A Name and a Blessing... Dress

We blessed Elizabeth on December 19, 2010. We are so glad that some of our family and friends could join us {the week before Christmas} to bless Elizabeth. Steven gave Elizabeth a beautiful blessing. Also, big thanks to our bishop for allowing us to bless her on a Sunday other than Fast Sunday so that her Grandpa Harwood and Uncle Blake could be there.

I am quite proud of Elizabeth's blessing dress and I hope one day she will have a little girl who can wear it too. When I had Macie and we blessed her, she wore the same blessing dress that I did when I was blessed. When I found out that I was expecting another girl I was excited for her to wear it as well. Then one night I thought "If they both wear it, then who will I give it too?" I guess they could share it, but should a girl really have to share her blessing dress? I think not. So I set out to make Elizabeth a blessing dress as special as Macie's. But, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't find fabric that I liked. And the simple act of making the dress just didn't seem to be enough to live up to Macie's heirloom dress. One day while talking to my mom about it she offered to let me use fabric from her wedding dress to make Elizabeth's blessing dress. My first reaction was "NO WAY! I am not going to be responsible for cutting my mothers wedding dress to pieces!". It took her a while to convince me she was alright with it, otherwise why would she have suggested it? And as soon as I was certain she was being honest, I was in love with the idea! After all, the fabric is gorgeous, so why not? We found a pattern {that we could seriously modify} and some new lining fabric and set out to make the dress. Enter overwhelming guilt... When it finally came time to get started on the dress I really had a hard time making that first cut into my moms beautiful wedding dress, like a good mom she made me do it! Every time I sat down to work on the dress I still felt so horrible! I found myself getting impatient over simple sewing tasks and I just wanted to give up and buy a dress from the store, then my conscience would scream "so you ruined your mom's dress for nothing?!?!?!". And so I kept working, making alterations to the pattern and then before I knew it the dress was finished. It turned out a-maz-ing! Elizabeth looked so beautiful!

{Don't you just want to munch on those pudgy little arms?}
Macie was more interested in playing with her cousins than documenting Elizabeth's big day. Can you tell?

I also made Macie's dress. Just putting that out there...

{Isn't she perfect?} Oh, I just love her!