Here’s our monthly family picture:

Just kidding. I’m just playing major catch up here. I started these dolls back in December. I finished the Alan doll on Christmas Eve. It took me a little longer to finish the rest of the family. But I know I finished Isabelle and Nathan when we went to the zoo in January because I took this picture there.

The dolls might look a little familiar. I used them for the entire month of January as my banner:

And it would have made sense if I had shown the dolls then. But…I couldn’t find them. Isabelle kept playing with them and losing them. At first the Isabelle and Nathan doll went missing. And when they turned up, daddy doll went missing or someone was always missing. Well, I’m glad I found them all at the same time so I could get a picture.

The dolls were a collaboration between me and Isabelle. It was originally from this banner:

I created it in Illustrator. In Illustrator you can save only the artwork on your art board. So, I don’t usually draw what’s not going to be in the final image. In the original file we had no legs. Why draw legs when you aren’t going to see them? But every time Isabelle walked by and saw me working on it, it drove her crazy. She kept asking where her feet were. So, I drew some for her. But then when she had feet, she wanted the rest of us to have feet. So, of course I had to draw some for her.

And that’s what I was going to use for our family dolls. I started changing us a little bit around but I liked Alan in this, I call it “sexy pose”. Hee hee hee!

But Isabelle didn’t like it. She wanted daddy standing like normal and she wanted us in different colored clothes and she wanted to be in a dress and why didn’t we have shoes on? I love what she came up with.

And here we are with our dolls.

And finally our real monthly family picture.

Ok I’m finally going to talk about Halloween. About time right?! Hey, shut up! It’s my blog. I can talk about Halloween two weeks late if I want. Hey I could even talk about Valentine’s if I want. My blog.

Sorry. Must be tired. But actually doing better than last week. You may have noticed, I’ve posted several times this week. See, better. But obviously not better 100% because I’m talking all crazy and being hostile.

Ok, back to what I was saying. Halloween. Weeks and weeks ago I asked Isabelle what she wanted to be for Halloween. She said she wanted to be a princess. So, we went to Jo-Ann Fabrics when they were having a $0.99 cent sale on Simplicity patterns. We flipped through the pattern book and Isabelle saw a Cinderella pattern, Simplicity 2817. She got super excited and said, “this one! This one!” We kept on flipping and then we saw this pattern, Simplicity 5520, with a princess and a knight. And again Isabelle was all, “this one! This one!” So, I thought I’d get the princess and knight one in case Nathan or Isabelle wanted to be a knight at some future time.

But that’s not what she’s wearing, right? Well, they didn’t have any. I searched high and low. Bummer. So, we ended up with Cinderella. My sister confusedly asked why we didn’t just buy a Cinderella costume. Yes, I know I could have. But sewing is a hobby and plus, this one was made the way I wanted it made, backed with something soft: flannel. And if for some reason she wants to be Cinderella or Snow White next year, I have the pattern already.

Now, Isabelle isn’t usually picky about her clothes or what she wears. But when it came to her Cinderella costume, she had a very clear idea about how she wanted to look. She needed princess shoes. And princess gloves. And the headband. And the choker thing. She was super specific.

We got mostly everything together the day before Halloween. I covered a headband. We bought her princess shoes and gloves (which she didn’t even want to wear on Halloween). I sewed up her costume all except for the hem and choker. I thought, it’s a hem. How hard can it be?

Well, it can pretty damn hard if you make it that way. The dress was about four inches too long. I wanted to hem it without cutting it so Isabelle could grow into it if she wanted to play with it for a while. And I have a blind stitch setting on my sewing machine that I wanted to use. The only problem is, I’ve never used it before. I didn’t know how to. It requires folding the cloth a certain way. After multiple unsuccessful attempts I gave up because the blind stitch was clearly visible at four inches up. I resorted to cutting the hem. By then it was getting late.

So, I just serged the hem. But it wasn’t quite right, it was still too long. I serged it again. Then it was uneven. I then wanted to make the choker so told Alan to serge the hem saying, it’s easy. But he said, what if it jams? I was all like, it won’t jam! But he wouldn’t touch it. So, I started to serge it again and wouldn’t you know it, IT JAMMED! I had to rethread the whole machine.

