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I realize this is about a month too late, however time doesn’t really mean much to me when it comes to things I want to do or write about.

New Year celebrations have a very special place in my heart. In Russia , Christmas is a true religious holiday, not commercialized by the people, and it takes place mid January. New Year’s, however, is the time when we see Santa, decorate a tree, gather the whole family around a table that is barely standing under the weight of all that fattening delicious food. It’s the time of gifts under the tree, and kids having to read a poem or dance or sing for Santa in order to get their presents. And while after 8 years of living in America I have completely “switched over” to this all happening on Christmas, New Year’s Eve is still pretty special for me, and not just an excuse to go out and get drunk.

And when I actually think about it, Russian way is a much better way of doing it. What does Santa and free presents have to do with the actual birth of Christ? How about the fact that Christ wasn’t born on December 25th but it was a pagan holiday celebrating the God of Sun? Seems really hypocritical, doesn’t it? It’s a holy holiday but we’re going to celebrate it on a pagan holiday rather than on a real birthday of Christ and we’re going to inundate it with free gifts and a fat bearded man who falls through the chimney to deliver them. Haha! 

So honestly, I much rather have my children celebrate true Christmas, if they choose to be religious and then receive gifts and the whole Santa experience on NYE. However I am a strong believer in not making our kids’ social life more difficult than it has to be, so I reckon we will do it exactly like the rest of America does ( no reason to have them be “that weird kid whose family has Santa come on New Years Eve), however I do like the idea of  adopting the whole sing/dance thing for the presents. So rather than them getting presents just because, they’d have to  do something creative in order to get them: make something for Santa ( even if it’s baking cookies for cookies and milk for Santa) and leave it under the tree, come up with a song or dance that we’d record and leave under the tree, learn a poem, etc

All that being said, we have been celebrating New Year’s the typical American way which is go out, party, get drunk, throw up all over the cab. Except for we don’t drink. So for us New Year’s has been a lot of water drunk from champagne glasses. This year we have been invited to attend a yearly Casa Tua All White party by a good friend of mine and his father. Casa Tua is this uber-cool restaurant/lounge/private house in South Beach and this year the theme was Brazilian ( while still being all white).

We all gathered at Robert’s house to get ready. One bathroom and  4 girls was brutal but we survived to tell the story.

On our way to Casa Tua in 5 inch heels on uneven dirty streets of South Beach

I absolutely loved the decor of the outside area where our table was: candles, crystal, flowers, palm trees.

All four of us sort of believed in horoscopes. Not the daily or yearly bullshit but the description of every sign ( for example, I am a textbook Leo), so in the midst of a horoscope discussion this photo was born!

Every menu on the table had a little band that by Brazilian tradition we were supposed to put on our wrists and tie three knots on it while making three wishes. My husband’s and mine were the same three wishes. It’s nice to be on the same page.

This is a great example of what my husband cares about when it comes to me. Boobs and ass :)

Check out the bright purple bougainvilleas in the back. It totally spiced up the white theme!

My two favorite men: hubby and Robert

That’s typical me.

Look at who’s kissing in the back. Haha! Caught in the act!

And finally, tired and winding down.

So  see? No drunken throw ups in the car.

This New Year’s Eve party turned out as good as my all time best in 2008 ( below). I hope that is a sign of things to come ( but of course i realize it has nothing to do with my 2011 year. I’m not superstitious in the least)

To finish up this post I’d like to list a few things I want to accomplish in 2011:

1.Our most important goal is a 2011 Pregnancy. We will starting in March ( or so) and we’ll see how long it takes us. I’ll be chronicling everything here, of course.

2. Get our taxes straightened out. When you own two or three corporations, taxes aren’t an easy matter. I want to work out a system that will keep it more streamlined during the year, so that it wasn’t such a horrible ordeal come tax season.

3.  Finish 2 websites I am working on for our businesses and move onto the other 5 ( Yikes!)

4.Exercise EVERY DAY ( i pretty much do that now)

5. Finish my Minerals table ( i have a Vitamins table that I spent 2 days working on, where it lists every food i tend to eat and the amount of each vitamin in it).

