Seven Monthsary

 

Happy Seven month carly

 

 

My little one is seven month old today, thank GOD for the good health and for all the blessings she's a very healthy baby.

 

 

So I made seven cupcakes for her today with a minion character on it.(source:nerdy nummies)

 

 

 

 

I think she loves it,(carly:mommy is this all for me?can I have some?oh yeah I can put it in my mouth.)but before she put it her mouth mommy come to the rescue can't eat cupcake yet honey.

 

 

 

Oh no there's an icing on my fingers,I swear mom I d'dnt hide anything I just want to wipe it on my back lol. Its a big day for her doing all that stuff and picture taking of course that make her fall asleep afterwards.

 

 

Just wanna share my Little Pumpkin here, Thanks for the visit and have a nice day everyone.



Thanksgiving Cookies

Thanksgiving Day (Jour de l'Action de grâce in Canadian French) is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Thanksgiving has its historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, and has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.

 

Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times.^[2] The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.^[2][3]
In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number of religious holidays on the Catholic calendar. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work and sometimes pay for expensive celebrations. The 1536 reforms reduced the number of Church holidays to 27, but some Puritans, the radical reformers of their age, wished to completely eliminate all Church holidays, including Christmas and Easter. The holidays were to be replaced by specially called Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting. Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving. For example, Days of Fasting were called on account of drought in 1611, floods in 1613, and plagues in 1604 and 1622. Days of Thanksgiving were called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1705. An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into Guy Fawkes Day.^[4]

History

Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times.^[2] The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.^[2][3]
In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number of religious holidays on the Catholic calendar. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work and sometimes pay for expensive celebrations. The 1536 reforms reduced the number of Church holidays to 27, but some Puritans, the radical reformers of their age, wished to completely eliminate all Church holidays, including Christmas and Easter. The holidays were to be replaced by specially called Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting. Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving. For example, Days of Fasting were called on account of drought in 1611, floods in 1613, and plagues in 1604 and 1622. Days of Thanksgiving were called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1705. An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into Guy Fawkes Day.^[4]

In Canada

Main article: Thanksgiving (Canada)

While some researchers state that "there is no compelling narrative of the origins of the Canadian Thanksgiving day",^[5] the first Canadian Thanksgiving is often traced back to 1578 and the explorer Martin Frobisher. Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean, held his Thanksgiving celebration not for harvest but in thanks for surviving the long journey from England through the perils of storms and icebergs. On his third and final voyage to the far north, Frobisher held a formal ceremony in Frobisher Bay in Baffin Island (present-day Nunavut) to give thanks to God and in a service ministered by the preacher Robert Wolfall they celebrated Communion.^[6]

Oven roasted turkey

The origins of Canadian Thanksgiving are also sometimes traced to the French settlers who came to New France with explorer Samuel de Champlain in the early 17th century, who celebrated their successful harvests. The French settlers in the area typically had feasts at the end of the harvest season and continued throughout the winter season, even sharing food with the indigenous peoples of the area.^[7]
As settlers arrived in Canada from New England, late autumn Thanksgiving celebrations became common. New immigrants into the country, such as the Irish, Scottish and Germans, also added their own traditions to the harvest celebrations. Most of the U.S. aspects of Thanksgiving (such as the turkey), were incorporated when United Empire Loyalists began to flee from the United States during the American Revolution and settled in Canada.^[7]
Thanksgiving is now a statutory holiday in most jurisdictions of Canada, with the exception of the Atlantic provinces of Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.^[8]

In the United States

Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914)

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.^[9][10] According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.^[11] In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.^[12][13][14] The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.^[15]
Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,^[16] each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.^[17] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".^[18]
In modern times the President of the United States, in addition to issuing a proclamation, will "pardon" a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.^[19]

Debate about first celebrations in the United States

The traditional representation of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States has often been a subject of boosterism and debate, though the debate is often confused by mixing up the ideas of a Thanksgiving holiday celebration and a Thanksgiving religious service. According to author James Baker, this debate is a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense".^[9]

Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land.(Jeremy Bangs^[11])

These claims include an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony.^[20] Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida argue that the earliest Thanksgiving service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.^[21][22] A day for Thanksgiving services was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619.^[23]
According to Baker, "Historically, none of these had any influence over the evolution of the modern United States holiday. The American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence."^[9]

