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 This blog has been a bit slow lately, I admit, but there is a very good reason for that. For the past 2 weeks I have been busy working on my new separate photoblog, Selfie Magic. It is not a professional photography website, it’s simply a blog space where I can put all of my photos and participate in challenges and photo linkies without clogging up my main blog. I have always felt bad posting a lot of photos on The Art of Making a Baby, because it’s a baby blog and the goal of it was to journal my experience going through the pregnancy and pre-pregnancy progress, and turn it into a baby blog.

There is a catch though! My new photoblog has a very heavy self portraiture slant. I used to do self-portraits regularly being part of a Flickr selfie group, and stopped when I moved to NYC to pursue modeling. Hindsight being 20/20, that’s when I should have concentrating on photography because, to be honest, I’ve gone to some fabulous places and met lots of fabulous people. What stopped me was that you don’t really expect a NY model to be running around with a big heavy camera in her hands ( I did get to teach some photographers how to use their cameras LOL). So now I’d like to resume shooting self-portraits, not as many as before, but definitely make more effort that i have recently. I’ll be also posting a lot of non-selfies, so it’s not going to be all about me (Whew!)

The thing that I am excited about the most is the new weekly photo linky I’ll be hosting, called SELFIE SATURDAYS. It’s designed to help women learn to take good pictures of themselves and to break out of the box that most of us are currently in. I’ll be posting tips on how to shoot certain types of self-portraits weekly as well as setting a theme for each week to get our creative juices flowing.

You can participate in Selfie Saturdays in conjunction with or independent of our new GET FIT Challenge, though I would love for you to join in on it too.

I would really love for all of your to participate and to go over to Selfie Magic and start following it as well. If you’re using a feed reader, you can get  Selfie Magic feed here. If you prefer receiving updates in your email box, subscribe by email.

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Don’t forget to check out  our new GET FIT Challenge, and join if you haven’t already.

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Hello, world!

This week ( read: yesterday) I finally got enough time between everything that I am doing to participate in one of Ashley’s weekly challenges.
The prompts were: Texture, Fog, Button, Beverage, Seventeens. Really ordinary subjects and really challenging at the same time unless you’re content with simply taking a picture of the named items. Of course I am not. There is nothing more boring to me than shooting an item. Just an item without a cool angle, or interesting framing, or great outside-the-box idea.

So this week I decided to do a self-portrait twist on all of the prompts. Seeing as I am currently working on a challenge of my own that is going to be centered on taking self-portraits and will be hosting it on  a new photography focused blog ( coming soon). That means that soon I will have two blogs,  a personal one where I journal all my thoughts, events and our baby journey, and a photo blog where I will host challenges, participate in photo linkys and post anything and everything photography related.

So without further edo, i present to you the self-portrait version of this week’s Scavenger Hunt items ( all photos taken by me and have me in them)

1. TEXTURE

This was probably the most difficult to come up with, since texture is not something that you can turn into a creative selfie, unless you simply want to use texture in the post processing which seemed too easy.
Our driveway has the most amazing (sometimes mildew covered ) texture, worked perfectly.
Linking up with Shadow Shot Sunday

2. FOG

When I saw this item , I thought how on earth are we expected to take a picture of fog. First, I don’t get up nearly early enough; secondly, I live in Florida ( i don’t think I’ve seen much fog over the years, but that could be due to me being a late sleeper). So as I was standing in the shower contemplating this week’s items and how to take them, I saw fog enveloping me ( SCORE!). I ran out naked, cold and dripping, grabbed my camera and jumped back in. The sun shining through the window across from me and the steam rising from the hot shower were PERFECT. I did have to wipe the lens after every shot, but eventually I got enough to pick a winner.

3. BUTTON

Again, a seemingly boring subject. I had to spice it up. I remembered my favorite magnet was stashed away somewhere in the guest room ( our fridge is stainless steel and doesn’t hold magnets)- the PANIC BUTTON! I wish the picture could produce the sound that button makes when pressed.

4. BEVERAGE

I refused to take a picture of a beverage on its own. No! When I was over at my neighbor’s house I saw a pack of Kool-Aid sitting there and remembered reading somewhere that you can clean toilets with Kool-Aid. I don’t drink anything that is not natural ( my drink of choice is water, or tea), so I thought I’d be funny to document the horrible contents of Kool-Aid drink. You can see our tongues really show how “organic and natural” it is. NOT! What won’t I sacrifice for photography? Even my health. LOL

5. SEVENTIES

This was easy! I dug into my archive! About a year ago i did a shot that I named Flower Power. It doesn’t get more 70s than this.

And that’s it for today! Looking forward to the next one, where I will hopefully see you on my new photography oriented blog.

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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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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I absolutely adore light! I love flare! I love 5 pm on any given day because of the golden light it produces. I was taking a picture of my new drumset when the sun was just STREAMING through the window. Sun is LOVE and BEAUTY!

