First snow in 2006

Can you believe it? It snowed today! Fall is just here, it's sure a cold fall this year.

Basement project

Wzg was busy working in the basement over the weekend. I just hope we can move in soon.

November wish list

I've been eyeing a lot of stuff, some are teenie tiny thing, some are essentials, some are really big and costly.

A space for me to scrap (when basement is finished, I want a corner and some shelves);
a good size cutting mat and Creative memories circle cuting system (These are too expensive to justify, but I love to use circles in my layout);
Chatterbox paper (they're beautiful, but I've never had my hands on any);
glue stick (I just used up the first one);
laptop and printer(My current is too old);
Crop--dile (Not sure if I will use it, so put it last);
Will think out more.

Inspiration

Recently I have been busy cleaning and organizing the house to make it presentable before next weekend.

I haven't made much progress in scrapbooking, but I read a lot of idea books every night. Inspirations, inspirations, books are all about inspiration. I got so many ideas from the books.

First, I was inspired by a family tree layout. The common family tree starts with a couple and branch down with their children, grand children, great grand children... and so on. I'm thinking of creating an upside down family tree which will start with Sophia and root up with me and hubby, grand parents, great grandparents. With an upside tree, I may be able to tell where her eyes, nose, face from. Isn't that neat? Now I need to find pictures of all of our grand parents.

Second, I was inspired by a blog, named PJs are clothes. I'm planing to take pictures of Sophia every morning before she wakes up, sure she's in her PJs. I will find out what her favorite sleeping position is.

Third, after reading the review of Creating Keepsake's All About Me album. I want to make one, too. So that Sophia will know what kind of person her mom is, this is going to be very meaningful. But I need to start to write journal and collect old pictures first.

Last night Sophia went to bed very early after a busy day of play. So I got a little bit of my own time and decided to put together last year's Halloween page with my new fall paper. But I wasn't able to find any picture printed well. A bunch of pictures that were taken when Sophia got her first sofa seat caught my eyes. I put them together with the beautiful Basic Grey paper. They look perfectly match and the paper is called "Sophie" collection. When I saw the paper on sale, I told myself: I have to have them for Sophia. Finally I found some pictures to use them. I will show the page when it's done.

A perfect day

Sophia was sick yesterday, so I decided to take a day off and stay at home with her. She needs a break, just like us need vacation.
Amazingly, she's doing perfectly fine this morning. I canceled her doctor appointment and dressed her up, we headed to Children's museum.
Today is a wonderful day, around upper 60es or lower 70es. When we arrived Children's museum there weren't any crowd yet. We got a perfect parking spot, one block to the entrance.
This is our second time been to Children's museum. We tried to focus on the places that we didn't see for the first time. After hanging around in Mr Roger's Neighborhood for a few minutes we went upstairs, the nursery room, a special place for infants, toddlers. Sophia loved the elevator ride. She tried to push the buttons before and after getting aboard. She was very curious that when the elevator door opened we were at a different place.
The nursery room is not as fancy as the rest of the museum but Sophia can enjoy every part of it. Her favorite part is the bubble seesaw. This seesaw is so neat which has a huge water tank in the center where bubbles rise according to how often you go up and down. However seesaw requires two players. Not many children was so interested as Sophia. I ended up push the other seat by hand to pretend another child playing with her. I started to sweat after she played a couple rounds. My favorite part is the rice table. It's very similar to sand box, has many plastic scoop and toys. Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, tactile stimulation, planning, imagination, the use of tools and opportunities for social interactions are put to use. The best part, it's clean, not like sand.
Third floor is waterplay. After a fun elevator ride, we got to the top. The whole waterplay room might look like a river or lake to Sophia because the water sinks are huge. She got to put on yellow rain coat and rain boots before entering the play area. I didn't need to worry about getting wet. Sophia was a little nervous walking with rain boots, maybe they were not as comfy as her sneakers. Anyway she wasn't very active playing with water. Waterplay could be more fun in a hot summer day.
Last time Sophia loved the Garage and workshop. So we went again. To my surprise she had no interest in driving mini cooper. She was all into the mini racing cars and tracks. We spent most our time playing racing cars. Who says car is a boy thing?
We spent 2 hours in the museum without a stroller, Sophia never asked me to hold her, never asked me for a drink or sth to eat. She was all into playing. When we headed out the building, Sophia was dancing and laughing. I can tell she had a great time. If she could talk, I know what she was going to say to me, "Mommy can we play a little more?". My answer would be "Yes, but next time".
Yes, we always have next time. I can't wait. And I'll bring camera next time.

