4th of July

Happy Independence Day!

We were hoping to BBQ and it would have been nice to see some fireworks but we are not doing either today.  So sad, I know.  Kevin should have had the day off since he is in the clinic this month but he got scheduled on-call.  He'll be back today at 7pm so BBQing is out.  Last year the girls were still in the hospital, but we had a great view from their room. We were able to see the fireworks over the capitol building.  The girls go to sleep at 7pm so no fireworks unless we can see them from our house.  Between the hills and the trees, I don't think that is likely.

So instead, to celebrate we've done the next best thing.  I dressed the girls up in their 4th of July outfits and took pictures. 

 I have learned to not wait for a good shot.  Usually I see a great shot where they are both looking at the camera or doing something cute and I press the button too late to get it.  So now I just take shot after shot after shot without waiting and hope that a few of them turn out okay.  I took 50 photos of them today.  About 5 turned out really well and another 8 were acceptable.  D's smile in the above photo was the only one I got. 

I almost got T to smile, almost but then she changed her mind.  Her expression in this one though is so adorable.  Just want to squish her chubby cheeks. 

The bows were gifts from the girls' Leila but the rest of their outfit I made.  I took two 18month onesies which ran really small in size . . . the girls stopped fitting into them lengthwise at 11 months.  I made ruffled the sleeves out of patriotic scrap material using this tutorial: Ruffled Sleeves Tutorial.  For the matching star applique, I used some techniques I learned with quilting.  I had to sew it on by hand since the onesie would have made turning around the edges difficult on the machine.  Perhaps next time I do an applique like that I will make a tutorial.   

D as a young Rosie the Riveter. 

 The skirt is a handkerchief cut down the middle and sewn up the sides (which I thought was very clever of me).  For each outfit, I cut a onesie in two horizontally right above the leg openings.  Then I gathered the handkerchief skirt in two spots, one at the top and one about 2 inches down.  The top gathering I sewed to the bottom snap portion of the onesie.  Then I sewed the next gathering to the shirt part of the onesie. This extended the onesie by a little over an inch.  I also didn't have to make diaper covers that matched because the onesie still snaps down. 

Since we are not going any where today, they will instead get to wear the outfits tomorrow and be very patriotic for story time.   I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July.