Week in Pictures!

Been a while since I did one of these!  Just a little round up of our week in pictures.

Some notables...

First picture is Liam going to town on a pizza crust!  It kept him entertained for a good 30 minutes as we walked around Costco.

Third picture, first row - Liam was standing on the kitchen table as they were feeding him.  He stood for a good 10 minutes.  The things Liam will do for food! 

Third picture, second row - Christian... he's getting SO BIG!  Just a few months shy of 7...

Second picture, third row - Awesome fish tacos my mom made when we got together at her house on Labor Day!  Accompanied by some delicious guac, pico de gallo, and salsa verde.

WWWW

Hey guys, another week, another tired mama.. :)  I feel like the weeks are going by so fast one after the other.  Before I know it another WWWW is here.  But I managed to snap a few pics amidst the comings and goings of our life. 

As far as labor day weekend, we didn't do much. Did a tiny bit of shopping since its the best weekend for sales. On actual labor day we sat around the house all morning and then my husband had to leave for work. After Liam woke up from his afternoon nap we headed to over to my mom's house where she made some delicious fish tacos complete with guac, pico de gallo, and some salsa verde. Pure deliciousness!


{Linking up with A Life From Scratch... go check them out!}

On me is a cardi I got at Kohl's.  All their summer/spring stuff is on sale now, so go!  Get some good colorful stuff for CHEAP!  My black skirt I've had for a while.  Its from JCPenney's.  I love the back split because its closed off with a pleat.  You can't see it in this picture though. My shirt is from Macy's and I've also had that for a few years.  Although you can find these ruffle shirts everywhere now a days.  And the shoes from Forever 21. 

On Christian a shirt I just got for him at JCPenney's.  I love the soft colors of it.  I seem to buy him 1 of 2 things: plaid or stripes. haha!  The pants are also from JCPenney's and as always my boy looks good in a pair of skinny's.   And the shoes are bootie type shoes from Old Navy.

On Liam is a cute little brown overal and orange/white striped shirt he got as a birthday gift.  That picture is as good as it got for him.  He is mobile and doesn't want to stay still for anyone! 

Wishlist: Fall style

Fall is around the corner and the stores are already selling fall clothing. And I start dreaming....

So here are the items I found all on Old Navy, Gap, and Piperlime (my favorites!) and put these little fall outfits together. I die for that little orange sweater for Liam! Who says dressing boys isn't fun?? :)

Boys - fall by jannira on Polyvore

 

WWWW

Hey guys!  Welcome back to another WWWW.  I have some good and bad news for you.  Bad news: YOU did not win the $50 Crewcuts gift card that A Life From Scratch was giving away for linking up to her blog in last week.  Good news: I DID!!!  See?  It pays (sometimes) to link up!  ;) I was so excited, because I truly never win anything.  The last thing I won a couple years ago was a gift certificate from my job for a restaurant that was almost expired and only good if you spent a certain amount first.  Umm.. that's not a prize.  So after you're done here, make sure and go to A Life From Scratch and also Toronto Mama to see their adorable families and what they wore. 

Well, anyway, we are back with some more outfits.  Mine is pretty much a repeat of a couple months ago, except for my shoes.  I got those recently at www.shoemint.com.  Side note: I was boasting their praises just a couple months ago when I got 3 pairs of shoes on sale for $50'ish.  I need to clarify that they are a shoe "club" and if you buy from them you are joining their club and agree to spend a certain amount per month or they charge your account.  I learned this the hard way.  You do have the first 5 days of the month to pass on them charging your account and you can do this every month.  I did not know that.  They say its in the fine print, but who reads the fine print on everything?!  I called and argued, but they refused to refund.  So anyway, they charge your account and it becomes your credit that you can use at anytime for a year.  I think they have great shoes and great deals, but need to be A LOT more up front about how it works.  Back to the outfit.  So I love these shoes and their color!  Great for when you want a pop of color.  I also love this shirt. Aztecs prints are in! 

On Christian is one of my favorite Old Navy shirts, Old Navy shorts, and Old Navy shoes, haha!  Do you think we like Old Navy??  They just have the cutest and durable stuff for boys.

And finally Liam has a cute little v-neck (my favorite part!) he got for his birthday.  I believe its from Target.  Its a greenish yellow, but looks just yellow here.  His pants are hand-me-down's from Christian.  I love them because they roll up and button to become shorts.  He just woke up before this picture so he has sleepy face and some slight bedhead. :)  And yes that's a PS3 remote he's holding.  Whatever makes him happy for my picture. 

An InLinkz Link-up

WWWW

Hey peoples!  (Do I have peoples??)  I almost didn't do this WWWW post because I forgot last night to have the post ready to go, but my lovely husband sent me the pictures and I was able to do them here on my lunch break. :)

So these picturse are from this past Sunday.  It was HOT.  Lord have mercy!  And humid.  I have to give credit where credit is due and let you know that Christian took the picture of Liam and I!  A budding photographer??  Maybe...

