Farewell 2012/Hello 2013

Holly Hot Pot Party Dec. 2012 (aka Dinner & Fellowship at the Holly's)

Well, yes I've been AWOL, to say the least. It's been quite eventful since my last post. First off, I failed to keep an update about my fall season for Ultimate. In brief, great teammates... just had uber loss factors, which placed us 2nd to last place. And my family? My parents are getting ready to move back to the P.I. My sis and her little clan moved to another house. My youngest sis doin' her thang and getting ready to graduate from college. My hubs did a superb job managing the children while I adjust to working full-time.

Design Strategist (in the making)
I know I haven't posted anything about this, but yes, I got a job! It's been almost 2 months. So, less blogging, less pinning, and more productive work around the house, at the office, and makin' money for the fam bam.  It's quite a challenge to have 2 hats at a job. Strategize to plan and organize the purpose behind all design projects. Then, eventually execute the design. But, it's been a fun challenge.

However, it's a huuuuge challenge to mentally leave work at work and put on your mommy, wife, chef, housekeeper hats on. Then switch on and off and on and off day after day. The first couple of months were particularly exhausting because we were all sick w/ the cold/flu. I'll spare you the details, but lack of sleep or interrupted nights, coughing all day and one scary episode of my husband fainting one night, did not make it an easy time to be working full-time. And sometimes, the hubs forgets all that entails to be a working mother, and asks me everyday, "Honey, why are you so tired?"

Many firsts in 2012
I posted on facebook my many firsts this year.

"...
Tirzah's first year in school.
Homeroom parent for Tirzah's teacher.
Noah & Jonah's first year in pre-school.
Learning stick shift and getting over the fear of stalling on hills.
Gym membership.
Joined local Ultimate (Frisbee) League.
Lost my wedding ring, due to my first bee sting.
Voted in Florida.
A full-time job as a mom..."

In Addition to Many Firsts

5 year old Daughter

Tiz has had her share of firsts

Biking w/o training wheels

Reading a whole book (Bernstein Bears: Spooky Old Tree) on her own

Writing & spelling out words on her own

Tossing a disc beautifully

Drawing sharks :/

The boys (Twins just born 15 months apart)

I say twins because they're practically the same in size and everybody always ask. The hardest part of them being slightly different in height, is sorting the laundry. Not much firsts for them at this point, but just a blurb.

3 year old Son

Color matching and counting to 20

Speaking in complete sentences, yet w/ an English accent and cute toddler slurs. I'll miss it so much.

2 year old baby

Talking beyond babby babbles and hubs and I love it.

Counting to 10

Self-taught fibs

Terrible 2's have hit earlier than his 2nd birthday

My little boy's favorite word, "No."

Climbing everything and everywhere

Zazzle

I sold a few items on Zazzle! It felt great to receive an email from them saying, "Your product sold on Zazzle." I probably could spend more time on this, but hmmm. Right now, I'm limited w/ time sooo I'll just see how it grows on its own. I do have another idea brewing along the same line. Let's see how time allows.

Wishful thinking for 2013

It's been quite adventurous and hasn't been easy to be away from my hometown and favorite people and places. But, I have to say that Tally is growing on me. There's a lot for us to look forward to in 2013. 

With this in mind, I hope and plan to do the listed items below (priority not according to sequence).

• Be the first to line up at Trader Joe's grand opening in Tally
• Take Krav Maga and/or Hagana lessons
• Finalize our budget plans for the next couple of years
• Home improvements according to budget plan
• Work as a Design Strategist at my full potential and excel
• Support Ultimate locally and internationally
• Keep my home open weekly for dinner & fellowship, to all genuine believers and friends in Tally
• Teach my children proper character traits
• Children to take lessons (either one of these: Piano, TKD, Golf, Soccer, Frisbee, French)
• Support my husband and his goals (mainly save money and shop less. heehee)

Maybe the aforementioned is a little over the top for the limited budget that we have. But, gotta pan out the details. I figure, if my professional job is to plan strategy for high-roller type companies, I could at least do it for my personal life. Hello 2013, here we come.

Scrapbook: First Child's Firsts

Before Tiz was born, I got this scrapbook as a baby shower gift and was excited to put one together. Moms, I know, for some of you, the idea of a first photo album of your first child's firsts weighs on you. Okay, maybe not. But at least for me it did. For a whole year it did. I finally finished it when she was about 2. I had to do some documentation of the hundreds of pics we took of our first child. Soooo sorry our third child doesn't have as many.

Okay, this was great. Had the stickers, the pages, the colors already picked out for you in this package. However, I went through a torturous ordeal to get the pics the sizes I wanted. In order to make them fit in the placeholders the pages had, I had to shrink the pics proportionately in Photoshop. Then after printing them on gloss stock. I finely cropped them, all 53 photos, w/ my xacto knife. Yes, this took hours to consider, measure, print, and cut. Ugggh, first and last custom scrapbook I'll do. But maybe one day, a larger one to put standard sizes in. I still have to do my college road trip to the Northwest. Arghh. Too many projects to hold on to, so little time.

First day she was born. Missing hair lock on the right, which I saved in a ziploc bag somewhere.

Bath time & little feet & hand pics

Daddy & Tiz

Her first adventures

I must say, it took FOREVER. Like, in Sandlot when the boy repeatedly says, "FORever...FORever...FORever..." It was worth it and now I can look back and appreciate, cry, reminisce those days when I thought it was hard to have one child. The adjustment to motherhood just keeps progressing.

Best Printed Photobook: Costco

I designed an album via Costco Photo Center (www.costcophotocenter.com) . I found it to be the best site for printing photo books, as well as photos. Believe me, I've tested Target's shutterfly, Target's Photo Center, Walgreens, CVS, Kinko's, and the quality and turn around time doesn't compare. I had trouble w/ the different online interfaces the other stores use and Costco's photo site is the easiest to manage. 


My first photo book was for my son's first year. That was so fun and easy compared to my attempt to scrapbook my daughter's first year album, which took days. The only thing is that you are limited to their themes, so I chose the simplest ones. Also, you can't customize the page layout, but it was the closest I could find to having the most options. Most importantly, was it user-friendly? Yes. 

A full-color 30 page photobook for $24.99

You can do a lot with 30 pages

For my second photo book, I hired a photographer who had awesome talent and a great price. I wanted to make an Anniversary/Father's Day/Birthday present for my dad. Yes, lame me kept putting the book off for that long. Originally it was a birthday gift which then became so on and so forth. On the month of my father's birthday, we got all the grandchildren and my parents to take a quick photo shoot. Quick, because 6 kids under the age of 6 isn't easy, especially in the freezing weather that Summer day, in San Jose. He took several shots for an hour and then gave his editted digitals to me. Now that is hard to come by. The photographer, Jim Resonable, did an awesome job. His work is featured here: www.jimresonable.com/, as well as some photos below.

My youngest at 5 months

Still in love after 32 years

Lolo with the grandsons

My second child looking for trouble at 2 years old

My niece leading the way

Precious

Okay, so finally some pics of the photobook:

Leather cover is only $5 more

You can choose different layouts per page

Several background themes to choose from

Photobook Tips

These make great gifts, or for your personal collection at home. Here are some tips on creating an interesting photobook below:

1. Select simple themes. I believe the photos are the most important.
2. Collect photos based on your theme or purpose
3. Make layouts of photos with similar color schemes
4. Upload the same photograph for different photo slots and crop at different angles
5. Create a story throughout the book

Hope that helps. Let me know how I can help you with your photo book by leaving comments/questions below.