Also for the Touch Up Tuesday and Shutter Love, my last year’s Bubbles Photo. Do you know how FREAKING hard it is to shoot bubble self portraits??? It was probably one of the most challenging self-portraits I have ever done and that’s considering I’ve done blowing fans ( that’s tough too), Avatar/Na’vi, jump and clone self portraits. And I still have to say bubbles is a bitch when you’re shooting yourself, because of all the multitasking you have to do with the remote and blowing bubbles at the same time. This was the only accpetable shot out of hundreds. I didn’t help that I look like a moron blowing bubbles. haha!

SOOC
What I did was some split toning in Lightroom ( yellow on highlights and blue on shadows), brightened it up, upped saturation, added some clarity, and touched up the background to look slightly darker with the brush tool.

AFTER

I also loved this shot below so much that I combined the two, and I think it really improves both the photos.

The Final Product. I hate how when I post bigger photos, they go way outside of the area where they have to be. So I am forced to post small ones. I will be redesigning the template even more to fit larger photos, since this is turning into more of a photography blog than I thought.

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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Some people don’t know this about me, but I used to be a huge fan of a game called Rockband. If you have teenage kids, you know what it is, or if you’re a teenager at heart yourself, you will most likely know what it is, as well.
For those who are neither, it’s a “rhythm” game that simulates a rock band experience. You have a little 4 tom drum set, a fake guitar with 5 colored buttons and a similar bass, and a microphone.
When I first bought it, my German friend Felicitas was visiting, so her and I were the first ones to try it out and I have to say she was a great sport. We customized our characters to look like ourselves and went to town learning the ropes of Rockbanding. The way I ended up being the drummer was because after poor attempts of both my husband and Felicitas to keep up with the beat, I turned out to be the better of the three at learning the drums fast. And that’s where I stayed for the next year. I was quite good at drums, I have to say. It was sort of a natural thing for me. My arms just moved without my brain processing what I am supposed to do.
We had a blast learning the game that first day. We played from 4pm to 4 am non stop except for bathroom breaks, and the next morning, as I open my eyes at 10 am, I see Felicitas standing in my bedroom doorway, disheveled looking and tired from the lack of sleep. She looks at me with the look of a mad woman and asks “Do you want to play?”

I just close my eyes and nod not having the energy to utter a word.
And that was my introduction to Rockband. We spent the rest of her vacation here in Florida, locked up in my movie room playing Rockband and the last three days shooting a fake music video for our fake rock band that we named Sexy Zombie.

So that being said ( and shown), about a year later, I’m still a big fan of Rockband, and I am really good at my 4 tom drums, however the time has come to buy a REAL LIFE drumset.
What prompted me to do that is the release of Rockband 3, that is designed in a way where you can hook up real MIDI instruments to it and play the real drum/guitar/keyboard parts of any song you choose. You can also go into training mode and learn to play an instrument or a specific song if you’re already proficient. It’s basically a kick ass learning tool. They have also improved vocals, where besides it being more precise, you get pitch correction, vocal reduction and a pitch guide ( which is a life savior, if you’ve ever tried singing with one).
So I am super duper excited to finally play the real drums. I have relatively decent skills from months of playing rockband and now I’m moving onto the real thing.

The day the the drums arrived from Amazon.com, DH was out on an appointment and I had to wait for him to get home to assemble it.

Our movie/game room: I set the drums  up in the movie room where we play video games and watch movie, since I’ll be playing the drums along with Rockband 3 pretty often.

My 7.1 surround sound system, iPod dock, Wii, PS3 and 4 microphones.

I won’t be posting any videos of me playing until I get better at it and get all the right cables to hook it up to my sound system properly. But I’m sure some time in the future you will see me drumming away on here :)

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Please don’t forget to VOTE daily!

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Memories Dreams and Reflections 2010

This is my last photo list post. There have been too many already. I am going to write a lot more from now on. But I just couldn’t miss Ashley’s MDR project. So here we go.

1. Me!
   OK, I have a ton of pictures of myself. Not because I love myself ( not that I don’t). I have  a ton of pictures from the modeling days, but aside from that I used to be sort of a self portraiture “artist”. That’s how I got into photography.  I was my own test subject because…well, we don’t have kids, hubby doesn’t like being photographed and everyone else is just to hard to nail down on short notice. So I’d do 365 Self-portrait projects, and other team projects focused on self portraiture on Flickr, and that kind of stuck. I normally use a tripod and remote and set everything up myself. So for this, I wanted to use a more “normal” photo. Just a mirrored selfie while brushing my teeth LOL.    
2. I Love You - My goofy crazy hubby
   
3. Still Laughing… - My girlfriend and I were hanging out by a bar on Collins Ave in Miami, having fun and laughing when we were approached by a bunch of guys who were having a bachelor party. They wanted us to pose with them for a picture to make their wives/girlfriends jealous. We couldn’t say no!  
4. Winter Wonderland - that’s a toughie. It doesn’t snow in South Florida, so winter wonderland as a concept just doesn’t exist. But I do have a snowman that I put  out every Christmas that is the closest to that description 
5. Birthday - I’m a huge fan of bubble baths. So on an evening of my birthday i had a special rose petal bubble bath worked up for me by the hubby
   
