Last Saturday, Austin turned 1 month old!  For the Chinese, reaching your 1 month birthday (man yue) is quite the big deal.  But seriously, not only is it a celebration for him… but we survived the first month of parenting!  I’ve got to say, raising a newborn is a real test of patience, arm muscles, mental, physical, and emotional boundaries.  Our little man is so worth it though!
We had some family come to visit Austin for the first time and join us in a feast to celebrate.

Red-dyed eggs are made to symbolize happiness and the renewal of life.

And many babies get their heads shaved so that their new hair will grow in thicker.  However, we were too chicken as parents to shave his head, so instead, we trimmed his mullet and cleaned up his long hairs.  The hairs will actually be brought back to Taiwan to be made into two different calligraphy brushes.  One bigger brush will have his birth information and Daddy’s name on it and a smaller brush will have his birth information and my name on it.  These two brushes will be made of marble and are a keepsake for Austin to be given to him on his wedding day.  How cool is that!?  Aren’t traditions so fun?

Look at my cutie sporting all sorts of handmade goodness.  Aviator hat c/o The Sunshine Stitch, Mr. Mustache Booties from Pleasantly Plump Knits, and handmade blanket from my coworker Lopa (thanks girl)!

Austin is saying “Look at me, I’m a big boy now!”

I can’t get enough of his little feet.  Bare feet.  Feet with booties.  Whatever it is, it’s one of my fave body parts on him!

And here he is with his friend Mickey!  They are about the same size… for now!

I’m so excited to finally share with you the Newborn Session that Sengerson Photography did for Austin!  People always say that the best time to shoot a newborn session is between 7-10 day old, so I was ecstatic that the timing worked out and we were able to capture these photos when he was 10 days old.  Even better, Austin’s umbilical cord stump and plastibel from circumcision fell off RIGHT before the session so that’s one less thing that we had to worry about.  I have to say, right after a feeding is absolutely the best time to take these photos, babies are sleepy, happy, and totally maneuverable!    Although it also means that they are prone to pee and poo everywhere as well, and Austin was no exception.  Anyhow, I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

I just can’t stop looking at these pictures on a daily basis.  I love my little man, isn’t he adorable?!  <3  Thanks again Seng!!

Just wanted to drop in and wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year!  Our little family of three celebrated by venturing out to a friend’s house for a celebratory FEAST!  I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

We seriously had like 4 courses, ate for hours and stuffed ourselves silly.

Yay!  Family photo! 

Uncle Sam starting his lessons already.  Lessons on what?  Not sure…

Austin received two red envelopes – lucky guy!

Ladies posing.

Baby Austin meets Baby Wesley for the first time!  And 1 year old Audrey is super confused on which one is actually her brother haha!

These two are sure to be buddies.    What we learned from the outing… Austin can sleep through all sorts of noises, positions and different people holding him~!

P.S. The winner of my two year blogiversary giveaway for a February Feature Sponsor spot on my blog is Alison of aPearantly sew!  Congrats girl!  Please send me an email at sandyalamode(at)gmail(dot)com to claim your prize! 

Hope you all have a prosperous and healthy Year of the Dragon!

Well hello there! Nice to meet you! My name is Yvonne and I blog over at simplyvonne.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be a guest host for Sandy today. I have been a fan of Sandy’s blog for quite some time now and it’s an honor to be here sharing with you few tips on photography. I am not an expect on photography nor am I a professional photographer but I found these tips actually works for me. I have always enjoy photography but never got into it until my baby girl was born last year. It actually took me a whole year to finally play around with the manual mode! I am still really new at photography and still learning as I go.

{ Read Your Manual } Before you start photographing your baby, the first thing you should do is read your manual. I get it that reading your manual is completely boring but you don’t have to read it from cover to cover. At least 10 pages

{ Light It Up } When shooting indoor, I usually position Kaylee by the window. I don’t have any fancy flash equipment so I love using natural light. When I do shoot Kaylee outside, I normally shoot really early morning or later afternoon around sunset so your photos would have harsh lighting.

{ Getting the Details }

Babies are tiny for a very short period of time. I like to focus on their feet, toes, hands, eyes and even accessories. Don’t be afraid to get close and focus on the little details. Shallow depth of fields creates a mood of tenderness and intimacy.

{ To Their Level }

Sometimes the best shot is the one where you are laying down on your tummy to take it Don’t be afraid to get down and dirty. Try kneeling or lying beside your baby and shoot from there.

{ Work Around Your Baby’s Schedule }

The key to have a happy and smiling baby in photos is to work around their schedule. Ohh yes…there were numerous time I was so ready to take photos but if she’s into it, just have to wait another day. Kaylee is usually smiling for the camera once she got her nap in and tummy is all full!

{ Edit, Edit, Edit }

Let’s be honest, my photos are not cool before editing them. I edit all my photos in photoshop. I normally brighten up the eyes and using various actions on my photos. I love using Totally Rad Actions You can download some free actions at Pioneer Woman. She has great tips on photography as well!

