These kids won't be wearing their birthday suits....

I ended up working 40 hours last week.  So as you can probably imagine, my head was spinning by Thursday afternoon.  I have so much to do at work and there were unfinished projects at home and making it all fit in isn't always easy.  Work/life balance is a constant push/pull, as is what needs to get done at home versus what I want to do at home.

The girls' ability to choose an outfit that doesn't look like it belongs to Punky Brewster is sometimes a function of what's clean and available in their closets and I can tell you right now that they don't have a Gymboree store in there.  Thursday afternoon, I was thinking about the jumper and skirts I was sewing and what shirts the girls had to wear that still fit and would possibly match.  Not much.  And when was I going to be able to go shopping.

I constantly complain about the distance from the train station to my office but once I'm there, it's the perfect location for shopping.  (If I actually had time to go shopping.)  I'm only one short block from Downtown Crossing.  Thursday afternoon, I slipped unseen out of work around 2:00 and five minutes later, arrived at H&M. Meh, I didn't like the sizing of the shirts (although they had a ton of cute summer clothes) so I moved across the street to The Children's Place.  The quickest way for me to see if the girls like something is to take a picture and post it to FB so that Grammy, who is not an iPhone user, can show it to them.

This shirt was a no go even though I thought it was hysterical.  Oh, how I laughed.



Allie and Emily liked this one.



I grabbed four pink shirts in size 5/6 and hit the register.  If I had realized that the long-sleeve ones were on sale for $2.50, I would have stocked up. They also had some super cute summer maxi dresses but the size 5/6 I picked up was about a foot too long for the girls.

Okay, now onto the sewing.  I started with Allie's jumper first.  She had picked out cupcake fabric at the store a few weeks ago but it wasn't very kid-like and after a closer look, I found it to be more Valentine's Day than birthday.  I wanted to do something bright and spring-like and she quickly agreed.  She's usually very easy to please.  She also tells me that I sew the best clothes in the whole world.



(Made from a fat quarter bundle.)



Emily's skirt was next. 



I usually save Anna's sewing projects for last because she likes to see what sissies are wearing and then she picks/designs something different.  I had sort of grumbled when she'd insisted upon fabric with a black background but I pick my battles and this wasn't one to be had.  As we were designing her skirt and discussing what shirt to wear, she told me that she had picked this particular fabric because there were so many colors and it would be easy to match.  The world is different through the eyes of a five year old.



Emily's BFF had her birthday party on Saturday and Emily asked me to sew an Ariel skirt as part of her present.  Sure, no problemo.  What's one more skirt?



Her BFF loves it and now Emily wants one so that they can wear them to school on the same day.