princess makeover.

1. definitely need someone who's up for it!

2. paint nails and toes.

 3. style hair in an updo with pretty much all the clips you can find.

 4. make up. it would really help if you actually own some.

 5. layer poofy dresses for extra volume and length. accessorize with crown, shoes and jewelry and tada!

guess who's going to disney.

our little achiever got 100 stars! don't mind the static-y hair.

pop-iscles.

don't worry, it's a toy knife. throw a bunch of grapes, cantaloupe and banana in a blender. add milk and ice and viola homemade popsicles or as sophie likes to call it pop-iscles.

getting the big bucks.

mama's new toy, sophie's new job.

my job interview.

i’ve always pictured myself as a working girl. new york city, dressed to the 9s, stilettos, weekends at central park, soho and meatpacking district, loft apartment in downtown manhattan. i guess you could say i’ve done everything but the loft apartment. i loved my job! i mean how can you not? company paid lunch with clients, hanging out with ceos, meeting celebs and politician, closing deals, happy hour. the next thing i know i’m a sahm. in florida. supporting husband at work while i stay home and make a new recipe for dinner and decorate the house. nothing bad about that. it’s pretty darn good thing to be out of the workforce. and what's more awesome is that i get to spend all my time with sophie. no complaints here.

but then last week happened. i got a job interview. phone and face to face. the first one in years and i’m talking about a decade. i started to think maybe i could get a job, maybe i could use that 10 years of experience for something else besides homeschooling sophie,  maybe this is my chance to have a career again.

it took awhile for my mind to adjust and see myself as someone other than an awesome mom. (because all moms are awesome lol) the idea of working again. it’s just that i knew from the moment i resigned that I will be back working again. eventually. and unconsciously i’ve been scared of that day to come.

the phone interview was so unexpected. seriously. some of the questions were: tell me more about your work experience. specific questions about my work experience. where do you see yourself 5 years from now? what are your plans in life?

then I was scheduled to have a face to face interview. 3 people interview me. give me some examples where you were creative and went beyond your position as a…. what can you offer our company?

then i was taken to the actual work floor to have an idea of what my typical day to day will be like and to get a feel of the work environment. then onto to the next interview. why should we hire you? what can you offer that other candidates don’t have? why this position? what is you ideal job? they made me sell some random things on the table (uniball and nail cutter) what do you think is the most important factor to successful in this position? weakness? what do you know about our company. if we call your former employer right now give me 5 words that he would use to describe you. what if we call him right now and he says 5 different words, how would you react?

the whole interview took 2.5 hours and these questions are probably just half. i seriously don't even remember anymore. after the interview i came out of that building with a new found confidence and big smile on my face. job interviews are nerve racking! which is part of the reason why i've gone m.i.a. from blogging and all that for nothing. i thought i did great! of course i prayed like crazy in the car and sure enough god never fails. 

i wish i could tell you that i got the job and i'm now a working mommy but i never got a call. i'm not going to lie and say i'm not disappointed. but what can i do, it's not meant to be. like my hubs always say god has a better plan for me. you hear that??! a better one! in fact i'm happy that i did good. after all i really wanted that job and i can't begin to imagine what could be better than that.

check AYAZINE to see what i wore to the interview.

cup of jo series: balancing work/life motherhood.

one of my favorite blogs, cup of jo has a new series where she'll be featuring other awesome moms (aren't we all moms awesome?) and will be talking about balancing work, life and motherhood. i love love love her introduction post! i've always thought she was one of the "other" moms who had it all figured out but coming from her "we're all in the same boat". it's always good to read an honest good blog!

look mama, no lines.

alphabet and numbers by sophie.

weekend shenanigans.

1. on saturday, we went to hollywood boardwalk beach. no swimming this time because of sophie's booboo. just enjoyed walking along the boardwalk. seafood pizza and ice cream! yummmm! pictures at AYAZINE.
2. on sunday, we went to a new church. message was awesome according to hubby (sophie and i were at the nursery)  plus there's lots of kids so i think this is where we will be attending until we move again. we went to supermarket after and i still can't get over the fact that they sell firecrackers there! ??? at the supermarket! so we picked up some.
3. monday, we had corn, macaroni sald, hotdogs and burgers. sophie and i made a flag cake!! i mad ethe cake and sophie helped me decorate. later on, we tried the firecrackers and watched some fireworks by our lake. a lot of failed photos but they were amazing. it's sophie's first time so she was very excited!!!!

happy fourth everyone.

this was taken last january.

favorite pic.

i'm so excited about this week's theme for momma in focus - water. and this is one of my most favorite photos this summer. taken at the beach!

trip to the er.

yes, that's right to the emergency room. a little accident in the bathroom happened today. not #1 or #2, a real accident. sophie slipped and got a boo boo on her chin. my stomach is still turning just thinking about it. just like all accident it happened so fast. a split second. but in my head it's in slow motion on repeat. aaaah! i was right next to her! i was right there!
a lot of things were going through my head. 1.) i didn't know where the nearest hospital was 2.) we don't have insurance 3.) how on earth am i going to drive with her crying and bleeding in the backseat. and mind you while all this was happening, i was soaking wet and had nothing on but a towel.
so what i really did was 1.) pressed on the cut to stop the bleeding 2.) called my husband to tell him to come home asap 3.) called 911.
i was panicking inside but stayed calm for sophie. i think that really helped a lot. she stopped crying and we waited for the paramedics? i did not know who to expect. apparently the cops came, the fire rescue and emt. total of 6 people. and they came so fast - less that 3 mins i think. anyway, as soon as they saw her, they were like "oh she's fine, just take her to the er" and i was like "how does this work? do we go in the ambulance?" i know, silly me. their response was, "do you drive? the hospital is located...."
we waited for i would say 2 hours at the er for sophie to get the stitches. and let me tell you, my baby is one brave 3 year old. she didn't even cry one bit throughout the whole procedure. i could tell she was very scared because she was shaking. i have no words to describe how proud i am. like i am so proud of her. the attending doctor and nurses were all impressed. she was the best patient they had all week. i even received some words of praise myself. (there was a voice inside me saying "oh yeah, i'm the mama!") after 7 stitches later, we were finally outta there. sophie got 6 stickers for being so good. 5 for her, 1 for me and 1 for daddy.

 and here she is having a milk shake (we promised her ice cream). good as new!

sophie's first scrapbook page.

 blogged about our trip over at AYAZINE.

tracing letters.

one of the activities that sophie loves is writing. i started letting her write about a year ago. she loves it so much that sometimes the only way i could make her stop is if the daylight is out. she also has her own pocket folder where she keeps everything. she gets so excited to show off what she did. there's a lot of websites out there where you can download writing worksheets but i my go-to site is this just because it's has the right amount of space and there are images she can color too. i also downloaded this tracing font so that i can make custom worksheets like her name and stuff.

butterfly world.

hope everyone had a good long weekend! we spent our memorial day at butterfly world. if we were back in ny, we would have probably bbqed in our backyard with our family. we really miss everyone back "home" but exploring miami is so much fun and stress free. seeing sophie's face everytime we take her out is priceless.

on an airplane no less.

sophie got her first salon haircut today!!!!! complete with a hair keepsake and certificate! awesome! after the haircut my baby told the hair stylist, "i want make up next". awwwww.