Hello again!

It's been a while, and I have a couple of pending posts that need attention! But hey, mommies are always B-U-S-Y right?

But I have a couple of minutes to squeeze this special little post in, just because...

Don't be alarmed with the blog title... NO, I am NOT PREGNANT! hehe, but my sister is! And I'm excited for her! My kids are excited to get a cousin too! Yay!

I also have friends who are expecting or just gave birth, and it makes me happy seeing them carrying those baby bumps and experiencing the miracle of birth.

I can still remember when I was pregnant and gave birth to my two little darlings. Each experience was different, but both were simply joyful.

That being said, I recently shared a photo of my sister on my Instagram account, and with it, shared my thoughts about the Beauty of Pregnancy.

Don't you think it's amazing, that a mother can carry life inside her? And how that belly grows into a nurturing home for nine months, at most?

I was simply happy that my sister asked my to shoot her grown baby bump. Of course I said yes! Oo na, feeling photographer-slash-stylist nako. Or trigger-happy lang talaga. But I had a lot of fun doing the shoot.

Also, I wanted to return the favor, since my sister took shots of me too when I was pregnant. Yes, ganon kami mag-bonding, pareho kami mahilig magpicture at magpapicture, haha.

So I'm happy to share some more of her photos. 

We didn't have a fancy location, just here at home. She did her own makeup, picked her own clothes, basically styled herself. We didn't have any lighting, just the beautiful morning sun. And the photos, I'm proud to say, turned out pretty good :)

I shared in my post a while back, about why every mother should have their maternity photos taken: 

...[I think] as a woman, having a maternity photoshoot, whether at home or at a studio, is necessary. But you don't have to do complicated poses or pick fancy fabric...just pose and smile! Be proud of that precious miracle!

To add to that statement, I think women should also be proud about the changes that pregnancy has brought about in their body, and that they should have a memory of that, through photos.

Care to share your thoughts on this post? I'd appreciate any feedback, just leave some on the comment box below.

Talk soon.

It's November...already?!

Time flies by quickly, doesn't it? Just a few days after it will be December already, and pretty soon, we'll all be celebrating Christmas!

I'm sure you've started decorating for the holidays, even just a little bit, to get you into the Christmas spirit. We've started early as October decorating for Christmas in our household.

I'd like to share with you this simple DIY craft we did with our tissue cardboard tubes. I was meaning to use them for some arts and crafts projects for the kids, so I kept a stash. One day, I just thought of finally using them and make Christmas ornaments :) It was also about time we had a little change in our decorations anyway. So instead of buying new ones, we did this:

1. Materials: We gathered some tissue cardboard tubes, some poster paint, left over cloth and felt, pompoms and pipe cleaners.

2. We started painting the tubes with poster paint. We each made Santa, an Angel, a Snowman, and a Reindeer.

The little boy is painting a snowman...

3. Let the paint dry and then add some details using left over cloth and felt, and some pipe cleaners. We used the cloth for scarves and Santa's hat, the felt for the brim in Santa's hat, Snowmen hats, and the Angels' wings, the pompoms for reindeer noses and Santa's hat (again, hehe), and the pipe cleaners we're used as reindeer antlers, angel halos, snowmen noses, and loops at the back so we can hang the ornaments.

4. Finish by drawing faces and outlining using a black pentel pen. Kiel drew most of the faces, while I made the outlines. 

5. And then you can finally hang them on the tree

Kiel was very happy to have made this, and he feels very proud seeing them up in the tree, knowing that we made them together.

How about you? Do you have any Christmas saving crafts or hacks you'd like to share too?

If you like our little project, we'd love to get some feedback in the comments below.

Pin this project for later, plus see some other Christmas crafts ideas:
Follow Lique's board Christmas crafts ideas on Pinterest.

Happy Holidays!

Hello again!

It's been a while since I posted about our homeschooling journey here. Honestly, we have been skipping most of our lessons, the ones I try to plan every week for us, mainly because we've been yaya-less (no helper/nanny) for 4 months and counting now. It's harder to keep up even with a routine, because I have my 1-year old to look after and breastfeed while also cooking and cleaning around the house. 

Nevertheless, I make sure we do our read alouds and story time before nap time, and we do some worksheets or activities at least 10-20 minutes a day. And the one thing we never forget to do is our arts and crafts time, which we all love. Yes, sometimes my 1-year old joins in, she mostly just copies her kuya, hehe.

I previously shared about our simple approach to the Letter of The Week Curriculum, and how we enjoy doing our Art projects. I have also mentioned this in my article in The Learning Basket: Learning Through Play. I admit, I may have strongly influenced my children in my love for Art as we mostly do drawings and doodles, coloring and painting, and DIY crafts. Why not? It's a lot of fun! And it serves as distraction from my work and chores, hehe...

So let me share with you our complete Letter of the Week Projects.

You may notice how we tried different media and materials, because I want it to be something new every time we do our projects. We tried:

• Painting: with q-tips, paintbrush, fingers
• Cutting and pasting
• Drawing and Coloring
• Stamping
• Lacing (particularly with letter Y)
• Crafts

Alphabet introduction: finger painting letters

I also introduced his nickname, he had fun using stamps

Letter A involved cutting and pasting

Letter B butterfly and bee

Letter C cat and caterpillar

Our dotted D dinosaurs

Our Eagle on an Egg (made from eggshells) and elephant

Letter F fence (from popsicle sticks), finger-painted frog and a fly

Letter G Garden and grass. The small g grapes made from stamping bottle caps

Letter H house and horse. Kiel had fun with the house, and played for a few minutes with it, just because he was fascinated with the flap-open windows and door

Letter I island and indian. Kiel showed his early drawing skills here, he drew Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Captain Hook

Tried out crafts this time, with our letter J jellyfish and jack-in-the-box

Letter K kite, Kiel, and kangaroo

We gathered leaves and colored over them for letter L.
And made a little lamb craft with crumpling crepe paper

Letter M mountain, moon, mouse, and monkey

Letter N night and nest. Kiel insisted on writing the labels himself, and I just helped him by spelling them out

Letter O octopus and owl

Letter P pirate and penguin

Letter Q queen and quail

Letter R rabbit and rainbow

Letter S spotted snake and seahorse, with seaweed and shells

Our watercolor tree and tiger (outlined by pens)

Letter U umbrella and Up

Letter V vegetables and vase

Letter W watermelon and worm

X is for X-ray. We made a pretend one by tracing his feet and arm, and pasted q-tips as pretend bones

For Y, we tried lacing yarn

Letter Z zebra and zigzag

Art projects help develop fine motor skills in young children, which helps them further to develop the tripod grip (pencil grasp) so they can draw and write properly.

Plus, they also develop creativity and imagination of course! Other than that, I have observed that art projects improved my child's inquisitiveness and perseverance. 

Let me end this post by sharing this beautiful quote, from The Artful Parent's page:

(Source)

Like this post? Bookmark it or Pin it for later:

Follow Lique's board Letter of the week preschool art projects on Pinterest.

Hooray for Art!