Christmas Blessing

We had a busy weekend getting the tree, Christmas party. I am so beyond lucky this Season.Charlie's adoption was finalized on November 29, got in mail Dec. 1 the day before my birthday and right before the holidays. I think extended family still had a lot of doubt if Charlie was staying with us. I can emphatically say, "YES" and shout it from the rooftops. She's here and we love her little spunky attitude.

Sunday, we had brunch with Santa at the Carolina Inn. It was decorated so beautiful in the 12 days of Christmas with real live turtle doves. The kids were in awe. They ate tons of food, got the arms painted, then saw Santa. My phone sucks, so you won't see high quality pics, but here are some of my fave:

The Dude Age 9

Miss M Age 3

 Princess Charlie Age 2

My beautiful Family 2012, so many blessings

 Santa Baby

 

Thankful

We asked the kids this morning what they are thankful for.
M: My brother and watching him play baseball
Charlie: Baseball!
M: My mother and my brother taking me Trick or Treat
Charlie: Halloweeeeeeeen!

Those girls are so sweet and funny. They absolutely loved Halloween and it's funny a month later they still talk about it.

I am thankful for my wonderful husband, great kids, and that Charlie may be finalized by the end of the month or the end of the year. I have so many things to be thankful for this year. I am so lucky to have three wonderful kids and a husband that supports us in all our crazy adventures.

Signed and Delivered

We have filed the paperwork for Charlie's adoption and now it is just a waiting game until we have the final decree in our hand. The goal for the court right now is to finalize for the November adoption party this year. We went down to the courthouse with her again just like we did for M's adoption filing. It is pretty uneventful, you pay a filing fee, hand over your paperwork and that's it. But it is a culmination of waiting, waiting, and more waiting and then a huge sigh of relief. It's signed and delivered. I knew she wasn't going anywhere, but it is good to have it filed with the courts. I will be very happy to get her decree and maybe start planning another vacation. I'll wait a little while before I try rushing to get a passport for her as I now know it is not a simple process to eventually get that birth certificate.
On the upside, we no longer need permission to travel with her (though after Myrtle Beach, Disney, Myrtle Beach again) we don't have any immediate travel plans. 
I am so happy with our family! It is so amazing that we have been blessed with such amazing kids. 

Filing Photo:

Placement Hearing

Charlie’s placement hearing was supposed to be today. I actually didn’t even know it was today until I got a call asking for what her full name will be. Turns out, it got delayed until the 27^th. One of the workers had an emergency with another child. I am so glad she is not our first placement/adoption or I would be worrying my head off right now.

It is my understanding that the placement hearing is simply her worker, our worker, the adoption resourcing team, the adoption supervisor and other family service employees. They discuss our profile, her profile and formally agree to the adoption, begin the adoption application, and staff the adoption. Staffing means who will be our long term adoption worker, etc. In my mind, it is all a formality.

Her parents have relinquished specifically to us, the workers and GAL all agree her best interest is to remain with us. I really would not have known it was even being discussed/happening if they didn’t need to know what her adoptive name will be.

But, it is delayed now until September27^th, but likely I won’t even hear anything that day. As time goes slowly, I am estimating that adoption paperwork will be ready to file sometime in late October/early November and then finalization 4-12 weeks after that. I heard M’s was so fast because it was summer and they had interns and things move quicker in the summer, so maybe we will be finalized in late 2012, more likely early 2013.

I am really Zen about the whole process right now. I am 99% sure she isn’t going anywhere else, can’t wait until I am at 100%, but it’s not much longer.

Minnie Dresses

The last project I made for Disney was Minnie Mouse pillowcase dresses. I have made a few and I use a pretty rough pattern that I doubt I’d remember if I had to since it was a compilation of three different blog tutorials. Luckily, I remembered my friend Kim’s post about all her Disney clothes she did for her trip to Disneyland and we had even discussed that the tutorial she used was super easy. I decided that since I was crunched for time, I would do a very easy one. 

