MINTED IS MY WAY TO GO THIS YEAR.

This is my first post of the new year and even though we are still in the month of January I feel like the new year is not so new with so many things going on in my life.

Let’s get right to it. I love papers and all things papers. I am a huge sucker for stationery. I love writing letters and making my own custom gift wrapping and decorating them in my own special ways. Whenever an opportunity presents I go crazee and start thinking of things I can do and create to make it my very own special ways. But in real life, I can’t always achieve them all because I am not a superstar and I do have 2 little ones to take care of and run after.

I always make it a point to make my very own custom holidays card because it is my chance to create and to share my work with families and friends but it has been getting harder as the kids get older and my life has gotten more busy but still I want to make the card I send out to be somewhat personal. And here comes Minted. They have an amazing selection of everything that you could think of and need and more. I love all the varieties they have and I always end up choosing more than what I was going in for.  Here are some ways that I see Minted coming in handy:

One of the things I would recommend using it for is for baby shower and baby announcement. Because seriously when will you have time to create your very own awsum announcement when you have a new born at home? I think this one below is super cute even if you do not have time to pick out a pic (because I know when you have a baby, you will take millions of pics of your little one and probably choosing one would be a huge task).

Chinese New Year. I have never made my very own custom card and I am not sure why because I find any chance I get to send out cards and write letters because I want to keep up the old fashioned way of communicating and really, it just feels nice to be holding onto something, like nice paper.  I discovered all these Chinese New Year cards they have and I am loving the ideas and I will be sure to do that next time around. This is the one I like and instead of inserting a real photo, I can insert one of my own illustration and make it more my very own.

With my son started in  kindergarten, there are lots of birthday parties to attend and with peer pressure from him ever since last year, we might have to let him have his own birthday party this year. All the invites we got have been e-invite from various sites but if and when we have one for him, I want to do it the old fashion way and send the invites via old US mail. Here are a couple invites that I think it’s suitable for my dude:

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4. This one I have to add it because it is so darn cute and I am a sucker for bunnies. I can use this for my daughter’s birthday party or my party or just as a hello card or even a mommy card!

Another way Minted is useful is for us to announce our new home! It’s such an exciting news of its own but it’s more exciting because I get to find another reason to send out supercool cards to people. Win win all around. This is the one I will be using.

And of course to go along with the move, we need new address labels and I love all the Minted address labels because they are different than others and at the same time they give a little personal touch to the back of your letter. This is my choice.

And to make my envelopes even more special and cute, I want these scalloped stickers. I can use them on envelopes, gift wrapping, and wherever I feel like it needs some cuteness.

I will stop here for now because I could go on and on and also because I want to go back to Minted to look for more things. Happy looking+shopping guys and trust me, once you try Minted, you will love it and no regrets.

P.S. With me being a new fan of Minted, I would like to be part of their team and try to be one of the designers to show off my work.

Disclosure: I received product credit in exchange for this post. 
All opinions are my own and I am a new fan of Minted!

SHE LOVES PINK AND SHE WANTS YOU TO KNOW.

My little girl is growing up way too fast. She turned two years old in January and she is no longer a baby but an official toddler with so much to say and constantly on the run. It is so true when you hear people tell you to enjoy them because they grow up fast and they really do. They are growing up way too fast and there is no slowing down for sure. Watch out world, my little Matilda is ready for the world. 
Matilda has been at Early Start and she started Total Communication class since she was 18months old and she has been keeping up with her sign language (so have I and Milo) and she is using it more on a regular basis which is awsum. What I love is the fact that I can use sign language with her and it is like our own little secret (and it’s a bonus because I can sign to her versus raising my voice in public when I need her to behave). She had a recent visit with her audiologist and there were some fluid found in her ear and we will back to check on that again soon and hopefully that will be gone since that is her good ear. 

THAT MOUSE SURELY LIVES IN THE HAPPIEST PLACE.

