december – diciembre

The most wonderful time of the year is here! Christmas is my favorite Holiday. It has always been and since I’m a mom with more reason. Christmas time is all about creating fond memories with and for my boys. And I plan to do just that with our yearly Countdown to Christmas, a tradition we started two years ago. You can read about here, here and here.

This is going to be a little tough time, though. It’ll be the first Christmas since G was born that we won’t spend with my side of the family. We spent G’s first Christmas in Lima and last year all my family, parents, brother, sister and brother-in-law, came to New York. This year was our turn to go to Lima but with the insane airplane ticket prices we decided it was a smarter decision to postpone our annual trip to Perú. So it’ll be a little nostalgic Holiday season but full of family moments and lots of love nonetheless.

{images via smashing magazine}

My parents are still here and they’ll be part of our first week of Christmas activities. I’m so happy we’ll be able to share these moments together. Our calendar is filling up with family and friends gatherings already and we’re looking forward to them. Because that is what Christmas is all about.

thanksgiving decor

Last year from Halloween decor I jumped to Christmas decor. I completely skipped Thanksgiving. We were going to spend Thanksgiving in Boston, so it didn’t make sense {to me} to decorate if we were not going to be around.

This year is different. My parents are coming to visit and we’ll spend Thanksgiving together. We’re not sure about our plans yet but still I think it’ll be nice to have some Thanksgiving spirit going on. Especially since this is a Holiday we don’t celebrate in my home country. After 8 years in the United States I have learned to appreciate this celebration and understand its meaning and I’m sure my parents will like to learn more about the story and traditions behind it.

{image via blovelyevents}

{image via design, dining and diapers}

{image via paper crave}

{image via proverbs31girl}

{image via hgtv}

I tend to lean towards simple, modern, clean decor most of the time. I think a few details will be more than enough to commemorate this special day. I’ll work on it on the weekend, so it’s ready when Nona arrives. Let’s see what I come up with.

November – Noviembre

{images via smashing magazine}

Mother nature was kind to us and gave a gorgeous month of October. The weather was beautiful for the most part and all Halloween festivities ran according to plan and we did a lot of family activities. It was a fun, fun, fun Halloween 2013. We spent the weekend putting decorations away and trying to straight up the house a bit, because…

this is another special month. Not only we are celebrating L’s birthday, but also our beloved Nonos are coming to visit! I couldn’t be happier and more excited. They will be able to spend some weeks with their grand kids and I’m already planning some special family outings. And let’s not forget about Thanksgiving.

I usually get all excited {and stressed out a little} when we have guests, because I want to complete all unfinished home projects and start new ones. But this year I’m letting it go. I’m not worrying about having the guest bedroom ready {which is now serving as my office, too} and if the sheets match the wall color, or having the bathrooms done, or having the kids toys organized. We still want and we are going to do all those projects {and we have many, believe me}, but we are not going to rush. We’ll do them when the time is right. And that time, is not now.

This month I’m going to concentrate in having an awesome party for L, creating special memories for my boys and their Nonos, spending one and one time with my mom {she and my sister are my best friends and I missed them so much} and just enjoying my parents are here, with us.

It’ll probably be another hectic month, but another memorable one. Welcome November!

october – octubre

{images via smashing magazine}

Ok, this is going to be a long post rant. First of all, I made it! I posted my October desktop calendar on the first of the month live! It may sound silly but it means a lot to me.
Second I decided to keep this blog, house 36, in WordPress. I know, it’s not the most smart thing to do, switching platforms. But I kept receiving comments and a couple of followers on WordPress and I was not replying to those comments because I was not checking that blog anymore. I probably should have closed my WordPress blog, but it was linked to from other sites and from features I got so I left it live. Since I haven’t posted much since the beginning of the year on the new Blogger account, I decided to transfer my recent posts from Blogger to WordPress so I can have everything in one place. I spent about hour and a half of my Sunday night, transferring my newer post onto WordPress manually. It sounds silly and makes no sense, but being the anal and type A person I am, when I got an idea in my head I just have to do it. So now, everything is back on WordPress and I’ll keep blogging here. Well, if you can call blogging my sporadic posting.

September was busy. What’s new, right? I couldn’t do my monthly balance even though I started it and it stayed in the drafts folders unfinished. One thing here, another one there, or maybe it’s because I’m not a writer and can’t really start and finish a post in an hour like most bloggers do. But I guess that’s OK because I’m not a writer, just a woman, wife, mom, designer, trying to document parts of our life, from family adventures to home remodel projects. Also English is not my first language and as I mentioned before, I used to wait for M to proof read my posts before hitting “publish”. Until I decided it was ok to make mistakes. However I’m still not very confident to just publish so posts stay in my draft folder for days, weeks, etc. I thought about writing in Spanish, but my goal to write in English was to improve my skill in the language so I think I’ll stick to it.

Ok, rant over. So now about the fun stuff. On the house front we have so many projects lined up. I doubt they will happen this month but we have started to plan and schedule things, have even drawn sketches and got bids but I’ll write about that on a separate post.

