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A corner of our home (12)

Sophia's reading nook.

A little test

This is how the framed art looked like when I bought it
I put a piece of my favorite Basic Grey paper in it, it's still not looking right. I'll keep testing until I think it's perfect.

Sophia loves dumplings

Sophia loves dumplings, especially those with leeks. She had 10 dumplings tonight, and left all the wraps, she hates them.

It's mine

Sophia's mostly used words are "What's this?" and "It's mine.".

One more set

of coasters. Easy simple project. Can't stop...

Some new making

A set of coasters, inspired by this.

She always brings me surprise

Yesterday when I asked Sophia to nap, she was quite happy, took all her dolls off her bed, and said "It's my turn". After tucking her to in bed I left her room and thought she would have a good nap.
After about an hour, I heard her saying "mama". When I opened her door, I instantly knew that she didn't sleep at all. The whole room was in white, she spent that whole hour applying a big tube of diaper cream on everything she could reach, her face, her belly, her legs, arms, her clothes, her pillow, her blanket, her bed, carpet, everything that you could see in her room was in white. I spent way more than an hour to clean it up.
She also brought me some good surprises, too.
She talks so much more than before. Sometimes she's like a recorder, she copies whatever you say. She sometimes says something really surprises me, something I've never taught her.

100% cotton

Here are a couple cotton fabrics I recently bought, dreaming about a summer skirt.

Child proof pin cushion

When I just started sewing, I didn't buy a starter kit, instead I did shop each tool one by one. I believe I spent more than just buying a kit but I don't regret, because I got better quality tools and will last me a long time.
As I got to the point of pin cushion, I definitely wanted to make one myself. The pin cushions made by other sewers are so inspiring. However I need a child-proof one, with a very active toddler running around.
Here is what I came up with: I bought this cute plastic container from Ikea, it's very hard to open, I let Sophia test drive first to make sure she can't open. Then I made a regular pin cushion to the size of the container. Now, all the pins are safe, Sophia is safe, I get peace of mind.
The only imperfection of this pin cushion is the fabric choice. Elmo is too attractive, I should have used some boring and plain fabric.

Do you worry so much like me?

As a mom, I never stop worrying about Sophia.
When Sophia was little, I worried if she ate enough, because she was tiny when she was born.
When I saw Sophia ate more than 10 snow crab legs and still asked more, I started to worry about her big belly.
When Sophia didn't want to go to bed until midnight, I worried if she got enough sleep and rest.
When Sophia refused to get up in the morning after sleeping for almost 12 hours, I worried if she was playing in her room whole night instead of sleeping.
When Sophia just started to talk, I worried if she can handle two languages at a time.
When Sophia can understand and copy whatever you say, I worry if she copies dad's dirty words too fast.
When Sophia was bitten by other children in her class, sure I worried about her being pushed by older children.
When Sophia bit her friends to blood over a toy, I worry even more...

There are too many to list and the list is getting longer and longer.

Traveling on Mother's day

We spent Mother's day on the way this year. I couldn't believe there were so many people traveling on Sunday morning. The Denver international airport was packed. Check-in line and security check line were a mile long. We arrived at the airport about two hours ahead, still almost missed the flight. The stroller I recently bought was a life saver, it carried Sophia, carried her car seat, carried her bags, my bags, survived.
Guess my mother's day gift was that everyone got home safe and sound.

We're back

The trip was quite short considering we flew that far (more than 3 hours). But I love such shorter vacation better, because I don't want to go back to real life if it is too long.

This is our first time to Denver, however we didn't have time to dig into the city and enjoy everything.