Fixing the date of the holiday

The reason for the earlier Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada has often been attributed to the earlier onset of winter in the north, thus ending the harvest season earlier.^[24] Thanksgiving in Canada did not have a fixed date until the late 19th century. Prior to Canadian Confederation, many of the individual colonial governors of the Canadian provinces had declared their own days of Thanksgiving. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving occurred on April 15, 1872,^[25] when the nation was celebrating the Prince of Wales' recovery from a serious illness.^[24] By the end of the 19th century, Thanksgiving Day was normally celebrated on November 6. However, when World War I ended, the Armistice Day holiday was usually held during the same week. To prevent the two holidays from clashing with one another, in 1957 the Canadian Parliament proclaimed Thanksgiving to be observed on its present date on the second Monday of October.^[7] Since 1971, when the American Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, the American observance of Columbus Day has coincided with the Canadian observance of Thanksgiving.^[26][27]
Much as in Canada, Thanksgiving in the United States was observed on various dates throughout history. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date Thanksgiving was observed varied from state to state. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century. Thanksgiving was first celebrated on the same date by all states in 1863 by a presidential proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. Influenced by the campaigning of author Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote letters to politicians for around 40 years trying to make it an official holiday, Lincoln proclaimed the date to be the final Thursday in November in an attempt to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states.^[28] Because of the ongoing Civil War and the Confederate States of America's refusal to recognize Lincoln's authority, a nationwide Thanksgiving date was not realized until Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s.
On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost.(source:wikipedia-Thanksgiving)

 

 

Here's the thanksgiving cookies that I made for thanksgiving its made of oreo cookies and candy corns inspired by tot mama.She made all this beautiful turkey cookies tutorial online and I tried it at home.Everybody loves them its like an army of turkeys.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

 

 

 



 

Cake Decorating techniques

Cake decorating is art that is performed in places all over the world. That is why contests and baking show competitions are very popular, especially in the Western World. Cake decorating is one of the sugar arts that uses icing or frosting and other edible decorative elements to make plain cakes more visually interesting. Alternatively, cakes can be molded and sculpted to resemble three-dimensional persons, places and things.
In many areas of the world, decorated cakes are often a focal point of a special celebration (such as a birthday, graduation, bridal shower, wedding, or anniversary), or are given as gifts. They can also mark national or religious holidays, or be used to promote commercial enterprises.  

Cake Themes

There are many themes of cakes, such as wedding cakes, birthday cakes, seasons, and holidays. Cakes may be baked and decorated for almost any social occasion.



Cake decorating as an art



Decorating a cake usually involves covering a cake with some form of icing and then using decorative sugars, candies, chocolate or icing decorations to embellish the cake. But it can also be as simple as sprinkling a fine coat of icing sugar or drizzling a glossy blanket of glaze over the top of a cake. Icing decorations can be made by either piping icing flowers and decorative borders or by molding gum paste, fondant, or marzipan flowers and figures. Fondant allows the baker to express creativity in baking. Fondant exists in many different colors, and its initial form is soft and easy to handle. In this form, cake decorators are able to mold fondant into many different artistic expressions. Many of these art expressions are also taught in professional cake decorating class. Fondant is primarily used to cover cakes but is also used to create individual show pieces for cakes. Gumpaste is a substance used in cake decorating to create flower decorations. Royal Icing is a sweet white icing made by whipping fresh egg whites (or powdered egg whites, meringue powder) with icing sugar.^[2] Royal icing produces well-defined icing edges and is ideal for piping intricate writing, borders, scrollwork and lacework on cakes. It dries very hard and preserves indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but is susceptible to soften and wilt in high humidity. Marzipan is often used for modeling cake decorations and as a base covering underneath fondant.^[2] Professional institutes, such as the London Culinary Institute and Le Cordon Bleu, have begun segregating their cookery schools to create completely separate institutes, dedicated to cake making.(source:wikipedia-cake decorating)

Last week my friend ask me to bake a cake with decoration on it for her friends kids birthday (I said uh oh I will try but I'm not good at it especially the decoration)

I came up with this decoration that I pulled online. It might not be the best but its not bad. Do you know the feeling of doing things for the first time and scared that you will screw it up coz there's no spare ingredients to do it again? whew thank goodness it turned out good, thank you so much to the owner of sweetartfactory.com for a beautiful decorating techniques. I did it myself and it was pretty simple and easy.

 

I'm glad that the celebrant like it so much and I'm not screwed lol.

 

 

 

Here's some cupcake design that I made too, I made this when my husband ask me to make something that is Italian to take to the potluck party at his work coz everybody has to bring Italian food, so I came up with this, cupcake with Italian flag icing on it.(ha ha is that Italian enough )lol.