Finally how can I not mention this month favorite holiday? Halloween! Last year our Halloween party was so much fun that we’ve decided to do it again this year. We also plan on going on some traditional season activities like apple and pumpkin picking, corn mazes, Halloween parades and much more. Welcome October!

september – setiembre

 

{via smashing magazine}

august – agosto

{via smashing magazine}

This time I’m not going to say July flew, because I feel we did a lot in this past month. Although we haven’t been able to physically get done much around the house, we’ve been able to make a lot of decisions about so things around the house. I’m happy because making up our minds and making final decisions was procrastinating all our projects. Now I know what we want to do and how we will do it.

Another reason we didn’t pay too much attention to our home improvement projects this past month is because we’ve spent much of our free time going on little adventures. Despite the high temperatures of the first weeks of July we’ve managed to spend time outside and have some fun.

August I think will be no different. We still have many Summer activities planned and we’ll go on a little vacation before kids start school. L will be entering 4th grade and G will start preschool…Sorry but now I have to say it even though it’s a cliché, times does fly!

july – julio

{images via smashing magazine}

July is a special month. We celebrate not only 4th of July, the United States Independence Day, but also 28 de Julio, Peru’s Independence Day. As I mentioned before, it’s one of my biggest intentions to expose and teach my kids about my culture. Specially in G’s case, since he’s half Peruvian. It’s very important to me he grows up bilingual and knows everything about Peru, its wonderful places, delicious food, interesting customs and historical traditions. Our annual trips to Peru will absolutely help with that. This last time we were there, I noticed G picked up many Spanish words, and he’s starting to speak as much Spanish as he speaks English now. Yay!

We started the month with a late, late birthday play date for G. I’ve been busy with work, so I couldn’t plan anything earlier. Check out mamemima, for some pictures soon!

We’re taking it easy this long weekend. We’ll take advantage of the days off to organize things around the house, finish some projects that were on hold, and plan some others. I think the kids bathroom remodel is happening {crossing my fingers} so I have a lot to think about. I can’t say the same thing about the second floor rooms switching though. M said he never had the chance to move anything so when we came back, about two weeks ago, everything was as I left it. And that’s definitely something we’re {I’m} not ready to handle now. It’ll have to go to the bottom of our to-do-list.

The rest of the month is filled with day trips, birthdays and of course a 28 de Julio celebration!

june – junio

{images via smashing magazine}

Yesterday we celebrated G´s second birthday. In Lima, Perú, my hometown. And I can not express how happy and excited we were. Although we miss M’s family and our friends in New York, being able to celebrate G’s birthday with my side of the family and friends meant the world to me.

G’s nonos {my parents} helped us host a nice party. It was great to see some old friends and family members, all celebrating with us this special day. This is our last week in Perú. We are really enjoying our time here but not so much the weather. It´s getting cold.

I haven´t planned much for the rest of June, because I know it´s going to be a little hard getting back into our schedules and routines after a month of vacation. Also, it´s Summer time in New York so I´m sure we´ll spend a lot of time outdoors.

We´ve been having so much fun and it´s going to be hard to say bye, but it´ll really be just a see you son, because we´ll come back! Next time when it’s nice, sunny and warm!

may – mayo

{images via smashing magazine}

 

My intention is to post these desktop wallpapers the first of every month, or at least the first week. But the first week, turns into the second, and then the third and by the time I notice the month is over. One thing I realized is that although I have the time, I’m not being very organized with it. I start doing something, and then switch to something else. An hour later or so I pick up another task and the cycle continues throughout the day. Then the day is over and I never finish task number one.

I do get things done in the middle, especially work related. But I really think I need better time management skills so I can be much more productive. I’ve been working on that for a long time and still need to improve. Specially since I’m expecting the same thing from my 8 year-old. We noticed he has some difficulty focusing on one task at a time {meaning a 20-min homework takes an hour to complete}. I can not really demand something I not doing myself, right? Work in progress I guess.

March and April were busy months. We got some things done around the house. I find it interesting, how I plan things in my head, like I mentioned here. But then one day I just randomly change my mind, and do something completely different. I’m still debating if that’s a good thing {flexibility, spontaneity I guess are always positive things} or a bad thing {unpredictability?). However, whatever changes I made, I do so thinking about our family dynamics. I try to adjust our home to our current needs and habits, and although it may be a little uncommon sometimes {turning a dining room into a playroom?!} it works for us. We still have big hopes to redo the bathrooms this Summer, or maybe Spring. And the second floor rooms switching is happening. That’s going to be interesting since I’ll be gone for a month. I gave M the task to start moving the furniture from room to room so we’ll see what I find when I come back.

May has been another hectic month, full of family and friends events. G and I are already in Lima, Peru and we’re having a great time. But we miss L and M and we’re looking forward to seeing them in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be an intense week, celebrating G’s second birthday, going on a little trip, celebrating a cousin’s wedding, seeing family and friends, and to end our vacation celebrating Father’s Day. We can’t wait!

april – abril

{images via smashing magazine}