My best friend Deborah is hands down the most fashionable girl I know, and she’s always spoiling Mio with the cutest outfits. Mio has been wearing the Missoni onesie that she got her for almost six months now! (Amazing that she still fits in it!) For Mio’s upcoming birthday, Debbie sent her these adorable DVF ♥ GAP outfits! I didn’t even know that Diane von Furstenberg was doing a collaboration with GAP, but leave it to bestest to be on top of such big fashion news! The clothing from the collection is super cute.
Mio is looking oh-so-sophisticated as a stylish fashionista in her new designer duds!
She has been climbing up on the gate lately, much to our dismay. Where does she get such strength and athleticism?
Asian lady squat!
One week away from turning one year old!
Rocking the DVF ♥ Gap onesie.
Complete with red shorts (from Miyoung)
Love the adorable print!
I love these “democratization of fashion” collaborations that are becoming more common these days! I couldn’t help but pick up a Jason Wu for Target dress for myself just the other day! (The whole collection had initially all sold out at our local Target, but I happened to go shopping a couple weeks later and found that someone had returned one in just my size! Lucky me!) Hooray for high fashion at affordable prices.
Thank you so much, bestest, for the adorable clothes for Mio! Thanks to Debbie, Mio’s the best-dressed kid on the playground! 😉
For the baby shower we threw for our friends Megumi and John last week, I tried my hand at making sugar cookies with royal icing for the first time! Because Megumi loved the film Totoro, I made Totoro cookies! It involved some research and preparation ahead of time, but it was a fun process and I wanted to make sure I document it!
A few people asked me how I was able to create the shape of Totoro, since it’s such a unique shape and it’s not like they sell Totoro-shaped cookie cutters just anywhere. This was the first major hurdle I encountered, but upon doing a quick search on Google, I found this awesome tutorial on how to create a custom shape cookie cutter — a Totoro one, no less! We grabbed a regular circle cookie cutter, and Dan shaped it into a Totoro shape for me with his tools. (I’m lucky to have a hubby who is very handy with tools and is always willing to readily lend a helping hand in all my crazy projects!)
Once the cookie cutter was made, I made the dough for the sugar cookies (supplied by my aforementioned sugar cookie expert friend Megumi!) and cut the shapes out, and popped them in the oven to bake. I literally squealed with delight at how well they came out when they were done baking!
Totoro-shaped cookies, out of the oven.
While the cookies were baking, I made the royal icing and colored it using icing colors to get a bright shade of blue. (I considered making a blusih gray, but found it too hard, and thought the bright blue was more cheery.) Relying on Megumi’s tips on using the flooding technique for royal icing, I piped and flooded the icing onto the cookies, making sure to leave the stomach area un-iced, since I’d be filling that portion in with white icing later. After this first round of icing, I let them sit out to dry for 24 hours.
I also iced a bunch of baby-themed cookies: onesies and baby carriages, in pink and white!
The following evening, I filled in the tummy of the Totoros with white icing, and iced on the eyes, nose, and the blue markings on the chest. I also decorated the details on the onesies and baby carriages.
Completed Totoro sugar cookie.
I'd like to think they came out pretty good for a first try!
Baby shower sugar cookies.
Totoro cookies in a row.
I’d definitely like to try making these again, as I’m sure they’d be a hit with kids! I’m also looking forward to trying other unique shapes and testing out new ideas for sugar cookies with royal icing in the future. Although it’s a multi-day process and decorating can be tedious, I love that there are endless possibilities in what you can create. I’m definitely hooked! 😀
We’re kicking off November with our very own little turkey! Thank you Jamie for the adorable onesie — Mio is now officially a Hokie, too! (Yes, the brainwashing begins early.) Let’s Go, Hokies!
The cutest part of this Hokie Bird onesie? The fanned tailfeathers on the butt!
Perfect for those round little baby bottoms!
Complete with Virginia Tech socks (also from Jamie!)…
Before we know it, Mio will be dancing around doing the Hokie Pokie in Lane Stadium with the best of ’em…
Last winter, I bought this adorable winged onesie in hopes that Mio could wear it the following December as our little Christmas angel. Estimating that she’d be close to nine months by then, I bought it in the 9-month size, naively unaware that babies rarely follow the month-sizing that’s on baby clothing. Mio is not even five months old now, and she barely fits in 9-month sized clothes! And so here I am, cursing myself that I should have gotten the 12-month size. The angel outfit is definitely going to be too small for her come the holiday season, but I still wanted to get some cute photos out of the outfit.
So here is our angel Mio with her cute little golden wings…
Our little photo session ended with a faceplant. ::sigh:: ….
No worries, Mio — we’ll totally be the wind beneath your wings! 😉
