I hope all of you had a very Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

We have really enjoyed celebrating Hanukkah with Zachary the past week now that he is old enough to understand lighting the candles and says the prayers with us.

Here is my favorite photo from the last night of Hanukkah, which we celebrated last night. He is going to be so disappointed tonight to realize Hanukkah is officially over. I can’t wait til next year though – we are going to have so much fun!

photo taken with iPhone 4s and Instagram.

Hope you all have a wonderful Hanukkah with your families this week! We are enjoying the holiday very much!

Captured with my iPhone 4s and edited with Camera+

The USA’s Independence Day on Fourth of July is special to our family since my husband Adrian and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. Of course, now we have our little boy to celebrate with, so it makes things even more fun.

We went out to lunch on the 4th of July to celebrate anniversary #7! We have also now been together for 9 years, too. I can’t believe it’s been nearly a decade!

I took these photos outside the restaurant (California Pizza Kitchen – Zachary loved it!) with my Canon G11.

Then we all went home for a relaxing nap! When we woke up, it was time to head over to the Tamarac Sports Complex! The city we live in has so many great programs and one of the best is the 4th of July event. They always have live music, food, and fun for the kids at the Sportsplex each year. We usually catch the fireworks but have never actually attended the event to watch from the field. I am so glad we went this year. We plan to make it a family tradition!

Here is a shot I took of the live band, and a picture of us right before the fireworks began.

It was so hot outside, but well worth the great fireworks display.

Happy birthday, USA, and happy anniversary to me and my hubby! Love you!

All images were captured with the Canon G11!

Happy Father’s Day to my daddy and to my husband and all the other dads out there!

I share pictures of Adrian & Zachary all the time, so this post is dedicated to my wonderful father! Here are two pictures of me and my dad, one from when I was a new baby, and the second one is from a vacation when I was about 15 years old!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms I know, especially to my own wonderful mommy, my grandma, and of course my mother-in-law as well.

I hope you’re all having a fabulous day! My family is heading over to my parents’ house for a delicious brunch and some presents, and afterwards Adrian and I are thinking about taking Zachary to the park.

I had a great morning – my little guy let me sleep late (past 9am even!) and gave me lots of snuggles, hugs, and kisses. He’s being a very good little boy this morning and playing so nicely and saying the cutest things. Zachary is 2.5 this month and such a big boy – talking so much, showing creative interests in music and art, and sooooooo much more! I feel so lucky to be his mommy!

Here’s a vintage photo of me and my sweet newborn old baby boy:

And here’s an iPhone Instagram shot of the two of us in the back seat of the car the other day on the way down to visit Monkey Jungle (photos from that adventure coming soon!):

Have a fabulous Mother’s Day with your families!

Valentine’s is usually dedicated to your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend but today I’d like to share a little love for my baby boy. He is the light of our lives and the center of our world. We love him more than could ever be described.

I’ve heard this song before, but I recently heard it again and it really struck a chord in me. This song is what parenthood is about. Thanks to Dar Williams for writing and singing it.

I hope you enjoy the music; the song is called The One Who Knows.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you get to spend it with those who you love the most! <3 xo

if you’re trying to do Valentine’s Day on a budget or you just want to be fun & crafty, you won’t want to miss out on these V-Day crafts. These all showed up on my Pinterest stream and I hunted down the original post pages so that I could share them with you. Not only would they be great for Valentine’s Day, but you could use these as decorating ideas for a crafty wedding, bridal shower, or for your anniversary…. even decorating a child’s room/nursery. Check out these fun and cute ideas!

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Valen-tiny – mini heart garland/bunting

If you are a fan of bunting, but don’t have much room, this tiny heart bunting/garland is a perfect accent. I may give this a try myself. You could do this with different shapes, too, for other seasons, by cutting out circles, triangles, etc. Definitely a very adaptable tutorial.

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Paint Chip Valentines

Have any paint chips laying around the house that need repurposing? Make Valentines!  There are so many fun crafts out there that you can do with paint chips, and I thought this was a cute (and eco-friendly) idea.

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Wax paper crayon hearts

I love, love, love this! I seem to remember doing something like this when I was a child (though probably not as pretty, since this is a Martha Stewart activity). These would be such pretty sun-catchers and would be fun gifts to make with your child to give to grandparents and friends for Valentine’s (or any holiday, really).

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Love you heart bookmarks

I love this craft because it’s cute and seems pretty easy to do. I enjoy crafting, but I’m not what you would call extremely crafty… so I like the kinds of crafts that are easy, fun, and have a very pleasing result. You could vary this one up, too, by using photos in the middle of the heart, or colorful scrapbook paper (if you don’t have fabric) or anything else that you think would look pretty. The best craft projects, IMO, are the ones that are easily adaptable, and this one fits the bill.

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Well, I hope you enjoyed my crafty Valentine’s roundup! I’m not sure if I’ll actually have time to do any of these this week before Valentine’s day, but fortunately most of them can work for other holidays or events, too, so I’m sure I’ll get to them at some point. They look like they’ll be a lot of fun!

Snow, glorious snow! I had an amazing time photographing all kinds of trees, plants, and animals in the snow, including my wonderful little boy. Here are some of my favorite shots.

These shots are from Christmas morning, when it started snowing – Zachary was just entranced watching the snowflakes fall out of the sky. It was so beautiful!

I didn’t even wait to really get dressed. I headed out into the snow wearing my silly pajama pants! LOL! I had to make a little snowball to prove it was real. :)

And then proceeded to photograph the gorgeous landscape:

I loved how the snow looked on the mailbox turtle, and this leaf that was frozen to the driveway!

