OOTDs: The Frock Fantastic.

I love a good dress, especially a good summer sundress.  Even through the heat, and the humidity, and the (occasional way too bleeping often) power outage, I adore summer and would prefer to always have highs in the 90s to highs in the 40s.  I don't know if that is because I was born in CA and raised in VA, or if I am just crazy (probably the latter), but fall and winter just don't do it for me.  ;)

In fact, by this point of summer, I would have normally exhausted every single dress in my closet and would be returning for seconds, but this summer I have had to say "so long and see you later" to the vast majority of my dresses because they are not nursing friendly, and while I am fine with that, I do have to admit to missing a bit of the fun I have summer sun-dressing. 

All of the below dresses are nursing friendly*, which means I have given them a go multiple times because I am so happy that I can wear something less constricting than shorts and a tee (I far prefer the airiness of a dress to shorts and tee in the humidity we have here, in CA the shorts/tees were absolutely fine). 

*Well, I did manage to get away for a couple of hours to dinner with my bro, so I was able to wear a nursing (un)friendly dress.

If you have been over at my facebook page in the last few weeks, you have already seen all of these outfits, but stick around, I added some additional detail shots, etc., so you haven't seen it all *quite* yet.

Target.  Oh, how I adore you for your easy, fun, and cheap fashion.  I wear you, I love you, and when I am done with you, I donate you.

This dress reminds me so much of this skirt by Boden.  (I realize the colors are different, but the basic look is very similar.) In fact, Target has a skirt just like that one, and yeah, I picked that one up, too.   I loved the Boden skirt but never bought and then it was gone.  Poof!

UPDATE: The eagle-eyed lolcatgirl let me know in the comments (below) that the dress and skirt are dead ringers for this skirt and dress from J. Crew.  Thank you...I knew that the Boden skirt was more of a distant cousin, but really couldn't figure out which skirt and dress I had seen that were the parents.  Here is what the skirt looks like on Tabitha.  :)

I will probably keep the skirt the longest, for as much as I love the dress, it more serves a purpose for me than is a "home run" the way I feel about so many of the other frocks in my wardrobe.

We were heading to go to Brick Fair, a big huge meeting of the minds of men, women, and children who really get into building Lego models.  I was not one of the minds, although mine did marvel at the creations.

Close up detailing of the dress and accessories.

The Frock Fantastic. by dinagideon featuring shoulder handbags

Above is a polyvore of this outfit (only polyvore I made for this post).

Oh, the Boden maxi dress.  How do I love thee?

I have now worn this dress and its sister (the purple/green one) and its cousin (this summer's multi-hued one, also at the bottom of this post) multiple times already.

These dresses do hit a homerun for me, which is surprising to me because I lived through the 90s and wore maxi dresses and skirts all the time.  As I aged I associated the longer hemlines with my less satisfactory sartorial past and gave them up completely until I tried the Boden jersey maxi dresses last summer for the first time.  You all, I will never let these go.

The kids and I were headed up our local path to our local shopping center to do usual errands, you know, bank run, dry cleaner run, grocery store visit, McDonald's.  So exciting.  I will say that this outfit is more than fine for the 1.5 mile round trip we take when we do this (about twice a month).

I liked my makeup and hair that day.  The earrings are from the J. Crew factory and I was surprised at how long they lingered in clearance.  I think I got them for six or seven dollars.

Another Saturday, another nursing friendly dress.  :)

Headed to sushi buffet with my brother, CW, and Angus with a side trip to the uniform store for Rex's school uniform for next year.

I forgot how much the Caroline Dress wrinkles, but I guess a bit crumpled gives it a bit of a safari chic look, huh?

The Palazzo Dress from J. Crew got almost no love in the blog world, but from what I could tell, somebody out there liked it as it sold quickly and in all the colors.  This is the bohemian red color and it is unbelted here.  I kind of dig it unbelted, but I didn't actually wear it out this way, I just wanted you all to see you could unbelt it and it wouldn't look terrible.

I lied up above when I said there was only one nursing unfriendly outfit.  Oops.  This one is as well.  I was headed out with CW for a girls night out, so I knew that I wouldn't have to worry about it as Mr. Dina had Angus during that time.

Here is the way I wore it out.  This is a very very VERY comfortable dress.  If you wanted a really expensive nightgown, I would highly recommend this one.

I had to size down to an extra-small.  The small was HUGE on me, even through the hips.

This is the nursing unfriendly dress I spoke of initially.  I wore this just two nights ago to go out with my brother to Ethiopian food.  :)

We took Rex with us and Mr. Tiny (yes, Angus) and CW stayed with Mr. Dina.

It was actually cool enough (read: below 85 degrees) for me to wear a lightweight cotton cardigan over top the dress.  I like the look, but probably won't replicate this again, since I now see the darker green in the striped cardi is not close enough in hue to work with the dress pattern.  In real life the outfit read differently.

I was super excited to not have a diaper and wipes in that clutch, btw.

Hey, it's a Boden maxi.  And a fedora!  LOL.

Remember the derecho?  Who could forget it?  Anyhow, to escape the heat the day after the derecho occurred we went to Kingstowne (shopping center) to grab lunch and get into some air conditioning.  This dress made my mood significantly happier, although it should be clear that I am definitely not cool as a cucumber, even if it doesn't appear that I am sweating in the above photo.

Those Cole Haan Air Catalina sandals are amazing.  Not only are they glittery and girly, they are insanely comfortable.  If you can grab one on ebay, I highly recommend them.

Dah...the baby is so cute!  I am definitely sweating.  And this was inside the Burger King, so that should tell you something about air conditioning power when it is overused...meaning it has none.  Sigh.

I love this Garnet Hill dress.  I wore it to go out with my brother to the Winesday event at our local Whole Foods.

If it seems my brother and I have been hanging out a lot, we have...and I couldn't be more stoked.  For a while there his work schedule was crazy and we only saw each other randomly and not all that often.

Okay, this one is O-L-D...from right after Angus was born.  I threw it into this pack because I am wearing a literal nursing dress from Target here (under a Target cardi from years ago).  I have to give Target major thumbs up for making dresses that make it easy to nurse and still be somewhat private about it (it has a panel and a built in shelf bra).  I still wear a cover, but my sides aren't exposed, which happens when I wear tees (I lift the tees up for nursing access).

I also own this in a blue shade.  I only like these dresses for their function, and will be very quick to sell them when Angus is nursing less (likely at one year of age--I am an extended breast-feeder, but I don't exclusively nurse past one year).

I still have a tiny baby belly here.  Angus was probably just around a month old, which also would explain the hair color (hadn't had a chance to get out in the sun and really blonde it up).

Another view of the dress.

Okay, that's it.  :)

Any of you who nursed have other types of dresses you remember wearing that made it easy for you and your child?