Click

I finally fixed the collar on this sundress that I made for Hazel last year. The first time around I didn't make the collar big enough and it didn't fit properly, so it sat in my "Fix Pile" for about 9 months.

Glad to see it still fits her - although it's a lot more snug on her now than it used to be! One of these days I'll be so organized that I'll get to stuff like the Fix Pile a lot sooner...like when our house is all finished and I'm not splitting my spare time between sewing and design projects, landscaping jobs, bathroom remodels, interior painting, and - up next - a remodel of my studio area. Can't wait for that one! Actually I'm going to have to wait because it's not exactly top priority and we're still working on paying off our other remodeling bills.

The fabric is by Patty Young - I just love this line. It's not her newest fabric line, but it's among my very favorites.

Isn't Hazel a cutie patootie? She loves this outfit because she gets to wear her new sparkly red shoes.

I call them her Dorothy shoes. "There's no place like home!" Except Hazel hasn't figured out how to click her heels 3 times so the magic hasn't worked yet. Nor has she been carried away by a tornado, so I guess it really doesn't matter.

Ah, what would life be like without my dear, sweet, mischievous, creative Hazel? I can't even imagine, nor do I want to. Of all my kids, she is the most sneaky (adorable) and persistent (adorable) doer of fun and messy things she knows she shouldn't be doing. Here she is hiding under the kitchen table decorating her hands, legs, the floor and walls with paint. She was supposed to be working on her watercolor paintings on the kitchen tabletop, but when I emerged from the laundry room this is where I found her. At least it was washable paint this time. She's done it before with permanent marker, which is not so funny. Hazel also loves to get into my make-up (which I have resorted to storing up at the top of my closet) and has repeatedly decorated herself and our bedroom rug with mascara, lipstick, eyeliner, and eyeshadow. She stole my red nailpolish the one time I left it sitting on my dresser and had it halfway open while hiding under my bed before we found her (I got lucky that time).

Many of our walls are decorated with Hazel's artwork (she's currently working on circles) and one of her favorite pastimes is smearing toothpaste, diaper cream, and/or antibiotic cream all over EVERYTHING whenever she can get her hands on those items. She dumps out bubble solution by the gallon (which is why I only buy the tiny bottles now). The other day, while I was outside watering the garden and yard, she dragged her chair from the kitchen to the laundry room, pulled open the washing machine detergent tray, and had dumped about half a box of detergent into the (overflowing) tray and all over the floor by the time I found her. Hazel loves helping me with the laundry. Yes, I have learned that not knowing where Hazel is at all times can be a very dangerous - and messy - thing.

But when she bats her big, beautiful eyes and smiles that charming smile of hers, my heart just melts and I'm completely and utterly smitten. If she throws an "I wuv you, Mom" into the deal it's all over. I'm putty in her hands and she knows it, being the extremely smart cookie that she is.

There is certainly no shortage of adorable, charming children around here.

These are pics of my friend's kids that I took the other day. Aren't they just the cutest kids on the planet?

I love those glasses and the color-coordinating bow. Even her braces fit the color scheme! Too sweet.

This kid is such a charmer! He was the wildcard of the bunch, always with a goofy expression or his eyes squeezed shut on purpose. He kept everyone laughing with his antics - at least I thought it was funny! His mom was a little less amused. :-)

Wow. This young man is going to be a heart breaker someday. His dark eyes have so much depth and that skin of his...watch out, girls!

Maybe spinning will keep the pesky mosquitoes at bay....or maybe not. Note to self: bring bug spray on a summertime photo shoot!!! We all got eaten alive.

Fortunately we all survived and nobody got carried away by the skeeters. Because this is Virginia and not Alaska. (phew!)

These photos were taken on the day after the 4th of July. We got home so late the night previous that we waited to do fireworks until the next night.

I finally figured out how to take decent shots of sparker-wielding kids at night!

The big challenge was always how to get the human figures illuminated properly but still let the shutter speed be slow enough to capture the path of the sparkler stick.

When I mounted the camera on the tripod, I could keep the camera still enough for a slow shutter speed. I (like always) used the manual camera settings, but I also pulled up the flash so there was a flash of light to expose the moving figures of the kids just for a fraction of a second.

The figures still had a bit of "ghosting" since they weren't holding completely still, but it works well enough to capture the excitement of night-time sparkler fun!