Insomnia Combined with Access to Babysitters

Last week, I spent 4 days in my home town at my Mom's house, who lives 2 1/2 hours away.  My two sisters, one brother, their spouses, and children all live in my home town, as well.  It was really nice to get to see everyone.  I am actually the youngest of the four kids, and I have 9 nieces and nephews, ranging in age from 21 all the way down to 18 months.  So, with all that access to babysitting, my current lack of ability to sleep at normal hours, and peer-pressure from one of my sisters, I spent a good portion of that time doing some sewing for my girls!  And, man it was fun!  I left the kids with my Mom one afternoon (O.K., it was 2 afternoons!), and spent some time alone just browsing at the local JoAnn's Fabric Store.  Did I mention I was alone??  As in, without small children around me??  Like, pure bliss for a whole 2 hours!?!?!? (1 hour for each afternoon...don't start thinking I'm greedy, now).  It was SO NICE!  I managed to find a nice little selection of some very cute fabric on sale, and my sister and I both made a couple of pillowcase dresses for our little girls (who are both around 18 months old...they are about a month and a half apart), and a twirly skirt for our older girls (they are both 5 1/2...my Natalie is 7 months ahead of my niece).  

My sister already had some fabric at her house, so I went over there with mine, and we let the older girls decide who got which print.  They decided that they wanted to have their skirts match with each of their little sister's dress, instead of matching with each other (which is what my sister and I would have chosen....man, it's a hard thing when your kids don't want to follow your dreams for them! ;)  Anyway, here are the creations we made while I was in town:

Rachel's Pillowcase dress.  I kind of combined a bunch of different tutorials around the web, so I don't have just one link to post for the pattern.  But, just do a Google search, and you'll be able to find something if you are interested.  

This picture would have been so precious if it hadn't been so humid outside!  It fogged up the lens on my camera =(  Oh well...it's still a nice shot:

Natalie's Twirly Skirt.  I used this tutorial from The House on Hill Road Blog.  However, I must insert a caveat here...If I ever make this skirt again (which, I most likely will), I would do it a little differently than she did, because the waistband was kind of awkward the way she has you do it.  If there is enough interest in what I did differently, I'll post about it, but I won't get into details right now...

Another view of the skirt to show the fullness:

I never did get a nice picture of Natalie wearing this skirt, but that's ok...she wears it all the time, so I'll get one soon enough =)

The dress my sister made was in a cute pale yellow fabric, with butter flies and daisies, and it had a brown with white polka dot trim.  See how cute!:

  I wish I had gotten a picture of her finished stuff, but she didn't get a chance to finish her dress and skirt until after I left.  We bought 2 yards of the main print, and 1/2 yards of the trim, and there was enough material to make 3 items!  My sister and I decided to trade material, so now I need want to make either one more dress, or one more skirt....I can't decide....oh, the choices!

Aside from all the sewing, we did some other fun things as well.  Like, going to the park to feed the ducks:

They were everywhere!  And, VERY friendly:

Andrew hanging out with the ducks:

I wanted to take this guy home to our farm, but he wasn't having it...

Natalie and Andrew:

Little Rach, enjoying the ride:

Andrew kept pointing and yelling at the Muscovy ducks:  "Hey Mom, look at those roosters!"

What you might see at a park down in Acadiana...lots of cypress trees growing in the water:

You also might see a nutria...

or two:

And, my Mom also took the whole family out to eat at this really great restaurant called Hub City Diner.  If you ever go there, do yourself a favor, and have the fried green tomato salad, with grilled shrimp and roumalade dressing...oh, and a cup of their chicken and sausage gumbo!  Talk about good!  We made sure to go on Kids' Night, so they ate free, and the Balloon Man was there!  He was not only a great entertainer, but he had the best Cajun accent you've ever heard!  It was awesome =)

Needless to say, we all had a really fun visit at Granny's!  And, a long over due one at that!  It had been about 3 months since we've seen them.