 

 THANKS FOR THE VISIT!

 

 

 

 

 



Christmas Lights

Christmas lights are lights used for decoration around Christmas. The custom goes back to the use of candles to decorate the Christmas tree in upper-class homes in 18th-century Germany. Christmas trees displayed publicly and illuminated with electric lights became popular in the early 20th century. By the mid-20th century, it became customary to display strings of electric lights as along streets and on buildings Christmas decorations detached from the Christmas tree itself. In the United States, it became popular to outline private homes with such Christmas lights in tract housing beginning in the 1960s. By the late 20th century, the custom had also been adopted in non-western countries, notably in Japan.

 

The Christmas tree was adopted in upper-class homes in 18th-century Germany, where it was occasionally decorated with candles, which at the time was a comparatively expensive light source. Candles for the tree were glued with melted wax to a tree branch or attached by pins. Around 1890, candleholders were first used for Christmas candles. Between 1902 and 1914, small lanterns and glass balls to hold the candles started to be used. Early electric Christmas lights were introduced with electrification, beginning in the 1880s.(source:wikipedia-christmas)

 

 

I just finished putting up my Christmas lights today on the bush outside my house.

 

 

 

This is how it turned out. Its not very fancy but I think its pretty cool. We are the first ones who put up lights in our neighborhood. Others are waiting for Thanksgiving before they put up theirs. I'm just so excited decorating my house, so now I'm ready for Christmas.

 

HOW ABOUT YOU GUYS, DID YOU DECORATE YOUR HOUSE YET?



snow..snow..snow..

Who Love's Snow?

Snow is made from big purple clouds and when it falls it falls hard like bubble gum precipitation in the form of flakes of crystalline water ice that falls from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless subjected to external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Types that fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing, rather than a flake, are known as hail, ice pellets or snow grains.
The process of precipitating snow is called snowfall. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward movement of air around a type of low-pressure system known as an extratropical cyclone. Snow can fall poleward of these systems' associated warm fronts and within their comma head precipitation patterns (called such due to the comma-like shape of the cloud and precipitation pattern around the poleward and west sides of extratropical cyclones). Where relatively warm water bodies are present, for example because of water evaporation from lakes, lake-effect snowfall becomes a concern downwind of the warm lakes within the cold cyclonic flow around the backside of extratropical cyclones. Lake-effect snowfall can be heavy locally. Thundersnow is possible within a cyclone's comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy snow is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, if the atmosphere is cold enough. Snowfall amount and its related liquid equivalent precipitation amount are measured using a variety of different rain gauges.
 Once on the ground, snow can be categorized as powdery when light and fluffy, fresh when recent but heavier, granular when it begins the cycle of melting and refreezing, and eventually ice once it comes down, after multiple melting and refreezing cycles, into a dense mass called snow pack. When powdery, snow moves with the wind from the location where it originally landed, forming deposits called snowdrifts that may have a depth of several meters. After attaching itself to hillsides, blown snow can evolve into a snow slab—an avalanche hazard on steep slopes. The existence of a snowpack keeps temperatures lower than they would be otherwise, as the whiteness of the snow reflects most sunlight, and any absorbed heat goes into melting the snow rather than increasing its temperature. The water equivalent of snowfall is measured to monitor how much liquid is available to flood rivers from meltwater that will occur during the following spring. Snow cover can protect crops from extreme cold. If snowfall stays on the ground for a series of years uninterrupted, the snowpack develops into a mass of ice called glacier. Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between snowflakes attenuates vibration. These acoustic qualities quickly minimize and reverse, once a layer of freezing rain falls on top of snow cover. Walking across snowfall produces a squeaking sound at low temperatures.
The energy balance of the snowpack itself is dictated by several heat exchange processes. The snowpack absorbs solar shortwave radiation that is partially blocked by cloud cover and reflected by snow surface. A long-wave heat exchange takes place between the snowpack and its surrounding environment that includes overlying air mass, tree cover and clouds. Heat exchange takes place by convection between the snowpack and the overlaying air mass, and it is governed by the temperature gradient and wind speed. Moisture exchange between the snowpack and the overlying air mass is accompanied by latent heat transfer that is influenced by vapor pressure gradient and air wind. Rain on snow can add significant amounts of thermal energy to the snowpack. A generally insignificant heat exchange takes place by conduction between the snowpack and the ground. The small temperature change from before to after a snowfall is a result of the heat transfer between the snowpack and the air.^[1] As snow degrades, its surface can develop characteristic ablation textures such as suncups or penitentes.
The term snow storm can describe a heavy snowfall, while a blizzard involves snow and wind, obscuring visibility. Snow shower is a term for an intermittent snowfall, while flurry is used for very light, brief snowfalls. Snow can fall more than a meter at a time during a single storm in flat areas, and meters at a time in rugged terrain, such as mountains. When snow falls in significant quantities, travel by foot, car, airplane and other means becomes severely restricted, but other methods of mobility become possible, such as the use of snowmobiles, snowshoes and skis. When heavy snow occurs early in the fall (or, on rarer occasions, late in the spring), significant damage can occur to trees still in leaf. Areas with significant snow each year can store the winter snow within an ice house, which can be used to cool structures during the following summer. A variation on snow has been observed on Venus, though composed of metallic compounds and occurring at a substantially higher temperature.(source:wikipedia-snow)

