Big Girl Bed

When does your baby stop being a baby?


I think it's when she starts sleeping in the big girl bed. :'(

Last night was her first night sleeping in the big girl bed, although she took a couple of naps in it over the weekend. We tried her on it during a nap the weekend before, but she kept coming out, so I gave up and put her in the crib to nap. This past weekend, she kept coming out again, so we got a bungee cord and tied it to the adjacent door so that she couldn't get out (it's like a crib, but bigger!). That seemed to do the trick and on Sunday, she didn't come out at all. Someone else told us in the past to reverse the lock on the door so that it's outside rather than inside and that's a pretty good idea, but more effort than we were willing to put in.

I feel like it's bittersweet how quickly she's growing up.

By the way, that's my childhood bed. Which became my brother's. Which became ours when my mom moved. I feel thrifty thinking about how we didn't have to buy any furniture for that room. Ha.

Highlights

For the first time ever, I got highlights in my hair!


The hair stylist recommended 3 shades lighter, so that's what I did. It's crossed my mind to try it ever since high school-ish and I even came close to doing it at one point a year-and-a-half ago (when Greg got me a Groupon-type of thing for a nice hair cut and color). But a couple of weekends ago, I finally pulled the trigger and did it (with much encouragement and even some arm-twisting on Greg's part to get me to do something splurge-y on myself). I like it, although probably not enough to keep it up. It was fun to try though.

This Just Happened

I got this email today from Greg after he had gone to the doctor and was prescribed some antibiotics for an ear infection.

Message:

Sign 137 that we're getting old: this just happened
The picture attached:


It made me laugh. We've been joking lately about how the number of pills he now needs to take every day is an indication of him getting old. Not that there aren't things about me that make me feel like I'm getting old too . . .

Evie at 21 Months

I felt like I needed to document all the things that Evie does now. Such a big difference that half a year makes.

• Can point to many body parts when asked in both English and Chinese.
  
• Recognizes and can identify family members other than mommy and daddy. Particularly grandparents.
  
• Can do hand gestures for The Wheels on the Bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider (learned from daycare). We also discovered that she knows If You're Happy and You Know It. I also see Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (at least the parts I know) and Two Tigers (两只老虎) to her in Chinese, but there are no hand gestures for those that I know of.
  
• Can eat solids fairly well with a spoon.
  
• Still likes fruit. Also likes yogurt and cottage cheese. For a long time, she got fruit for breakfast at daycare while other kids got cereal. She might get cereal now.
  
• Once she gets her breakfast at daycare, we are dead to her. No amount of saying "goodbye" or "I love you" gets her to look our way.
  
• No longer needed the baby gate, which we took down, because based on what we've seen, she didn't tend to go downstairs by herself. Recently, though, she's starting to go up and down by herself by crawling, which I'm okay with.
  
• We started going on bike rides again with the bike trailer. After a couple of rides with a helmet, she knows that she needs one when riding the bike trailer.
  
• Is a fan of the playground now.
  
• Says "side" when she wants to go outside, which is a lot lately now that she has beach toys. Costco currently has a $10 bucket of beach toys that's well worth it.
  
• Can answer questions with "yah" or shake her head no, although sometimes she answers "yah" to questions that we can tell she doesn't understand. Evie, do you want to eat poop? "Yah!" Oh, nevermind, she already did that. Ha. We don't really ask her that.
  
• Knows how to say "please," but isn't very good about it using it all the time. Mostly she just ends up saying "mine!" very insistently. She's also getting better at saying "thank you" in Chinese.
  
• Says "chee" when she sees a camera pointed at her. Also learned from daycare, I have to think. Lately, she's wanted to hold the camera herself. That spells trouble.
  
• Still gets so excited when petting the cats, which freaks the cats out when she laughs wildly. I tell her to be gentle in Chinese (輕 - "ching"), but she doesn't quite know the difference between that and kiss in Chinese (親 - also "ching").
  