So on me is one of my favorite tops because its my current favorite color (coral) and its light and best of all was $7.  At walmart y'all.  WALMART.  Ain't no shame in my game. I bought it back in February because we had couple's night we were going to be going to that night.  I said "let me stop into walmart and see what I can find.  You never know.."  And I found this on the clearance rack!  Its a soft rayon on top (1/3) and cotton on bottom (2/3).  I love the mixed materials. My skirt is from Old Navy bought around the same time.  They probably still have some.  And my shoes are from Target  I got those when I was pregnant because I knew I would be giving up my 5 inch heels and wedges are better than flats for pregnant backs. I still wear them all the time.  Very comfortable and cute.

On Christian is a cute plaid shirt from Target.  It was going to be his Easter shirt and then we found something else. The pants from who knows where.  Probably target.  No shoes because the boy takes his shoes off as soon as we get home.  He just got a fresh hair cut for back to school!  Looking all dapper and grown up!

And on Liam is a couple of new pieces he just for his birthday.  Some adorable green pants and a plaid shirt.  Its Chaps.  I love Chaps!  And his adorable sandals from Babies R Us (Truly Scrumptious brand from Heidi Klum's baby line).

Hope you enjoyed and make sure and link up with us down below!  "Us" being Toronto Mama and A Life From Scratch who I link with.  There's a bonus today!!  If you go to A Life From Scratch and link up with her, you get entered for a chance to win a $50 gift card from Crewcuts (JCrew)!!  Go now!  :) It doesn't necessarily have to be what you wore on Wednesday, but whatever day, whenever.  I know everyone's schedules are packed, especially with school starting up.  Just fun to share our cute finds and outfits. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Liam turns ONE!

If you haven't read my past blogs, then you might not know that Liam is our miracle baby. Of course every baby is a miracle, but God truly gave him to us as a sign of His promise. We tried for 3 years for him and after 2 years and 2 miscarriages later, I got a diagnoses of fertility issues (won't go into details, but its in a past blog) and I should not have gotten pregnant on my own. I was about to start fertility treatments and then in November 2011 prayed for healing and a month later God blessed us with Liam. So he is truly special in his own way and not a day goes by that I don't thank God for him. I am still amazed when I look at him and think of how long we waited for him and he's here. And now he's 1!!  I can't believe a year has come and gone.  My littlest man has turned one.  It has been such a FUN year with him.  Watching his little personality develop and, let me tell you, he has quite the personality!  He loves to laugh and make others laugh.  He literally will do something over and over if he sees you're laughing at him.  He has a bit of a temper too, but I'm trying hard to get that under control.  As much as you can with a 1 year old. "Be nice... don't hit... BE NICE!!" haha!  In one ear and out the other.  But its gotta be sinking in there somewhere!   He is also SO curious and busy!  And the thrill-seeker his older brother never was.  They said the first child is born into an adult world and second child is born into a child's world.  It is so true!  In short, he's making up for what Christian didn't do.  Haha!  We love it and we love him! 

So about a week ago we had his first birthday party.  We did a sock monkey theme because he truly is our little monkey!  Crazy and curious!  So I wanted to share my party pictures with you. 

But first!  A couple of things to note...

I made the bunting for his high chair myself.  It was super easy (thanks to a friend, Alanna (Toronto Mama) who pointed that out!)  Just bought some scrap book paper and ribbon at Michael's.  $2.50 folks!  Easy-peasy!  I don't think I need to do a DIY on that.  Right??  haha..

Also the Hershey bar wrappers I made myself as well.  What I did for that was look up the dimensions of a Hershey bar wrapper and I found this website: www.candywrapperstore.com and they had a template there for the 1.55 oz Hershey bar.  I printed it out, measured it and went to my favorite site PicMonkey and designed my own wrapper.  It took like 20 minutes and I printed them out, cut them out, and wrapped my candy bars.  Done! 

Our smash cake was done by my brother Josue and his wife Linda.  They're so awesome at making cakes and I knew they would come up with something cute and good!  So I gave them an idea of what I wanted and they ran with it.  I absolutely loved the finished product!

I made the cupcakes myself, but that was a live & learn experience.  They were just ok for me.  I should definitely do a trial run next time.  Especially for the piping of the icing.  I wanted the perfect moutain of icing and it looked like a wiggly worm, haha!  I needed a bigger tip for it.  So I just ended up spreading the icing on with a knife. Oh well.  Like I said live & learn!  The monkey cupcake sticks I also made myself.  I bought stickers and cut out each and every circle.  48 of them.  My advice, spend the money for the sticks.  That was no fun.  The money for that is worth it. 

