Blessings

Well, do you remember the baby blessing day that never happened? It finally happened! Our baby is blessed!

(She's a little upset that I'm taking pictures and not feeding her... but that blanket? Me and all of my siblings were blessed in that!)

We had a beautiful blessing by mr with my brother, brother IL, Dad and Bishop helping, despite a squirming 5 month old who kicked mr in the chest through the whole thing (I told mr we definitely need to stop this whole blessing them when they're old enough to sit up thing. bug was blessed at 4 months... next one is getting blessed the day after birth - I swear!)

I went overboard on food, as I usually do. I had tons of fruit and veggies and sandwich makin’s - with some yummy chicken salad (see the “recipe” below) and skor cake (click the link to see the recipe) which I made with heath instead of skor bars - do you realize how hard it is to find skor bars these days??

Of course, I had been intending to make mini’s blessing dress. But I was too scared. I had visions of a scrunched up, wrinkly, floppy, bag of a dress turning her arms blue from cutting of the circulation while pooling in a baggy heap around her neck because it was three sizes too big there... you want your daughter to look good on her blessing day, you know? Not thrown together. So I procrastinated. And procrastinated. And the day before blessing day was supposed to happen the first time, mom brought over a beautiful white blessing dress that she’d purchased for the occasion - saving me anxiety, time, and sanity. Thanks, mom! She also made these adorable shoes for mini to wear:

(It's a bad picture, but they're cute, trust me!)

So all I had to contribute to the outfit were the finishing touches, i.e. a pair of ruffle butt bloomers and a lacy, flowery headband.

I used some plain white cotton bloomers that mini had laying around.

She’d never worn them, and I decided they’d look cuter with ruffles on the bum no matter when she wore them - blessing day or not. So I cut some eyelet trim to fit across the rump and sewed them on, starting at the bottom of the behind (hee hee) and laying them on top of each other going up. And here they are all cute on her behind.

Then I measured two lengths of lace ribbon to fit around her head and doubled them both. I measured elastic to fit her head, then sewed the little lengths of elastic to the back of the ribbon with a zig-zag stitch, pulling the elastic tight as I sewed so that the ribbon would be gathered and stretchy. I sewed the ends of each ribbon together to make a circle, so I had two of these when I was done.

I sewed them together with a gathering stitch, pulled the bobbin thread to gather them together and tied the thread on both sides into a double knot, then cut the excess thread off. Voila, a double lace headband!

I made the flower clip by cutting some eyelet fabric into a wide strip, then sewing it in half with a gathering stitch and gathering it up. I glued it into a circle with hot glue. Then I did the same with a strip of tulle and glued that on top of the fabric. I used a fabric-covered button which I covered out of the same white fabric my mom used on the shoes (which was a semi-sheer white cotton with white flowers embossed on) as the flower center and hot glued it. (Have I told you how much I love fabric covered buttons? I am addicted. I love them. We’re pretty much having an affair). Then I covered an alligator clip with light pink rickrack and glued the flower on. Presto! Super cute.

(Hmmm, not so happy anymore...)

Anyway, the outfit was great, the recipes were yummy and the festivities were fun, but the most important part of the day, of course, was the blessing in the morning from Daddy.

bug and mini are so blessed to have a loving daddy like mr who will be their hero and protector for all their lives. Heck, I can say the same for myself, too!

Yummy (Easy) Chicken Salad

Three cans pre-cooked chicken

about 1/2 a cup of mayo (I never measure...)

a bunch of grapes, sliced up

about 1/4 cup of shredded cheese - I like a mild white cheese, like provolone, but I used cheddar yesterday and it was good)

Mix this up together really well.

Add:

garlic salt

onion salt

dried chopped onions

dill weed

To taste. (Like I said, I never measure, but I listed the spices in order of most to least)