Brother and Sister Outfits for Easter (and Beyond)

 

As fantastic as our Easter holiday was this year, our Easter photos didn’t turn out as fabulously as I had hoped. This was the best of the bunch, after the maximum editing I could muster:

You’ll notice that I went all 1970s on my children this year: everyone has matching outfits. Hee-haw. All of these print are from the Hello, Luscious collection from Basic Grey, and I had this insane idea that it would be awesome if we all were matchy-matchy, and then took photos together, and wouldn’t that be cute, right? But aside from the fact that it was SO pretty and sunny out that every photo totally blown out with sunlight, most of them are some variation of this:

Which is to say: the children being tolerant, and Mommy being ridiculous. In poor lighting. Le sigh.

What I thought would happen was that I’d take a photo of my husband with all the kids, then I’d trade places with him and get a photo of me with all the kids, then I’d just photoshop myself in and voila! A family portrait! But as you can see, there wasn’t a single photo of me that would be even remotely acceptable. Of course, I’ve taken exactly five photos since the ninth grade in which I have my mouth shut, so it’s not exactly a surprise…

The up-side is that their outfits all turned out super cute. Our boy wore a button-up shirt with short sleeves and his Perfect Pants in linen, (both from the Sewing Clothing for Kids e-course), and the girls wore their button-back dresses with super whirly skirts, both with a Peter Pan collar matching their brother’s shirt. So cute, for reals. Our eldest is wearing a sundress which may or may not be featured in my new book, and which is actually the same pattern as my dress in those ridiculous photos above, except mine is the strapless version. Because I’m a grown-up, and I can.

Fortunately for me, I have had multiple opportunities this Easter holiday to showcase my brother/sister outfit fetish, like the local massive egg hunt we attended with all four children. Check it out: a WHOLE OTHER OUTFIT for egg hunting, and they STILL MATCH. I am either sick or a genius. I may possibly be a sick genius; I can live with that.

This is a fabulous Laurie Wisbrun print that I adore (and that Holly at the shop convinced me I needed to buy yards and yards and yards of). Our five-year-old got a cute skirt, our boy got another shirt but this time with a cowboy/western thing going on, and the youngest got the same dress she wore on Easter, but with a squared neckline rather than a Peter Pan collar. Our eldest would have agreed to wear a headband of the same fabric, but it didn’t go with the shirt she wanted to wear. Teens.

Seriously, is there anything cuter than your kids all matching?  I know–if you grew up, like I did, during the ACTUAL 1970s, then you have some really wretched photos of you and your siblings in some seriously garish matching outfits.  And if you grew up in the South, you have seen some truly gag-inducing Sunday-best outfits for boys and girls, probably with matching smocked insets.  But these!  Are so cute!!  I’m not crazy, right??

Plus, they had the best time at the egg hunt.  It was divided up by ages, so our youngest went first, with our oldest as her escort.  Not that finding the eggs was all that tough:

They were pretty much right out in the open.  But those chubby hands, picking up those plastic eggs.  So sweet.

The other two waited as patiently as two small children can wait for rushing madness and free candy:

And then the real craziness started:

Afterward, there was some time on the playground, working off the sugar rush.

And a sweet time was had by all.

Happy Easter, everyone!

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  • Janimal
    April 13, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    What a lovely family. Fabulous matching outfits. FAR better than the ugly matching ensembles forced upon my brother and I as kids. Well done and thanks for sharing.

    Now my daughter has a little brother, may the matching begin!

    • Deborah
      April 23, 2012 at 10:55 pm

      Oooh, thanks! It was actually really fun to look at the prints and colors and think of ways to have them match without MATCHING, you know? So I really enjoyed that part of it. And ultimately, there are so many variations that can be made from these basic patterns that it would be rude NOT to have them match FOREVER. [Cue wicked laugh here.]

  • Erin
    April 13, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    Love all the matching outfits. My 2 girls matched and I would have made something matching for myself but did not have enough leftover fabric.

    • Deborah
      April 23, 2012 at 10:54 pm

      Aha!! I’m NOT crazy!! Glad to have found a kindred spirit. 🙂

  • Rachel at Stitched in Color
    April 13, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    Aw, fun! Thanks for sharing all of the family pictures. My kids enjoyed too!

    • Deborah
      April 23, 2012 at 10:54 pm

      Easter is totally my favorite holiday–always such sweet memories! Glad yours was a good one! 🙂

  • Kim
    April 14, 2012 at 7:55 am

    Lord have mercy, woman! You are a sewing MACHINE! They all look awesome. Cannot believe you did two sets of matching outfits. And they are all super cool. Way to go, Easter Bunny.

    • Deborah
      April 23, 2012 at 10:53 pm

      Bunny!! That’s it, next year we’re all getting BUNNY outfits. It’s decided. 🙂

  • Rae
    April 23, 2012 at 10:44 pm

    o. m. g. you KILL me. Just kill me girl.

    I seriously cannot believe how much sewing you did. The matching EGG hunt outfits?? OFF. THE. HOOK.

    You saw how much sewing *I* did for Easter right? Very little. So I am definitely IMPRESSED!!!

    🙂

    • Deborah
      April 23, 2012 at 10:49 pm

      It’s actually pretty ridiculous. Every time I see a cute (novelty) fabric I like, all I can think is what variation of brother/sister outfit I can come up with. Pathetic. But these outfits were fun and really much quicker than you’d think–you know as well as me that the more times you make the same pattern the faster it goes, so these don’t represent anywhere near as much time as they look like. And when you factor in that there are no buttons on EITHER of his shirts (since my buttonholer is off-sync and needs to be serviced) but they’re really just safety-pinned on from behind, they’re less impressive.

      I seriously have five more matching outfits planned, and the teen will. not. escape. Someone stop the insanity.