Weekend is always short

Shopping: With a gymbuck in hand, I went to the mall again. There wasn't much sale, or say, sale stuff was too ugly. I'd rather pay full price for cute stuff. Anyway I threw fair amont of dollars at Gymboree and felt pretty good. I'm not as much addicted to Gymboree as to Target. But this weekend shopping didn't come up anything from Target. For the first time I came out of Target with empty hands. I'll try to hold for two weeks and go shopping with Christine at the end of the month.

Play: Sophia was super happy this weekend. She sang and danced with TV a lot. She also played a lot with her toys, little people. And she started to count! But she only counted 3 by skipping 1 and 2. She counted her little people.

Social: I brought Sophia to our neighbour, little girl, Conie's house on Sunday afternoon. Sophia was very energetic after a 3-hour-nap. But she didn't play much. Because she was holding her property tight while playing. When we went to Conie's house Sophia brought a strawberry shortcake ball with her. She played Conie's toys but refused to share hers. She held the ball all the time and was very nervous when anyone was close it. It's time for me to teach her about "share". How? ....

Housework: Not much progress. Weekend was too short and I was too lazy.

The less the better

Finally, finally I finished this album for Ali. It has been almost a month since I first started this project. I want to say the whole creating process was like a roller coaser ride. Why? Because I went up and down: warm up, feel perfect, go way overboad, back to basic. What I've learned? The less the better.

I started this project with a navy blue 8"x8" blank scrapbook. When I first saw this simple scrapbook at Target I thought it would be perfect to make an album for Ali. Then I collected blue patterned paper and embelishments for the album.

The first two pages are plain and boring. I like the blue polka dots paper but didn't use it very well. I've thought about redo them after finishing the whole album, but desided to let it be original.



The picture on this page is my favorite. Ali looks super cute with the blue hat. I finished this page with simple orange paper, the foot print stamp turned out great.



"I love this boy", I intended to make this quote on the cover of album but decided only use on this page. The green brads served perfectly as bullets.



This page is one of my favorites, because the picture is amazing, the stripped patern paper is colorful, the handcut waves are neat and lots of 3D glu dots pop up small embellishments.





Can you believe the blue&green dinosaur is cut from a Target gift card? I throw in all my favorites in this page, Gymboree, Target, and chipboard letters. Blue and green are perfect colors for Ali, I learned that from his gymboree outfit.



This is the worst page of the album. I went way overboard with color, with paper, with embellishment. I was trying to use all of my great stuff to assemble a mosiac page. I spent almost a week on this one page. It may cost more than the rest of the album. But result is awlful. The page looks too busy and no focus. I learned a lesson: the less the better.



After learning a lesson, I kept this page simple, I spent less than 10 minites croping picture, selecting paper and assembling the whole page. The white flower was a dramatic touch. I used rub-on first time, much easier than I thought.



Signature page, I torn a piece of handmade paper to add a touch of love and drew a circle stamp by hand: Handmade by Mei with love.




Cover, I've been planning and designing the cover since start. I propbably have two or three plans, wanted to use chipboard frame. Eventrually I gave all plans up. I only used a red "A", Ali's initial in the precut window. Because I learned, the less the better. It turned out very nice to me.



I created a journal block on each page for Ali's mom to add story behind the picture.
This is my first gift album. It's not perfect but was made with love. I hope Ali like it.

Things that I don't know

Sophia is seriously into Elmo. Last night, after changed, Sophia held a clean diaper which has a cute elmo on it. She showed me Elmo and couldn't stop talking "Elmo, Elmo...". She held that diaper for more than half an hour, no matter what I used to distract her, she didn't let that diaper go.
This moning, when I dropped her at daycare, her teacher told me she learned "Elmo" because she told her and showed every time she changed her. She also told me that Sophia talked a lot at daycare. Sophia copies her teacher's words all the time. She says "lie down" at nap time. How amazing! She says "睡觉" to me at night.

