Inspiration

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  This year I promised myself I would try and be brave when it came to art and design.  So I put myself out there a little more than usual, I picked up a couple of freelance clients and a position at a very small design company.  Little by little Im becoming more confident with my skills and that makes me very happy.  Yes this is pretty random but this illustration inspires me so much that I HAD to share!  I keep repeating this to myself while I work on setting up an Etsy shop, its exciting and scary.  This will be my mantra for this little endeavor.  I seriously advise you to go out and be brave!!


<3 Mama Chuca

Dada

 "My dad taught me everything he knows."
When Dada said this the other day it made my heart skip a beat. This simple sentence made me realize immediately that this is Dada's philosophy for fatherhood.  It was also a reminder that Little is lucky to have a father who is willing to take the time to teach him everything he knows.  We don't necessarily agree on everything but one thing we do agree on, that never has to be said, is that we love our baby, love each other and want to be together.  Little and I are very lucky to have this man in our life. Happy Fathers Day to Dada, Papaw and all the fathers, mothers and anybody who is any sort of father figure.  I have 2 great men in my life that inspire me to raise my son to be an amazing man one day.

The video is a little weird, but I love the song! Heres to you Dada, enjoy. 

<3 Mama Chuca

10 Photos

First I want to share a couple of pictures that I found while going through my iPhoto!!

June 2011

May 2012

What a difference a year (or so) makes!! Look how little they are in the first picture, what cuties! I just had to share this picture, they've been best friends since they were both little and squishy! 

Now on to business, as you can see I take a lot of photos of Little.  But I always wonder what photos I should be taking of Little now, that I will love later on.  I just read an awesome list that has inspired me even more than ever to take pictures of my little boy! This post from Lil Sugar has an amazing list of the 10 pictures to take of your tot each month. 

The list:
1. A portrait
2. New mannerisms
3. Siblings
4. Playtime
5. Bath time
6. Squeaky clean baby
7. Favorite Toy
8. New trick
9. A picture with Mama
10. A picture with Dada

Some of pictures on this list are a little obvious but sometimes Im so busy clicking away that I forgot that their are some pictures that need to be taken.   #7 is a great example, his favorite toy this month happens to be his Woody the Cowboy doll from Toy Story. Luckily I do have a photo of Little holding Woody on a walk to Tia Linda's house, but I agree this picture should be taken every month because it does happen to change very often.  As for #3, there probably won't be any Little siblings anytime soon, so our Squish will have to fill this spot for now... after all they fight and love each other like brother and sister as it is (see above photos)!  Hopefully this list inspires you as much as it has me and yes there will be "10 Photos"posts around here very soon!!

<3 Mama Chuca

7 DIYs

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We had an awesome weekend in these parts. We relaxed at Grammas on Friday, celebrated Squishy's Dads birthday on Saturday and Sunday we took our Little to see Madagascar 3!! Madagascar 3 was awesome btw!

But today I wanted to share 7 DIY's Im dying to take on! 

1. I love this special felt party hat for the birthday boy! I think I can do a cute Brown Bear hat for Little. 

2. For Little's 1st birthday party Dada and I made Little a special t-shirt to wear. It was the first time we ever worked with an iron on and I think it came out pretty good.  I just love the idea of a really cute simple tee for Little to wear to show off the awesomeness of turning 2.  Hopefully I can try and recreate this with ink instead of the iron on!!

3. These terrariums are sooo adorable!  This might actually be a Dada & Little project now that I think about it, but Im sooo excited to show these off around his room. 

4. As I was looking around the web and (mostly) Pinterest for baby shower games I came across this awesome activity for the party!  A simple and darling wish list written by guests for the new baby girl. 

5. I also happened to come across this DIY for cute table settings.  Not only are they made of baby jars but they most definitely fit into our "theme".  Its a very loose theme of "paper flowers", did I mention this?  The soon to be mama is an artist and I wanted to give her baby shower a little twist. Hopefully it turns out half as good as it looks in my head, this seldom happens!

6.  I live in Texas and it is hot pretty much 90% of the year but I can't help but love scarves.  I LOVE SCARVES!! Maybe I could find a lightweight fabric so I can look cute and not sweat buckets!

