Love sidewalk sales

I was never a big fan of sidewalk sales, I guess I just didn't have the need/urge to check out the good fines from sidewalk sales.  I stopped by a local baby boutique (Mady & Me)'s sidewalk sale yesterday.  All I can say is I wish that I had more time and I am glad I have a little girl.  I got several outfits from CachCach for babies, Haute Baby, and couple other brands for a grand total $108!  Can you believe that?  40-75% off rocks!

Here's one of the dress that I got for my baby girl

There's also a 4th of July Let's go fly a kite outfit that I really like.  You'll just have to wait for pictures on that one!  I love shopping for my baby girl, big sales makes it even better!

Lawrence, KS

It was a fine Saturday afternoon.  We've decided to go and visit Lawrence, KS as we've never been and we live just about 30 minutes away from it.  Since we've never been there and didn't really have a chance to look up what's fun, what to do there.  We took it as an adventure just get in the car and drive.  I pulled up the gps on my phone and get a rough idea as where to.  Technology is so nice these days.

We drove to Massachusetts Ave and decided to park the car and take a walk.  There are many antique shops and way too many bars on Mass ave.  It does have a great college town feeling which I kind of miss it these days.  We walked for couple of blocks and saw a Starbucks.  At this point, we were pretty hot.  There was a ColdStone Creamery next to the Starbucks.  I asked Don which one would he rather go, he picked Starbucks.  We sent grandpa to get the car while we enjoyed the air condition and iced cold coffee/water at Starbucks.  Don also wanted a Blueberry muffin so I got one for him.  After he's halfway through the muffin, he asked me, mommy, can we go to next door after I am done with muffin?  Ha ha ha....no, that's cheating Don, you can't get BOTH the muffin and the ice cream!

We took some pictures while relaxing at the Starbucks

Baby wants some coffee too! I dress her in Kaiya Eve's ruffle top, Gimboree's ruffle skirt, and 4th of July Toe Blooms

Mudpie Tres Jolie sun hat

Big brother and his loosing tooth smile

We saw some playground while driving around.  Don wanted to play there so we stopped and took more pictures!  It's a park near the Douglas County Court House.

Toe blooms

We went to Panda & Plum Garden for dinner.  It's our first time there, the owner is pretty nice.  They are a little over friendly in American's standard.  They adored the 2 kids especially the Princess.  It's a family business with 2 sisters, a brother.  They found out that we were from Taiwan too so got very excited.  They kept stopping by and chated (I think it's more like they want to see Megan).  One of them fed Megan while the other one sneaked in a kiss on her cheek....Needless to say, I appreciate their friendliness but I had to give Megan a good bath after we came home.  We didn't come home until 9pm last night.  It was a pretty fun afternoon.  We didn't have time to see other parts of Lawrence so I think many future trips will be possible.


I made some white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for hubby for Father's Day after kids went to bed.  It's my first time making it and I think they turned out pretty well.

Megan's first "meaty" meal

My mom kept suggesting to start my daughter in real food.  Which means, not just the veggies and fruit puree that she's been eating.  She wants her granddaughter to eat meat, veggies, and rice!  So here we have the pork rib rice porridge.  Since I don't have any rice already cooked, I made the rice porridge in the rice cooker with some sweet potato.  Then I cook pork rib soup with corns (for us).  Once both are done, I picked out 3 small pieces of meat and chopped them up.  I put the meat into the rice sweet potato porridge and added some finely chopped leafy green and cooked it for another 10 mins or so.  I let it cool a little bit and gave Megan a little bit to taste.  She seemed really like it.  Even I tried, it's still too much porridge that she won't be able to finish all in 2 days.  So I put them in Baby Bullet's freezer container and freeze them!  I really think that I made a good decision on buying the baby bullet system.  It's pretty handy!