6. Take my last trip to Ecuador before I get pregnant

7. Organize my work desktop better

8. Go through all the old files and organize, organize, organize

9. Finally clean out the office closet and bathroom

10. Prepare the nursery room

Not too glamorous, I know, but very productive and I LOVE organizing! :)

What did you guys do for New Year’s?

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Also today I got my first Blog Award. Yay for it! I received it from the beautiful Ambrosia Clark . Thank you, darling!

7 Things about me ( I almost  feel like it’s a Miley song)

1. I play drums and I’m kind of good at it  ( ha! That’s a recent discovery and I am still not very good from the skills standpoint, a beginner, but I am working on it)

2. I don’t eat meat. At all. Evah!

3.  I hate doing dishes and scrubing bathrooms. I’d rather fold and iron clothes for hours than do the “dirty work”

4.I’m super good with computer and any kind of technology. I can figure out anything electronic

5. I have a nude and topless shots ( modelling shots,  NOT like the trashy glamour stuff that some people shoot. YUCK!)

7. I am a huge overachiever and perfectionist, but not OCD or anything like that. Things just come easy for me.

I am passing this award to:
(see, this is tough, because most people I read have already gotten the award)

1. 7x7xMommy
2. Angel Perry
3. The Bobby Pin
4. Miss Ashley in Mississippi
5. Love (cubed)
6. The Tales of Two Taylors
7. {Shutter} Mama

I am going to stop  at 7 awards for three reasons: 1. I really don’t read THAT many blogs, 2. Half the blogs I read got the award this week and the other half a while ago, 3. And I mean 15???? Really? Is it a bit crazy and makes it less special?

So here we go! 7 beautiful, fun-to-read ladies!

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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I have been waiting for this particular challenge from Crosbie Crew, because there’s nothing I love more than goofy funny pictures. I’m usually the one staring in them. If i had a movie the gag reel would be full of me making silly faces and acting like an idiot :)
 This year has been pretty short on pictures. After all the rejects were removed from Lightroom, I had about 7400 pictures. Picking out funny ones wasn’t that difficult. What was difficult is choosing which funny ones to share with you. I had 146 funny shots. Getting them down to reasonable amount was awful! I still think that I posted too many but if you have a second, it’ll be worth it, I promise! In additon, I am playing Simplicity and Sweet Shot Tuesday
  Can’t wait to read your comments! But here are the winners in no particular order: 

On the way to Universal with friends and Hubby having too much fun withLeeka’s  fish eye lens. 

This was done for a Flickr project in the beginning of the year. Don’t remember the theme but it took 5 jugs of water and a ton of towels to mop up the mess :) 

Those who read my blog might have seen this photo. It was taken after finding out the news about a particular test   that was done on DH 

Just being goofy with Leeka. Fish eye is just too much fun! 

Taken late late night on my cell phone camera. My yawning babies :) 

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Linking up with WORDLESS WEDNESDAY with a lot of words and Little Miss Mama.

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* I HATE doing dishes. I mean, to the point where i will let the dirty dishes sit in the sink for weeks before i ever touch them. I don’t mind dishwashers and relatively clean dishes, but dirty pot and pans…yuck!

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* I am extremely open and comfortable with nudity and my body ( years of modeling helped)

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* I have about 45000 pictures from the last 5 years

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* All my friends and family are spread throughout the world

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* When i was four, i was dropped off at my kindergarten by my sister who told me that she’d come and get me much earlier that day than normal. After she left I had waited for her in the wardrobe room for about 15 minutes and then decided that the time for her to come and get me had come and since she was still not here i was going to grab my favorite little blue and white sweater and walk my 4 year old ass ALL THE WAY to her high school. I walked out without my teacher knowing, finally reached her school, i was too small to open this HUGE wooden door, so i just stood there until a random teacher came out:”What are you doing here sweetie?”-”I’m here to get my sister, Natasha”. Well, she happened to be my sister’s home room teacher (what luck!), so I was taken straight to my sister where i spent the rest of the day sitting in her classrooms wondering why everyone was making a big deal out of me skipping out on my kindergarten and coming to get my sis’. This is an example of how determined I am when it’s something i want, even at 4 years old.

