My daughter turned ten this year and I noticed few changes in her habits and behaviour. She became more affectionate towards us she is also moody at times. I am not sure if it's part of adolescent stage or am I just being too observant. I also noticed that she is a lot organized now and cleaning her room lately. She organized her closetand cleaned the whole room.
One day, she asked if she can take all the photos that I haven't organized an album yet. I told her to go ahead. She brought it to her room and locked the door. After few hours, she called me and my husband to show what she's done.
She said, she saw this on PInterest and wanted to give it a try. I thought it turned out great!
She is definitely growing up. I used to tell her to clean her room but now, she does it by herself voluntarily.
She used to not like putting away the clothes that I have folded after doing laundry, but now she does it because she has her own way of arranging them. She still don't like hanging clothes in the closet so I still do that for her.
I can't believe that she will be eleven in six months. Time flies and I am glad, we have photographs to look back to. This heart on the wall is one of the neat projects she's done this year. She also told us that since she is ten already, she would study all her lessons by herself. We used to review with her whenever she will have a test but now she does it on her own and she is doing great with it. I am so proud of this little Miss!
My daughter pulled a prank on me this Christmas. She wrapped an empty box and gave it to me. She made me open it and when she saw my reaction, she laughed so hard.
She then handed me this DIY gifts that she made. She said she found tutorials at Pinterest when she made the lemon sugar bdy scrub, face moisturizer, and and make up remover.
I love the rock that she painted, it has a dedication at the back of it. The beauty poducts has directions also which I thought was something an adult would do. But then again, she think like an adult lol.
My son, got me this photo album during their secret santa shopping at school. He knows that I still have photos that needed to be put in album so this was a perfect gift. I immediately filled it up with photos.
Ryestein also got me this salt and pepper shaker during the Secret santa shop.
My kis reallyknows how to pick a gift for their Momma. Thank you BUrritos!
We don't normally watch beauty pageant shows but we were flipping the channels last night and came across the Ms. Universe pageant, the kids wanted to watch it so we tuned into it even though it was almost over. We missed a lot of it as they were announcing the top 5 already when we started watching. So before I get into my review of the photo book, let me just briefly mention some big moments in the Miss Universe pageant that happened Sunday, December the 20th.
Steve Harvey was the host and we were all cheering for Ms. Philippines as she has the best answers for the Q&A so when he announced that Ms. Colombia won again, we were disappointed but then 4 minutes later, he came back to the stage and started apologizing that he made a mistake, that the Ms, Universe winner is in fact Ms. Philippines. I feel bad for Ms. Colombia and for Steve Harvey, he must have felt so horrible in announcing the wrong winner. We were however thrilled that Ms. Philippines won. She didn't get the special moment that she deserve but she got the crown. We also like Ms. USA and Ms. Australia, they were our favorites. Her facial expression was epic, you may watch the short clip below i case you didn't watch it.
Here are some photos that I think is worth including in a photo book or canvas, AdoramaPix is the perfect place for it. Photos and videos of the the Ms Universe is not my own
Now back to my photo book review. I recently worked with AdoramaPix when I ordered my customized Christmas cards. I fell in love with the quality of products that they make so I ordered this photo book from them and I couldn't be happier. I was planning to surprise my husband with this on Christmas but he already saw it as he was the one who received it when it arrived lol. He said that it is beautifully done.
They packaged it really well and I love that it has its own box for safe keeping. I would love all my kids photos be printed in photo book if I can afford it. Maybe when I win the lottery, I would, lol.
I ordered a photo book last year from another company and I wasn't satisfied of the product. It came out like a yearbook rather than a photo book. This right here from AdoramaPix is awesome. I can't find anything that I am not satisfied about. Creating it from their website is very easy because they have a state-of-the-art software/tool that anyone even a non-techie like me can navigate so easily.
I love that AdormaPix have different layout and design for their photo book that you can choose from and their pricing is definitely lower than anywhere I looked into.
Having a photo book each year will be our family tradition where we can show the highlights of our year as a family. We started it last year, we bought the photo book to the family gathering and everyone got the chance to look at it.
The photo I took doesn't give the real photo book the justice, it just poor lighting on my part when I took t.
Overall, I really do love how it came out. You can see how AdoramaPix take pride of the products they make. I think photo book is a great gift idea if you are looking for something that would last for a long time. I am sure that every family that would receive it would love it. I know my Mom loves it when I send her pictures of my kids.
Here you go again folks, the full clip of the Ms. Universe crowning. Ms. Colombia got to wear the crown for about 4 minutes. I admire Steve Harvey for correcting himself. Ms. Philippines did not have that great crowning moment but it is one to remember for sure.
Anyway, AdoramaPix is a one-stop shop for all your photo needs. Their services also includes photo prints, collage prints, canvas, metal prints, and even acrylic print. This holiday season, I am sure your family will enjoy a customized gift so check out AdoramaPix. You can follow them through their social media outlets in Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Google+. They are offering a free shipping offer for your orders of $39 or more.
