Faith

Quilt for Oliver’s Son

Today I mailed this quilt off to a friend in the UK.

I don’t have a lot of time to spend on quilting so I’m always on the lookout for simple, quick patterns. When I came across this tutorial on Cluck Cluck Sew and saw that it used one of the same prints I already had set aside for this quilt I knew it was fate 🙂

I backed it with flannel and then had Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting machine quilt it with a simple bubble pattern.

I really liked this tutorial, so much so that I used it to make another quilt for another friend. This is a great pattern to try if you’re looking for something a step up from a strip quilt.

Bowling Birthday Party

We’re lucky to have family near by: N’s parents as well as my sister Jan and my cousin Youngshin and their families all live close by. Since E loves bowling we invited everyone to join us at the bowling alley to celebrate his birthday.

I wish I could take credit for the cake but I ripped off the idea from Amalah (1. the design works better in fondant and 2. you should read her blog) and had our favorite vegan bakery make it.

I could go on and on about the dynamics of E and Mimi’s relationship but that pretty much sums it up right there.

Review: Korable Block

Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting some holiday gift ideas, mostly for kids because the man in my life mostly wants obscure music CDs and a list of those is unlikely to be helpful to anyone else 🙂

First up is this set of Korean alphabet blocks, Korable Block.

I know I’m biased, but I think the Korean alphabet is incredible. It was invented in 1444 by the Korean king Sejong and consists of vowels and consonants and is basically phonetic. This means that unlike character-based languages like Chinese it is fairly simple to learn to read and write Korean.

(As I found out during my two years studying Korean in college, understanding what you’re reading is of course a whole other matter.)

Korable Block was invented by Si-Yeon Min, a father, to help his son study the Korean alphabet in a fun way. These lovely blocks are handmade made in Michigan by Uncle Goose.

You can arrange the blocks to make over 120 common Korean words like numbers, days of the week, foods, body parts, etc… Below on the left I spelled the Korean word for “door” and the word for “one” is on the right.

The full Korable block set ($41.50) comes with four blocks, a wooden tray to house them in, a booklet containing different words you can make, and a signed artist card. There is also an option of just purchasing the blocks themselves ($17.50).

I like this product a lot. E doesn’t know how to read Korean yet (we’re working on English first) but I think these blocks will be a fun tool when he starts to learn Hangul. And they’re so lovely that I think I’ll keep them out for display on my coffee table until then.

The only improvement I would suggest would involve price. I understand that making small batches of quality toys inherently costs more but I wish that difference between the blocks alone and the full set wasn’t so quite as much. I would like to get a few of the sets for some of my nieces and nephews but sadly my Christmas budget won’t stretch that far.

All in all, Korable Block is a great gift for children in your life interested in learning Korean or adults who love design or Korea or both 🙂

Disclosure: I was provided with a complimentary Korable Block set for the purposes of writing a review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Yoga

The women’s weight training class I’m taking only has a few more weeks left which is too bad. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Last week we did yoga for our workout. It was my very first try at yoga. I hadn’t done videos at home or anything.

In case you couldn’t guess, it basically went like this.

(Video may be mildly NSFW, um, depending on where you work.)

Pictures of People Looking at Paintings

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon – Picasso

The Scream – Munch

Just looking at these photos makes my feet ache all over again 🙂 The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MoMA both have such incredible collections. The scope of the Met is huge enough that I could have happily spent days wandering around.

Empire State Building

When we arrived in New York we hit the ground running since we knew we only had a few days before Sandy would hit. Among other things we visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The MoMA, and the Empire State Building.

I couldn’t get enough of the Empire State Building’s Art Deco loveliness. It really is spectacular.

If you’re planning a visit to New York and want to see some sights, you might want to look getting a City Pass. We bought them before we left and when we used it at the Empire State Building we got to skip part of the line.

You come out ahead if you go to at least four of the attractions and if you go to all six included attractions it’s quite a good deal.

If you’re interested in helping out those affected by Sandy by purchasing specific items, you can send supplies through Amazon. We’re donating to our church’s humanitarian fund but it was nice to buy a case of diapers and know that it will be in New York by Friday.

5 Years

This little guy turned five years old today–craziness!

We’re still getting back into our routine after being out of town (i.e. our suitcases still need to be put away and the house is a disaster) so we’re having our little family party on Saturday which conveniently gives me enough time to order a birthday cake from our favorite vegan bakery in Salt Lake City. Yum!

I’m working on a gratuitously sentimental photo slideshow that will be finished sometime this week if I can buckle down and focus instead of just wistfully staring at photos and sighing.

The kids, they grow so fast. *sigh*

Halloween Pics

I was bummed that we missed Halloween with the kids because of the trouble we had getting out of New York so the day after we got home I put the kids back into their costumes so I could take a few photos.

We even walked across the street to an understanding friend’s house so I could hear Mimi chirp “thick or treat!” and drove to my mother-in-law’s so she could see the kids in their costumes.

Vacations are awesome (even those interrupted by hurricanes) but it’s great to be home.

Safe and Sound

We’re home! After spending a lot of the time on the phone to Delta we got booked on a late flight to from JFK to SLC on Wednesday. After we were booked on the flight we were woken up several times during the middle of the night by automated phone calls during the middle of the night that told us that our flight was cancelled.

Sadly, we missed Halloween with the kids but yesterday I put them in their costumes and took their picture. I also walked them across the street to an understanding friend’s house so I could hear Mimi chirp “thickoreat!” and “dank-you!” in person. SO cute.

I think it’s safe to say that N and I will never forget this trip to New York. We crammed a lot of fun into the days before Sandy hit and being there during/after the storm was surreal.

We were really lucky that our hotel never lost power or even internet service. The very next block was completely dark for days (and may still be).

This was my first visit to New York and even with all the craziness of Sandy I fell in love with the city. It’s such a magnificent place. I’m hoping and praying that the lights will come back on soon and that those affected will be comforted.

Hunkering Down

Just in case you were worrying about us, N and I are doing fine.
We fit a lot of fun things into our trip before New York shut down for Hurricane Sandy and now we’re holed up in our 6th floor hotel room (they’re turning off the elevators so no one gets stuck if the power goes off).
We have some bagels and caviar cream cheese, a banana, cookies, water, and a 12-pack of diet coke so I think we’re set for at least the next 18 hours. Stay safe, everyone!