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We took the kids to Disneyland in mid January for 3 nights and 4 days and it was a blast. Our feet were horribly painful everyday but it was so worth it. We specifically picked this time to go we wanted to avoid a crowd. 
For those of you with kids that has special needs/disabilities, I highly recommended you going to the guest service (Disneyland City Hall) before you start your day to ask for special pass depending on the needs of your child. We went and talked with them and got a pass for Milo to have front row seats due to his vision impairment. The only ride we used for that was Star Tours. And they also gave us a wheelchair access pass since lots of the lines are contained in a dark and narrow line and that was super helpful since Milo wanted to wait in line and do everything himself and having the wheelchair access, he was able to do all that without any obstacles. *of course, in some cases, we didn’t have to wait as long on certain rides.* 
We rented strollers for both our kids and that was very helpful but it’s not so great when you cannot take it out to the on site hotel we stayed at (we were at the Disneyland Hotel). It’s a pretty long walk especially when you have to go back to the stroller rental to return them and then walked all the way back to the hotel when on occasion we could have taken the monorail back to our hotel. You would think they would have something where if you stay on site, you can take the stroller with you as an extra benefit. (We did not bring our double stroller because it would take up all our trunk space.)
Here are some tips we found on taking your kids to Disneyland:
1. Hotels. If you stay on site, stay at the Disneyland Grand California Hotel because that is the closet one to the main entry and also there’s a direct access into California Adventures. If you go during a busy season, it’s worth asking to stay on the first floor so you don’t have to wait for the elevators. When we were at the Disneyland Hotel, the elevators were insanely slow and we had to wait for a long time. And if you need accessible rooms, make sure you make that request.
2. Eating. All the food within the park is pretty much the same. Our kids are pretty picky so as long as we find french fries and grilled cheese they are fine. We packed lots and lots of snacks for the kids so they can snack all day long. We went to Goofy’s Kitchen twice and even though it is a bit on the priceier side, we thought that was a great choice compare to the places in the park. The kids like having the characters walking around. You get to sit down in a nice air condition place and the kids picked their food from the buffet. We wanted to try the Chip n’ Dale breakfast at the Disneyland Grand California Hotel, but did not get a chance but we heard the food is way better. *The food at Goofy’s Kitchen was not great, sorry Goofy! But we knew we were not there to eat yummy-let’s make a great impression-on-us food (since we were really paying to have the characters walking around us), but we thought for the price we were paying, it would be better.* Again, I have heard that Disneyland Grand California Hotel’s restaurants are super yummy. 
3. Strollers. If you can bring your own strollers, I would highly recommend it. We couldn’t fit ours because we have the double jogging stroller and since we are driving our trunk space is limited. But if you have have more than one child and you are driving, I suggest taking one stroller at least and renting another one at the park. We will be taking our Bugaboo stroller with a skateboard attachment so at least we can stroller both kids back to the hotel after dropping off the rental stroller at the park.
4. Sunblock. It was super warm in the last 2 days we were there and my advice, pack a sunblock in your day bag so you can apply it on your child throughout the day. 
5. Addictive. We did not even consider the annual pass because we did not think we would be back for at least another year or so. But after you see how happy your kids are, the chances of you going back within the year is high, so, an annual pass is a much better deal. We wished we did that because we are heading back this May for Milo’s birthday. We gave him a choice of having a birthday party with his school friends (which he has been asking us for for a long time) or going to Disneyland. He picked Disneyland. Oh! How I wish we got the annual pass. 
I think that is all for now. I hope this helps for those who are planning a trip to the happiest place on planet Earth.

HELLO SPRING. I KNOW YOU ARE HERE.