Here are some highlight of the trip.
Pikes peak, amazing, I don't have any words to describe it, you have to go and feel it yourself. When we got to the the summit (not exactly the summit, still 2 miles of road was closed due to snow), I felt like when I first saw the ocean, it opened up my eyes and made me feel so tiny to this huge mother nature. The highest point we got was about 13000ft.
Garden of the gods, pretty neat, but if you've been to Zion national park, it won't surprise you. Horse ride in the park would be great, but I didn't feel like riding a horse. Sophia loves horse but is too young to enjoy pony ride.
Downtown Denver, doesn't look very safe, we didn't stay long, didn't even eat there. If I go again, I will go to the Denver art museum. Sophia enjoyed the children's corner at the museum very much.
Rocky mountain national park, pretty much like the Yellow stone national park, but smaller, not very impressive to me. Sophia was very exited to see wild animals though. It's not the park for us with a toddler, because Sophia is too heave to be carried while hiking, and too little to walk herself. She asked for stroller every time the car stops.

We also had some great eats at local restaurants, met our old friend and had good time.

Heading Denver

Tonight is the last dinner before we leave for vacation. I decided to make it easy and yummy. As requested by Sophia we stopped by grocery store on our way home and got lots of good eats for dinner and breakfast. Not only yummy but healthy, too.
We had raw baby carrots as appetizer, then Italian sandwich, Sophia loves ham and cheese, dessert was nicest, strawberry and mango dipped into organic soy chocolate yogurt. We will have chocolate chip muffin for breakfast.

Are you ready for summer?

I have been crazy shopping for summer gear. Today I got sunscreen, a fabric summer bag, and some summer clothes for Sophia, jersey, seersucker, eyelets, floral, polka dots,pink, peach, orange, white, perfect summer ingredients. Those clothes are very close to what I dreamed of when I was a kid. I so wanted to have summer dress, or skirt, or even shorts made of soft cotton with subtle crinkles in creamery yellow with white trim. I wish there is adult version of that yellow skirt, maybe I can make one if I can find that perfect fabric.

WIP

Will show you later...

Diner tonight

I made mini sandwich with butter biscuit, yummy. I had 5!, Sophia had 1.5!

Say bye

Sophia's voice is very soft, grandma says so, our neighbor says so, Sophia's teacher says so. Everyone that knows Sophia says so.

I think her voice is very girly, especially her “Thank you” and “Bye”. I love to hear her “bye”, not that I want to leave her, but because her “bye” is very sweet. She says bye whenever she leaves the house, she says bye when she has go upstairs at bed time. She says bye to mommy and daddy with lots of fly kisses. She says bye to her dolls, to her toys, to her pants, to her socks, to her bag, to anything that she cares.

Last night, when it was bed time, I reminded Sophia that it was time to go upstairs to brush her teeth. She said good night, then looked around, didn’t find daddy, didn’t find her favorite baby doll, didn’t find snowman, but she still said bye, she said “bye milk” (she just had a cup of milk).

One more new toy

Just got it this morning. Now I know what I'm going to do tonight, make a skin for it.

Last 48 hours

was crazy, I slept very little. There were too many things going on, can't figure out where to start.

Big event on Saturday, was Treesdale neighborhood garage sale. It's not an average neighborhood garage sale. It's a huge one because the community is huge, I think there are thousands of houses. They even had the police at busy crossings to control traffic. Its ad says start at 7:30am. I planned to be out of door at 7:15am. However life is never predictable, we finally set off at 8:15am.
When we got there, the roads were all packed, crazier than Christmas shopping. I saw many cars were already stuffed, and some had furnitures on the top. We were told that it was even more cars at 7:30am.
We spent almost 3 hours there, not even close to drive through all houses, but decided to go home because we were exhausted.
Here are what I found.
Books


A bird for my craft table.

Who says cars are for boys? Sophia spent hours playing this match box car playset.

This cute doll bed in pink, which I've been looking for everywhere.

Rocking horse with brown hair, I love her hair, not for Sophia, it's for her dolls.
It's really funny. Three years ago, when I was shopping everywhere for baby stuff for Sophia. Now we're shopping everywhere for baby stuff for Sophia's dolls.
And we also got lots of great books for Sophia, some picture frames I can work on.
Overall it was very fruitful.