Holiday Card - A Follow-Up

So as mentioned in my previous post, I participated in Shutterfly's blogger promotion for holiday cards. Ever since I got that wonderful email stating "Exciting news: A bright-orange Shutterfly package is on its way, with unbelievable memories inside," I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my holiday cards.  

I was so excited to come home today and find my Shutterfly package waiting for me at the door. I absolutely love these bright orange boxes because they are always filled with something that will instantly make me smile.  And the contents of today's package were no different. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our holiday cards! They came out so nice and the quality of the stationary cards is superb. 

Getting our photos done was a bit of a mission. With no budget for professional photos, I decided to put our camera's timer function to the test. Before even taking the photos, I had to spend some time getting the camera set at the proper angle and height to capture all of us in the frame. I ended up with the camera set on top of Nicolas' wrapped Christmas gift, which was set on top of our living room end table. To hold the camera steady at the right angle, I propped up the front of it with one of the baby's bibs! My concoction looked like something out of a cartoon. But once that was set up, it was on to the second difficult part of our photo mission..... getting Nicolas to look at the camera. At first, he wouldn't stop looking down at the dog, who was watching the little production taking place in his home. So, we had to put the dog away in one of the bedrooms to remove that distraction...which still didn't work since Nicolas just refused to look in the direction of the camera. To finally get him to look up at the camera, I had to shake one of his toys in front of him and then throw it in the direction of the camera right before the picture was taken. It took several shots, but we finally got one! The individual pictures of Mommy and Daddy with the baby were easy since someone was on the other end of the camera making silly faces and noises. 


We actually wanted to include our dog in the photo as well, but we decided that it would be impossible to get the cooperation of both of them. Maybe next year.


I'm so excited to send out our beautiful cards and I have already addressed all the envelopes. After my trip to the post office tomorrow, they will be on their way to other homes, hopefully bringing a smile to the faces of the recipients as the cards brought one to mine.

Christmas Photos!

Every year, since the year I moved out of my dad's home, I have done a Christmas card to send out to family and friends. I remember my first Christmas cards were handcrafted with a picture of me and Trouble included inside. Then the next year it was a greeting card where you could insert a photo into, so we sent out a photo of my husband and I. The next year I was scrambling around for last minute cards since Christmas caught up with me and our holiday card was just something simple, no pictures. And then I discovered photo cards! Following my wedding in 2008, we used one of the wedding photos for our first official Mr. and Mrs. Christmas card. I had done these cards through Walgreens since there was in-store pickup (I was running last minute and needed cards a week before Christmas, yikes!). To be honest I have no idea what we did last year, but I have a feeling there was no greeting card since my father-in-law's death was still fresh in my mind.

Well now that the holidays are rolling around, and our family of 3 (me, my husband, and our dog) has grown to 4 with the arrival of our son this year. So it's time to think about holiday greeting cards! Although I have done holiday greeting cards before, I feel like this is my first real holiday card. And what better way to put my photography skills to good use. Now I just need to have a little photo session with my son to get the perfect picture.

I have been scouring website after website to find the perfect design for our first family card. I've always loved Shutterfly's holiday collections, but I've always thought about cards ordering cards when it's too late to get something shipped. Not this year! I've been eyeing their cards already and there are some really cute ones. Here are some of my favorites (more can be found at shutterfly.com):










Which one do you like best??? What's even better, Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards for bloggers, woo hoo! So many card options to choose from, I guess it will just depend on what types of photos I get of the little man.

Shutterfly is also great all year long, not just holiday time. I've ordered photo books and prints there many times. Check out all their products: Christmas Cards, Christmas Photo Cards, Desk Calendars, Photo Mugs, Birthday Cards, Holiday Invitations, and more.

Leopold!

Miami Lakes has a wide collection of ducks roaming the neighborhood lakes, and this particular one we call "Leopold".

See the resemblance?

Bugs Bunny as Leopold in "Long-Haired Hare"

Image courtesy of Cartoonatics 

La Bembona

I took this picture of my niece. It was not even intentional, one of those accidental shots that end up becoming a favorite. She is a fireball of energy, and I thought this photo really brought out her beauty. I'm blowing this up and plan on giving it to her mom as a small gift.

I'm Back!

Well, sorta.... A lot has happened in the past year and there have been a lot of (good) distractions which have left this blog neglected. Not promising anything just yet, but my goal here is to try to get a couple posts a month. Or at least share on here when I have a photo which I really think needs to be shared.

When You Wish Upon a Star...

What kid doesn't like Disney. Wait, let me rephrase that....what person does not like Disney! When I look back on my childhood, there wasn't an age where a Disney character wasn't a part of my life. I lucked out and found a coupon code for Disney on Ice: Princess Classics, so I bought some tickets to take my little sister. With the discount, our tickets came out to $30 total; to say that was a steal is an understatement. The show was beautiful, and I may have enjoyed it even more than Nicole.

Now I know I have complained about my camera on a few occasions here. But man, did this camera work amazingly for this show. We didn't have the worst seats, but we were still 30 rows back from the action. Looking at the pictures though, you would think we were a lot closer.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse

Unfortunately, where my camera was cooperating, my brain was not. I had batteries in my camera which were running low on power. So I made sure to take a spare set. Bad part is I discovered during the show that those batteries were dead! I could have sworn they were fully charged when I removed them from the charger a few days before. So I didn't get to take as many photos as I would have liked. But here is a sampling of the shots I did get. Excuse the lighting on a couple of them. Like I said, we were thirty rows back. Don't think flash makes much of a difference at that distance in a dark arena.

