Maternity Shoot Teasers

October 29, 2012

What a great start to my week. Yesterday we did a maternity shoot at our place with awesome photographers in our area. It took quite some time because I had lots of inspiration pictures from Pinterest and as awesome as they are they did them all for me. I felt so loved :)

I wake up this morning with tons of notifications on my iPhone from tags and comments on Facebook. So I log in and what do I see? 5 teasers!!! I almost fell from my bed lol. That's how shock and happy I was. Talk about fast and customer satisfaction lol.

Ok enough talking. Here are the teasers they tagged me in. Enjoy!

xoxo
Pamela

Past Halloween Costumes

October 26, 2012

I've been pretty unsteady when it comes to posting holidays posts this year. Hopefully with all the time on my hands I'll have starting next month it'll get much better. For now let's reminisce on past Halloween outfits.

What brought the walk down memory lane? Well for starters looking for something to wear this weekend (which btw I found the cutest thing!) Then going through my Facebook pictures and seeing my baby boy's outfits through the years. 2010 was my favorite :). That outfit really inspired me to try my hands at making his costumes every year from now on until, well you know, he tells me to stop. Unfortunately last year we didn't do anything for Halloween, his choice. We did use his Superman costume from before though and took him to Dorney Park for their hallo-weekends activities etc. And this year I've been lazy, more on this year outfits later. Next year though should be fun with a new kid on the block ;)

So lets take a look shall we.

Halloween 2007 

Halloween 2008

Halloween 2009

 
2009: He was Spiderman and Batman lol


Halloween 2010

 
2010

Halloween 2011

2011


2012 costumes will be coming soon! :)

xoxo
Pamela

DIY: Our Family Map



Earlier this year I talked about some DIY projects I wanted to do and this one is one of them. 

I saw this a lot on the web after we got married and I couldn't wait to get started one it. They call it the "Newlywed Map" but I use it as a family map and use different color tacks to differentiate between couple trips and family trips. 

I used directions given here but here is a quick reference to the supply list.

- 36″x 24″ world map (executive version) from Mapcenter.com = $12.99
- 1 box medium map tacks (black, white) from Mapcenter.com = $4.79 each
- 36″x 24″ piece of foam core = $7.50 (with 50% off coupon at Michaels)
- 36″x 24″ black frame, glass removed = $59.99 (I used a 50% coupon from Michaels so $29.99)
- Elmer’s spray adhesive = $3 (with 40% off coupon at Michaels
)

I did this months ago but didn't put it in a frame until a few weeks ago and if you notice some parts of the map is raised. I have no idea why this happened. I'm assuming because maybe I didn't use enough adhesive but I honestly I have no idea. I tried to fix it but it wasn't working out so I let it go. It doesn't look bad hanged on the wall so whatever.


 I also bought this wall decal from Amazon and put it right on top of the frame. 




I still have some tacks to add to it from past travels but they are mostly from places in the States. Only Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are places we've traveled to in the Caribbean etc and I hope that starts to change soon :). 


Gender Reveal Party

October 24, 2012

Over 2 months later I finally bring you the details of our gender reveal party :)

I first got the idea from Heather over at Heather Drive. She did something similar but instead of revealing the gender she revealed her pregnancy to her family. It was so neat! I thought of doing that but it didn't work out like that. The way we found out was totally unexpected but MIL said she new something was up with me because I was acting "weird" and I was sleeping too much.

I played with the idea of keeping the whole gender a surprise until the big day but that idea wasn't flying with the hubby nor anyone else for that matter. So I decided to do the gender reveal instead. A friend had done it last year and when we found out about the pregnancy I did a bit more research into it.

Months passed and we waited for the big ultrasound where we would ask the tech to not tell us the news but instead write it and seal it inside an envelope. Our ultrasound was done a Friday at exactly 20 weeks and we planned the big reveal for the Sunday after. I was a nervous wreck thinking about the possibility of this little munchkin not showing its boy/girl parts. Thankfully he did and we proceeded as planned :)

I didn't want to pack the house with a bunch of decor so I kept it simple with a blue and pink theme on the table and a few soft colors tissue pom poms.

I made DIY invites from other invites ideas I found on the web. Those were handed out between 2 and 3 weeks before the party.

I made a boy or girl banner out of cut out onesies from card stock and attached a long piece of ribbon through small holes I made with a punch hole.

I tried my hands at DIY tissue pom poms and I loved the way they turned out. Not too bad for my first time if you ask me :) I used those for the entrance and in each side of the banner.

The cake was ordered the same day as the ultrasound from ColdStone bakery. It was a combination of yellow cake and ice cream that would be flavored strawberry for girl or cotton candy blue for boy. To my surprise MIL brought a prediction cake with what she thought we were having. It was pretty cool because we cut that one first then our reveal cake. Surprise surprise!


And for god sakes lets not leave behind the food and souvenirs. Anyone that knows a Hispanic person knows that food and music are big parts of a party ;) I didn't have music tho, kind of slip my mind... Oops. But the food was a hit! I don't have pictures of the rice or salad since those were the last things to be put out.

We served guava patelillos and small hot dog wraps and guava and cheese with crackers as appetizers. A taco dip I found on Pinterest. Salad with options of 3 dressings. Peruvian rice which is basically rice with chicken breast pieces, soy sauce, eggs, and scallion mixed together, yum! We also had a chocolate fountain with fruits. For drinks we served several flavors of soda, some beer, and a punch I made up really quick and that turned out to be a hit as well.






Some of the guests going after the food :)


This was the supply I used for our favors :)


Some games were played and then people were getting anxious!!! Lol so we headed for the cake right away.

I cut the prediction cake which revealed girl and we had our son cut the reveal cake with a little help from me. I have to admit it was an emotional party/day. We all wanted girl. The games revealed girl. My horrible morning sickness and mood swings pointed to girl. And at the end of it all our baby had us fooled. He was a boy all along lol.

I love baby AJ (full name won't be reveal until the birth date) but I admit to getting watery eyes once I saw the reflection of blue on the knife. I just kept cutting and cutting hoping for some pink while the flash from cameras kept going off. Kind of funny when you think about it know. lol.

We had a big turn out of people show up and we felt very loved by everyone who came. Especially those who traveled hours to get there so especial thanks, even if its months later, goes to our dear friends Gabriel and Caritza from GT Modern Creations and Laura and Dave fellow bride. You guys rock and take over a special part in our hearts. We will always be thankful to have you as friends in our lives.

If I was to do it over I wouldn't change a thing. Not even putting music in my priority list ;) so there you have it. Our gender reveal in all of its glory. I feel bad that it took me so long to blog about it but hey, like my momma says "better late then never" ;)

I hope you enjoyed reading about it and this serves for a guide for those of you planning a gender reveal. There'll be another post to follow with our famous souvenir and the games we played since this got to be too long already.


                              
The invites!

Front decor

DIY onesie banner

DH got this from his job. It worked out perfectly :)


Prediction cake MIL made

Both cakes



The cupcakes our friends from NY brought us. They were delicious!

The cutting

And it's blue!

A dear friend and I

This envelope contained the results. It was giving to me at the appointment.

It's A Boy! (after everyone left I ran to the room to get this and see it for myself that the bakery had made no mistakes lol. 


Happy Hump Day!

Pamela