6. Friends - I have A LOT of friends. Or more like a lot of groups of friends. I have friends in Russia, I have friends in Italy, friends all over the US, friends in Turkey, friends in Switzerland, friends in NYC and friends in Miami, friends all over the country. I didn’t have one picture that would contain all those friends. So I decided to post the latest picture I had.   These gorgeous girlies were with me for our New year celebration ( post coming up).  
7. I Was Inspired… - Avatar, the best movie of all times… I think I was actually inspired by one of the people in our Flickr community. Na’vi ROCK! I cannot post the before photo For Touch Up Tuesday since it was taken topless ( I was hoping to cover my boobs with the pattern..didn’t work out, so I drew a bra),  but here’s a tutorial on how to make one of your own. It’ very much time consuming, but well worth it.
    
8. Spring Fever - again no real seasons in Florida, but i think this photo taken at Universal represents Spring.  
9. Travel or Vacation - Ecuador. Our 7th anniversary trip. It was an amazing trip. I had been there twice before, but it was a first time for my husband. We had so much fun there and I am definitely going back with some girlfriends very soon 
10. Summer Days - That’s what they look like for me.  
11. A Day In My Life - This was relatively easy. I had done this photo for a Flick project. I had to take 1 photo every hour for 12 hours. And this is what I got. It pretty much represents most my days when I take it easy: party,brushing teeth, sleeping, waking up, computer time,bathroom (lol),waiting for hubby to get ready ( he’s the slowest person on earth), going to the pool, swimming, getting some work done, studying spanish, and a movie/show
    

      

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For I heart Faces Contest

Happy Birthday, America!

This photo was taken for the July 4th celebration of our country’s birthday in 2010. Self portrait, done as all other photos: with tripod and remote.

It probably doesn’t really stand a chance with all those cute kids’ faces (OMG, are all bloggers mother? lol), but I just really want to share this photo with you guys.

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Before I launch into my  New Year’s goals and wishes post, I’d like to look back onto 2010 in review and will be linking up with my own 2010 Recap Linky Party (open till January 6th, 2011). Feel free to follow suit and grab the 2010 Recap button:

GRAB OUR BUTTON:

<a href=”http://prebabyblog.com/2010/12/year-end-recap-2010-photo-linky/” mce_href=”http://prebabyblog.com/2010/12/year-end-recap-2010-photo-linky/” target=”_self”><img src=”http://prebabyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010recap.jpg” mce_src=”http://prebabyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010recap.jpg” alt=”" width=”150″ height=”150″ /></a>

 It’s a lot of fun seeing how fabulous your year REALLY was!

The year started fantastic for me and ended…well… blah. What that means for my next year, I have no idea, but here is a RECAP:

1. My first big accomplishment of 2010 was cleaning out and organizing our closets. The amount of clothes that was piled up on the floor was unimaginable-a foot or two of wrinkled,bunched up fabric ( actually here’s the picture so that you didn’t have to imagine it). It took me more than a week to get it in shape, but I can say this now: I have never kept my closet as organized as I have this year.  So here’s to organization and less messines!

2. Spanish: I finally got the determination to pick up Spanish again. I have a strong love for languages, but, like everyone, never have time to do much about it. Back in school and college, I used to love to study. So this time around, I had promised myself that I will  devote 1 hour each day to studying Spanish. It helped that we had planned a trip to Ecuador ( my 3rd trip) and I justreally wanted to communicate withthe wonderful help at the house and people out in the town. My husband isn’t really a language person. However, after about a month or two of helping him study (i can be a really good teacher) he turned into quite a student ( just shows you what determination can do even to people who claim they can’t do something). In addition to books, we would watch episodes of ” Sos Mi Vida” with Natalia   that I had ordered from some site that made pirated copies ( lol… that was the only way to get that show). We’d also speak to each other in Spanish ( DH grew up in Puerto Rico so he had a base as well).
By the end of the year we slacked off a bit, but not for the lack of desire but more for the madness that we call work during the holidays. I’m very proud of having been able to be so disciplined to study a seemingly unnecessary subject daily.

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There are very few things that I love more than lists, recaps and plans.  But New Year’s Resolutions are lame. Plans for the upcoming year do not need to be “resolutions”. No matter how “resolved” we are, life interferes. So I believe there’s no way to progress until you’ve reviewed your past events and achievements, lessons and struggles.
I choose to concentrate on the little “happinesses” that, depsite of how hard it seems,  are right there to be discovered. That being said, when I think back to 2010 I remember nothing but hard work and stress, but when I go to my photos tagged with 2010 I find so many fun memories and events. My point is we only remember either negative emotions or most recent events ( the last few months were pretty stressful and full of work for me).

So I want you all to take the time to look back at your photos throughout the year and share them with us.
 It can be a just a few photos from your favorite events, or a photo for each month of 2010. Take your time- the linky will be open for a week, so you’re free to post  well into 2011 :)

Re-live the joys of 2010!

DON’T FORGET TO GRAB OUR BUTTON TO ADD TO YOUR POST:

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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 :)