Busy, busy weekend. And a dress.

So busy, in fact, that it's carried through until Monday!

My husband's mom turns 50 this week, so we had a surprise birthday party for her. The biggest surprise that we included was to fly in my sister-in-law (her daughter) and her fiance from DC.

So, Saturday morning we drove to Omaha to get said sis-in-law and fiance from the airport. We did some quick shopping (cards and decorations) and grabbed a cake on the way home. We came back to our house for an hour or so to get ready, and then headed an hour and a half the other direction to the surprise dinner.

Mom-in-law shows up to dinner, and is shocked to see 26 of us there, but is ESPECIALLY shocked to see sis-in-law and fiance there. Of course she bawled for a while! She sniffled a little bit more when we presented her with a new mother's ring.

So we had dinner, and I ordered chicken strips. They went down pretty well, I had 3 average sized strips and 2 or 3 french fries. I skipped the cake, it wasn't even appealing to me.

We all went back to mom and dad-in-laws place afterward, and totally crashed. I did pretty well eating the next day, even at the Chinese buffet we had for dinner! I tried an eggroll, but it didn't go down very well. I had a couple of pieces of breaded chicken, and about 4 or 5 small crab rangoons. This weekend was the first real dinner I've had out where it would be obvious that I'm not eating like a normal person at a buffet. Fortunately, there were a BUNCH of us at that buffet (fiance's whole family drove in so we could finally meet them) so no one really paid attention to me.

After dinner buffet, we drove back home with sis-in-law, and then drove her to the airport Monday afternoon (fiance stayed with his family after dinner Sunday night). I weighed myself this morning to see the damage, and I weight the exact same as I did when I left. Woo hoo!

That means that my 4th fill is 8 days old, and I've lost exactly 5 lbs in that time. I'm still not at my all time low (I saw that two days after my 3rd fill), but I'm only .2 lbs above that. Oh so close! Should be this week, though. This fill is definitely doing it's job.

So there you go. I call it a pretty successful weekend all the way around.

Moving on to a dress -

We are going to a wedding in 2 weeks. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to buy a new dress for this wedding. As I've said before, we're on a pretty tight budget with me being a stay at home mom. So, I was thinking maybe I could try to sew myself a dress.

Here's a quick history of my sewing skills:

-received sewing machine as a gift about 4 1/2 years ago. No clue how to even thread it, let alone actually use it.
-fiddled with machine for about 3 1/2 years, just hemming stuff and making curtains. Basically, just doing straight lines.
-decided that I wanted to make Halloween costumes for my girls last Halloween. Started on them in July because I didn't know how long it would take me.
-made a Belle dress and a Snow White dress for my girls last summer/fall. Turned out pretty good, considering it was my first attempt at a pattern.
-made cheerleader outfits for my girls last fall to wear to a football game at my Alma Mater. Go Lopers!
-made practice adult jacket this spring. I'll be making bolero jackets to match our bridesmaid dresses for the wedding we're in in October, and I wanted to make one with cheapo fabric to see how it would turn out. Also made a matching pocket book.
-made 10 sun dresses for my girls this summer. This took me about 2 weeks, including one whole weekend that I had entirely to myself.
-made 2 robes for my girls this summer. Instead of spending $4 a yard on fleece (so each robe would have been $8), I got 2 knock off snuggee blankets for $3.50 each and cut up one for each robe. Less than half the price!

So that's the stuff I've made. With this wedding coming up, I'm thinking maybe it's time I try to make something for myself.

What sucks though is that pattern sizes really don't correspond to real world sizes. For instance, the bridesmaid dress that I just finally squeezed into is a size 16, but I'm a size 22 in sewing patterns. Talk about a bummer, huh? I didn't realize this until I had already purchased a pattern and the required fabric.

I got home and took everything apart, and it hit me that it didn't quite seem big enough. Poop. So I hit Joann's on the way to the airport yesterday. Fortunately, they had patterns on sale for $1, so I didn't have to spend much to get another, larger pattern. What sucks though is that I had already purchased my fabric based on the first pattern, and the new pattern didn't require nearly as much fabric (yes, it's bigger, but the skirt is a different style, so it just doesn't use as much).

So I've been working on the dress the last day or so. I'm getting a lot faster at this, I'm actually almost done with it. I spent a total of about $30 on all the supplies, but I have probably $6-$8 worth of extra fabric that I wouldn't have paid for if I had had the right sized pattern in the first place. That irks the thrifty part of me, but hey, I'm getting a dress for $30, so I should not be b*tching. Plus, I could probably make something little out off the leftovers - there's enough of it.

I would like to post a pic or two of my in progress dress, but my daughter is sleeping in the room with my SD card adapter, so I'll just have to wait and post finished dress pics. I should be able to finish it tonight, I'll have pics up on the next day or two.

So that's the story of my extended weekend, and my new project. Hope yours was as good as mine!