Aladdin aka Prince Ali Ababwa

Aladdin and Princess Jasmine

A whole new world....

Sleeping Beauty: Prince Phillip and Briar-Rose (Princess Aurora)

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream....

Prince Eric and Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

Mulan and Moo Shoo

Belle and her prince (Beauty and the Beast)

Cinderella and Prince Charming at the ball

Missed me?

Yes, yes it's been quite a while since my last post. And for those of you following along, you will forgive me when I tell you why. I'll try to keep this short since this is a photo blog after all. On July 11th around 10:00pm I received an unexpected phone call which rocked my world. Without any notice, my father-in-law passed away from a heart attack. Here is the last picture I took of the man, taken on his last birthday February 10, 2009.

My father-in-law was such a beautiful man. Anyone who was fortunate enough to have met him would tell you the same. He was a person who truly went through life looking at the positive side of things. No matter what happened, he always saw the good. He just really enjoyed life with his wife, kids, and grandchildren. I don't think I could say enough good things about him for you to understand how truly special he was. Let's just say that I'm honored to carry his last name. The only other person I would rank above my father-in-law would be my father (and here's hoping God lets me keep him for at least 20 more years). Since that dreadful night, life has felt like such an emotional rollercoaster. As if that tragedy wasn't enough, exactly one month later I found out I was pregnant.... only to miscarry a week later. So yeah, you forgive me now right?

I'm trying to get back into the normal swing of things still, which includes my photography. I hope I can at least get one post in every two weeks. I was able to break out the camera this weekend though, and later this week you will get to see some shots I took at Disney on Ice.

Bubbles!

What is it with kids and bubbles?

Who am I kidding... if I were Nicole's age, I'd be chasing bubbles too!

A Quirky Place

Please excuse the photo quality. This was taken with my camera phone. I love Miami Lakes. Along with being a beautiful, family-friendly neighborhood, they have quirky little signs like these. I ran into this at CVS yesterday. Move over handicap and stroller parkers!

Dade County Courthouse

One of my favorite buildings in Downtown Miami is the Dade County Courthouse. It's a nice touch of history amongst all the new office and condo buildings being built up in Miami. Although I work as a paralegal, I probably have only been in this building once. It was for jury duty the Monday after I graduated from the University of Miami back in December 2004. Maybe one day I'll get lucky and get to experience a trial here.

Memorial Day!

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post, close to a month. Forgive me! I hope you all had a nice, long Memorial Day weekend. Miami weather can be a bastard sometimes, and this weekend it really let us have it with all the rain. I wanted to try to head out and take some shots of the Downtown Miami skyline or Miami Beach during Hip Hop weekend, but with the crazy weather it didn't happen. Luckily, we had a small window of sunshine today and our small BBQ for two went off without a hitch. I thought I would share some of photos of the delicious food that we had today in celebration of Memorial Day. Lenin grilled up some awesome pork spareribs and I prepared some potatoes, corn, and a "No Bake" cheesecake to complete the meal.

Delicious spareribs on the grill

The grillmaster himself. I have no idea what it is with guys and grilling. They don't like to cook, but somehow LOVE to grill on the barbeque. If you ask me, that's a form a cooking. (Lenin doesn't like taking pictures and probably isn't thrilled with me posting this shot of him, but let's see if he is actually keeping up with my blog to catch this!)

The final products!

Happy Memorial Day to all! Thoughts and prayers go out to all our soldiers serving our country overseas and to the families of those whom we have lost.

Sports Photography Revisited

I know, I know... I've been slacking. I guess I've just been so caught up doing things around the house, I've kinda put the photography aside. I discovered the world of bargain shopping and coupon clipping, so let's just say my "Holly Housewife" gene has been in overdrive over the past couple weeks.

Well, last week was one of my brother's last home games as a Killian volleyball player; so Lenin and I both made the trek down to Kendall to watch. This game was particularly special because during the pre-game warm-ups there was a ceremony for the three seniors that will be gone after this year. We had the whole family there cheering him on!

I took the opportunity to try my hand at sports photography once more. Since I wasn't being commissioned as the team photographer this time around, I concentrated more on shooting my brother throughout the game. He did great once again and Killian won!

I'm a sucker for team huddle photos. Maybe it's because I have spent a lot of my childhood and young adult life in them because of soccer.

A photo with the future superstar...

Smile for the Camera...

Yeah, I'm back. I was on a mini-break for the past week from my little hobby here. Of course, my first post back is Trouble. We went to Orlando over the weekend to visit some family, which means Trouble got to spend some quality time at his Tia Lupe's house. Sure, he is smiling in this photo, but it's only because he doesn't realize he's getting dumped for a couple of days. He was whining like a little baby as soon as we left. He's very attached to us. But his cute smile was right back as soon as we went to pick him up on Sunday night.

He really is a cute dog.

The Big 5-0!

Today, my dad turned a young 50 years old. We had a party last night at his house with all the family and friends. It wasn't a huge, fancy party but it was so much fun. Everyone had a blast, even the birthday boy! In the spirit of the milestone age, my dad was decked out in his Hawaiian shirt. You know, Hawaii "Five-O."

This is the cake I ordered for the party. It was so adorable, and SUPER DELICIOUS!

Unfortunately, the little guy didn't make it through the end of the night.

I hope you enjoyed your party, Dad! We are all so lucky to have such a wonderful person as our father. You have always put us first and pushed for us to be the absolute best we can be. I only hope that I can one day be at least half the parent you are. Happy Birthday!

I think I will always be "daddy's little girl."

Dad and all his kids!