When I was finally done doing the simple hem, it was late and already dark. We rushed up the street to Alan’s cousin’s house and all the kids were headed out the door to go trick or treating. I only got a few photos that came out just ok. I really wish I had taken more but carrying the extra ten plus pounds of Nathan and my camera was just too tiring. I halfheartedly took some pictures.

I didn’t even bother changing Nathan into his costume, a peapod (that’s Isabelle wearing it like four years ago). I thought it was a cute idea, you know like a princess and a pea(pod). I was even going to dress up like a farmer but I couldn’t find my old overalls. You know, me, a farmer, growing a peapod. Well, I’m glad I didn’t get dressed since I didn’t put Nathan in his costume all night.

Back to what I was saying…

Everyone took off. It was cute watching Isabelle trick or treat this year. We heard a lot of “hey, wait for me” along with “trick or treat!!” and “the lady did it“. I don’t remember her saying trick or treat last year. Maybe she did or maybe she just held out her bag. And a lot of people talked to her this year. They kept asking who painted her face, because yes that is her butterfly face painting on her face. She loved it so much she didn’t want to wash her face, not even for her Cinderella costume.

We walked and walked and my gawd it was tiring. Nathan is heavy! Right when I thought, I’m going to turn around and go back to the house Isabelle said, “I NEED TO PEE!” So, that ended our trick or treating. Alan threw Isabelle on his shoulders and it was a mad dash to try to get Isabelle back to the house before she peed on him. And that’s how our Halloween went.

Oh and the pictures of Isabelle in her costume that are nice, the first four in the beginning? So taken after Halloween.

If you follow me on twitter you probably saw me tweeting about working on my cow shirt. Well, I finally finished it sometime last week. And it does have a real name, it’s Simplicity 3887.

The final step was the belt, just a rectangle piece of fabric. I don’t know why it took me so long to get to it. I should have done it weeks ago because I LOVE my cow shirt now that it has a belt.

I love it even though it might be too big. After I cut out the pieces, I bought Pattern Fitting With Confidence by Nancy Zieman. I had watched an episode of her show months and months and months ago. It was about altering patterns and at the end she mentioned her book. It’s been sitting on my wish list all this time and I finally bought it. But, as I said, I bought it AFTER I cut out my pieces.

And one of the interesting ways she measures is called the Right Size Measurement which measures patterns to fit your shoulders. Usually you go by bust measurements. I think she said, on her show, that alterations to the bust are easier than the shoulders. I don’t know, I can’t really remember BUT using her method my shirt is off by four sizes. FOUR! I made a size 22 instead of a 14. Oh well, I wouldn’t have recut it anyways because the pattern envelope I bought only went down to a size 16.

Hey stop talking about your shirt, mama! Look at me!!

Hee hee, Isabelle was jumping in front of the camera when Alan was taking pictures of me so I had to put one in. Back to what I was saying.

Even though it’s four sizes off, it turned out fine. It’s not a tight fitting style so the fit is good even with my baby bump. The only complaint I have is, the neckline is very wide. Maybe if I had made it four sizes smaller that wouldn’t have been an issue. But then of course maybe I would have had to alter it to fit the baby bump.

Oh and onto a random video of Isabelle. This is what our car rides are like. They are filled with singing and “I spy with my widdle eye“. She says WIDDLE! It’s so freaking cute!

Car rides with Isabelle on Flickr

Oh and if you follow my tweets you might already know this. We did go see the doctor about my itching. It’s nothing serious just irritating. He wants me to keep an eye on it but he’s not worried. He specifically asked if it was itching in my palms or on the soles of my feet. Which would indicate some special thing that I cannot remember the name of. I’m soooo useless.

He does want me to use unscented products for a while though. And also to stop taking folic acid or prenatal pills just in case. He’s had a few patients where that helped with the itching. And I also have to avoid hot showers. Bummer. I do so love hot hot water.

And can I just say he was soooo nice and had such a friendly manner. When we walked in, there was a note up on the board that said, Dr. Sanchez (I’m writing his name down for me otherwise I WILL NOT be able to remember his name in the future) was running 25 minutes late. Even though he was running late, I did not feel rushed through which is sometimes how I’m feeling with our regular appointments with the NPs.

Ok, now I cannot think of a way to end this post. I am a goober. I’m going to try not to scratch my legs now.