Finally Some Fall Pictures

I am so behind on photo processing. So many things happened lately, I didn't even have a second for myself. Now everything back to normal, I am finally catching up. About two weeks ago, when little caterpillar was sick (pneumonia) and staying home with me, I took her out to the yard for some fresh air. Of course when she was not having fever. She has been sick a lot this fall, so we cancelled our foliage trip. So, when fall came to my own backyard, I just have to take some pictures of my little girl with all that wonderful colors.
We had such a great time. But I noticed it's getting harder and harder to get good pictures of her. She either runs right into the camera, or runs around so fast, or fake a smile for mommy.
The poor thing was still quite sick, within half an hour, she was exhausted. Couple of minutes lying in sofa watching cartoon, she fell asleep. My poor baby. Thank goodness she is much better now. No more fever, coughing or even running nose.

Orchid Update

Haven't really pay attention to my plants lately. But I am trying to do better. After moving them back inside, I have been watering them more frequently, and mist them. Now here are my rewards.

My Hawaii is in full bloom again. There are four spikes, I have been waiting for more flower to open to take a better picture, but the first spike faded. Well, it's not that bad, I still have 3 spikes and they have 3 to 5 flowers each. And this is the first time I ever noticed they even have a little bit minty smell. LOVELY!

And all 3 of my dendrobiums are sending out spikes at the same time. The biggest is my Singapore Girl, it was a rescue from a coworker, and it has been doing pretty well. Yeah I know the older ones all lost their leaves, but the new one always bloom for me. This flower just opened up yesterday. Love how intense the color is, and that white edge highlight is wonderful. Cannot wait for all 3 to open, so I can show you a better view.

Exhausted

Sorry I haven't been around for a while. Lots of things happened. First we found out it's a boy! Yay! Then 2 minutes later we were told I had cervical insufficiency, had to have an emergency surgery the next day, otherwise I could miscarry. Glad Stubborn was there with me that day, I was so nervous. My surgery went pretty well, but it took me more than 5 hours to recover from the spinal. Little caterpillar was such a champ, stayed with stubborn in the waiting room for all that time. After the surgery, I was supposed to be on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy. Well, that was not going to happen. 2 days later, little caterpillar got really bad diarrhea, pooping more than a dozen times a day for 4 days straight. Even though Stubborn was there taking care of her, I still had to clean up and doing laundry. Then there was about a week wonderful time, she was healthy again, eating great, and gaining back the weight she lost. Then all of a sudden last Mon, after I picked her up from daycare, she started acting strange. 20 minutes later, I realized she was having fever, almost 104F! How could the daycare teacher telling me everything was fine? You don't get a 104F fever in 20 minutes. Anyway. I called the nurse, and of course all of us thought she caught the cold or flu, so I was told to give her some ibuprofen and watch her for 24 hrs. By the third morning (about 36 hrs later), I couldn't wait any more. I took her to the doctor's office. And lucky we went, because she was diagnosed with Pneumonia! Poor thing had fever up to 103F for several days, finally 3 days after taking antibiotics her fever came down. I have to sleep in her room, since Stubborn normally won't wake up at night, so wouldn't know if her temperature goes up again. Then he had to go to a conference out of town for several days! Imagine how busy and tired I have been. But at least my girl is much better now, and went back to daycare again. Finally I can get some rest. She is still on antibiotics, but I can tell she is recovering. She has no more fever, just a little bit coughing and running nose, and she has been sleeping and napping like a hibernating little bear! Well after all these, now I am coming down with something. Hopefully it's just a cold, and I can tough it out without using any antibiotics or anything that might hurts my baby boy.

OK, enough complaining, here is something else has been going on. I went thrifting the other day, and found some cute winter clothes for my boy. I thought boy clothes are boring, but they can be quite cute. Don't you think?
These two little jackets are so cute. I just love that little bear, it made me smile everytime I look at it.

The shirt/sweater vest set to the left was from Children's Place, and brand new! The green shirt was brand new also, and from Gap!!! The blue vest has a fun fishing applique on the front. I can see my boy wobbling around in these, looking like a little gentleman. How cute will that be?

The Elmo overall was from my last thrifting trip, this front one is the new found. It's hard to see in this picture, there are dinosaur design all over it.

The smaller pants is from Gap, and very thick. It will be perfect for his first winter. The green one has a little monkey applique, it supposed to be for 2T, but I am sure I will fold the legs shorter and let him wear it early on. Well, I want to try fabric diaper this time, so he needs some of those big butt pants. =)

Found some fabric from my stash that can be used for boys. Surprise! I cannot wait to make some summer shorts or pants for my little guy.

The best part is some of these are brand new, babies grow up so fast, even if they did wear some clothes, they all look pretty good. And most of the ones I bought are nice brands, they will be quite expensive to buy from the stores. All above clothes were about $2-3 each, so I spent total about $16 for all these, less than the cost of that Children's Place shirt vest set! Am I done with stocking up for this little boy? Maybe not. I am sure there will be more cute boy stuffs waiting for me next time I go to our local Salvation Army.

Homemade Kids Birthday Gifts

This is what I finally came up with, of course combining some of the ideas I mentioned before. I just love making little shoulder bags for kids, it's so easy, and versatile, and practical.

For Linus, the little boy in little caterpillar's class, I made this cute dinosaur playmat, following this tutorial. I changed the colors a little bit, had to deal with whatever I had in my felt box. The whole point of this homemade gifts idea is to save money, I got to use up my scraps before buying new materials. I think it turned out pretty cute. Actually his bag is also a coloring bag, has those crayon holders on the outside. So, if for some reason he doesn't like dinosaurs, he can still use this bag. I also sewed some pockets inside, for carrying some small toys. The dino mat can be folded and put in the bag, and the little dinos go into the pockets. Well, I knew that green nursery fabric is not really working for a 2-yr-old boy, but again I didn't want to buy new fabric and this one is the only green scraps I had that's big enough. I also used some leftover green felt and made his name to attach to the front of the bag.

