Hump Day Happiness

Hi guys! Sorry this post is a little late today- but better late than never right? It skipped spring here in the D.C area- today it was in the 90s! Ugh, way too hot for me, it makes me sleepy and groggy. I have been perking myself up by doing some online "window shopping". These are some of my top favorite things out there right now.

This beautiful bag from Modcloth. Such a great color- doesn't it scream of picnics, sundresses, and pure summer! (good summer, not sticky hot summer) It's also the perfect size. I carry everything but the kitchen sink in my bag so I love, and need, one with some size to it. 

Left, Right

So my friend Meenu, wrote a post about big full maxi skirts- read it here- and I think I am now obsessed. So easy to style and super comfortable to wear. I love the bold colors and vivid print on both of these examples she gave. They are a little out of my budget right now so a nice full maxi skirt is going into my "to sew" pile...

H&M is one of the best places for fun, novelty, inexpensive kids clothes- how fun is this cat shirt and this pirate shirt? 

Lets talk for a second about printed pants. Are you a fan? I know both of my sisters are reading this thinking I have lost my mind but I'm kind of digging these jeans. What are your thoughts on the matter? are they too out there?

pups, cats, bunny

I stumbled across a seller on etsy that makes these totally cool rings and I was super excited to share them with you. I couldn't find much about the seller (I kinda love learning about the sellers), but I'm digging the detail in these pieces. Their faces are unbelievable! Another great aspect about these rings is that you can order them to your ring size which is amazing if you have giant fingers like me and can NEVER find awesome  novelty rings. 

So happy Wednesday guys! Do you have anything you are dying over right now? Please share, I would love to check your finds out!  

Visitor

Cordelia is blessed to have a very large blood family, and a very large "adopted" family. Officially she has three living great grandparents, six grandparents, five aunts, two step aunts, two uncles, and one cuncle (that's what we call my nephew because he is more like my little brother than my nephew) and many really involved great aunts and uncles. She also has several "adopted" cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

 She is a really lucky kid, she is really really well loved. If there is one thing in life I want Cordelia to truly understand it's just how important it is to love others- to have a deep family bond with not just her own blood relatives but with the people she chooses to add to her own family. I want her to be compassionate  kind, and loving to others. 

 Last week Cordelia was able to meet her Aunt Jessica (Brendon's sister if you couldn't guess by the family resemblance) for the first time. She lives in California and up until now she wasn't able to visit- and we aren't up to taking Cordelia on a plane yet! It was so cute to watch Cordelia figure Jess out and get to know her. 

They had fun playing in the yard together. 

Brendon, his mom, and his siblings

"No! My cake!"

Brendon and Jessica's Dad ate dinner at Ikea with us (I know, I'm sure you are thinking "isn't Ikea a furniture store? Why are they eating in a furniture store?" We eat there all the time because it's close, cheap- in fact kids eat free Tuesdays at the one near us and this was in fact a Tuesday, yummy, Cordelia loves running the halls, and they have stuffed animals that are totally cute and under $10) It was really cute because Cordelia wouldn't sit in her seat and she wouldn't sit with me, she only wanted to sit in Jessica's lap and would only eat Jessica's food. 

Most amusing piece of furniture ever- it spins! I kinda want one now, I just wish it was less expensive because I'm sure Miss C would color on it when I wasn't looking. We also have no space for it because our living room is about four feet square and it is taken up with six square feet worth of Cordelia stuff. Do you love to sit in the living rooms and bedrooms at Ikea? Do you also wish that you could build your walls around the Ikea furniture so it could fit perfectly in your house as well?

Cordelia loves to run the hallway at Ikea like I said- but she loves to swing even more

Something Buggy is Going on Here

I've been enjoying sewing for Miss C a lot and I have been able to turn out a couple of projects recently including this bug jumper. I love girly dresses made with "boyish" prints, it's just neat and unexpected. I had been looking for a neat bug print for a while but hadn't found the right one but when I was searching on Fabric Worm for neat prints I found this fabric, and everything just came together, it was perfect.

Every other Wednesday, like clockwork, Cordelia's Great Uncle Paul comes over to visit her. It's their standing date, and she loves it. Uncle Paul always sits on the floor with her, and they play and read books mostly. For the past several weeks Uncle Paul has brought a book in a series about bugs. These books are really cool, they have great colors, and neat pop ups. These are by far Cordelia's favorite books, she makes Uncle Paul read each one about a hundred times during his visit and then makes us read each one to her every day. 

These are the books (She has one more but it's in her room, and it's nap time). They are written by David A. Carter and you can find them on Amazon. If you have a kid in your life, and you are looking for a gift, these come highly recommended by us. Uncle Paul told us that one of the big ideas about reading her bug books is that if bugs are interesting and fun, then they wont be scary or gross when she sees them in real life. The other day we were outside feeding the outdoor cats (at my sister's house) and she picked up a bug in the cats water dish and held it in her hand and just investigated it. Pretty neat. Now back to the jumper. 

The dress has tri color ric rack trim, criss cross straps, and a button back with pearly black bug looking buttons. I'm overall really happy with how it turned out! 

Looking at Llamas

 The other day our friend posted these awesome pictures of him and his son looking at animals- since I'm always looking for places to take Miss C on field trips I was dying to know where they were. He told me that they went to The Old Maryland Farm. Cordelia and I made our way there today for a visit- because who doesn't love a farm with Llamas! The Farm is part of  Watkins Regional Park and this might become one of our favorite new places to go. They have nature trails, playgrounds, a train, carousel, farm, nature center and even camp grounds- maybe Brendon and I will have to take Miss C camping! 

 

We walked the totally wrong direction and found the Nature Center first- which is ok because I didn't even know it was there and we were happy to stumble upon it. Outside of the center they have a couple of different birds- birds that have been injured and can't survive in the wild. Cordelia recognized the owls, she pointed and said "hoot hoot" which was cool because she has only ever seen cartoon drawings of them I think. They also have one of the most interesting squirrel feeders I've ever seen. Cordelia was really excited to be able to watch them up close. She  would stand there, turn to me, put her finger over her mouth and say "shhhh" to remind me to be quiet and not scare them away.  

Inside they have more owls, snakes, bugs and a neat koi/ turtle pond, along with diffrent activity centers that we didn't get to look at much because they are for slightly older kids and Miss C just ran past them. When I was writing this post I did some looking at their website and learned that they also have classes and preschool groups at diffrent times during the week,  I think we are going to check one out soon.

The farm has rabbits, chickens, peacocks, ducks, sheep, llamas, cows, horses and a very friendly gift shop cat named Winky who sadly I didn't get a picture of.  

Did you know that when peacocks have their feathers fanned out they will shudder them every once in awhile. I'm not sure why (if you know please share!) but it makes the most unusual and interesting sound. 

I love this guys face! He looks like something from Jim Henson's Labyrinth. 

This nice guy walked up and let us pet him too- but he decided we weren't that interesting when he realized that we didn't have food. 

All these cool unusual (for her) animals and she was still really excited by the squirrels!  

Cordelia would wave and say "bye" every time I told her it was time to move on to the next animal. It made me a mushy mommy and I wish I had thought to record her doing it. Oh well, I will have to next time! Do you have any suggestions of awesome places to take a toddler in the D.C area?