If most of our photographs hadn't been water damaged/destroyed by a plumbing problem a few years back, I would have some pictures to go with the little history behind what you're about to see.
When Miss Helping Hands (our first daughter - after FOUR boys) was about to celebrate her first Christmas at three months of age, we bought her a baby doll - Betsy - who was, at the time, bigger than Miss Helping Hands herself.
I made matching Christmas dresses for Miss Helping Hands and Betsy, propped them both up on a little bench in front of the Christmas tree, and took their picture.
And I did the same thing for the next twelve or thirteen Christmases of Miss Helping Hand's life.
It was wonderful to see the changes in our little girl from year to year, and to have Miss Betsy (who's eyes stopped opening by themselves somewhere along the way) in the photos for size perspective and sentimental reasons.
So...
When Baby Girl was about to celebrate her first Christmas, I remembered how nice it was to have those photographs of our own baby girl and I ordered a Bitty Baby for Beegee.
This is what she looked like when she arrived, all soft and sweet...
...and it made me want to "play dollies" again.
I looked through all my baby girl dress patterns, searching for some inspiration for the matching clothes.
And then one day (December 13, to be exact) while I was doing some Christmas shopping, I stumbled upon the sweetest little outfit in just the right size for Baby Girl.
I couldn't help myself.
I bought it.
Then I went to the fabric store to get what I needed to make an outfit just like it for Bitty Baby.
I already had a dolly clothes pattern I had used when our shoots were young, and I figured I could tweak it to make it work.
On the 18th (I don't know why, but I had a free day!) I got to rev up the sewing machine and have some fun.
But Christmas day was the most fun of all.
Look closely at this photograph: Baby Girl and Bitty Baby have their feet in exactly the same position.
Isn't that fun?
And isn't it fun that Baby Girl's grandmother, who just happens to have some elf stockings of her own, got to get in on the photo shoot (even if we did cut off her head)?
We sure thought it was.
Well...
Some of us did, anyway.