Dia De Los Muertos Fair

After the Halloween festivities, many Mexican families celebrate Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). We celebrate the lives of  those family members or friends that have passed away. We set up altars with photos of our loved ones, food and or drinks they enjoyed along with colorful decorations. Last year I set up my first altar dedicated to my Papa (grandfather) and Mr. G's mother. This year I am planning to add more decorations and memories to celebrate the life of my late nana (grandmother). Usually I would just decorate a few skeleton  heads and add some left over Halloween decorations to the altar but luckily this year I found some glittery finds at the annual Dia De Los Muertos Festival in Uptown Whittier.

This was our first time at this local festival and I am so glad we went. There were some amazing artists that had their paintings displayed. Along the walk, we also saw some interesting altars dedicated to a range of people; everyone from the artists' family members to the Beatles. I couldn't resist snapping so many shots. It was like a color explosion! Enjoy:)

One of the first altars: symbolizing a mother and her child

Cactus fruit, enjoyed by a loved one

Bride and Groom- one of my fav decorations

Colorful right? I am SO going to throw a DDLM party one day!!!

One of the artists signing my painting

This is one of decorations I bought to add to my altar...eeekk can't wait to display it!

REAL ART:) 

Gotta love Frida

This altar was amazing! This was a display from my mom's friend Sonia Gonzalez, an artist at the fair.

Another vibrant altar

Oktoberfest

My Mr. G celebrated his birthday this year, Oktoberfest style! Since we couldn't make it out to celebrate drinking the day away we decided to have the partay come to us! I was just getting back into the swing of things so I didn't do much decorating...but really what more do you need than an Oktoberfest keg, pretzels and bratwurst?

It took us a while to find these beer mugs, but we ended up finding them at Walmart.

We found these coasters at Cost Plus World Market.

You know we had to dress up-see my baby bump!

Peacock Mask

Animals & Insects. This is the theme that my first grade colleagues chose for our school's annual Halloween parade. Every year we play dress-up, as a grade level, to get into the spooktacular Halloween spirit. I'm gonna be a peacock! Sounds kinda fancy for a school parade, right? Not really. We all decided to just create a mask to mimic our animal/insect's best features. I love fancy things so a peacock was an easy choice! Here is the before and after of my mini-craft Halloween costume.

All of the materials came from Michael's.

Viola!

Halloween parts and pieces

Since 2003, Mr. G and I have dressed up for Halloween as famous couples...i.e. Willma and Fred Flintstone, a mermaid and Poseidon, a USC cheerleader and The Heisman Trophy,  male and female circus ringleaders...and the list can go on. I know, I know. They are ALL not famous couples but at least they match. As you can tell, I love dressing up for Halloween. I lu, lu, lu, love it! Not only do I love the oncoming of fall and the holiday season, but I love making my own costumes. Yes, I am very proud to say I really try to hand make our costumes every year. Sooo sad that this year is a different story. I have my very good friends' wedding this weekend, in Vegas! We are super excited for this momentous occasion in their lives! So, I won't have much time to sew up a storm. BUT! I am still not resorting to buying a costume. Plus my grandmother, an extremely talented seamstress, would just die knowing that I could have tried a little harder to put something more original together. That's exactly what I'm gonna try to do...put (not sew) something together. So, here are a few clues from our couple's costume...(psss...here's a hint: think of me being pregnant in the costume).

My yellow leotard is from American Apparel and the tights are from Forever 21. Mr. G's costume parts come from Forever 21 and I'm making the net. Guess what we are going to be yet? I didn't think so:) But I've excluded a lot of detail that I still need to piece together!



Months and baby Bumps

In my spare time, I like searching for creative, crafty, photographic, baby, and baking blogs. During one of my many searches I came across a photog blog that created this crazy maternity picture. Although I wasn't pregnant at the time, I imagined doing the same thing whenever I got the bump. So here I created a knock off, of the orignal idea from Pacing the Panic Room. Hope you love my version as much as I do!

August-Here I am at 3 months.

September-4 months

October-5 months...finally you can see the bump!

Book Worms

I come from a family full of book worms. My mom is an avid reader, especially in the summer. My four younger sisters also love to get their hands on a good fiction piece. Mimi can enhale a 300 page fictional novel, specifically those about vampires, in about two hours. Even my cute little old Nana used to love to read a story or two about Mother Teresa and the many Popes we have had. As for myself, I am not so well read. In the summer I do try my best to conqure a hard covered tale, but my genre taste makes it hard to do becuase I have a weird little secret. My mom and sisters know this secret but I don't even think Mr. G knows it. I'm an expository freak, like my dad. Ahhhh! Weird, right? Well, I think so. I can't help but grab a self-help, historical or informational text. This makes the good pickin' books a little more challenging to find, since most of the best sellers are fictional or romantic.

On Tuesday, my luck changed when my co-worker came up to me. While rubbing my belly, she let me in on a fabulous book find. Yes, I actually was able to get excited about a book that I would enjoy reading. She said it helped her daughter and many of her friends get through the first few months after the baby was born. She recommended The Happiest Baby on the Block book. She told me it had the mother load of secrets. Now I'm excited to get my hands on it and finally feel like I'm part of the book worm family!

Fruit of the week

Once I got pregnant, I knew I wanted to capture every single moment of this blessed time in my life. So as I was searching around the net, I came upon The Bump.com and I got inspired. Ding! The light went on as soon as I saw the tab "How big is your baby?" , which gives you a week-by-week idea of the size of a baby in comparison to a fruit. I thought it would be cool to take a photo of my belly while holding the fruit of the week. And so, my belly photo journey begins.

I began with weeks 13 & 14 but then had to take a break (because of my Nana's passing). Then I continued with weeks 17 & 18. By the end of this week I should be posting week 19!

                                                                    Week 13=peach

Week 14=onion

Week 17=onion

Week 18=sweet potato



Back on the BLOG

So I have been M.I.A. for around 2 months now. But I'm back. I had to take a little leave from the FB and Blog world because I got pregnant!!! I'm still pregnant but not going to disappear again. While I was gone I had the most horrible morning sickness any woman could imagine. Luckily I was on summer break and only missed enjoying the care-free days of summer. I literally traded my swim suite for the pajamas that would get me to the toilet bowl fast enough.

Well, I am now 4 months and 3 weeks with very little if anymore morning sickness symptoms. I am ready to blog again. This time I know my blogging will be a little skewed toward all the soon-to-be mommies. I feel so blessed, excited and happy all in one so I'm ready to share my ideas, finds and fascinations with this baby bump.

Here are some special items my friends and family have given me for our new adventure in babyland. The first gift was given to me by my friend Svea. So sad that there isn't a picture of all the yummy treats she brought to my house while I was sick in bed but they (mint tea, ginger, baby talk magazine, pasta) were all put to good use!

This stuff is amazing! It makes my body feel quenched and happy. My friend Charm knew this would come in handy!

My sister, Vanessa spoiled ME a little.

Some of the cards Mr. G and I have been receiving since our announcement. Our friends are the sweetest!

Finally, the most special gift of all. I received this gold baby spoon from my Nana when I got married. She humbly put it in an envelope marked for Eve's baby. I have saved this for a little more than 2 years only waiting for the moment when I could actually use it. Now that she has recently passed it will be the most precious gift baby G will have. Although she is gone and am saddened that she will not be here to see the birth of her great grandchild I know I was blessed to have such a spiritual and loving Nana.