7.  If you've never heard of the blog My Cakies please finish this post and head on over immediately!! I love Rubyellens style, beautiful little girls and I always love her DIY's.  Her fabric wrapped necklace is just what I need because Im totally into the chunky statement necklace trend right now!

When I tackle these awesome DIYs I will report back here asap! I also wanted to share this picture Gramma sent me today.  Why is it so darling?!?

<3 Mama Chuca

Birthday Inspiration

Little will be 2 soon!!  Well July 24 he will be 2, but that still leaves me little time to plan a Little party! (see what I did there)  Last year we gave Little a "Where the Wild Things Are" birthday party and it turned out great.  This year we decided to give him a  Brown Bear Brown Bear birthday party, it has been his favorite book for quite some time. So much so, that we have to hide it sometimes ( I know were horrible!) so we can take a break, we literally know it by heart over here!!  Im so excited about this theme because there are so much possibilities, I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to this special event!!
We decided that we were going to make it a little smaller than the first birthday party, so it will be just family and a couple of close friends.  A small backyard barbecue will do for our Littles big day, its everything he loves; family, being outside, cake, friends and water games! I think its better smaller so I can make the gift bags for the kiddies that much more special and I can try to do as much DIY as I can!!

For eats:

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We LOVE cupcakes, so we will have a lot of them (in all the animal colors) for our guests in place of the cake.  We will still have a small cake for Littles big #2 candle and for him to eat all on his own however he wants, after all it is his birthday.  We will also have an awesome lunch/dinner...(Linner?) of bbq and some sides.  We will provide fruit and veggie trays as well, yes people will be full and happy! 

 Party Decor:

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These are just a few examples I've found that I really want to incorporate into this party! I love the idea of guests, young and old, wearing party hats in celebration.  I especially love the idea of the balloon carrying pictures, for one Little loves balloons and the another is Im really into picture banners from over the year.  This balloon banner will do the trick and be very interesting to look at!  Since there will be less guests, I think I want to make a photo booth to commemorate the occasion.  These seem to be really popular right now and Im jumping on board!!  The last photo is something I think Little would enjoy, he happens to have a couple of little animal figures that he keeps track of daily to play with.  I just think it would be so cute and really nice for Little to have his little friends help him celebrate his birthday as well.  Another thing that will be a major part of decorations, not pictured though, are balloons... a TON of balloons!! He will be in balloon heaven that day!

 For the kids:

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Its amazing how much personality Little has and that he clearly has his own likes and dislikes. So right away I knew I wanted all his favorites to go in the kiddie bags!! Coloring and drawing is a pretty big favorite in our home and I love the idea of making our own colors for each of the kids (along with a notebook of course)!  IF that doesn't work then Ill be providing colors and little notebooks for each kiddo, I have this idea that they could say something like "Little Little what do you see?"...corny?? That third photo is actually a gift ball, each one of those goodies is wrapped in different layers of crape paper formed into a ball. This is an amazing idea because A. I could easily wrap Littles favs in it B. what kid doesn't want to unwrap a ball full of goodies and C. Little has a great fondness for Balls!!
The last photo is awesome because I could make ears of different animals from the book to place in the kiddie bags.  Brown Bear ears, blue horse ears, purple cat ears, white dog ears... and so on, I told you so many possibilities!

Im super excited!! Although our theme is the Brown Bear book, were thinking we are going to focus more on the colors of the animals for the decor of the party.  Since we live in Texas, ugh Texas heat in July, I will also have water games, water guns and a inflatable water slide (Little is going to LOVE it). I just know I will be adding to that little Pinterest board up until the week of the party, Pinterest is a curse sometimes ;). Ive already begun working on the invitations, SO CUTE, and soon I will begin the PINATA!! Hello?! its a party of course were gonna have a piñata... a brown bear piñata! This is one of my favorite parts of motherhood, creating super special days for my Little and relieving the excitement the day of.

<3 Mama Chuca

P.S. Follow me on Pinterest if you like, or you can view the rest of my Little's Brown Bear Birthday board!