Now this one you guys are going to think I'm crazy for doing...  My cupcake stand.  Its 3 cardboard cake circles.  I bought 3 different sizes for like $1.50 each or something like that.  And then I took 2 cans of food and wrapped them in papaer and hot glued them to the cake rounds.  Voila, cupcake stand!  It was super sturdy too!  haha!  Ghetto?  Maybe.  Smart?  Definitely! 

One last thing that everyone was raving about, my "chalkboard" of Liam facts!  I absolutely loved it.  I did not make it myself though.  My friend Kayla has her own etsy shop and she designed it for me!  Please go over to her site and check out her stuff.  Alabama Angle Designs.  Custom made invites, chalkboards, you name it!  I just emailed her all of Liam's info and she designed what you see.  I LOVED IT!!  You would think that I was getting paid to sponsor all these websites, haha!  Just wanted to point out that you can have a fabulous party for cheap. 

And now without further ado, here are the party pics! 

WWWW!!

Hey guys!  We're back after a hiatus of a few weeks.  There was sickness and then birthday party planning and then my laptop charger died because Liam is apparently a daredevil and likes to suck on things with an electric current...  Mom of the year right?   But in between the madness, I got these pics and I was never able to post them.  And I even got Fifo's out fit this time!  :)  So here is our What We Wore Wednesday!  (a few days later)

So on me is a brown skirt I got from a consignment shop called Plato's Closet.  I think they're nationwide.  Love that store.  My favorite and versatile beige sweater and white tank top are from Old navy.  My shoes.. oh my shoes..  :)  those are the shoes I share about a few weeks ago.  My favorite pair of shoes right now.  They're from Shoemint.  Go check them out!  I found out about them from my favorite fashion blog Kendi Everyday and so I trusted them.  And she didn't let me down.  They're semi comfortable, lol.. but beauty is pain right?!  haha!  Seriously though, they're not bad.  What I like is the color and I'm excited to mix them into my wardrobe come fall.

On Christian are my favorite skinny jeans on him.  He just has this model body that everything looks good on.  And a hand me down shirt from a friend.

On Liam is a hand me down overall from his brother from Osh Kosh.  His shirt is a onesie gift he recieved.  The shoes I got recently at Babies R Us.  They're Truly Scrumptious which I believe is Heidi Klum's kids fashion line.  They're perfect for his fat little feet and I got them on sale.  SCORE!  :)

And last, but not least, my husband Fifo.  He's wearing his favorite shirt from his favorite football team.   I have no idea where he got it from, but if you must know I can ask next time I see him, he's at work at the moment.  Cargo shorts from our favorite store, Old Navy.  And the shoes are Nike's from Sport Authority.  Nothing matches, but I mean, he's a man.  It is what it is.  ;)

**As I am editing this, I notice Liam's little toe sticking out of his sandal, LOL!!!  Ah well..  He wasn't crying!

Don't forget to head on over to Toronto Mama and A Life From Scratch to see what they're wearing!

An InLinkz Link-up

Editing pictures on a smartphone

**We've been sick at the house so I've not been posting much.  Hopefully next week we can get back into the swing of things and post WWWW and some birthday and photography blogs!  But here is a blog I started up a couple weeks ago and never got around to posting.


So I was out at lunch and I walked by this beautiful tree with these beautiful magenta flowers on it (Yes magenta because I'm a girl and I name colors specifically!) against a beautiful blue sky wtih the most perfect clouds behind it.  I loved how it looked and I took a picture.  Because I'm addicted to not only taking pictures, but posting pictures.  :)  So, I was gonna "instagram" it but noticed the tree was a little too dark, so I decided to edit it in my phone.  After all was said and done I thought  that this would be the perfect opportunity to do the "editing in smartphones" blog post I've been wanting to do!  So here I share my secrets (not really) to editing your pictures in your smartphone.  I have an iPhone so that's what you're going to see.  I don't know how to use an Android or any other smartphone, but I imagine the apps can't be much more different (if they're available). 

Because I am a photographer I am usually pretty picky about a picture I post, even if its on Instagram or Facebook.  Especially for Instagram because once you start adding filters it messes with your picture even more. I like for my picture to be as clear as possible and bright as possible.  That's hard to do with a iPhone because 1) the flash is limited in how far it goes (I try not to use it at all) and 2) its a phone, not a DSLR camera or even a point & shoot camera. 

Enter: Apps for editing pictures!  My 2 favorite and the ones I use for everything are Snapsneed and Afterlight.  Each pretty much do the same thing. They both have your general features like brightness, contrast, saturation, etc, but Snapsneed has one feature that I like especially.  Sometimes I use both, sometimes I just use one.

So here you see my original picture... The tree is darker of course because of the bright sky behind it. 

