Hi everybody! I hope you guys are well and had a great Thanksgiving celebration. It’s Black Friday and I personally don’t go out shopping today, but my daughter thought it would be fun to check out the deals.
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. My daughters love jigsaw puzzles and they have a lot of them, but I don’t have enough room for all the boxes. Here’s my solution:
I put each individual puzzle into a Ziploc bag (sandwich size) and cut out the picture of the completed puzzle that’s usually on the front of the box and tape it onto the front of the bag. I then take a picture of all the puzzles together, print on regular copier paper and tape onto the front of a big box that’s going to store them.
This puzzle set has small pictures of the completed puzzle on the back of the storage box, but I wanted to place a bigger picture of the puzzles on the front of the lid so I took a picture, added their names, printed it out and taped it on the lid. Now my daughters can see it clearly. Thanks for looking and I hope you like this idea.
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. I understand it now. Parenthood is a very tricky world, to say the least, and I’ve always known about that part, in fact it almost made me not want to enter it, but the joys that come along with being a parent are many and every moment that’s new for me, as a parent, is very exciting. I used to think, “What’s the big deal?” whenever a friend, who happened to be a parent, gushed about simple things their kids did. But I get it now. It’s the fact that it’s your kid going through or learning something and you get to share in their joys or sorrow. You have a powerful connection with them and of course you want to share it with the world, but not everyone will see it through your eyes or heart. They’ll politely say, “That’s nice,” but they can’t feel your enormous bond with your child. It’s uniquely yours and I understand it now.
A few days ago when I went to pick up my daughter after school, I noticed all the kids were holding something in their hands. It was a large envelope and even from afar I could see my daughter’s sweet, little face peering through the clear cellophane paper in the middle of the envelope. It was their school pictures! My heart leapt inside of me with so much anticipation. Oh, I couldn’t wait to see the pictures and my daughter couldn’t wait to show me. She darted towards me, holding out her envelope with pride. We looked at it, said “WOW,” and broke out in giggles. Needless to say we hurried home. Her portrait picture came in various sizes and I loved searching for her little face in the class picture. When I found her, I thought, “there’s my daughter” and I wondered if my mom thought the same thing when she received my first class picture and searched for my face. I understand it now.
As for her first report card, we went yesterday and it was a thrill to hear that our sweet Olivia was meeting all the standards and impressing her teacher non-stop every day. It filled my heart with pride. I’m really enjoying these new moments as a parent of a Kindergartener, even though I still have to let her go out into the real world. Can you imagine what I’m going to be like once graduation rolls around? I’m going to go insane with happiness.
My pride and joy!
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. Remember our Halloween door monster. If you don’t, then here’s a reminder:
I wanted to continue this door decoration idea right into Thanksgiving so our adorable monster has had a major transformation.
Meet Gobble Gobble Mercado!
I think I love him more than my daughters do. Oh well, he’s simply adorable and I had a blast doing this. I kept the eyes from the monster and printed out the hat, beak and feet. I used party streamer paper and found two red strings for the wattle. I hope this turkey brought a smile to your face.
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Hello everybody. I hope you guys are well. Yesterday, schools were closed in observance of Veterans Day and the weather was absolutely beautiful. Since my husband had the day off as well, we couldn’t waste the opportunity to go to the park and bask in this rare weather. Off we went and I made sure to have my camera in my bag.
Olivia was ecstatic to find this giant leaf. It came home with us.
Sophia kept picking up different sticks and swiping at all the leaves on the ground.
I suddenly realized, hey we can take a pic of ourselves as well. What a concept! 🙂
Here’s my attempt at a shot of nature.
Some days I wish I was a professional photographer with a great camera, but then I see those cameras and think 1. They’re expensive 2. They’re heavy/bulky (that won’t fit in my bag!) 3. Why are there so many buttons on that expensive, bulky camera? and 4. I really don’t want to get mugged.
I’m not too fond of my current camera, but I’m stuck with it, for now. For me, my perfect camera, and I’m searching, is one that’s small, takes pictures fast and they don’t come out blurry. I HATE blurry pictures, especially when you get a perfect shot, but oh wait, it’s not perfect because it’s BLURRY! It drives me nuts! If anyone out there has any recommendations on a great small camera, oh please let me know. I would appreciate it.
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. Yesterday, on the way home from school my daughter finally had a chance to play with snow. It was melting fast and people had already shoveled it to the side, but she was able to make several snowballs and tossed them here and there.
As you can see, she was pretty happy! We even made a tiny snowman!
Along the way we encountered several fallen trees and I QUICKLY took some pictures.
