be at the cost of the peace in your own home. If keeping your mom or hubby's dear Auntie happy is causing problems between you and your husband or kids, then something will have to be done about it. There's a little something I like to call the honor order. It means who is at the top of your priorities. When you leave your father and mother and cleave to a spouse you begin a new family so your 'honor order' goes from God-Parents-Siblings-etc. to God-Spouse-Children-etc. Your parents and siblings should still be loved and treated with respect, but now your husband and children come before your other family. If you have to warn off an overzealous family member, keep a few things in mind:
-Pray about it first. God may want you to hold your tongue because He very well may want to resolve it without you. Prayer can go a long way toward resolving it without confrontation or paving the way for it to go over well.
-If you feel that you have no choice but to say something, pray pray pray to keep a right perspective. If it involves your husband's family, pray with him about it that it will go well. Pray in private that if it involves his family that he will feel the need to confront the person himself. It tends to go over better and be resolved faster if the spouse that is related is the one who puts their foot down.
-Anything done not out of love is ineffective for good and probably harmful. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into a confrontation with anger in your heart. Pray for a loving attitude toward the person before you say anything.
-Choose your words carefully so that when you are loooking back on it later, if the loved one in question reacts badly, you will not have any guilt over having said something unnecessarily harsh or petty. A clear concience is a great comfort if there is a rift created over this.
-If it goes well, praise God! If not, pray for healing in the relationship and do not cease praying for it until it happens. God doesn't want us to be estranged from our relatives. God wants us to be at peace, not at war, with those He has given us to and has given to us.

Once upon a time, a certain mama (*ahem.me.ahem*) was having her first baby. This mama's MIL wanted to throw her a baby shower and things got heated. You see, the new mama was idealistic, and picky, in addition to having come from an ultra conservative background. The MIL was much more liberal and in her excitement at planning her first baby shower, wanted to make it really awesome and perfect- her way. The mama and the MIL had different ideas about how it should be done and it came down to a confrontation. I did not The mama *wink* did not pray about it first, spoke hastily, out of frustration and defensiveness, and regretted it. The MIL vented to other family members about how rude and picky the mama was, and the rift got bigger. It was not good.

Yeah I messed up. I should have prayed about it FIRST, looked at my own motives, spoken out of love and not reacted out of defensiveness, and decided what was really important before I made a stink. Thankfully God can work everything out for good, even the screw ups. My MIL and I are friends again and we've both learned a few things about how to relate to each other. I'm thankfully less picky and bossy. Now I didn't say I'm not at all picky or bossy anymore... Lol! So those of you who know me in person don't think I'm trying to pull the wool over on anyone here. ;) I have alot of flaws and I'm sure not perfect!

So if you take anything out of this story, take this:
Be quick to pray, quick to love, quick to look inward for fault, quick to apologize.
Be slow to anger, slow to speak, slow to blame.
If it comes to it, stand by what's right in a clam loving way, apologize for any wrong you've done, and pray that if there is a rift that it will be healed.