the $49 dollar prom dress

This post is SO late. Screamapillar kindly reminded me the other day that I never posted about Prom last spring.

I doubted I would be able to top last year's $26 prom dress, and so far I haven't. This year's dress came from a bridal outlet (....where we may or may not have been looking for a big white dress for somebody else...). My little sister referred me to this place, and I must say I was quite impressed. They had a plethora of beautiful bridal gowns (an absolute plethora I say!), and probably twice as many formal dresses in every color of the rainbow.

I knew before we even got in the car what color dress we were going to come home in...even though we tried lots and lots of things like this:

and this:

Looks like she didn't like this one much. Nice face, dere.

They were very pretty,  but didn't scream "SCREAMAPILLAR" at me...

This one did.

Toxic Lime Green.

The gown only had a halter type strap on top, so bolero time again. She chose pink for the bolero to match the ruffle at the hem, and did all the beading herself. The petticoats underneath are just a bridal petticoat with the top layer pinned up to expose the tulle. We did add one yard of gathered pink tulle over the white layers to add a little more pink (and we only attached it with SAFETY PINS!!!).

The original dress was also backless with just the corset strapping baring quite an expanse of flesh, so Mommy had to fix it some. I just pinned a piece of tissue paper to the back of the dress to create a pattern for the area I needed to fill. Cut two from matching fabric (that was the hard part, actually), sewed it together, turned it right side out, and hand stitched it down the right hand side of the dress back. I put in hooks on the left side to keep it in the right location, but the lacing pretty much held it in place.

Unfortunately, when laced up it looked kinda bunchy, but the bolero covered most of it so it didn't look too bad. At least she passed the dress code and didn't look scandalous....

At the end of the evening, she managed to accessorize with some stuff that didn't quite match:

YEA NOT PROM QUEEN!!! The sash for queen was white, and that would have just been too normal looking.....

Congratulations, Screamapillar, for winning 2nd attendant, you are so completely awesome.

And in case you didn't notice.....her date had a very unique boutoniere... but that (and her matching shoes) are fodder for another post...

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...worth a thousand words...

After many much waiting.... we have some wonderful photos from the reception. I have been really looking forward to these, if for no other reason, because I was under the influence of some heavy duty pain killers after blowing out my knee earlier that day. My recollection of the evening was pretty hazy, and I was sitting here with fingers crossed for the last 9 weeks.

At last they are here, and I have picked my very favorites to share with you. The old saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words," but some of these need captions.

Enjoy.

"Touch not my dear husband, or I shall smite thee, brother mine"

TEAMWORK. (Hard to make such a wonderful cake with three and a half arms to work with)

"Ummm. Uncle Scopp, when I leaned over to hug Grandma, she ran over my dress with her wheelchair  and now I'm stuck..."

"Yeah, we all know I'm the cutest bridesmaid."

"I told you I could be trusted to not smoosh cake all over your face!"

"You did WHAT with the cardboard cutout of our missionary bridesmaid????"

The bride gets her first glance at the gift table.

Daddy - daughter, mother - son

(After dancing with her daddy)





Okay, before you look at this series, you need to know it's title.


THE GARTER CONSPIRACY

(please excuse the poor groom his confusion, as he was completely unprepared for what transpired)

Who knew? Superhero bloomers.



As I mentioned earlier, much of the evening is a blur in my memory. I'm really glad our photographer was able to make sure I didn't miss a moment of Eclair's exploits as she spend entirely too much time unsupervised:

road trip

I took a road trip with my mom last weekend. We went to Boulder, I had no idea what an adventure it would be just getting there.

There is so much to see on Interstate 80 in Wyoming....

A history lesson, for example. Did you know that before it was Interstate 80, it was Highway 30. The first transcontinental highway, privately funded and maintained.

There's lots of wildlife on this route as well: 

There were antelope everywhere...

And then there was stuff like this on the road: 

Slightly intimidating, staring down the gun barrel of the vehicle in front of you...

I don't have a picture of the next best event, which left me so flabbergasted  that I must use google images to piece is together for you. Here's the truck:

source

And here's the driver. Click the link, because I really don't want this face on my blog:

REDNECK IDIOT

and his unsuspecting passenger:

This redneck blocked us from passing him for about 20 minutes, when we reached a hill he had trouble climbing. We pulled alongside the trailer and started to pass, and the redneck driver apparently wanted back in our lane and started screaming at us through his window to get out of his way....

why? I suppose we'll never know. He wasn't very happy about being behind us. He tried valiantly to overtake us, but just then a semi tried to pass a slower truck and pulled in front of the redneck. 

Well, we all know the best course of action when you want to pass a semi.

USE THE MEDIAN STRIP.

So Redneck is now going 70 in the dirt in the center median - pulling a horse trailer - until he can pass the semi. It was quite a dust cloud he was making back there, dodging the little reflector posts....

Poor mule.

Funny thing though, he wasn't ever quite able to pass us again....

ON TO THE NEXT AND BEST ADVENTURE, FOLKS.