This damaged tree is situated about three blocks from where I live.
This unfortunate tree is right at the beginning of my block. I live towards the end.
Just around the corner, there was another massive tree that had fallen and landed right in front of the doorway of a private house. I didn’t go take a picture of that one out of respect to the homeowner. It was pretty bad and this morning it was still there.
Nature is definitely powerful, frightening, and completely amazing. All the best to those who have to clean up and may they be safe.
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. I would like to say a SPECIAL THANKS to all who have taken time to read and like my blog and become followers. You guys are amazing!
Yesterday, when I went to pick up my daughter from school, it was snowing and she was over the moon with our first snowfall. She was completely amazed and kept stopping to catch the snow on her tongue, stating that “she was eating the snowflakes.” I should have stopped to take a picture of her, but I was cold, getting wet and I wanted to get home fast. I did take a picture outside my window later on.
We don’t have a great view, but I always like taking a picture of our first snowfall of the year.
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. About a month ago, my silly daughter came home from school a little bit annoyed with the fact that students that day were able to eat pizza because of the school lunch and she couldn’t because she had her lunch already from home. My daughter loves pizza and she declared that she wanted pizza as a lunch option. Well, she didn’t use those words exactly, but simply put SHE WANTED PIZZA. My mission then was thinking of a way to pack “pizza” in her lunch box. First thought I had was go online and search, but then I remembered those frozen pizza bagels you see on TV. I didn’t want to go buy them though for three reasons: I wanted to make them myself, I wanted to save money, and I wanted to make them healthier. This is what I came up with:
I used mini whole wheat bagels, marinara sauce, and shredded mozzarella cheese. I placed the bagels in my oven at 375 degrees for eight to ten minutes. I cut them in half so I can easily fit them into a sandwich container, but I can only fit two bagels even though you see three. Needless to say my daughter is very happy with these pizza bagels and that makes me happy as well. I also include fruits, veggies, small dessert and water in her lunch bag. I hope you guys like my take on this. Enjoy!
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Hello everybody! I hope you guys are well. This is the time of the year where the two biggest holidays, in my opinion, start approaching full speed ahead. As soon as that happens, I start making mental notes on how we’re going to take our Christmas picture early, because Santa Claus is already at the mall mid-November, and I start the Christmas list. Also, there are several birthdays before Christmas so I have to buy those gifts well in advance. But we all know what happens. Yeah, that’s right. I leave everything for the last minute driving myself completely insane and frustrated with the holidays. Some days I really WISH I could be that type of person that is completely relaxed. You know those people. They’re so chill with everything. Nothing bothers them, at all. That would be nice, but then I wouldn’t be me and I think through my neurotic persona I’m able to accomplish stuff that makes me and my family happy. At least, I hope.
In a previous post, I mentioned how last year I had my daughter go through her stuff toys and take out the ones that she didn’t really play with in order to donate them. A few days ago, we did the same thing. I took the bin where the toys are usually stored in and explained to my daughter that it was the “keep” bin. Then I placed a big shopping bag next to the bin and told her that was the “gift” bag. I asked her to go through her toys and see which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she wanted to donate as a gift. My little girl did a great job!
These gently used toys are going to be donated and I hope we can find some more to give before the new ones come in.
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Hi everybody! I hope you guys are well and safe. As reported by news articles online, there are still many people without electricity in New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut (I fortunately never lost power). Staten Islanders are feeling forgotten and help for their area is coming at a snail’s pace. The MTA is reporting 80 percent of trains back on track and the New York City Marathon has been cancelled. I can’t stop reading or looking at photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Some of the pictures are unbelievable.
Before and after of an amusement park pier in Seaside Heights, N.J. courtesy of www.weather.aol.com
This morning I read an article that featured a New Brunswick shop asking for clothing donations for the cold weather. They provided an address and I quickly went into my daughter’s room and collected several pieces of clothing such as sweaters, a toddler’s down vest, two coats, pants, shirts, scarves, and a baby’s blanket (never been used). The box is ready to be shipped Monday morning. It’s the very least I can do and I will be sending out more donations in the future. May all those affected be able to recover swiftly and you are not forgotten, at least not by me.
This past week of no school had me going online and looking for printable worksheets for my daughter. I was able to find worksheets on practicing her writing the alphabet, adding, ordinal numbers, less and more, counting, and coloring. Every day we did several pages without any complaints. It’s the norm now so things went smoothly. There was play time, snack time, lunch time, homework time, movie time, and, my favorite, daddy’s home time. If you would like to print out your own worksheets, give these websites a try:
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themercadoproject 