When I first started, my photos were really dark and I was shooting in auto mode for a year. My interest in photography grew because I want to be able to take nice quality photos for our baby girl. Practice is the key and don’t give up. Don’t expect to capture that perfect shot the first time, try different angles and different positions. Impromptu shots sometimes creates the best picture.

Like I mentioned, I am not a professional photographer and there’s so much to learn, I simply enjoy taking photos of our baby girl and I think she’ll enjoy looking at these 18 years from now. Thank you so much for having me Sandy, I cant wait to see photos of baby boy a la mode!

Head over to my blog, baby girl and I would love to meet you! See more photos of baby K here

-Yvonne

So I realize these are a little bit overdue, but I’ve been so caught up with being full term and the fact that it’s totally a waiting game right now that I forgot to post pictures from our Baby Shower #3!  The one that happened to be in town and in the comfort of our own home.  It was thrown by my good friends Nancie and Sam (with the help of John, Rena, and Alex too)!  On the day of the baby shower, they all came over about 3 hours earlier with bags and bags of food and dishes and decorations and we slaved away until the first guest arrived.  There was a HUGE array of appetizers, entrees, desserts and drinks.  The decor was an assortment of blue, green, and orange with an “A” and sports theme.  Thank you Ria Photography and Lori for capturing the fun event!

Here we are… Mommy and Daddy to be! 

Can’t wait to put these cute clothes on our baby boy!

Bruschetta, turkey burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and so much more!

The dessert table was a fantastic line up of cake pops, cupcakes, nutter butter cookies, chocolate covered marshmallows, cookies, pumpkin fluff, fruit and the list goes on…

A few of our guests mingling.

Who can free the naked baby from the ice cube the fastest without actually touching the ice cube?  Some techniques were blowing, pouring beer in the cup, crushing the cup to melt the ice with hand warmth.

Play-doh baby making time.  Top left baby in red was the winner, congrats Lawrence!

We got a lot more items off our registry and our first pack of diapers and wipes hehe.  Thanks friends!!

And the parting gift was cookies and sports theme suckers with a chevron thank you tag!

We’re just sitting here patiently waiting for my water to break, the contractions to start, and for baby to be born so we can put all this stuff to good use! 

Hey friends!  I’m so excited to finally share with you our Maternity Session photos that were taken by my dear friend Maria from Ria Photography, a Kansas City based wedding and portrait photographer!  Yay!!!  These photos were taken back at the end of October, when I was about 7 months pregnant.  My belly was big, but not TOO big and I wasn’t swollen yet like I kind of am now so it was perfect.  The fall weather was also unseasonably warm back then which made it great for wearing dresses. 

I am seriously in LOVE with them.  I haven’t been able to stop staring at them since I got them.  I’m so happy that we got to capture this sweet moment of our growing family and I can’t wait to share these photos with our little one once he’s born.    In case you were wondering, the little moustache booties are from Pleasantly Plump Knits, my lace dress is from Forever 21 and my purple floral dress is from Motherhood Maternity.  Once again, I wanted to say THANK YOU to Ria Photography for taking these photos for us!

This was our first Thanksgiving that didn’t consist of a pigging out with a ton of family or traveling.  We stayed right here in town, in the comfort of our own home, and enjoyed the nice 60 degree weather.  It was a lot quieter than we are used to, but we know that this is the “calm before the storm”.  We are soaking up every bit of time that we can spend just the two of us.

On Thanksgiving day, we spent the whole day cooking and eating.  Pumpkin pancakes + waffles, hash browns, bacon, and turkey sausage for brunch.  Rosemary basil chicken + cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green beans and fried onions, mini pumpkin pies and sparking juice for dinner.  Followed by grapes and pears as a late night snack to prepare us for the madness of Walmart Black Friday (errr rather Thursday).  Prego ladies and kids need stay away.  But the day wouldn’t have been complete without talking to Marv’s family on speakerphone and my family on Skype.

Black Friday consisted of waking up early and scoring some deals.  Followed by dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant.  And then Saturday, we watched “THE GAME” – Michigan vs. Ohio.  The whole time that Marv and I have been together OSU has won this rivalry game.  The back and forth of scoring put me in so much stress that it could have been labor inducing, but we FINALLY beat them and baby is still happily inside my belly.  He might be a little conflicted on which team to root for and what to wear once he’s born though… my vote is for BLUE. 

OH yea and I how could I forgot!  I need to announce the winner of the Jean Jean Vintage $50 credit giveaway!  Well, if your name is Meg and you blog over at Henning Love, then CONGRATS!  Please send me an email at sandyalamode(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll hook you up with Jean Jean Vintage!

How was your Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekend?