For the big sis Hazel, I made her the same coloring bag, just slightly bigger. Putting some crayons in the front pockets, and a couple of coloring books inside along with the rest of the crayons. I think she will like to have her own personal bag too.

Of course each kid got my unique name zipperpulls. These zipperpulls sell really well in my store, so I think they will love it too. (image coming)

It's A Boy!

Oh yeah! We are having one of each, a girl and a boy! What a wonderful news! We all went to my big ultrasound last week. Little caterpillar was excited about all the equipments in the hospital, she wanted to touch everything! When I laid down on the bed, she had to climb up and sit on my legs. These days she just wants to be close to mommy! We were so excited when the sonographer told us "it's a boy!" Caterpillar had been asking for a baby brother for several days, even though she has been saying "no baby sister, no baby brother" for quite a while. Guess she figured it out way before us. And you know what, right after we told her she is going to have a baby brother, she looked at us seriously and said "baby sister"! What?! Well sweetie, you just have to accept the fact that you are stuck with a little brother for ever! Mommy is not having any more munchkins! Two is absolutely the limit. And you don't really want to have one more siblings to share the attentions. There were other no so good news that day, but that's another post. Oh, it's not the baby boy, he is active and strong.

Anyway, I had been eagerly waiting for this news, so I could start preparing. We have way too many clothes and toys for little caterpillar, mostly from my sister and friends. I just love hand-me-downs, they are so soft and loved. We also have some brand new baby girl clothes from family and friends, that little caterpillar never got chance to wear them, wrong season or due to the fact she grew up too fast. We thought we were having another girl, and she can wear those cuties. Well, not any more. We just have to box them up and hope one of our friends will have a girl soon. (Most of them have boys!) Some of little caterpillar's clothes were gender neutral, so they are fine. And since the new baby will stay in the house with me most of the time, I think he won't mind to wear some of big sis's girly clothes. But I do need to get some cute boy clothes that he can go out with. Stubborn and I had reached an agreement, (very rare) that we are not buying new clothes for kids any more. They just grow out of it too fast, and frankly quite a waste of money. So I hit my local Salvation Army the other day, hoping to find some good stuffs.

And I hit the jackpot. I found 9 onesies for our baby boy and 4 pairs of shoes for little caterpillar. Oh, and a super cute nursery lamp, a brand new king-size flat sheet, a elmo jumper, and two very boyish books.
Just look at these onesies, aren't they the cutest? All of them looked like new, I guess whoever donated these must have a little boy grew so fast he didn't even have chance to wear them.
I just love these cute dinosaur onesies. The front two are from Carter's, have the same "dino allstars" design, with dinos playing football, basketball and soccer. And the one on the back is from Gymboree. This one is long sleeves, perfect for the cold New England late winter early spring days.
These two are so darling. One says "Daddy's #1 draft pick", the other says "dad's team"! Well, Stubborn didn't like the first one that much, since our little girl was his first pick, this boy will only be #2 pick. Haha!He just loves our girl too much. But at least they are both on daddy's team.
This Elmo jumper is just so cute. Even though it's quite big (for 12 months), I am pretty sure our boy will fit in it pretty soon. Look at these tiny metal buttons, they even have Elmo's face on them. And I love those cute little pockets with "A"(ant) and "B"(bee) on them, I can just see my little boy putting some his favorite little toys in there. And the fact this jumper has 1" roll-ups (is that what they are called) makes it even more practical. I can just open the stitches when he outgrown it, and he can wear it for a couple of more months.
Oh, the books. One is all about dinosaurs, which is little caterpillar's interest right now. A girl likes dinosaurs? Go figure. But it does have some bloody drawings, my girl is very sensitive, so she almost cried when she saw those. Guess this book will be on the high shelf for a couple more years.
But this airplane book is so wonderful, we can play with it right away. Yeah, my girl is also into airplanes, cars, trucks, buses, and trains. We probably will have a townboy in our hand. This book is actually a big puzzle book, has 5 24-piece puzzles, all in mint condition, not a single piece missing! Once little caterpillar improves her puzzle skills a little bit, we will have so much fun with it.
I also found 4 pairs of shoes and boots for little caterpillar. I have been looking for a pair of sneakers to replace the pair she just outgrown, and a bigger snowboots. Well, I don't have a picture of the cute sneakers I bought for her, she is wearing them right now. They are those lit-up ones, the lights blink when you step on it. Little caterpillar loved them so much, she refuse to take them off for almost 3 days! I was a little bit disappointed with the boots. It says size 9 on the bottom, but when I got them home, they are about the same size as her size 6 boots! What?! These two were not on my hunting list, but they are just too cute to pass up. And they are a size bigger, so she will still fit in next year.
The lamp and sheet are gender friendly colors, so they can be used for either kid's room. I just have to decide the themes. Already have the design for the boy's corner in mind, yeah, he will be in the master bedroom with me. I have a list of items on my thrifting list, not spending hundreds of dollars on some decorations.

All in all, I did pretty good that day! Total about $30 for all of these. Here is the detailed prices:
lamp - $2.99
king size flat sheet - $3.99
boy jumper - $1.99
onesies - $.49 each
books - $.75 each
shoes - $2.99 to $4.99 each pair

How is your thrifting luck lately?