Sophia's Favorite Cartoon Characters

Sophia fell in love with miffy when she was 13 months old. She watched Miffy and friends show at CCTV while we were on vacation in China. I was very exited because that was the first time she was into a cartoon character. I bought her a pink miffy doll, and borrowed miffy books and video from library. But her interest didn’t last long. She was no longer interested in anything about miffy after we were back to US.

I always love little people. I wish there were things like that when I was a child. So I bought Sophia almost every little people playset. I gave her the first one when she was 10 months old. It’s the sweet sound doll house. She didn’t explore all the bells and whistles until she saw the first little people DVD. Little people DVD is truly great for toddlers. The stories aren’t too long, or too short. They are just the length that a toddler can sit still. The stories are colorful and educational. Sophia enjoys a lot. She cheers whenever she hears the little people music song or sees the little people logo on TV. Nothing else can make a 14 months old sit down. She laughs, sings and dances with the music. She can watch the same DVD again and again. Little people DVD activates Sophia’s imagination. However she has never been able to remember a name of any of the characters in little people, because there are too many names.

When Sophia was just moved to toddler room in daycare, her teacher told me she said “elmo” one day. I didn’t believe her because none of us ever taught her “elmo”. Now I believe because I know where she learns that from. It’s from Pampers diaper. Every time I change her, she says “Ah Ma”. I didn’t know what that mean before. But yesterday she said “Ah Ma” and pointed the dirty diaper which has a cute elmo printed on it. To confirm my understanding, I grabbed a clean one and gave it to her. Sophia pointed the elmo and said “Ah Ma”, and then flipped over, said again “Ah Ma”. Because there is elmo on the front and back of the diaper. Now I recall when I showed her the TMX elmo video she laughed so hard. At that time I thought she would have loved the same if I showed her a tumble tiger. Now I know I underestimated her.

Dora is getting very popular. I love Dora, too. She’s cute. But I have a little concern about her Spanish. I’m afraid that Sophia will get more confused with the third language. Anyway I still got her a dancing Dora (too cute to pass) and a Dora book. Recently Sophia falls in love with Dora after seeing Dora the explorer DVD. She calls her “daaa”. Now I have to figure out what she calls “boots”.

爸爸起来！

昨天晚上，宁宁一如既往地不愿睡觉。爸爸妈妈轮番哄也不奏效。最后爸爸先呼噜噜了，宁宁拍拍爸爸说：爸爸起来！这是宁宁第一次说整句话。看来离会说话不远了。终于有盼头了！下面就是盼她什么时候可以脱尿布了。

宁宁说话记录

上个星期开始，宁宁开始说话了，所谓的说话是主动的说话，非鹦鹉学舌之说话。
某日早上，宁宁起床，睡眼惺松，看到床头有一杯子，说：“水，水，水!"

某日，妈妈下班的时候买了一个哈密瓜，进门顺手放在地板上，忘了。爸爸回家，看到宁宁围着一个塑料袋转来转去，还一个劲说 “瓜，瓜，瓜！”。爸爸莫名其妙，打开袋子一看，妈妈买的哈密瓜在里面。

某日，全家一起看超级女声，宁宁非常开心，说："欧八家！欧八家！欧八家!" 重复了n遍，爸爸妈妈也没分析出来是什么意思。

星 期五，妈妈把宁宁从幼儿园接出来，宁宁象饿狼一样要吃的，妈妈死活也找不到车上的饼干，只好把中午吃剩的半个 sandwich 给宁宁,宁宁马上欢天喜地啃起来，可是没过几分钟就又哼叽起来：肉肉, 肉肉, 肉肉！妈妈回头一看，原来sandwich 里面的肉掉在地上了，宁宁正心痛呢！

星期五，一进家门，妈妈赶紧把宁宁的黑球鞋脱了，防止弄脏地毯。宁宁马上说：袜袜！让妈妈给脱袜子。袜子脱了以后宁宁就开心地去玩了。

星 期六早上，因为宁宁有点上火，所以没有喝牛奶，只给了一杯白水。宁宁一边喝水一边在自己的小厨房玩。好久也没什么动静，妈妈觉得这一般不是什么好兆头。 果然，宁宁不爱喝水，全都把水撒了。妈妈赶紧开始擦小厨房,宁宁一边看，一边说：下面。原来，小厨房下面的地上也都是水，宁宁是督促妈妈不要忘了擦下面。

