Good Tidings Of Great Joy

I love the Christmas season. But more importantly I love the opportunity that I get each year to ponder and reflect upon the true meaning of Christmas. I often wondered what Mary would have felt. Can you imagine giving life to God's Son? Or holding this precious Child in your arms? To be honest, I hadn't really put that much thoughts into it until I became a mother. I remember when I was pregnant with Mister Z... The rush of emotions that came over me every time I heard "Silent Night" or "What Child is This" and a few other songs.

(picture by Joseph Brickey)

Christmas this year is going to be a very special Christmas for me. I am blessed to be able to carry another child and to experience one of the most sacred and miraculous thing ever!


Z's baby blessing booties
made with love by Great-Grandma L.

I'm grateful for a loving God for giving me another opportunity to carry and give life to one of his children. My heart is full as I'm sharing with you our story. I can't tell you how excited we were when we found out that I was pregnant! It was hard to keep it to ourselves. We didn't want to share the news until I was a little bit farther along. (some of you know the reason.) Thank you for all of your prayers on our behalf. We truly can feel it. Back in July was one of the most painful experience I've ever felt but I am still hanging on to "hope", and look!!!!! It's going to happen again. Yes yes indeed!!! We are so very grateful to have babe No. 2 joining our family in June 2011.

As I'm sharing our exciting news to you I can't help but to think of our friends who aren't yet blessed with children. You know who you are and we are praying for you!

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you ^agood tidings of great ^bjoy, which shall be to all people.
(Luke 2:10)

I love this verse because I was holding on to "hope" so desperately yet I let some of the fears sneak in every now and then. What a comforting verse to remind myself. "Fear not." And the most awesome promise at the end of the verse is "I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to ALL people." Not just certain group of people but ALL! That makes me s m i l e every time I read that. =)

41 days till Christmas

As I'm typing this post it's almost 40 days left till Christmas!
(for some reason it feels a lot more than 40 days)

I still haven't make anything Christmas except cards.
I promise as soon as I get going with my Christmas projects I will post them on my blog!!!


Just a little experience I had earlier today that gave me an "A-ha moment"and I thought I should share it with my readers.

But lets back up to Friday...

This is how the conversation goes with my sugar daddy.

Me: Hey hun you know we need to get our family pictures done?
SD: Oh yeah!
Me: When can you do it? (he is crazy busy with school and work)
SD: Umm let me check my calendar (I can hear him clicking away on his iCal.)
I can't do it next Saturday, or Saturday after that, or the Saturday after that one either. The ONLY Saturday I can do it is this Saturday (meaning today!)
Me: OK!

Off I went ... I knew just the right person I had in mind! My cousin! She loves taking pictures and I know she would do anything to get her hands on my DSLR camera that sugar daddy bought me. After leaving her a voicemail she finally called me back and informed me that she was in California. Greaaaaaaaaaaat! Now what?!

I'm determined we are going to make this work. I'm not about to go pay someone to take our pictures for a gazillion dollars for 5 pictures. A-Ha! I do have the remote.

"Let's just do it honey!"

(This picture makes me feel so happy... family who plays together stays together)

For those of you who do not have "fancy" camera or remote. You have a lil' cool feature on your camera called "self-timer." Go for it and have fun! It's boring to have everyone looking at the camera and say "cheese" anyway. Candid shots are the best!

The other tips I have for you is that when you are dealing with your lil' Santa's helpers you'll need to keep them occupied. As you can see in the picture there's nothing but trees and dirt. We brought props to keep Mister Z happy. We know he likes his bike and balloons. You know your kids best, it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

One last tip I have for you is to add digital brushes using Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop do not panic. You can use stamps! Make sure to use Staz-on ink!


Now go for it and give it a try. Don't forget to put the camera on a tri-pod or something sturdy; i.e. table. Have fun and please send me some shots!

'Tis the Season

It's that time of the year again!
Christmas is coming...
(I hope you are ready)

I just wanted to show you some of the paper I got for my upcoming Christmas projects.
Aren't they pretty?!

Here are the paper in this video.

Father Christmas by Pink Paislee
Jovial by Basic Grey
Noel by Making Memories
Yuletide Specialty Paper by K & Co.
Old Fashioned Christmas by Recollection

Don't forget to watch in 480p for better quality!