i got in on the blurb groupon deal months back and bought 3 of them. i sent off jaelynn’s 8.5 x 11 and alex’s 12×12 last weekend to print. i was so very surprised when i got a shipping notification from blurb on thursday and they delivered them today!! ^^

i ripped them open so fast since i was just so excited!! they were shrink wrapped and look fantastic! i promptly looked through them and fell in love! i chose the image wrap option with premium papers on both. having only ordered from shutterfly and mypublisher, blurb is definitely the better one yet. now, i have to admit i did not know what i was doing when i ordered from shutterfly a few years ago. i do believe i did not save my images correctly, ie: 300 dpi. i will try them again one of these days. mypublisher was good too but not by choice. with the groupon deal, i was able to choose more premium options and i think those made a difference. you can really tell the “premium” from the regular papers. the covers are sturdy and very nice!

here are a few photos (jaelynn’s book was made using paislee press’ off to press templates and alex’s was made using kitty designs’ inspire me sketches 4 and whimsical sketches 3):

now, my oldest is demanding that i make her another photobook ASAP as her old 8×8 (shutterfly) one is not nice at all. okay, so it was years ago and i think the design leaves much to be desire but still… she wants one with her name on the front cover, not on the spine. it also needs to be big like alex’s. she was actually crying during this rant. i felt so bad so i said i’ll work on hers in the next few days. geesh…kids! LOL

i’m working on jaelynn’s photobook and i am using her blurb templates. it’s looking great so far – very to the point with the main focus on the photos as oppose to a lot of elements and clutter (although i love those too!)

here is one of the layout:

playing with the little gifts that mommy and daddy gave her

jaelynn and daddy

a few days ago though, she lost one of her upper front tooth. james put the tooth in a ziploc bag because she said she wanted to put the tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

one of the best things about kids at this age is that they still believe. i told james that i’m going to let her believe for as long as she wants. sooner or later, she’ll hear things and stop believing.

anyway, i said go ahead and put the tooth under your pillow and see what the tooth fairy gives you. she was very very excited.

the next morning, i was up feeding alex and faith walked in. she said, “guess what, mommy?” i asked, “what?” she told me that the tooth fairy didn’t come!!! the disappointment written all over her face broke my heart! james and i had forgot! alex was crying the night before and i was trying to feed and calm him. by the time i got him to sleep, i was bummed out so i went to bed. james must have forgot too.

i had to think fast! i told faith that the tooth fairy must have been very busy the night before because a lot of little boys and girls probably lost many teeth and she couldn’t get to hers in time. she was like, “really?” i said  yes. i told her to leave her her tooth under the pillow one more night and the tooth fairy will most likely get to hers. she was a little relieve with that so she said yes. she then asked me various questions, “how big is the tooth fairy?” “where does she live?” etc etc. i gave her some probable answers and she was satisfied.

i quickly went and told james he needs to put that on his phone for sometime at night so we won’t forget. lol

that night, she feel aleep earlier than usual so james went and took out her tooth and put $3 in the ziploc bag. the next morning, she came to our room as soon as she woke up and said, “close your eyes mommy!” i did and when i opened them, she showed me the baggy with the dollars. she exclaimed, “the tooth fairy came!!! she gave me $3!!” with a super bright smile. i love it and told her, “see?? she did came.”

she was very happy to say the least and i’m glad we remembered! *whew* the joys of being a parent….LOL

jaelynn testing out the sit-n-stand

the cube storage’s new home in the girls’ closet

we tested the stroller that i got on clearance at target when i was 3 months pregnant. ages ago huh? we went the farmers’ market today and stroll around in it. i find it easier to manuever than those travel systems. the only thing is that it’s hard to get into the storage underneath. seriously. iguess for the price i shouldn’t complain. the seats can accommodate up to 40 pounds each. did i mention that jaelynn loves it?

i love the farmers’ market! i try to go every other weekend. i love buying fruits and veggies from there. the prices are great and you get fresh fruits without the grocery store prices. today we bought 5 big baskets of cherry tomatoes for $1 each – i put these in the freezer and use them year round. they are such a pretty deep red color.

other fruits we got are 2 cantoloupes, 2 honey dews, 6 pounds of asian pears,  & 6 pounds of white necterines. i was going to get a watermelon but we were out of space. we are usually out by the middle of the week with our fresh fruits – the girls love eating (especially jaelynn) and i will give her fruits before any candies.

the birthday party started at 2pm…i was up til 12am preparing and baking the night before. i baked 2 ice cream cakes, and a princess cake for faith.

the sleeping beauty princess cake

my big girl and her cake

the sucky thing was that i forgot my camera during the WHOLE party and have literally NO PICTURES!! *cries* the ones above were taken by my sister. i was very busy the whole time and didn’t realize i had no photos until later.

faith and just about everyone had a wonderful time though. we had her party at a clubhouse and it was HOT!!! even with the fans and a/c on. a bunch of her friends, nieces, and nephews came. everyone sang “happy birthday” and eat the first round of cakes and curry noodles. then everyone went swimming – yes everyone! at one point, there were only 3 of us left in the clubhouse.

2 hours later, everyone started coming back and we had another round of cakes and curry noodles. by this time, all the kiddies were just about bummed out and so are the adults! LOL we got everything cleaned up by 6pm and again, boy was it hot or what? i think it was 105 degrees on sunday. *yikes*

anyway, i’m really glad faith had a great time – all that time we spent baking the cakes and decorating it was really fun. i could tell she was really excited and happy because she kept telling everyone about the princess cake that we made. i am glad too that we didn’t just go out and buy a cake. i believe this is going to be one of those unforgettable moments she’ll remember for a long time. that, to me, is priceless and totally worth it!