I have finally come out of blog hibernation. I don’t know what happened but things have been non stop since the holidays (which seems like forever ago) and unfortunately posting my blog was the last on my list of things to do. But I am trying to come back to the world of posting and I hope all my lovely readers out there are still checking back because I am trying to make a come back. We have been so busy lately, from the kids to doing lots of little side projects and taking little trip here and there. It has been a great year so far. We took the kids to Disneyland in mid January and it was awsum. We picked the low season because I do not want to deal with crowds especially for Milo and it turned out great. We also make our way up to Tahoe for snow playing with friends and that was pretty great too. We are trying to make more trips with the kiddies this year via our car and I cannot wait for more adventures. I will try to post more pictures of the kids soon. 
Spring is here or has been here and I know it more than ever as I see all the little bugs coming out and in case you didn’t know, I do not like bugs. 
P.S. My two superheroes have been well, everything has been pretty stable and I hope it will continue this way. I will update more. I promise because what mother doesn’t like to talk about their kids. 

MY KIDS HEART EVERY REASON TO DRESS UP. THANK YOU HALLOWEEN FOR BEING YOU.

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1)  Raincoat: Hatley  
2) Matilda: Top: MiniBoden | Pants: Hanna Anderson | Shoes: Milo’s || Milo: Top: JCrew | Shorts: Target | Shoes:NewBalance
3) Top: MUJI | Pants: Hanna Anderson
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4) Milo as Robot 
5) Matilda wearing her last year’s bee costume. Milo wearing Matilda’s this year’s Foofa costume.        
6) This all happened after trick-or-treating when they were giving out candies to the trick-or-treaters. Milo as Chewbacca and Matilda just gave up on wearing pants.
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7) Milo as Captain America and Matilda as a garden gnome for a Halloween parade in town.
8) On the actual Halloween night, Milo decided to be Batman Wolverine and Matilda decided to be Foofa. 9) We were on the way from our house to trick-or-treat.
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10) Milo as Batman when I took him to walk around on the day of Halloween.
11) Milo with his Halloween crafty hat the week before Halloween.
12) Matilda sporting her mustache.

Halloween stayed and finally went bye-bye. We pretty much got excited about Halloween a month or so before the actual day and we made the mistake of asking Milo what he wanted to be for Halloween. It switched in a daily basis and when we took him shopping 3 weeks before the actual day, he decided he wanted to be Plex from YoGabbaGabba. Unfortunately the largest size they had was 3-4 years old. So, Milo picked Batman. For the next week or so, he bounced from Batman to Antman to Hawkeye and all the other superheroes. We told him that he needed to make up his mind and Captain America was his final decision. (We kept the Batman costume since Milo dresses up pretty often.) Matilda didn’t really care who she was going to be and being only 20months old, we got to decide for her. We chose Foofa from YoGabbaGabba. We would put Matilda in her costume several times a week to get her used to it but she really didnt care for it that much, so, I got her a garden gnome costume since its just a dress and she would be better about wearing it.

Both kids’s school had a Halloween party and we took the kids to town for the annual Halloween parade follow by trick-or-treating. We went to a pumpkin patch and did all the bouncy houses, haunted houses, pony riding and the train ride.

A week before Halloween, we practiced walking around our neighborhood with the kids when it was light out and when it was dark out. We wanted Milo to know what to expect, from getting used to walking in the dark and having decorations lighting around people’s houses. I highly suggest doing this with kids, especially with VI kids because it really helps to minimize his/her’s anxiety and the unknown especially the blinking/flashing decoration lights.

We ended up trick-or-treating at 7 houses! We are SO very proud of Milo and he was great about it. We were only going to go to 1 house but we did 7 instead. And he picked the house with very minimal decorations and no flashing lights of any kinds. Matilda did all of those and was very good! We came back to our place and Milo loved passing out candies to everyone and seeing all their costume.

We had a great Halloween and I am so proud of my superheroes. Milo decided to be BatmanWolverine and Matilda insisted on being Foofa on the night of Halloween. But for their school party, Milo was Captain America and Matilda was a garden gnome. Then again, it’s like Halloween at our home everyday because they love to dress up.