Disclosure:The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review. I was provided with the product/s mentioned to help me facilitate this review but opinions are my own.
New additions to our tree ornament this year are the craft projects that my children did in their classroom and in art class. First up is this spoon and fork that were bent and designed it into Santa ornaments. Aren't they cute?
My daughter did this glass ornament during their Christmas party yesterday. One of the Moms brought some glass ornaments, crayons and blow dryer to melt the crayon inside the glass ornament, pretty cool isn't it?
My daughter's teacher gave each one of them this glittered cross ornament to hang in the tree. How very thoughtful of her!
So here's how it looks. This is what my son did, a bent spoon that was painted and decorated and made it into a Santa ornament.
They have a new teacher in art class this year and I am glad that she keep the tradition of making an ornament as a project every year. Their former teacher did this every year with the kids. It is a special present that kids bring home for Christmas to parents.
My daughter did the fork. They are both unique and beautiful.
I love presents like this that would be part of our family's Christmas tree for years to come.
We drove around Marland Heights while one of our kids was taking piano lesson and was surprised to see the Marland Heights pool well-lit and decorated as well. This is the first time I've seen it decorated for the holiday.
To my Shadow Shots friends, merry Christmas to you all!
The “firsts” in a baby’s life—first words, first steps, first day home from the hospital, first meal, etc.—are some of the most monumental and precious times of his or her life. These are moments that won’t happen again; a first is a “first” for a reason. You want to make sure you can record your baby’s “firsts” while also taking part in them yourself. As parents, we don’t want to be so caught up in trying to capture the moment that we miss experiencing the moment as well. It’s a common photographer/videographer mistake that should be avoided. So below, we’ve given you some helpful tips on how to make sure you record a baby’s “firsts” as cleverly as possible without missing anything.
Attachable Camera for First Steps
Babies that are learning to walk on their own are going to need some assistance. They won’t get up suddenly one day and decide to do a tap dance in the living room for the family. Learning how to walk is a process that takes a lot of practice and, sadly, a lot of falling over. While you’ll certainly be helping your child learn to walk yourself, you don’t want to miss the fleeting moment where he or she takes his or her first steps. Achieving that balance means that you should invest in an attachable camera that you can attach and leave somewhere, freeing your hands up to teach your baby how to walk while also making sure that, if it does happen, you’ll have caught the moment that they manage to take their first few steps.
Nursery Cam
A lot of a baby’s firsts may happen in the nursery where they spend most of their time, especially in the beginning. Also, a nursery cam is a good idea for safety reasons as well. Keeping a camera in the nursery serves the dual purpose of safety and baby monitoring as well as having an extra eye out in case your baby says his or her first words or has another new experience. A high-tech nanny cam will ensure that your child is safe and that he or she isn’t left alone. Babies are unpredictable and you never really know when they’re going to say their first word or take their first step. That’s why it helps to be prepared.
Dinner/Mealtimes
Set a small camera, such as the Polaroid Cube, down at the dinner table if you want to make sure that you’re able to capture your baby’s firsts on film. Family mealtimes are full of surprises when there’s a baby, and usually those surprises are of the food-throwing variety. However, if you want to make sure that you’ve caught your baby’s first experiences, keeping the camera at the dinner table and setting it down while you’re eating is a clever way to make sure that you catch the footage you need. If you’re concerned about airborne food (not exactly a novelty for new parents; babies love flinging things), you can keep the camera at a safe distance, depending on the zoom capabilities. A glob of mashed baby food won’t exactly be great for recording, so you want to make sure that the camera is stored in an ideal, yet safe, vantage point.
In the end, making sure you record a baby’s firsts comes down to timing and cleverness. Babies don’t come with a preplanned time schedule; we never really know when they’re going to do something awesome. In order to make sure that we hang onto those moments and capture them just in time, you need to be strategic about cameras and recording. Hopefully, the above tips will help you do so. Good luck!
I decided to transfer our optic fiber Christmas tree from the dining room to the living room to finish the look of our gift pile. The small ornaments are great to hang in this little tree.
I am officially done with gift wrapping for the holidays. We have delivered some of the gifts for friends and family and kids can't wait to open up their gifts. My daughter wanted a bean bag so that's one of the gifts she's getting for Christmas. That's also the big box you see below. I think my son would want one when he sees it so I might get him one for his birthday next month.
I find it funny that my kids keeps inventory of how many gifts they have under the tree. They keep checking everyday lol. I don't wrap gifts in one day because it gets them excited to add one gift every other day or so.
Their stockings are also stuffed so I am all set for Christmas unless of course the husband decides to get more, which he always does every year. He feels like what we are giving them is not enough. I told him how lucky our kids are because they get to open not just one gift but many during Christmas. We never had that as a kid. My fondest memory of Christmas was our caroling tradition in our neighborhood. Caroling is a big part of every kids life over there during Christmas especially for those who doesn't really have money to buy anything. That was a lot of fun for me, my Mom even came with us on multiple occasions.