一 家三口去WalMart买东西，爸爸进去了，妈妈和宁宁在车里等。车里有点儿热，宁宁显示出不耐烦，妈妈马上安慰说：爸爸一会儿就回来，我们等一等，好 吗？宁宁笑着点点头，说：好。这时候旁边来了一辆车，里面坐了一个老太太，妈妈顺口说了一句：老太太，宁宁也附和：太太。

星期六，家里 party来了很多人，宁宁有点认生，紧张，没吃多少东西，只吃了一些玉米片。大家都走了以后，宁宁才放开。小人爬到椅子上，然后又爬到桌子 上去拿她爱吃的玉米片。妈妈看她辛苦，就主动帮她拿了一块，宁宁小手接过来就说：谢谢。妈妈听了，高兴死了。宁宁似乎看出来这 "谢谢"人人爱听，于是就不停地说"谢谢"。已经说了两天了。

星期天，下午，阳光明媚，天气甚好，妈妈建议出去玩一会儿，宁宁立即

跑到门口，指了指大门，说：playground

$250 = Cleaning Maid + Baby Sitter + Pet

Do you own this iRobot Roomba Robotic Vacuum? If not, go get one!
I know a lot of people think it dumb, slow, noisy. But it makes a great Cleaning Maid + Baby Sitter + Pet for us.
We leave it on while we're out, when we're back home floors are cleaned. Who cares if it's dumb, slow and noisy as long as it cleans. It saves us time and effort.
When we first started using it, Sophia was a little bit scrared as Roomba approaches her. Then she figured it's not a monster, it turns around when hits some something. She started to chase it all around the house, what a great entertainment and excise for Sophia! After a while, she learned Roomba is slow, she pats him like a doggie.
Now we all love it!

秋高气爽

星 期六早上来到公园.因为太阳才刚刚出来,所以小风飕飕还有一丝凉意.可能因为很久没来公园了，新鲜的空气，满眼绿色，感觉非常舒服。宁宁一直不是很开 心，可能因为天气还有点凉，阳光又十分刺眼。宁宁懒洋洋的，要妈妈抱。我们走了一会儿，看到下午公园的活动还没开始，正在准备。宁宁对大多数东西都不感兴 趣。但是看到正在充气的大滑梯很兴奋，可惜，宁宁太小，我是不敢让她上去的。最后我们拍了些照片就回家了。看，这个宁宁开拖拉机象不象那个俩圆人民币？

Picture Tee

Some recent work

I create this layout for a challenge at Creating Keepsakes message board. I finished about 3 weeks after the deadline. I still need to add date and journal.
Here is journal:
Many childeren attach to something since they are very young, like blanket, soft animal. Sophia never attached to anything ever. But since this summer she began to love her hat and bag. Everyday when I pick up her at daycare she runs to her bag instead of me. She looks for her hat when I tell her we are going out. Hat and bag are her summer essentials.
Gymboree strip hat $6,
Hello Kitty bag $7,
Air show at Pittsburgh airport, free,
Loving hat and bag, priceless.

I also made two cards, one for mom's birthday,












the other is Christmas card which wzg thought it looks more like Halloween card, what do you think?

Why do I scrap?

Today I read some discussions about HOFers quit scraping at creating keepsakes message board. A lot of people feel sad about it. But why do they quit doing the thing that they are so good at? When scraping is attached with money and deadline it's not fun anymore. Now I know there are so many responsibilities to be a HOFer. Those scrapbooking celebrities can't take such pressure so they quit. Someone even thinks that to get published makes her scraping fun less and less.

Why do I scrap? What are my top five reasons? I'm asking myself.

1, I love the process of creating. I love drawing, I love writing. Scrapbooking gives me an outlet of my creativity.

2, I didn't realize life gone so fast until I had Sophia. I can't remember her birth weight when she was 6 months old. I must save these precious moments before they escaped from my head. So preserving memories is another reason for me to scrap.

