I've been seeing a lot of 2014 Year in Review in my Facebook News Feed. It's nice to have a glimpse of your family and friends' year highlights. I wanted to make mine, but decided to just document it here in my blog, for a more personal touch, don't you think so?

2014 was a year of Family get-togethers for me. We had a baptism, 3 birthday parties, 1 wedding, 2 Family Reunions, 2 Staycations, 1 Long Trip to Ilocos, and numerous Family Days-Out: Parks, Zoo, Farm, Museum, etc.

Here are the highlights of my year...

January

Hailey's Baptism and Kiel's 2nd birthday

February

Enchanted Kingdom (Daddy and Kiel's first Time)

April

Lola Celsa's 90th Birthday



Our 3rd Wedding Anniversary at Tagaytay - Bulalo, Horseback riding, Fish Foot Spa, and Staycation at Crosswinds.

May

Paradizoo



Ilocos-Pagudpud-Vigan Trip

June

Ate Josephine's Wedding

July

Kiel in the hospital - After Typhoon Glenda dwindled and left Manila with a blackout, Kiel suddenly had a seizure and we rushed him to the hospital. Turns out it was a febrile seizure due to high fever. This was his first time so we were very afraid. Imagine! We rushed him to the ER in our pambahay clothes! 

Ok lang makulit, basta wag magkasakit...

August

Bowling Day with Yayas - My husband had this idea to do a "team building" for our 2 yayas. Turned out they were better at Bowling than us! Haha.

October

Trick or Treat

Dimayuga Family Reunion

November

Hailey's 1st Birthday Party

Joson Family Reunion

December

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

This was also a productive year for me as a Work-At-Home-Mom. I got to work on various projects for Artique, mostly projects for WAHMs like me. I feel so blessed to have a wonderful Network of WAHMs in our Facebook Group. Shoutout to Martine, Meme, Marge, Ginger, Sharon, Liza, Raquel, Ginny, Rigette, and Elizabeth, among others, who have trusted me in doing graphics for them. I still have a few pending projects for some of you, promise I'll finish them soon! Hehe.

But most importantly, the main highlight of my year are 3 special people who fill my heart with love and bliss... that eventhough I get dead tired at times, it's all worth it at the end of the day.

Just look at those adorable faces :) they are God's blessings to me.

Hope you had an amazing year too. 

Here's to a more prosperous 2015 ahead!

Wishing you a Happy New Year,

It's that time of the year... All I can say is "ang bilis!", it's Christmas Season once again! 

I loved Christmas as a kid..and I still do up to now! But the feeling of excitement and joy is different as compared to when you were a kid, you know? They say that Christmas is really a holiday for the children..not just because of the gifts, toys, and aguinaldo, but mainly because it's the day baby Jesus was born. I shared my reflection about Keeping Christ in Christmas last year. Our Christmas has become even more meaningful now that we have baby Hailey. Yes! I recently gave birth last November 7 to a healthy 6-pound little girl. That's another thing off my Life List.

Kuya Kiel welcoming his baby sister, Hailey

So, this is also the time when I get into decorating. Last year our motif was Red-Green-Silver, and I shared how I "recycled" most of the decorations I used. 

Well this year, I want a NEW theme for Christmas :) I want to decorate for the kids! Now what do I mean by that? Well, since I now have 2 children, I want our decorations to be childproof kid-friendly and appealing. Keeping in mind that Christmas is for children, I used lots of colors and not just one or two. Mainly I used Red, Green (mostly Olive green), Blue/Teal, and Yellows/Gold... Something like this:

Due to my nesting before Hailey was born, I had my husband do some DIY refurbishing first before I go and decorate! He, together with my sister and our yaya, painted one side of the wall a fresh green (we used odorless paint). Hubby further installed hanging shelves (bought from Wilcon Home depot). We also installed cabinet doors for the kids. By "we" I mean I also helped :) We bought plywood and had them cut to specific dimensions. We smoothened the edges and used sticker paper to finish it instead of varnish.

Tada! Finally got to set up a portfolio page for my freelance design work. I used FolioHD. The free account lets you upload up to 36 photos.

I know I'll have to create my own site in the not-so-distant future, since 36 photos aren't enough for the growing sample of works (yay to that!). But for the meantime, this free account would have to do, since I really need a decent spot in cyberspace to present my work. 

FolioHD is very easy to use, but the customization of the site is very limited. But I'm not complaining much, since at other free portfolio sites the most you can upload is an average of 10-30 photos only. By far, FolioHD accommodates the most...

Please do visit the site! Comments and insights are welcome! :) 

http://artique.foliohd.com/

And if you happen to know a better site than FolioHD, do let me know...hihi

Cheers,

I've already shared my "design affair" in my previous post. I have always loved design, it's in my blood so to speak. I guess I got the passion from my engineer dad and artistic mom. During my elementary and highschool days, I would often be the one chosen to participate in the poster-making contests and the like. The "in" medium then was oil pastel, and I would mix colors using my fingers..yeah, pretty messy, but a whole lotta fun! I loved doing art and crafts projects. My chosen elective in highschool was Adobe Photoshop Tutorials. I pursued Landscape Architecture in college and worked at a firm for almost 4 years. So yeah, pretty much you can say that I'm hooked to ART.

Being a fulltime mom, I've learned how to multitask. I guess that's a skill you acquire from being a mom! I manage a household, take care of my toddler, and be able to work at home (multiple work at that). As you know, I manage my online shop. I am also a part-time Virtual Assistant, managing a flexible schedule. Sometimes I get to find writing gigs. Just recently, I've been doing graphic design work for friends and acquaintances. And I'm having FUN out of it too! Since I LOVE designing, I see it more as a hobby than work itself (but it pays, so that makes it more awesome!).