My parents taught us early on that Christmas is about family. As long as we have food in the table and we are all gather to celebrate the true essence of the holiday, we are set. When I came here, I saw a different way of celebrating Christmas.
Sending out Christmas cards to friends and family is part of my family's tradition during the yuletide season. It's our way of letting them know that we are thinking about them on the very important holiday of the year. I don't know about you but I love receiving cards via snail mail. I know that you can send a digital one but I think traditional cards are still special. This is our fourth year of getting a customized holiday cards. This year, I ordered our Christmas cards from AdoramaPix. They have 121 designs that you can choose from.
I chose this 5 x 7 double sided snow dance design. They used a classic linen paper for printing and it cost $10.68 for a set of 12 cards with envelope, that is 89 cents per card. This is my first time working with them and I can say that they have a super awesome customer service. Designing your card is super fast and easy. IT involves three simple steps and they ship right away as soon as your order is done.
My daughter love helping me with this task. She gets to know who the cards goes to and she sometimes ask how are we related to them when she doesn't know that address but it is one way of teaching your child the joy of sending out cards and letting the people know that you care for them.
We sent all the cards out last week so hopefully, our friends and family will start receiving it this week. I love sending it out early especially to our friends and family overseas so they can get it before Christmas.
We chose to use the photos we took with our fur babies so they can be in our family pictures as well.
It's definitely festive inside our home. I love the scent of our Christmas tree candle when lit, it definitely set our mood to the holiday spirit. I am almost done wrapping gifts which the kids are starting to investigate but I told them that if they sneak around and open it before Christmas, "Santa" might not come lol.
The hallway is the part of our home where we display cards that we receive from friends and family. For now, it only has our personalized cards from previous years and the one that we are sending.
The kids also want to incorporate all their craft projects on this one so we put them all here.
So how about you guys, are you all ready for the big holiday? Are you done shopping for gifts. If there's one wish that you want to ask what would it be? If I could have a wish granted just for Christmas, I would love to celebrate it with my family overseas. I miss them so much! That's one downside when you are living thousands of miles away, visiting your family is very costly. I am just thankful and blessed that I have a husband and children who lifts my spirits up during this time of the year when I miss my family back home the most.
Anyway, AdoramaPix is a one-stop shop for all your photo needs. Their services also includes photo prints, photo books, collahe prints, canvas, metal prints, and even acrylic print. This holiday season, I am sure your family will enjoy a customized gift so check out AdoramaPix. You can follow them through their social media outlets in Facebook,
Pinterest, Instagram,
Twitter, and
Google+. They are offering a free shipping offer for your orders of $39 or more.
Disclosure:The owner of this blog was NOT financially compensated to write this review. I was provided with the product/s mentioned to help me facilitate this review but opinions are my own.
In the country where I came from, Christmas decorating starts when the BER months starts, which means that in September, you will see Christmas stuff out already. Radio stations even start playing Christmas songs on this month. Crazy, you might say but it's just the way it is over there. There is no big holiday like Halloween or Thanksgiving over there so Christmas is celebrated earlier and longer.
When I came here, most people don't start decorating until Thanksgiving is over. Some even wait a couple of weeks before Christmas to decorate. Christmas is the only holiday where I love to decorate so I want to do it early. My husband always tell me to wait after Thanksgiving. This year however, he encouraged me to decorate early especially outdoors. I think he learned his lesson when we did our decorating outside last year and it was freezing. I am glad he let me put the decorations out early because we had some warm weather in November.
I purchased this big Christmas balls during the off season sale last year. Our cherry tree in the front yard is so bare after the leaves fell off so decorating it a little bit gives it some color. I super glued the tip of the balls to the string before I hang them on the branches so the wind won't knock them out.
It was morning when I captured these photos so it look dark and not as colorful as it is.
The tree is big and I only have 18 balls so it wasn't enough to cover the branches but it's okay. I added some small balls to them now and it looks alright. I would love to put a nativity scene in our front yard but I haven't got a chance to buy one yet. Maybe next year.
The green garland I used is supped to light up but some does lights are burnt out so I just did not bother to plug it but we put another set of lights around the railings. I bought four set of these big bells also last year and hang it in the front railing.
The big balls and these bells are our new additional decor this year.
We should have bought all silver color instead of blending the gold ones but I guess it doesn't matter.
Below is the wreath that my daughter and I redecorated last year. We glued some Christmas balls around it and added the poinsettia flowers.
Below is the wreat we bought a couple of years ago. I added the red cloth on it and tie it like a bow.
I get a little bit homesick when Christmas time rolls around because I miss my family back home. To cope with that, I love to decorate and reminisce my simple but joyful memoris withmy family back home during Christmas. You would think, ten years of living here in the States would not make me nostalgic anymore but it does once in a while. I wish I live close by and visit my family often. I am just thankful that I am blessed with a loving husband and two greatkids who cheers me up everytime I am feeling homesick. But anyway, that's the wrap of my outdor decor for Christmas.