Pork rib rice porridge in baby bullet freezer tray

Rice porridge (left), peach pear puree (right) in baby bullet mini cups

Weston, MO

We finally decided to make a trip to visit The Red Barn Farm in Weston, MO over the weekend.  We left home late morning so we decided to have lunch first then visit the farm.  As soon as we stepped into the historic downtown area of Weston, MO.  It felt that we entered a different world.  Everything was so pretty and different.  Even the road signs looked nice (too bad that I didn't take picture).  We decided to have our lunch at Avalon Cafe which is one of the restaurants in Weston with great reviews.  Avalon Cafe was the White Lace house back in 19th century.  It was restored in 1994 and became Avalon Cafe.  The outside of the house is still white and full with flowers/plants around it.

Inside it has 4 dinning area and 1 outdoor patio dinning area.  Each dinning can sit about 8-15 people.  It was small but nice.

We ordered an Avalon Salad (greens with heart of palms, artichoke hearts, blue cheese, roasted almonds, strawberry, and cantaloupe) ,

Shrimp and Sausage pizza,

and Filet of Beef Tenderloin with roasted golden potato, sweet potato, purple cabbage, saute mushroom, snow peas, beans, and bourbon sauce.

We went down to the downtown street for a walk after the meal.  There's an old hotel called The Saint George Hotel which opened in 1845.

Don and I also visited the museum but didn't take any pictures.  Other than lots of antique shops, couple of hardware stores, and couple more bars, there weren't much in the downtown area.  We did find a little park with fountain, it was pretty and nice.  But a couple were picnic right next to the fountain so I couldn't take any pictures.

We finally decided to head to The Red Barn Farm.  It was just few minutes from downtown.  The view was great, it was pretty.  A big farm with a country store, a house, a hen den, some geese, some goats, horses, apple trees, strawberry field, etc.  Here are some pictures of my beautiful children in the farm.

The Hen Den

 

Papa goose doesn't want use get close to his babies!

T-bone game

We went to the KC T-Bone game today for work picnic.  We all had a lot of fun.  The weather was pretty nice, hot but with breeze.  We found seats in the shade after picnic.  Megan managed to take a nap so we stayed awhile.  Don enjoyed cotton candy.  That's his #1 favor at ballparks.

I made carrot and sweet potato puree for Megan yesterday.  She had puree with Stonefield's baby yogurt for dinner tonight.  I think she really likes it.  I also mix in some rice cereal for extra nutrients.  The baby yogurt is whole milk with peach puree.  It actually tastes pretty good.  The only weird thing about it is that her poop would have a light peach yogurt smell the next day (it actually doesn't smell bad).  Don had spaghetti and meatball last  night.  I added lots of veggies into the sauce - tomato, shredded carrot, red bell pepper, onion, mushroom.  Here's some pictures.

steamed carrot and sweet potato

carrot and sweet potato puree mix

Spaghetti and meatballs

D & M

 

D with Sizzle

Baby Bullet

So what is a Baby Bullet?  It's actually a baby food processor/blender.  It's made by the same company as Magic Bullet.  My baby is 7 months old, I finally ordered my baby bullet when she was about 6.5 months.  I am glad that I did.  My mini food processor isn't small enough to make the smallest amount of the food for her.  The short cup makes about 4 oz baby food each time.  Which is enough for her for 2 days.

I've also found out that Baby Bullet is available at Bed Bath & Beyond now, so get a 20% off coupon if you are going to get one!

I've made blueberry puree, green bean and peach puree, avocado puree, pear puree with it so far.  I also make banana puree, or applesauce but I just use a spoon and a mesh strainer for those.

Batch Bowl

Individual storage cups

Short cup & Storage cups

Avocado puree and green bean puree

First post

I've been thinking about writing my own blog for awhile.  I probably won't have the time to write it daily but I'll try at least few times per week.  I haven't decided what I am going to write about but most likely it'll be around the kids, cooking, and maybe vacation/traveling.  I might also do some products review based on my own experience after using them.