Not only is that a smocked dress I'm wearing, but my brother has a sport coat on (with knee-high socks!). So there you have it, counselor, the evidence!You may not be lucky enough to have some well-preserved clothing from Grandma's chest to hand down to your kids. My Mom doesn't fit into that role at all, since she ruthlessly threw away most everything right at the point it wasn't needed (more on that later). So to make up for it we go by what we see in the photos and this blog will attempt to get you as close as we can to the photograph.
To start with, take a look at the Vive la Fete Pink Smocked Dress. As much as I loved my dress in the picture, this one wins out on the rich detail and luscious fabric. As a dress to wear to holiday gatherings starting with Thanksgiving, I can't think of anything more elegant for a little girl to wear (sizes 4T-6X).
Not every girl looks pretty in pink. Sometimes skin tone and hair color leads you to go in a different direction. One option I'd recommend you look at is the Carriage Boutiques Teal Smocked Dress. A pure geometric design, like the pink smocked dress, this teal dress is also a stunning outfit for holiday gatherings (2T-4T).
As you can see from the top picture, my brother is sporting the blazer. IMP originals may no longer exist, but we still have some in stock in 2T and 3T. Of course we will be looking for a replacement, but until then this is what we have. Both my mom and my husband's mom have reached the point where they finally have to deal with all the photos, yearbooks, costume jewelery etc. that we left at their house when we moved out. It might have taken fifteen years from the time we left for college to get to this point, but it came. When my mother-in-law first tried to clear out her basement, it took two jumbo dumpsters and five tons (10,000 lbs.!) of tossed items to leave her with only one big basement of stuff to clear out... that was 10 years ago and she's still working on it! (Note: 1) only a small percentage of the stuff was my husband's and his sister's and 2) the first draft of this blog had it at two tons because five tons would have been too outlandish; she wrote in to correct the error.) My own mother is less of a pack-rat, so it took less time for her to clear it out. All we got was five boxes of stuff, which included the picture at the top of this page. I'm grateful to have them, and I like the fact that I can make the decision to toss something that doesn't mean much to me anymore. We toyed with the idea of sending it back to them at their new house, but stopped at the point of only mentioning it over the phone for laughs. Most of the laughs were at our end of the phone. No doubt we have more pictures of the kids than our parents ever did, thanks to digital cameras. I just hope it doesn't simply disappear on a failed hard drive before we can print them all, which might ironically leave us with less than what our parents had to give!
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