SipMom: February 2012

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Buzios welcomed us in Brazil with a beautiful sunny day. Not too hot. Just perfect. I will let the pictures and the song do the talk tonight...

They asked me how I knew

My true love was true

Oh, I of course replied

Something here inside cannot be denied

They said someday you'll find

All who love are blind

Oh, when your heart's on fire

You must realize

Sand gets in your eyes

Saturday, February 25, 2012

The beach, the ocean, flip flops, sand inside the ears, the sound of Portuguese, food that warms the soul. And the stores. Inside I found a mix of handmade, home cooked, and some made in China too! (as I found out written on the tag of one "handmade" hat!) I love the vibrant colors, yellows, reds, oranges, so happy compared to the black and grey that surrounds Winter up here. Trying to catch some of the warmth and bring home, we bought some pieces of tropical land to brighten our days. Friends and family also gave us a few more.

Here they are, enjoy the rainbow of colors!!

From top left to right: The hat my husband got to add some style to the trip, T-shirt for the kids from Salvador that my mom gave, yellow fish made of recycled paper to hang on the wall, beautiful blue neck less (a gift), hot pepper from Bahia, handmade chocolate from Ilhéus (used to be the World's top source of Cacao in the 30's), wood boat to decorate the boy's bedroom, soap holders, wooden mortar and pestle and peteca (name in Portuguese). The bag is only for illustration! (wish I had this beautiful vintage bag!!)

Brazil · vacation

Three bags of dirty clothes later

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Brazil, vacation, packing, vacation with kids

You may be wondering the silence around the Sip Mom blog world. Well, we spent these last 10 days sipping a vacation in Brazil, and most of the days I did not have Internet connection, so I guess it was also an e-vacation.

It was our first international trip as a family of four and we experienced with small kids being on boats, planes and automobiles and all the tricks involved to keep them happy. Overall, I would say that it was a success!

We had a wonderful time with family and friends and got our level of sunshine back to full. I plan to write a few more posts about the special moments of the trip, but that will have to wait until after I finish unpacking, washing, cleaning and sleeping! In the mean while, I wanted to share the one right decision I took that made traveling with kids a little bit easier. (of course traveling with kids is never easy, but every little help adds on!)

After I had packed the bags in my traditional way I decided to watch a few YouTube videos to learn how to properly pack a bag. I was amazed that despite all the international trips I took in the past I had neglected to learn the art of packing! With the videos I learned to roll all the clothes before placing them in the bag and it worked great, specially with the boys clothing. My clothes got a little wrinkled but nothing that a few hours of hanging did not fix. With all the clothes rolled inside the bags I had a full view of every single piece available to wear.

In one of the bags I placed Luke's clothes on the right side and Mark's on the left side, so I always knew what belonged to whom. Of course, on the way back almost nothing was rolled up, as all the dirty clothes were just pushed inside a plastic bag.

Before

After

What about you? Are you perfectionist bag packer? Or do you just throw your things inside and then jump on top to try to close the bag?!

motherhood

Speechless

Monday, February 20, 2012

I am always thankful for my vision. I can't imagine experiencing the world without its colors and beautiful sunsets and missing the one thousand daily facial expressions that my boys display. I am also thankful for my hearing, for the ability to experience music, to capture the sounds of waves crashing against the shore, kids laughing as they play. However, I never remember to be thankful for my voice until I lose it, as it happened today!

There is so much to be said every day. So much to share, so many requests to make, so many words to pronounce. So when the voice is gone, or when all I got left is a quite whisper, I am thankful for all the other days when my voice is there, strong for me, waiting for my request.

My sons will probably treasure my speechless day, as the day mommy did not yell, not even once! One of the perks of becoming a mom. You acquire this extraordinary ability to yell. A natural defence against kids running across the street, trying to jump inside a pool, or just plain hitting the sibbling with a toy. Amazing how motherhood can even improve your vocal cords!!

10 sips for the weekend

10 Free Online Magazines For Moms To Read

Friday, February 17, 2012

There is nothing like e-flipping magazines! If you have an i-phone or an i-pad, then the e-flipping is even more magic! Forget about having to lick your fingers to be able to turn the pages of the old style paper magazines! How gross!! In the e-flipping mode, you smoothly slide your fingers in the screen forwards or backward, with the gentleness of a princess pea.

So, here are 10 of my favorite free online magazines to e-flip.

For the mom

Adore: get ready, an Australian lifestyle and home magazine. With colors, pillows, pastels, stripes, chevrons, cupcakes, cookies, pinks, more pinks. If Magazines were eatable I would choose to eat this one, it would probably taste like sugar-coated rainbow rays!!

Matchbook: If you did not get enough pink from Adore, then you can get some more from Matchbook, founded by Katie and Jane (the perfect founder's names for a girl's magazine!). If you like Jane Austen, little black dresses, packing for trips, or just read some interesting articles, then e-flip this one!

Rue Magazine: Still not tired of home design? One more.

Living Abroad Caribbean: Dreaming of sand and sunshine? This will surely warm your winter!

For the child

Babiekins: If you want to see the world through the eyes of a child, then the amazing pictures in this magazine will do that and much more.

LMNOP (Laugh, Make, Nurture, Organize, Play): Another Australian magazine, not free, but inside their website you can find many of the activities featured in the magazine. Fun, fun and more fun for kids!!

What about you? Do you have any favorite online magazines that you love to e-flip?

thoughts

Are you a lefty or righty???

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Loved the picture above, it started me thinking... Doesn't it seems that the World is unjust for lefties? People that use their left hands to write, to play sports, to play an instrument. They have to adapt in so many ways! Apparently the rules were made by the right handed folks and everybody else has to abide by them.