Adrian took a picture of me all bundled up in my winter gear, and I photographed Zachary checking me out through the window.

One of the reasons I love visiting TN is because it is so beautiful and picturesque! I love this setting with the gigantic pine tree and the horse and donkey frolicking in the snow!

There were a surprising number of birds out enjoying the snow while we were there. We saw red cardinals, doves, and other birds. I especially loved the cardinals, whose bright red feathers really stood out against the white snow and brown trees.

The image on the left was a lucky catch for me. I didn’t even realize I’d captured it until I was going through my images the other day. I absolutely love the way I’ve caught the bird with its wings out, mid-flight, getting ready to land on the bird feeder. In the picture on the right, I caught two more birds mid-flight as well. I really enjoyed photographing the birds in the snow.

We took Zachary out in the snow after it had gotten a bit thicker on the ground. Touching the white snow was a brand new experience for him. At first he wasn’t quite sure what it was, taking some time to investigate the soft, cold, pile of snow.

After a while walking around he decided that he absolutely loved it! I absolutely love the look of joy on his face in the image on the left, and his curiosity walking through the snow in the one on the right.

We had a great time playing in the snow. I loved seeing the smiles on his face as he enjoyed this brand-new, fun experience!

If you enjoyed reading about our adventures, please take a second to vote for us on Picket Fence or Top Baby Blogs!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a holiday recap from all of my iPhone photos that I took during our vacation to visit Adrian’s parents who live in Tennessee, as well as my sister-in-law, Lissa, who was also visiting for the holidays. I finally found some time the other night after Zachary went to bed to look through the photos and picked out some of my favorite pictures.

I figured I better get my recap up before January is over, at least!!

The day before Christmas Eve, we baked holiday cookies. I had a really good time doing this since I grew up celebrating Hanukkah, not Christmas, and we only celebrate Hanukkah and the other Jewish holidays at our home…. and I love cookies. :)

But, Adrian’s parents and sister celebrate Christmas, so we enjoyed the holiday traditions with them this year. Zachary had a great time helping me and Lissa use the cookie cutters. I’d brought some fun Hanukkah cookie cutters from home so that we could have a variety of holidays and cultures represented.

Lissa & her mom mixed the dough while I took some photos.

Then I handed Adrian the camera so he could capture images of Zachary cutting out the cookies with Lissa and with me. He thought it was a lot of fun and enjoyed picking out the different cookie cutters.

Then it was time to decorate.

Zachary snuck in a few bites while decorating! I think this is the most sugar he’s probably ever had… and of course, he LOVED it!

Some of the finished cookies including the Menorah, Dreidel and Star of David cookie shapes I brought with me. You can tell which ones are Zachary’s since they’re a little messy. I also made a dachshund cookie in honor of Maya which I cut out with a knife, and Lissa and I made letters for everyone, and I found a cute bird cookie cutter which I decorated. It was yummy. :)

I also took a few photos on Christmas Day. We opened gifts and there were just so many that I didn’t really take any photos of anyone opening presents, but I snapped some portraits and pictures of the tree, which was really beautifully decorated. I was more entranced with the snow, actually, since we had a snowfall that day. I’ll post those photos tomorrow since there are quite a few.

I took this picture of Zachary with my mother-in-law and father-in-law. Zachary usually gets distracted for group photos, but I think this one came out cute, even though we still had to distract him with a present – LOL! We put him in a little outfit with a vest to try to get a “formal” photo. So adorable!

Zachary loves trains, and my MIL had to move this ornament up high on the tree – Zachary loved it and kept trying to pull it down. And doesn’t Lissa look pretty in this picture? She was still dressed up from going to holiday services with her parents so I had to grab a photo.

Stay tuned tomorrow for snow pictures… and don’t forget to vote for us on Picket Fence or Top Baby Blogs!

I’m so excited about this month’s Pear Tree Greetings giveaway – they have the absolute CUTEST stuff and their Kids Valentine’s Day Cards collection is no exception! Their Valentine’s cards are so so super cute and they have a wide variety of photo cards and text cards which you can get for your kids to give out (or just get some for yourself to send to YOUR friends – come on, you know you wanna!).

There is something for everyone at Pear Tree this Valentine’s Day – ninjas, dragons, hearts, trains, and even a kids coloring card for that extra touch of fun when your son or daughter gives their card out to friends at school. There’s also the adorable Queen card, which puts your child’s photo into the design itself. Check out some of the fun new designs:

The Kids Valentine’s Day Variety Packs offer three different designs for a discounted price, and they even have adorable stickers and gift tags too!

Buy it! Visit Pear Tree Greetings to buy these gorgeous cards and lots more. Don’t forget to visit their promotions page to find the latest deals and savings. If you make a Valentine’s purchase, you can receive free shipping on your order with coupon code VDAYSHIP10, or get 10% off a Valentine’s purchase over $30 with code HEART10!

Win it! Pear Tree is giving away a set of 24 super duper cute Kids Valentine’s Day cards to one of my readers! The winner can choose whichever card design they want.

Mandatory Entry: Post about your ideal Valentine’s Date! Would you go to a movie, out dancing, have a nice dinner out at a fancy restaurant or just enjoy a cozy night at home together (preferably while grandma & grandpa are babysitting)?

Extra Entries: You must complete the Mandatory Entry before submitting the additional entries. Maximize your chances of winning by leaving a separate comment for EACH additional entry! Please do not put all entries into 1 comment or they will NOT be counted!

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Contest ends on January 24, 2011 at 11:59pm. The winner will be chosen via a random number generator. Entries are eligible worldwide.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Pear Tree Greetings Pearistas Team and have received sample products for my participation. I was not compensated in any other way. All opinions are my own.