Recently, in my hunt for the perfect ways to use up my pumpkin, I found this amazingly simple and delicious recipe on Pressed Down, Shaken Together that uses pumpkin and crescent rolls.  Now I have to say that it’s been awhile since I’ve bought said crescent rolls (don’t know why) and since I always love to mix up what I eat I decided to give it a shot.  Boy was this delicious, seriously y’all, you’ve got to try it.  It’s flaky, sweet, tasty, flavorful and mmmm, just feels right with a glass of milk or some hot tea.  So get your ingredients ready and LET’S BAKE!

Pumpkin Pie Croissants (recipe from here)

Ingredients:

- 2 tubes of refrigerated crescent rolls
- 1/2 block of cream cheese
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice + 1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
- 3 tbsp. sugar + 4 tbsp. sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Roll each crescent roll out and cut each lengthwise by 2.

3. Mix together the cream cheese, canned pumpkin, 1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, and 3 tbsp sugar.  Generously spread each crescent roll with a tablespoon of the mixture.  (Sorry if this picture isn’t too appetizing, I didn’t do such a good job of mixing up the cream cheese haha.)

4. Starting at the wider end, roll the crescent roll so the smaller end is on top.

5. Now mix together 1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice and 4 tbsp. sugar.  Roll each of the crescent rolls into the mixture so that it is evenly coated with the sweet goodness.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes.

And now you can finally enjoy your creation!  We ended up giving some of these to our neighbor across the street as a thank you for giving us a bunch of free baby hangers!  But of course we kept some to ourselves too, duh.    I’d eat these as a dessert OR breakfast and are best eaten fresh out of the oven.  Cool thing about this is that next time you can make your own crescent roll filling, oh think of the possibilities… peanut butter, nutella, marshmallow fluff, jam… mmm yes.

Hey all!  Another weekend has passed and what a fun and relaxing one it was for us.  We had our third and final baby shower / housewarming party on Saturday (will share pics with you later) and on Sunday we went for a hospital tour and just relaxed.  What did I do with my extra hour?  I napped on the couch, oh yea, and it felt good.

So I actually have quite a few posts backed up or things to share with you (that’s always a better feeling than have a lack of posts), so for today, I just wanted to show the pictures from my best friend / Twinny’s wedding.  I posted about her Wedding Rehearsal + Dinner a couple weeks ago, remember?

{CEREMONY}

Here we all are, waiting for the beautiful bride to make her way down the aisle.

So sweet and emotional, she was crying on the way down, and so was I!

It was a beautiful ceremony with a couple speeches and a tea ceremony.

The kiss and broom jumping!  (All the ceremony pictures taken by hubby!)

{RECEPTION}

The Colony Club in downtown Detroit is beautiful, isn’t it?

And bubble tea was served at the cocktail hour.  Bubble tea guys, LOVE IT!  Mmmm I want some more now!

Picture table… yup, the couple has met Obama before!

What a lovely first dance!

Some sappy and funny speeches!

And cupcakes for dessert, YUM!

Decided to switch to flash as the room got darker and the dancing began!  Here’s the 3 of us. 

The infamous and growing P.Crew family.  LOVE.

Congrats to Steph and Sean!  Wishing you two a lifetime of happiness, laughter, kitten cuddles, cozy nights with your record player, and tons of cute babies. 

White Top: Gift from SIL | Cardigan: Ann Taylor | Skirt: Forever 21 | Belt: from another outfit | Shoes: BCBG | Purse: Spotted Moth | Camera Insert: ONA

Marv thinks this outfit makes me look like a Mom.  I guess that makes sense since I am going to be a Mom here very shortly!  Maybe it’s the cardigan, maybe it’s the skirt, or maybe it’s because it looks like I’m toting around a diaper bag…  either way, I better embrace it.  The other night when we were out to dinner, Marv was telling me a story about how he was telling his co-workers that he won’t be available as much in December because his uhh uhhh… his son is going to be born.   He couldn’t even get that out without stumbling his words.  It’s kind of like when you use the word fiance/fiancee or wife/husband for the first time.  It’s gonna take some getting used to.

Oh and btw, that’s not a diaper bag you’re seeing there, it’s actually one of my fave neutral purses with The Roma camera insert and bag organizer from ONA.  I love this insert because it fits inside any medium/large sized bag.  It’s got an adjustable divider so you can tote around a DSLR w/ a small lens on it and an additional lens.  Or just the DSLR w/ a bigger lens by itself.  It’s got some sweet pockets to organize my lipstick, wallet, phone, since those things usually get lost in my purse, are you the same way?  The leather side handles also make for easier removal and the material of the bag feels like fabric wax, so smooth if you ask me.

And before I peace out, I have a few giveaway winners to announce, woohoo! 

The winner of the 8″x10″ print from Yellow Heart Art is… Lauren from The Elephant’s Trunks!  Congrats!  Please send me an email with your choice of print and mailing address and we’ll get it sent to ya!

The winner of the ISOTONER smarTouch gloves giveaway is Linda L.  Please send me an email to claim your prize!

And don’t forget, all my SIX BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAYS are open until November 7, so enter your little hearts out and spread the word please!