But when it comes to the brain, the lefties make the rules! Probably because the righties don't like to deal with rules to start with! The lefties organize, analyze and control. And if you look back in history, it is usually more profitable to be a leftie. Maybe the righties dream too much, love too much, feel too much!

Of course, we all have both sides of the brain inside our heads, otherwise there would be no balance. But there is always that one side, that always pops first, pulls stronger and sings louder. Have you noticed?

Not easy to do self analyse, but I think that I might be a righty by nature. Or am I a lefty? Did school teach me so much how to use my left side of the brain that now I am a lefty?

What about you? Can you identify a stronger brain side? Left or right??

Picture via here

Giveaways

Sip a giveaway: Win a WubbaNub Pacifier!

Monday, February 6, 2012

My baby Mark turns 20 months old today. Maybe it is time to stop calling him "my baby"?!! I love the picture below, probably because I rarely take pictures of my kids sleeping in their cribs (so afraid I am to wake them up!) but this one captures so much cuteness!! You may notice a WubbaNub pacifier by his feet, well, I have a little surprise gift for you, to celebrate his 20th month! Keep reading...

My baby used to have dark hair!

Last week I started the series "Products I love" sharing with you about the WubbaNub pacifier. After publishing the post, I had the idea to contact the company WubbaNub to see if they would be interested in supplying a WubbaNub pacifier for a giveaway. And guess what? They are more than happy to do so!

So from today, Monday, until Thursday night, you will have the chance to participate to win a yellow duck WubbaNub pacifier! If you don't have a baby, you can always give the pacifier to someone you know that has a baby. The only requirement is that the shipping address must be inside the USA.

Prize: One yellow duck WubbaNub pacifier

Number of winners: One

To enter:

Visit the WubbaNub website and leave a comment below.

For extra entries you can:

Follow my blog by joining this site (button found on the right column after my profile) and leave a comment saying that you did so. If your are already following me, please just leave a comment on this post saying so.

Tweet about this contest on Twitter, linking this post in your tweet. When you do that, leave me a comment on this post saying that you did so.

Share this post on Facebook and leave a comment on this post saying that you did so.

Each separate comment counts as an entry!

Giveaway ends: Thursday, February 9th at 9p.m., EST. One winner will be selected using random.org and announced right here on this post on Friday, February 10th.

Please, make sure that you enter your blog or email address so I can contact you if you win.

Hope you are the lucky winner!

The winner is Nrowars. Congratulations!!!

10 sips for the weekend · education

How to make a billionaire computer programmer

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Isn't this story familiar? Kid had hard working parents, kid was intelligent, kid got into a good university, parents had so many expectations but suddenly the dream starts to crumble. Kid drops out of school to follow some crazy idea of his. So sad.

Parents look back into their lives and wonder; What did they do wrong? How was it possible that after so much good parenting their child left education behind to follow an uncertain career?

Kid ends up building a company that could value up to no more than 100 billion dollars! What??? 100 billion dollars??? How is that possible? (Maybe because everybody I know now carries an addiction called facebooking!?)

facebook, ipo, mark zuckerburg, billionaire computer programmer

Do you think that he has potential?!

So here are 10 tips on how to make a billionaire computer programmer:

Name him Mark: at least I got that one right!
Name his middle name Elliot: Ops! I got that one wrong!
When your child is 6 years old start teaching him or her Atari BASIC Programming (even if you have to hire a tutor with historic skills for that!)
If you did not hire a tutor yet, hire a software developer to tutor your 10 year old.
While your teenager is still in high school, let him or her take a few computer programming credits at a nearby college.
It would not hurt to let your child learn some Latin and fencing, just in case.
Read every book you can on how to get your child into Harvard.
After your child is hopefully a Harvard candidate, persuade your young adult to take Psychology classes along Computer Science.
Now sit back and watch the natural course of things. And don't look too surprised when your child decides to drop out of Harvard to follow a big idea!
Relax and enjoy your comfortable retirement as the parent of a billionaire!

Who knew that it could be this easy?? Ha!

Do you also have a detailed plan like mine on how to make your child the next computer programmer billionaire?? It is ok, you can share, I won't be spreading out the details!!

Have a great weekend, everybody!!

Disclaimer: All the information above was taken from Wikipedia. I was not compensated by Facebook to write this post, nor has Mark Zucherberg given me any personal tips on how to raise a billionaire computer programmer. IPO will value Facebook between $75 to $100 billion. Not that I will get any of that money, for that matter!

holidays · motherhood

Groundhog day on scooters

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Today is Groundhog day. No, not hot dog day. That would surely make for an easier dinner for me! Today is the day when this famous groundhog in Pennsylvania predicts if we are having 6 more weeks of winter or not (there are a few other groundhogs trying to compete for first place in the list of famous groundhogs, mind you). If we do, those would probably be the only 6 weeks of winter we have so far, as it has been a very mild winter (64 degrees at the JFK yesterday, anyone?)!

Regardless if you believe that the groundhog is doing a better job than the satellites around the Earth, it is encouraging to think that we have made it through another winter and we are headed to beautiful Spring (if you don't mind some sneezing!)

Yesterday, taking advantage of the beautiful weather, we went outside. Mark is starting to show some love for Luke's scooter, pushing it around the house. I find it surprising because didn't he just learned how to walk like 3 months ago? What is next? Asking for a motorcycle?

I could not help but take a few more pictures to our endless collection of pictures under the theme: Boys playing outside. I am sure you are not tired of seeing them, right? There is always the swing one, the slider one, the running around one. Well, this time I tried to diversify, for your sake. Pretend to enjoy!

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