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* I am the definition of an overachiever

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* I’m obsessed with healthy eating

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* I’m extremely demanding of myself and people I love

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* In high school I was on a volleyball team, a soccer team, track team, math club, intellectual club, language club, a school band, won a few competitions for my compositions, wrote shorts stories and poetry, was a straight A student and dated a butt load of boys most of which were at least 5 years older than me .

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* I do not like people who don’t like me. Which made it very easy to get over break ups

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Yes, it’s Sunday again and I cannot believe it! Seriously weeks fly and I seem to get nothing done.
As usual, I promise myself to be more productive and not waste time this week. I’ve been feeling like crap honestly. Not sure why- probably the cold- but I’ve been slacking on my pilates, or cleaning or even working half-heartedly.

So here’s my Scavenger Hunt items for today and let’s hope for a better week ahead.

1. WINTER

It’s sort of hard to portray winter when you live in South Florida. Here are a few pointers to distinguish Florida’s winter from Florida’s summer.
Summer: always clouds in the sky, afternoon thunderstorms, green lush grass, temperatures in the high 80s
Winter: cloudless sky ALL THE TIME, No rain WHATSOEVER, grass has this greenish-yellowish tint and grows really slow, temperatures in high 70s ( except for the last two stinking cold years)

2. SELECTIVE COLORING

I’m not a fan of selective coloring. To me it speaks of amateur photographer ( no offense to anyone), but sometimes selective coloring can be done tastefully. As long as it doesn’t stand out, and feels like it’s natural (-ish) coloring, I’m fine with it ( like Ashley’s shot here). This shot is of the flag on the golf course that we live on: Valencia.

One of my favorite things about photography ( besides DOF) is framing. I love finding cool ways to photograph things. Sometimes it takes thinking out of the box which doesn’t always happen especially if you’re shooting on the go.
SOOC.

4. WIND

That was easy. The day the scavenger hunt was announced, it was super windy. I mean like, hammocks flying everywhere, tree branches falling. Score!

And finally

This was my favorite theme this week. I love flashbacks. I have over 45000 photographs from the last 8-10 years ( literally) and I love sharing.
This was taken in the summer of 2002 when I first met my future husband. Look how young and cute we both are. We were so happy and in love ( and we still are, but a different kind of love, the kind that lasts). My best friend Elena (on the right) is now in Italy, happily married to a great Italian guy Max and we are here in US, ready to have our first baby :) It’s funny how life moves and changes.

GRAB OUR BUTTON:

<a border=”0″ href=”http://www.prebabyblog.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://prebabyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/banner-3.jpg” height=”150″ width=”150″ /></a>

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Please don’t foger to VOTE daily!

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 I used to be a crazy photographer. I have 45,000 pictures from the last 2-3 years and don’t even have a baby to photograph. This year I’ve slowed down with my picture-taking, so when I woke up after Thanksgiving ready to shoot something, it was an urge I could resist, to my husband’s chagrin. 

We got ready to go get some Black Friday shopping done, happened to put on matching outfits, and after a quick look in the mirror , I knew who my next photography victim was going to be. Since i stopped maniacally taking pictures, we haven’t taken any fun/good family photos in the past year. So I dragged A. around the house  like a mad woman armed with a tripod, a nifty-fifty and a Mark II. The result was a bit better than expected. 

Here are some of them: 

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I really do hope we end up having a daughter. There are so many fun things I can think of that we can do together. I adore little girls, precocious Tweens, unruly almost sexy teenage girls. There’s something about girlhood that just can’t be compared to anything else.
I wish to have a girl and to one day whip my hair with her like I did here with Gabby (my friend Leeka’s girl)

We whip our hair back and forth