It took me a few reads to get it, but once I did, the dresses were super easy. I then copied Kim’s idea and added the letters to the dresses. I just free handed the letters, the traced backwards onto the steam a seam. Pretty simple. The only down side is the expensive Disney fabric is super thin, but I am thinking the girls will appreciate that in the Florida heat. 

Minnie Dresses: 
 

 
 Letter up close: 

Lanyards for Disney

I found a tutorial on making lanyards for Disney. So I decided to make the girls matching lanyards for pins. I knew they wouldn’t really get the whole pin trading thing yet, but they would like having a little lanyard like their brother.

I remember our first trip to Disneyland with the dude and my dad bought him the Buzz Lightyear one he still has. He then got him a few pins to trade but the dude would NOT trade even the duplicate pins. He insisted they were his and he was not giving them away. It was kinda funny, we both tried to get him to get into the trading but he didn’t. This time he was all about trading and collecting the pins.

The only thing different for the girls was I added some Minnie ribbon, so one side is pink with white polka dots and one side is the Minnie ribbon. 

Lanyards: 

Minnie Skirts

The next outfit I made was Minnie skirts for the girls to wear with the Minnie/Mickey shirts I made. I loosely followed this blog. I wanted the bottom tier to be longer so I kinda reversed it. I had just made the tiered skirt so I used pretty much the same measurements I used for the top layer, it was 5 inches X 21 inches for the baby (2T) and 6X21 for the older one (4T). The second layer which is the black with white polka dots was 2X21 for both. This is where it was different than the blog, so instead of a small piping, mine ended up with about a ¼ - ½ inch border between the layers. Turned out very cute, just different.  The third layer was roughly 7X21 and 10.5X21 for the girls. I also used one long piece for each layer which made it easier, in my opinion. It just depends on how your fabric is cut. This way, I only had to sew them together, then sew up the sides, then sew a casing, and add elastic. 

I ironed the middle piece in half and lined it up to the right side of fabric and sewed together:

 

Next I sewed the right sides together of the black and red/polka dot pieces with the black and white polka dot piece in between:

 

Here are the finished pieces sewed together before I sewed the sides together to make it a skirt:

 

Here is the finished skirt:

Here are both skirts with the Minnie shirt:

 

Can’t wait to take some pictures of the girls with Minnie in these.

Tiered Skirts and Minnie Shirts for Disney

I decided that I was going to continue the trend of matching outfits for the girls for our Disney trip. I was at the store today and they had hot pink bike shorts and black shirts for $2.50 each. I decided to make a Minnie appliqué shirt with the black shirts and then make a tiered skirt that the girls can wear the bike shorts underneath. It turned out to be a fun and relatively easy project.

I learned my lesson with the last set of appliqué shirts to not mess with Pellon brand, luckily I had some other steam-a-seam. The Pellon just does not stick well and when it does it tends to stick to the paper and not the shirt.

I decided to make the Minnie heads smaller and add a crown. I then did a straight line stitch instead of ziz zag around the design. The shirts turned out really cute and I used matching fabric to make the skirts. I didn’t really follow a single tutorial to make the skirts. I read a few blog tutorials then grabbed some skirts from the girls closet to follow how long I wanted them and their waist size. The strips for M’s were roughly 5.5X20 (waist), 5X28 (middle), 6X38 (bottom). Charlie’s were a little smaller. Gathering is probably one of my least favorite things in sewing while I am doing it, but it just turns out so darn cute, so I suffer through it.

I have a few more projects planned before we hit Disney, lanyards for the girls (dude has one already), emergency cards for all the kids, skirts for the girls to match the Mickey shirts, and pillowcase dresses from some Minnie fabric I found today. We’ll see if I can finish all that before we leave. Their Tiana dresses will be packed, too. I am sure M will wear a princess gown one day, too. Packing will be a lot of fun for this trip (the kid’s clothing aspect).