3, I must admit that I love shopping. I used to love buying clothes for myself, then for Sophia. Now all of our closets are full. What else to shop? Scrapbooking store is paradise for us who loves shopping. I'm trying to refrain myself.

4, Scrapers are all super nice people. I love to be one of them. I usually chat at Creating Keepsakes message board. It's such a wonderful community. All my questions get answered, even very stupid ones. I wish I can make some scraping friends in the real world.

5, Scrapbooking changed the way I look at the world. After reading stories of other talented scrapers, I found out that my life is much more colorful than I thought. I tend to listen more carefully, look closer, think deeper than before. With the progress of learning, observing and creating, I soon will present my beautiful life to you with my scrapbook.

To be honest, I will be very proud to get my work published. But if I can't become a professional scraper or HOFer, I'm happy as well because I really enjoy it.

Once upon a TOON!

We had a lot of family fun during the weekend.
The family concert by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz hall was wonderful. The concert targets children age 3 to 6. Sophia is a little too young to enjoy all parts of the symphony. But she did get that we were sitting in the hall for music. She was sitting on mom's laps very quitely from beginning to the end, about 45 minutes. She liked the music song and Fiddlesticks (Friendly, Feline Ambassador to Young Children). We'll definitely go again next year. I can't wait to see Sophia dance with the music.
Saturday was cold and wet. Can you believe we start to turn on the heater in September. A lot of people put on down jacket already. No wonder the mall was crowded on such a bad day. When we got Ross park mall in the afternoon the parking lot was 99% full. This usually happens around thanksgiving. Now Christmas shopping comes earlier and earlier every year.
Sunday was beautiful after a long cloudy and rainy week. I dressed up Sophia with a little powder pink cord dress and white floral tights. She looks cute in pink as always.
Our first stop was the National Aviary. Sophia started to talk like a duck "ga! ga! ga!" when we arrived at the parking lot. How could she know the National Aviary is about birds? Then I realized that there were a couple trucks in the parking lot had giant bird pictures on them. I was amazed, she knew the little cute ducks in pond, the bright red flamingo in the zoo and the ugly owl printed on big trucks are all birds and all makes the same noise "ga!ga!ga!". We never told her, she figured all by herself. When we got inside the building Sophia started to say "WOW" whenever she saw a bird. Her favorite was a big bald eagle, don't ask me why, I have no idea. She wasn't so interested in those colorful and good looking birds, she just liked bald eagle, she even got out of her comfy stroller to get a closer look.
Around noon, the temperature was just right and it was very nice to take a stroll in the park. Sophia was very lazy sitting in her comfy stroller all morning. But when she saw the playground near the park, her eyes sparkled, she almost jumped out of the stroller. Watching her run in the playground, get up and down, slide again and again, I felt I'm a kid again. When wzg asked us to leave, I told him, "one more", just like a kid doesn't want to leave the playground.
After lunch we headed to the Children's museum of Pittsburgh, which is next to National Aviary. This was our first time to the museum. Usually 12pm-3pm is Sophia's nap time. So I didn't expect much for an afternoon trip to Children's museum. To my surprise, the Children's museum is a giant indoor playground. Sophia loves it, I love it, everyone has fun in it. We can play in it forever. Now there is another reason that makes me love Pittsburgh.
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was our first stop. It is colorful and fun. Sophia loves to open and close those lighted alphabet windows. We took a ride at the trolly, too. Then we (I mean me and wzg) played at the funny mirrors, Sophia played at the hunted doll house. The huge 3-story wooden doll house is my childhood dream, now it came true, I can play with Sophia at the museum. Then we joined the crowd in Garage and workshop. Who says Garage and workshop are for boys? Sophia loves this room. She was facinated with the ball running at the ceiling, she kept watching that ball when she was totally exausted at 2:30pm without closing her eyes for one minute. There were so many other attractions in that room, huge car track playset, real mini cooper for children to "drive". I decided to save all other fun activities for our later trips because Sophia was too tired. We finished our trip in the theater, stroy telling show. The teller was so funny, he drew and talked the story of how turtle got cracks on his shell. Sophia laughed out loud at the end of the show. I don't know if she understands the story but I know she had a lof fun. Sophia fell asleep in one minute after I put her in the carseat.
What a weekend!