• Likes to help us out with things around the house, like throwing dirty clothes into the hamper or throwing trash away, and she'll do it from all the way across the house.
  
• Seems to like bedtime and goes to bed at almost the same time every night (~7:00), although recently she's been shaking her head no to bed, so maybe that is changing.
  

Hello again, sewing

Last week, my friend, Emily, brought up wanting to make this dress:



It made me want to revisit actually, finally, finishing this pink baby quilt, which is my biggest and guiltiest unfinished sewing project. I started it before I realized how poorly brocade (despite it looking so good) holds up in the wash and dry routine needed for baby stuff, which I experienced with this blue baby quilt that we bought years ago at an arts & crafts show.

I pulled it out one night and laid it out to finish treating the seams of the brocade squares with Fray Check, in hopes that it'd avoid the same fate as the blue baby quilt. Later in the week, Evie saw the quilt top, laid on it, and seeing the minky fabric, called it a blankie (in Chinese :) ). That did it. I had to finish it before it ceased to be useful. I bought some minky fabric to back the quilt, as well as anti-pill fleece for the batting, and got the quilt almost 100%:



The only couple things left to do are to close up the opening I left to turn the quilt right side out and to stitch in the ditch of the horizontal seams to keep the blanket's layers from shifting. Legit quilters will think this quilt sucks. Evie will think all that matters is its minkiness. I think this means that I can start other sewing projects now, guilt-free.

While I was at it with the quilt, I also finished a few other small sewing projects, including a pincushion, fixing the seam of a Winnie the Pooh stuffed pillow toy, and sewing a speaker wire organizer for Greg's car. I also Googled how to blind stitch a hem, so now I'm feeling confident enough to actually try hemming a pair of Greg's pants that been sitting on the floor behind my sewing machine for probably a year now.

My Mind's Eye Collectable Unforgettable Card

I first saw the Collectable Unforgettable line by My Mind's Eye when it was reviewed by The Scrap Review. A few days later, I was at the scrapbook store when I saw the hexagon paper and couldn't pass it up, as well as another coordinating piece of patterned paper. I laid them out on my craft desk so I could look at how pretty they were. Heh.




Using Noel Culbertson's Life is Good layout as inspiration, I made a quick card with the "You Are" Charm paper:




I couldn't decide on a sentiment (thanks? birthday?), so that'll be saved for last when I actually use the card (I'm thinking these BoBunny Snow Day letter stickers I picked up on the half-off table).

I think these papers will make their way onto some more cards and layouts . . .

Fluffy Bedding

Although it's starting to warm up during the days, the nights and mornings are still a bit chilly, so a warm bed is quite nice. I came across some fluffy bedding at Pottery Barn and West Elm that look uber comfy, especially with a warm down comforter inside:

Hadley Ruched Duvet Cover & Sham:


Organic Cotton Pintuck Duvet Cover & Sham:


Looks like sleeping on/under a cloud, no?

Washi Covered Shipping Tag

I sent some things off in the mail to friends, with this tag included. I felt like I needed a little extra something to go with what I was sending. It was a quick craft - I just covered manila shipping tags from the office supply store with different washi tapes. I'm a fan of the mixing and matching.



Little bit slow on the crafting front lately. I've been doing more layouts recently, which take me more time than cards. I think I'm finally ready to tackle scrapbooking all the weekly and monthly photos and blog posts I did of Evie's first year. A couple of weeks ago, the Olive edition of Project Life was on sale, so I got the core kit and the designer paper. I don't intend on doing Project Life with it, but I think it'll be great for putting together coordinated pages of Evie to go in a single album.

Doc & Eddy's Photo Booth

There was a family dinner earlier in the week at Doc & Eddy's since a cousin of Greg's is in town. There was a photo booth / juke box thing that happened to have some credits left on it, so we had some fun with it:

Having fun with daddy! (Mommy hasn't arrived yet)

Having more fun with daddy! (Mommy still hasn't arrived yet)

Mommy!

All together!

The end.