Korea 2012

Finally~~ I had a chance to sit down and go through my Korea pics which were mostly on my phone.  In fact, only 4 photos below were taken on a regular camera~ lol!  I loved this trip because we were just in Korea a year and a half ago so I didn’t feel any pressure to go sightseeing or take tons of nice photos.  Here’s a photo tour of my favorite moments in Korea, the 2012 edition. 

* Hanging with Joy on the flights.  The flight there was pretty tough but then she slept most of the way back!

* Seeing my brother meet Joy for the first time.

* Being smooshed in the back seat of my aunt’s car while taking silly photos with my grandma.

* Giving my mom the opportunity to celebrate her birthday with her mom for the first time in decades.

* Baby’s Lounge!  By far the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in a department store.  They have an area for sleeping, changing, nursing/feeding and even measuring your baby’s stats.  There’s a helper who cleans and even looks after your baby if you want!

* The Banyan Tree & our views.

* Seeing how my family loved Joy so much.  They told me she reminded them of me at that age.  Photo on the left is of my former movie star uncle teaching Joy how to be dramatic~ lol!

* Hearing my grandpa’s wise and funny stories.  He is truly an amazing person.  He’d probably give you a copy of his book if you met him, lol!  He’s 89 years old and still blogs for his church and invests in the stock market.  He once represented himself in a case against a huge corporation and was touted as a “David” winning over “Goliath” in the newspapers.

* Loved getting to experience life as a local since we got to hang with our family & friends who live there.

* We took Joy swimming for the first time.  Loved the pool in our room~ perfect for a little one to learn how to swim.

* We’re so lucky we got to experience jjimjilbang (Korean sauna), Dr. Fish (where fish eat the dead skin off your feet…eww!) and many other adventures with one of our favorite couples in the world, Miny & Steve.  Thanks to Steve’s friend (thanks Jay!), we got chauffeured around Seoul in a limo taxi.

* Wandering around the streets of Seoul late at night.  We noticed a lot of the taxi drivers watching Korean dramas while driving~ lol or eek?

* Being an honorary groomsbuddy for my dear law school friend.  Congrats Sam & Crystal!  It was also awesome seeing my buddy Dave and my beautiful @petitetokio.

* Loved getting to spend quality time together.  Just the two of us…along with thousands of Seoul locals.

* Our favorite part of each day was getting a letter & photos from Evan & my in-laws.  He was having a blast on “vacation” and loving all the extra attention.  So blessed to have such amazing in-laws.

* Joy was so happy during our trip!  My grandpa read somewhere that a baby smiles more than 300 times a day.  He told us that we should strive to do the same!

* Saying goodbye to my grandparents and aunt broke my heart but it just made me realize how lucky I was to have spent this time with them.  They have a special place in my heart.  They basically adopted me from when I was 2 to 5.  My parents couldn’t afford to take me to the US so I had to stay behind.  These were the days before the Internet, Skype and cheap international calls so they were all I had.  And for that…I will love them forever.

* My favorite moment of the entire trip…fulfilling my dream of having all four generations of women together.  An image that will inspire me for a lifetime.

What a whirlwind of a trip!  I learned that the best memories aren’t made from grand events but from the simplest things…like culling mini anchovies together or staying up late talking.  I saw how even the smallest gestures like putting curlers in your mom’s hair show immeasurable love.

We didn’t get to make a video for this time but if you haven’t seen it yet~ here’s the link to our video from our last trip. 

Korea/Japan Goodies

The last time I was in Seoul I spent a lot of time putting together gift packages for my friends.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do it this time around!  I did make one set though to give away here.  Just leave a comment telling me you’re interested and I’ll pick/send out the package next week!  [Congrats wizki!]  

These are just a few little favorite things from Korea/Japan.  We made a quick day trip into Japan on the way back.  Here’s what it includes:  coin bag made of hanbok material, hair turban, stripey twist ties, fuzzy socks, white board (perfect to write stuff on & take photos), non-stick self-standing rice scooper, 22 pack of colored thread, oilcloth bag, flower stickers, brown rice green tea, embosser, lunch bag, giraffe socks, plastic gift bags, metallic markers, 6 patterned tapes & a reusable bag.  

iPhone Photo Apps

Since most of my Korea photos were taken with my iPhone I wanted to share a few of my favorite apps. 