About mile marker 180, things came to an abrupt halt. A complete and total halt. A turn-off-the-engine-and-maybe-check-on-why-all-the-other-drivers-are-walking-around-on-the-highway-up-ahead kind of halt. 

Mom gave me the "will you check this out I don't wanna get out of the car" look, so I walked up ahead about half a mile to where people were congregating to find out what the hold up was. Dude with binoculars says he can't see where there isn't a parking lot on the highway. Dude with the Iphone says there's an accident about 10 miles ahead, but can't get anything more with the poor reception we have out here in the middle of nowhere. 

So I walk back to the car and we sit and read for about 30+ minutes. Finally, I call Boyfriend Fiancee Thing One's Husband to see if he can look online and see if there's an update from the highway patrol, perhaps? He says he'll check and give us a call back.

Well he must have some kind of magical traffic powers, because everyone out there is running back to their cars and my goodness, we're moving again!

And then we    S   L   O   W  down again after one mile. But at least now the scenery is getting interesting: there's a bunch of firemen putting out a brush fire alongside the road. But traffic is still barely crawling, for miles and miles ahead, so the fire can't be the hold up.....

and then another mile and another smoldering section of brush.....

and another mile and a smoldering brush fire that has jumped from the side of the road to the center median......

.... another mile, another small fire..... you begin to get the picture.

Then we go down hill into a small dip area (mostly smoldering...)

AND HERE IT IS!!!!

The source, apparently, of all the little brush fires over the last eight miles.

Seriously? You didn't notice that YOUR TRAILER is ON FIRE? FOR EIGHT MILES?

He managed to save the front end...

Arriving at our destination was a joy. The museum exhibit we went to in Denver was wonderful, as was the one in Boulder. So, all in all, it was a wonderful trip that will leave me looking forward to my next foray into Wyoming.

NOT.

kinda back...

Yeah, I know. I'm a slacker. Been busy, you know, with the wedding and all, then RUSH month at work, and school starting, and Farmville crops to harvest and bubbles to pop....

But the little Eclair had a birthday, and I didn't blog it. And Hubby says to me the other day, "You know, funny stuff is happening, and you're not blogging it."

Okay. Blogging it.

First of all here is my oldest and youngest, at the temple on the day of the wedding. The awesome and amazing Sherry Ward took a better one, but I don't have a copy of it yet, so you'll have to be happy with my version:

Claire has been up to her usual shenanigans, school is back in session, and she's a big kid in 6th grade now. 

She made me a list of items she would need to make her lunch each day (she likes lists, you know). When I returned from the store the other night, she was checking the items off the list, making sure her slacker mother hadn't forgotten anything.

 I told her "I got juice boxes, but you can only have one when you have a string cheese so you get milk, too" 

She replies, "OH GREAT! You got my favorite: Hick Juice!"

(Hick juice?)

yeah.  Hick juice. Her dad had to leave the room he was laughing so hard.

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Things have been a little busy lately, what with the wedding and all....

But I have lived through it to blog again. I know I have promised a Prom post for Screamapillar, and a wedding post (which I can't do until I have some photos, for once my camera stayed in it's bag).

But today is somebody's birthday, and instead of posting all kinds of embarrassing photos on FB as I had planned, I'm going to post them here where he can't untag himself and disavow any knowledge of ever being a child.

Yeah. We love him. A lot.

Happy Birthday Thing Two.

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Save the date...

We had a little fun with a brief photo shoot for the nearlyweds last weekend. Took some small chalboards we used last year for the photo booth at El Guapo & Felicity's wedding reception, and Screamapillar made 'em all cute and stuff:

But then Screamapillar had and idea and tried to get in on the action:

I must say, Best Photobomb Ever.
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Slippery Fingers

Last Sunday we had mama's lasagne for Mother's Day dinner. I made four pans, because there never seems to be enough. One pan went directly into the freezer. Three pans went to Grandma's house for dinner. One of the three went into Grandma's freezer as part of her Mother's Day gift from me. Two pans went into the oven.

One of those two pans was eaten for dinner, and one glorious pan was left over to take home to eat later.

All the way home from grandma's, Eclair was salivating. Never mind that she had five helpings of lasagne at Grandma's house for dinner (out-eating even the boys).

"Anyone have a fork?" No, Eclair, you must wait until we get home, please. She couldn't stop talking about being starving for the entire 30 minute drive home.

When we arrived at home, she jumped right out of the car and ran to help empty things from the trunk. Usually she is the slow one, hoping the trunk is empty by the time she gets out of the car. She grabbed the large heavy pan from the trunk and started crowing her success.

Then came the CRASH.

Barefoot Ecliar is standing in the driveway, now surrounded by the slivers and shards of my favorite Pyrex dish. I scoop her up, hoping no slivers have found their way into her legs, before she has even had a chance to react to the disaster.

Then the screaming begins.

Is she upset because she is barefoot standing in broken glass?

Is she upset because she's been cut by broken glass?

Is she upset because she thinks she will be in trouble for breaking mama's favorite Pyrex dish?

The first words to make their way past the screaming and crying are:

"THAT'S A WASTE OF LASAGNE!!!!!!!"

Well, at least she has her priorities straight.
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