Little Piglet Turned Two Months

At 16 lbs, this little piglet almost doubled his birth weight in just two months. His weight and height now are about the same as little caterpillar's, when she was 6 month old. I must have done something right. Look at those rolls!

I actually started the monthly portrait project as planned. Just didn't have time to post it last month. So here are the two of them together. Sorry you cannot see his face, it's Stubborn's privacy rule. But aren't this fake sunglasses stylish?

Recover Highchair

Here is the before and after.

And here is the story. I found some really inspiring blog postings a couple of years ago. Nicole from Making It Lovely made 24 pins for her baby girl Eleanor's monthly photo series. And she is doing it again for her son August. It is such a wonderful way to document how your child grows in the first two years. Well, I found it too late to start the same series for little Caterpillar, but I love this idea so much, I just have to do it for JJ, even though it might come cross as "mommy loving JJ more". No, I love both my kids, and I like girls more than boys. OK, Nicole used her Eames rocker as background. What should I use? We don't have a nice chair or rocker like that, and there is no place in the house or in our budget for a new beautiful chair.

Then I saw this post on MADE. Dana is taking monthly picture of her new baby Clara in a white highchair, very modern and clean line. Hmm, that might work.

I inherited this highchair from my best friend last year, before they moved back to China. It has been in the basement ever since. I cleaned it thoroughly, and washed the cover, but still cannot remove lots of the stains. I need a better background for my JJ, so after digging in my stash, I found the perfect piece of remnant (about 1/4 yard of fabric). Using the original cover as template, and an hour later, I made a double sided new cover. Ta-dah! What do you think? I love it! I might make another one in solid color, but for now, I like the blue and red and white! Floral design for a boy? Why not?

Back As Mom Of Two

Sorry for disappearing for so long. I got a very good reason.
Well, I was too tired at the end of pregnancy, then got even more tired after he was born. Better late than never. Here is our son, JJ, born about a month ago. I was crazy enough to do that much yardwork, after 5 months bedrest. I blamed that on the warm weather and spring fever. Anyway, I didn't notice my water was broke, which caused infection in both of us. Poor JJ had to stay in NICU for 10 days! Now we are both healthy and adjusted to the new life, and I am almost out of the traditional first month rest period, I can start working on my to do list! Tomorrow I will share with you my first sewing project after JJ was born.

PS. Just tried another trick to displine little caterpillar, and was surprised it worked really well. I calmly told her to pick up all the toys and books and clothes off the floor and put them away, otherwise I will give them away. After repeating this new rule 3 times, she finally got it, and quickly cleaned up the entire the second floor! And I used the same trick made her go to bed before 9pm! She can run around till 11pm normally. I just simply threatened to take away her favorite dress! Haha, why didn't I try this earlier? Maybe it's wrong to threaten your child, but after taking care of an infant all day and night, I just don't have the energy and patiency to fight with her. Let's see how long this trick can last.

Big Sis With Baby Bump

Now Chinese New Year is over, and we are all feeling a little bit better (all 3 of us coughed up storms every night for a week), I can go through some pictures and show you how sweet it was. We took these pictures on Chinese New Years Eve. It was rare for Stubborn to offer taking picture of me. How sweet! And I got the greatest memory in pictures, how my little caterpillar loves her baby brother already.

And here are some new pictures of my orchids. They cheer me up everyday, especially now when I feel so sick and think I can break my ribs anytime I cough! And I lost my voice because of all these coughing.

Chinese or not, hope you had a wonderful January. Now the weather is warming up, soon it will be spring cleaning time. Cannot wait to meet this little boy, and get my energy back. I will become a stay home mom after he comes out, so many things already been added to the to-do list. Cannot wait to finally clean up and get the whole house organized again.

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.

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.

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?

Topsfield Fair, Part I

We took little caterpillar to the famous Topsfield Fair last Sun. My friend told me about it when we were discussing fall activities for kids. There are tons of information on their website. You want to get there early as the traffic and parking will get pretty bad around lunch time. There are so many wonderful activities for all ages, so read their website for the daily schedules and announcements. Oh, if you buy the tickets online, it only takes them a couple of days to send it to your home. The ride tickets from online are 11 for $20, and each tickets good for any one ride. The ones you get at the fair are $1.25 each (I think), but you need 3-5 tickets to get on most of the rides, so it's actually way more expensive. You also can buy food tickets online as well. We didn't, because Stubborn had other plans.

Anyway, we got there right after 10Am (opening time), parked near the entrance, very convenient. And just beyond the entrance are those kiddie rides (36"-42"), perfect for little caterpillar. She went on one after another, very excited. Oh, some rides are too small for daddy to tag along, but they do have seatbelts or ropes to protect kids, and they were slow, so no problem at all. Here are just some of the pictures I took at the kiddie rides area. The rest of the pictures have to be processed and posted later, since our little girl got sick after we came home from the fair, and we have been too busy taking care of her.

Here is my girl on her favorite ride, the merry-go-round. She actually insisted to ride this one and the bigger one several times.

This little train was so cute. There was the engine, two open carts and one bigger closed cart at the end. But all kids want to ride in the engine cart, hence the crowded view. Little caterpillar was a little uncomfortable having other kids sitting so close, and it was her first train ride, so she looked very concerned, no smile for mommy, nor those excited "choo choo" other kids were making.

Then she went on the little elephant ride. I didn't think it was dumbo ride since they all had normal size ears. Nonetheless, she was having so much fun as the elephants flew around and around, up and down. But not enough fun for her to request another ride though.

Then daddy took her aboard the crazy bus. Guess she felt much safer having daddy sitting next to her and holding her, she actually looked around for mommy and waved. Yay!

Then it's her turn to ride the cute cars. She was in the front of the line, so daddy got to pick any car she liked. Of course, a pink floral car! It was so funny she drove with only left hand on the wheel, just as her daddy and mommy.

After these rides, we went to see the animals. There were so many other exciting places there, you just have to wait till I post the pictures later. Or, if you live in MA or NH or ME area, you should just go there and see for yourself. Oh, did I mention they also have elephant and camel ride? Amazing!