Friday, October 31, 2014

HomeGrown Pumpkin

My son has a tendency to collect things including different kinds of seeds.  One of the many seeds that he saved from last year is a pumpkin.  He planted the  pumpkin seed in our backyard and  had some fruits but only one have matured.
We were all very impatient for  the pumpkin to turn  orange but it just got bigger and bigger.  
I wasn't able to turn this pumpkin because I was afraid that it would rot again ju0st like the first one that we turned.
So when we picked it, the  side that was laying on the ground was orange but the rest of it are green.  It weighed 64.2 pounds,  I tried to lift it but couldn't lol.
I found this Cheshire Cat design online and we tried to  carve our pumpkin  using this design.

I was very surprised that the inside of the pumpkin don't really have a lot of  string (not sure what the inside part is called lol).
 I love the inside part, iot looks  a little spooky.
 Using our paring knife, we carved it.
 Carving a huge pumpkin is hard especially that we did not have proper utensils to carve it.
 
 It did not really tuned out like the Cheshire Cat that we are trying to do but close enough.
 I don't really decorate for Halloween but the kids want something so this is the only thing we have in our front porch.
Have a safe and fun Halloween everyone!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Half Crown Hill Orchard

Half Crown Hill Orchard was located  in front of a hill where beautiful houses are.  It was really a nice view.  
 There were different kinds of apples in the orchard.  One particular  apple is priced higher than the rest.  We picked different kind except the expensive ones.  For us, apples are apples especially that they are  newly picked.
I love finding  unique ones like the one above.  There were so many  twin apples that we found like the one below.  
 We picked one peck of apples and paid $14  for it.  It contained 18 apples.  Everything in it are sweet and crunchy!
My brave little pastry chef at home  made us an apple pie and it was delicious!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Music Interest

We took a big leap this year for  our daughter's music interest.  We enrolled her to a bigger school  where she can learn not just playing piano but  other aspects of music as well.  So far, she is doing great with her lessons although she wishes that she has  her Saturdays off.  
We recently visited  the music store here in the area  but we did not find the one that we need so I thought to visit musicans friend online to see what they have.  Their selection is endless but it doesn't  fit  our budget so we didn't buy anything.  

Friday, October 10, 2014

Butterflies

Aside from  my kids, another favorite subject of mine  in photography  are butterflies.  Seeing them fly around  flower to flower  somehow relaxes me and give me that satisfaction if calmness and joy.   I am glad that there are plenty of them this year.  Last year, there's not very many of them that I saw.  Here are some of the  pictures I took this year. Photos were taken  using an iPhone 4S
The last shot was captured by my DSLR.  Such a big difference in the resolution.  I mean, I like using the iPhone because it is handy but I am not satisfied with the resolution of the photos.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Pros and Cons of Giving Your Baby a Pacifier

Many parents use pacifiers as a soothing tool, because it gives babies something to fixate on as opposed to crying. As an alternative to habits such as sucking thumbs, it is definitely much preferred and even doctors recommend its use.

That being said, pacifiers do have disadvantages too. For starters, it can be extremely difficult to wean a child off using a pacifier once it has become a habit. Some children even end up waking up in the middle of the night for no other reason apart from the fact that their pacifier has accidentally fallen out of their mouth.

More importantly, recent studies have also begun to show that pacifiers may lower the chances of successfully breastfeeding, and also have other long term effects too.

Using Pacifiers in a Limited Fashion

One of the ways to limit the disadvantages of pacifiers is to use it only in a limited fashion. By not allowing your child to continuously rely on the pacifier, you can essentially control their attachment to it.

The recommended method of accomplishing this is to limit the use of a pacifier to sleep or naptimes, and even then only when your baby is under a year old. Once they are a year old, you’re going to want to stop using a pacifier altogether.

In this way, you’ll be able to get the benefits of using a pacifier to help your child sooth themselves when they are still very young, but not foster a strong attachment that could end up to be unhealthy in the long term. Needless to say, stopping a child from using a pacifier altogether can be tricky, but sometimes it is best to just go cold turkey.
Of course, this issue is not one that is without contention. If you head over to moms.com or any other website where mothers discuss pacifiers, you’ll see that there are many schools on thought on what the ‘best’ way to proceed really is. All said and done it is up to you to choose on behalf of your child – just be sure to remember that the last thing you want is for your child to become dependent on the pacifier.

On the whole, starting to build up healthy habits from the time your child is young will make things a lot easier in the long term and avoid many issues that often crop up.

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