I did it first in Snapsneed because it has a more specific feature that I needed for this picture "selective adjust".  This means that you can mess with a selected area of the picture.  Where as if you were to mess with general brightness, it would brighten the whole picture.  But this selective adjust lets you pic that area that is dark and brighten just that area.  So you're in there, you hit the + sign that pops up and a circle appears.  You can place that circle whereever you need.  Then if you pinch or expand your 2 fingers (just like when you zoom on a picture) it will enlarge or shrink the circle.  But what I like is that it highlights in red the part that will be affected so you can see what your specifically fixing.  So this comes in handy a lot because you don't always have the perfect lightsource.  Also, sometimes your kids face is darker than the rest of the picture and you can specifically brighten it.  I love that!

So you have your area selected and if you swipe up and down you have the option to enhance brightness, contrast, and saturation of that selected area.  If you swipe side to side you increase or decrease your chosen enhancement.  It sounds and looks kinda complicated at first and I'll admit at first I was intimidated by the options, but once you learn it, its super easy.  So that's one of my favorite features of Snapsneed. Another thing I like is that it has tilt-shift feature and center focus feature.  Those add that blurriness to your pictures where you want it to be out of focus.  Other than that it has your generic stuff.  But I love how by brightening it and messing with focus, you can take your ordinary iPhone pic to the next level and it can look like out of a real camera.

So here you see my before and after using Snapsneed:

After adjusting the dark tree, I went ahead and went into Tune Image where I can adjust the general brightness, contrast, saturation, and temperature of the picture.  You didn't know a little picture had so much potential did you??  :)

And here is my picture in AfterLight after making the same adjustments (except selective adjust, since it doesn't have that feature).

Its almost the same, except you can tell that the one edited in SnapSneed has a bit more detail to the tree because of the selective adjust.  I added contrast specifically to that tree because when I brightened up the general brightness of the picture, it made it kinda dull looking.  

Anyway, I hope this made sense and you can go and download those apps and turn your simple iPhone pics into better ones!  

Birthday invite & 1 year pictures

So I've debating on whether or not to post this because I wanted to wait until these were handed out…  But I love how these invitations turned out so here it is!  Also I wanted to show you guys how easy it was.

First off, a BIG thank you to Alanna from Toronto Mama for this blog: Easy DIY Invitations Using PicMonkey.  I already used PicMonkey to make collages and stuff.  I love it!  Its super user friendly and free!  So when she posted that blog on how to make your own invite using the site, well challenge accepted!  ;)  And here is what I came up with a couple hours later (because I am no expert graphic artist!).  Basically I looked up some invites and gathered some ideas and made it my own.

My husband usually makes our invites because he IS an expert graphic artist, but doesn't always have the time.  Believe me when I say, if I can do it, you can do it!!  He was super proud of me and I was like a peacock fluffing out my tail feathers when he told me it looks great!  As you can guess, we are doing Sock Monkey theme!  I'll definitely be posting the pictures of the birthday party!  But for now, here are a few of the pictures I took for the invite and also just cause he is turning 1.  I can't believe how big our little monkey is…

Also, if you're tight on a budget or just too lazy to go to the store like me (also possibly because I'm cheap)… that number 1 he's holding I made while he was napping.  I took some cardboard, drew a 1, cut it out and painted it white.  Voila!  No money spent and super easy!  I mean it does the job.  If you prefer a fancier, thicker 1 any craft store has them.

Our 4th of July

Our fourth of July started out awesome!  We got to sleep in and the sun was shining.  And just like every year, we go to my parents house and eat some delicious food!  This year we had grilled chicken, italian sausage, arroz con gandules, potato salad, and guacamole.  A little bit of everything!  All made courtesy of my amazing and talented mother!!  Then after the food has settled a bit we have some watermelon and melon.  Its just not 4th of July without watermelon!  Later on we head out to Winter Springs Central Winds Park for their fireworks show.  The City of Winter Springs puts on a great event.  There are lots of vendors with good food!  They have live music and stuff for the kids to do too.  Well true to Florida weather it started raining at about 6 pm.  Fireworks were scheduled for 9, but it looked like we weren't going to get to go.  But then at about 8 pm I noticed the rain had stopped.  So we quickly gathered everything and everyone up and headed out!  After parking and schlepping chairs, strollers, and kids we made it with like 10 minutes to spare.  We got ourselves a great spot and enjoyed a great fireworks show!  One of the things I love about that show is they play music along with the fireworks.  I always get teary-eyed when they play "I'm Proud to be an American" and "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles.  It touches my patriotic side!  This was also Liam's first 4th so I was excited to see his reaction.  He actually didn't do too bad.  He was scared and clingy at first, but after a few minutes he got used to it and relaxed and was enjoying the lights.  By the end he was clapping.  :)  All in all it was a good day!  Oh wait… lets not talk about the hour that we sat around in the car waiting to exit the parking lot… yeah… lets not talk about that.  ;)

Our 4th of July pictures.