Instagram, Be Funky, Pic Fx and Tadaa are great for editing and fun borders.

Pic Frame and Diptic are what I use for collages.

Tegaki Camera, Label Box and Phonto are what I use for text.

Enjoy~ and share some of your phone photo creations! 

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Hope you’re having a wonderful day celebrating with your loved ones.  Sometimes when you have kids you’re home in your pjs long before most people’s dinner reservations have even started.  Lol!   

Cards

The first card is from Tiny Prints and the second one is from Shutterfly!

Valentine’s Day Thank Yous!

Joy is so lucky to have aunties who love her so much to even plan ahead and get her outfits for Valentine’s Day! Thank you Lisa Eemo for the beautiful tutu & headband!  We’ll be using them for many years to come.  

Thank you Katherine Eemo for the perfect little Valentine’s Day dress!  Joy is wearing one of the hair pins I made for myself a long time ago.  She’s sitting on an awesome chair I found at Ross for only $160!

The Sweater

It was 5 or 6 years ago and I don’t think I was even married yet.  I remember running my hands over the fabric thinking…do babies even wear cashmere?  I loved it though and imagined my future daughter wearing it.  I bought it thinking I could just give it away as a gift.  Years went by yet whenever it was time to give a gift I had to pass over this little sweater.  Deep inside I still held on to the hope that I’d have a daughter one day.  And now, to finally have my little girl and for her to wear this sweater~ words can’t express how happy it makes me. 

Impossible!

So now with 2 kiddos and a furbaby, the difficulty level of taking photos has increased dramatically.  Sometimes I just want to give up because it seems like an impossible task~ lol!  The funny thing is that the best photos usually come from the outtakes!  Here’s my favorite photo from our Valentine’s Day session.  Joy kept lifting up her tutu and covering her face.  Evan rose to the occasion and actually directed her to put her hands down.  Lol!

Better late than never, right?  Lol~!  I realized I never posted photos of Evan’s 2nd birthday party.  So~ before his THIRD birthday party I wanted to crank out a post.  I also just wanted to include some info for you to use for your future fabulous parties!  Photos were taken by our awesome photographer Tim Park or me.  

Theme/Colors

Evan loves the Korean cartoon character Pororo so I based the colors off of that.  I wanted to bring the essence of Pororo to life without being too commercial.  Bright, bold & happy!  I also incorporated letters since Evan has always loved the alphabet. 

Here’s photo of Evan when he was almost two.  You can see the Pororo play mats that once ruled our home.

Goodie Bags 

One of my favorite parts of planning a party is giving out goodie bags!  We made drawstring bags to hold all the goodies. Here’s the LINK to the tutorial. 

Here’s a list of ideas for goodie bag items:  coloring books, crayons, play-doh, DVD, juice box, snacks, lego favor packs, sticker books, travel games, lip balm, mega bloks mini packs, bubbles, small stuffed animals, books, bath toys, flash cards.

I love Avery shipping tags!  I just replaced the string with colored twine and designed a simple tag in Photoshop.  I think plain ol’ white paper looks great on these tags!

Cupcake Stands 

These cupcake stands were super duper easy to make and really cheap!  Just a bunch of Bare by Solo disposable cups and plates made out of plant-based renewable resources.  Here’s the LINK for the tutorial.

For the stands I put actual cupcakes on some and bowties/hair clips on others.  I also filled up some empty cupcake liners with little tissue paper flowers and fuzzy pom poms. 

For the cupcake stand toppers I glued on scrapbooking paper to wood/foam letters/numbers.  The rest of the toppers were just random items we had at home.  Cupcakes and cake were made by A Cupcake Story.

Bowties & Hair Clips

I made a little accessories dessert bar for the kiddos to take some hair clips and bowties.  I love the bowties because they can actually be used as hair clips too!  Here’s the LINK to the bowtie tutorial and the LINK to the felt rosette tutorial. 

Birthday Crowns

I wanted each kiddo to feel special so we made birthday crowns with their names on them.  Here’s the LINK to the tutorial.

Invite & Thank You Card

I just made some simple designs in Photoshop and printed them at home!

Thanks to all the help and support from our friends and family we were able to pull off a super fun party for Evan!  Hope I’ll be able to post about Evan’s third birthday party before his 4th birthday!