 

 

 

Here's our first snow of the year, isn't that pretty? but boy it is very cold so take out all your winter clothes and bundled up.

 

 

 

 

My little one first experience on the snow, hhmm I don't think she like it.(mommy what is this aaahhh very cold lol.)I let her try to make snow angel :)

 

 

 

It was a fun day for me and especially to my little one to let her experience  her first snow ever, I just cant pass not to take her out that day and enjoy it coz in the later afternoon the snow melts down. I'm just glad I took a bunch of pictures before it melts down although she don't like it on the first time but eventually she will get use to it coz I'm sure there is more coming up in this winter season. Thanks everyone for the visit! Have a nice day.



Carly's Milestone



It was six month ago when I had my baby. I cant imagine how the days go so fast.

 

Here she is when she was a MONTH old.

 

TWO MONTHS, Look so serious.

 

Very smiley when she was THREE MONTHS

 

FOUR MONTHS, Found her tongue
She likes to stick her tongue out at this time.
 



FIVE MONTHS, This time she found her feet
She likes to play with her feet and use it as a pacifier sometime ha ha.

 

 

Now she's SIX MONTHS and counting, She look so big already. Its so neat to see how she changes every month and notice the things that she learned. This time she love screaming its so cute she make us laugh all the time, She's a happy baby and very friendly she just use her killer smile to capture peoples heart which is adorable coz at her young age she already had sense of humor that makes mommy proud. I Love You Baby Carly, You are so precious to me!

 



      

Trick Or Treat....

Trick-or-treating or guising is a customary practice for children on Halloween in many countries. Children in costumes travel from house to house in order to ask for treats such as candy (or, in some cultures, money) with the question "Trick or treat?". The "trick" is a (usually idle) threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given to them. In North America, trick-or-treating has been a customary Halloween tradition since the late 1940s. It typically happens on October 31,^[1] although some municipalities choose other dates.^[2] Homeowners wishing to participate in it sometimes decorate their private entrances with artificial spider webs, plastic skeletons and jack-o-lanterns. Some rather reluctant homeowners would simply leave the candy in bowls on the porch, others might be more participative and would even ask an effort from the children in order to provide them with candy. In the more recent years, however, the practice has spread to almost any house within a neighborhood being visited by children, including senior residences and condominiums.
The tradition of going from door to door receiving food already existed in Great Britain and Ireland in the form of "souling", where children and poor people would sing and say prayers for the dead in return for cakes.^[3] Guising—children disguised in costumes going from door to door for food and coins—also predates trick or treat, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.^[4] While going from door to door in disguise has remained popular among Scots and Irish, the custom of saying "trick or treat" has recently become common. The activity is prevalent in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Puerto Rico, and northwestern and central Mexico. In the latter, this practice is called calaverita (Spanish for "little skull"), and instead of "trick or treat", the children ask ¿me da mi calaverita? ("can you give me my little skull?"); where a calaverita is a small skull made of sugar or chocolate.



 

History

 

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain,^[3] although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.^[5] Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas."^[6] The custom of wearing costumes and masks at Halloween goes back to Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, in Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.^[7][8]
Guising at Halloween in Scotland is recorded in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.^[4] The practice of Guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.^[9]
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America";

 

 

Its an awesome experience along with my friends went trick or treating yesterday with our little one for the first time. Even it was raining go girls get some candy......



 

Here's some goodies that I made for Halloween. Cupcakes with spider decoration on it, pumpkin cupcakes and a cupcake with eye balls, and rice crispies.

 

 



 

It was a fun evening indeed celebrating with my lovely friends...

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!