charlottes blessing dress

I am still so sad to say that my Nikon D40 that I have had for the past 4 years, and taken thousands upon thousands of pictures on, turned up missing the beginning of January. I spend hours searching every single part of my house for it. I am thinking that it may have gotten stolen out of my car, as the last place I remember seeing it was in the front seat. It was a good camera to me, I packed that thing around everywhere.I had some Christmas money that needed to be spent :) so I ordered a Canon Ti2 this time. I am getting to know it and oh the adventures we will have together!We blessed Charlotte in December. I had not really had a chance on her blessing day to get any good pictures of her or her dress. So yesterday Lucy and I worked together to make it happen.I had struggled with a design for Charlottes dress! I thought about it for months and months. I didnt know what I wanted, I just knew this amazing little girl needed something so beautiful.I barely got it finished in time!But I am really happy about how it turned out. She looked beautiful and more importantly her blessing was beautiful.I really cant believe that I am lucky enough to be her mommy.The bow is a pink silk ribbon hand stitched to the dress.I wanted to keep the bow semi-flowy, so I only stitched parts of it down.The pattern called for a gathered sleeve, but instead I chose to do a puffy sleeve with a pleat.I have had my eyes on these buttons at Joanns for about a year. I knew I had to have them for Charlottes dress. I thought this headband turned out so sweet. I found the bow applique awhile ago and kept it in case I could find a place to use it on the dress. Charlotte had just woken up from a nap when we took these pictures. I think we took them in less than two minutes because thats all this little darlin had in her.I could not have done it without Lucy, she jumped on the bed behind me to keep Charlotte entertained while I snapped a few shots.Thanks Lu! You are the best big sister.I have really been wanting to say thank you to all of you who have kept encouraging me over this last year. I am ready to start blogging again! With three children it may not be as often as I used to be able to, but I will sure do my best! If you have written me emails or left comments thank you so much! It means so much to me and I will do my best to respond.