I would like to think that I'm starting the year right now that I'll be listing down goals at the start of the year.  2015 had been a great year both for my offline and online lives.  Who wouldn't want the good vibes to continue right?  I do, I do, I do, thank you very much!  Looking back at last year, the things I did right should be continued such as starting the year with goals setting, engaging more with my readers via social media, sticking to my blog's purpose and not lose that voice, and by being consistent.

But apart from this, I believe that there's still a big room for improvement for my online home.  I aim to achieve these goals within the year, so help me God. :)  Honestly speaking, I've been lurking my other blogger friends' online homes.  Their posts interest me and I take careful notice at how they tell their stories, the style of their writing, the emotions of the post, how their readers leave them thoughtful blog comments, and how their posts affect me.  Deep inside me is an itsy-bitsy feeling of insecurity and I tell myself "Damn, they're really good!"  I turn this small insecurity into an inspiration rather.  I learn from them, like how others say they learn from me, and I pick up their successful methods to apply it on my blog.  With this inspiration coming from that little insecurity, I came up with goals and I want to share them with you.

BLOG REDESIGN
I've been wanting to redesign the blog since last year but last year was way to busy for me and the designer I wish to tap to help me also had a full schedule (she's got so many clients, that's how good she is!), the revamp has to take a back seat.  This time, I want to make use of my favorite colors which are Navy Blue, White, and Gold.  I'm digging a calligrapher's take on my Mommy Practicality logo.  The over-all theme or feel of the blog should be relaxing, serene, cool to the eyes, with a little sense of sophistication but still look practical.  You get it?  I think I could better explain this with a mood board, which I have yet to complete in the coming days.

BLOG SERIES
I started my Practical Fashion (where I feature what I wear, my OOTDs actually and the brands of my clothes) and Practical Finds (could be any purchase outside clothes that I find really practical or actually my shopping finds) back when I was still starting.  In 2013 I think I also started my Dear Mommy Practicality segment where I feature situations of my letter-senders who need advice from me.  It was well-received by then and somewhere in 2014, when I started accepting partnerships from brands and sponsored posts became more frequent, there were lesser blog series posts.  Which now brings me to the next goal...

MORE CONSISTENT PERSONAL POSTS
As mentioned above, since I began monetizing my blog, which I am forever grateful for for helping the family financially, I admit to having lesser personal posts.  I am guilty about it because I don't want to lose the very connection I have with my readers from the time I was still starting.  Most of my personal posts are about my reflections as a mom or a woman, my children and parenting style, life events, lessons learned after going through a challenging life event, my relationship insights or learning with Macky which I now could branch out to married life with Macky, experiences being a single mom and how everyone deserves second chances.  I want to write more of that once more and I intend to do so this 2016.

TAKE BETTER PICTURES
I love being in photos and taking them as well.  I kinda paused posing for photos when I started gaining weight in 2013-2014.  I guess that's also the reason why I posted less of my #OOTDs and stopped my Practical Fashion blog series.  But, I worked on taking good photos, but I want to be better this time at taking them.  In my quest to take better photos for the blog after learning a lot from the blog workshops I attended in the past, I had bought three cameras already.  I think I have to learn how to set my camera manually and understand these terminologies (and how they work) better: ISOs, Aperture, Shutter Speed, Exposure, and many more.

START VLOGGING
I do have a YouTube channel, which I use to post my personal videos online.  These are mostly videos of my children singing or dancing.  Seldom will anyone see me on the videos talking or narrating or teaching something, but singing, yes there are a couple on my channel.  I was even approached to partner with a digital company that may help me monetize my YouTube videos, but I declined because shooting is tedious for me.  Creating a video (which should be informational or inspirational) would take an amount of time to produce.  I don't want it a puchu-puchu video just so I have a regular content.  I want my videos to be an extension of the blog.  So until right now, I'm still contemplating as to the niche and possible contents for my videos.  I admit to not being shy about this (I've been doing TVCs kasi and experienced playing lead roles in theater back in college), so being in videos would be something I'd be comfortable.  But the actual doing and producing and editing it, are things that hold me back.  Given this, and given the rise of Snapchat, I could see myself starting with that first.  Why start video-blogging/Vlogging?  Because, it's where blogging is transitioning.  It was also a forecast of digital media experts back in 2013 (when I attended IMMAP) that videos will be the next content that people online will crave for. It takes lesser time for people to consume the content, plus anything visual attracts the consumers.  I couldn't agree more.

BLOG GIVEAWAYS
In 2015, I think I only had four giveaways.  I used to be fairly generous in my giveaways because a lot of sponsors approach me for their products to be given away through my blog.  But seriously it gets pretty tiring especially that I work full-time and that I had to send several prizes to several winners and had to shoulder the courier expenses.  Plus, I also noticed, that most of my winners are professional contest joiners, which I am not really sure if they are my loyal readers.  I get high engagement during the giveaway, but most of them are gone when the giveaway ends.  Sadly it happens not only to me but to my other fellow bloggers.

But don't get me wrong, I still want to host giveaways, but with better mechanics which will award deserving winners.  I want to actually know who are my loyal readers and reward them fairly through my blog giveaway.  This year, I hope to come up with a better giveaway mechanics.

INCREASE ENGAGEMENT ONLINE
Ask any blogger if social media presence is important to them and mostly will say yes.  Social media is like an extension of the blog.  It's where you extend your blog and promote your new posts.  It's not enough to write, you have to let your network know that you have a fresh content through social media.  It's hard enough to build a following on social media, but it's harder to get your followers engaged.  By engaged I mean commenting on your posts or sharing your content to their network.  The true measure of success on social media is not the number of likes or followers, it's the amount of engagement you have with them.  This year, I plan to work hard on increasing my engagement with my followers on my social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  How?  I should do more research, follow the successes of my mentors, do one-on-one coaching, and attend workshops to address this.

COFFEE MEET-UPS OR OFFLINE EVENTS

I may be five days late from greeting everyone of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR, but late's always better than never.  But then again, being late is unforgivable right?  So that's one of my NY's goals, to avoid being late.  Anyway, due to my current situation at home, sick husband, demanding children, the slight pregnancy discomforts (aka laziness), I just got to open my laptop and write just now.

So let me start by asking, how was your 2015 loves?  Was it great?  Was it challenging?  Was it a year that you'd want to forget or keep as a standard to living the rest of the years you have?

Mine was pretty awesome, especially compared to my 2014 (when my mom passed away).  There were a lot of life, blog, and even career high moments that happened in 2015.  For that, I'm very thankful.  My relationship with Macky was also elevated of course to a super duper higher level, but we've had a major challenge as well.  With all these, there were lessons learned and insights gained.  I want to share them with you in this blog post, so expect this will be a long one.  If you don't get to finish reading until the end, it's okay, I would understand.  I just want to document what I'm thankful for in my year 2015 and my hopes for the new year.  Are you ready?

Here goes...

The Pope Experience
My 2015 was a roller coaster ride but mostly the ride was going up than dipping down.  In January, my year was instantly blessed by being able to see Pope Francis up close and personal during his visit to the Philippines.  We waited along Nagtahan Bridge for more than an hour and it all paid off.

The video of our close encounter with the #DearPopeFrancis earlier this morning at Nagtahan Bridge. It was a humbling and indescribable feeling to actually see him up close. We all so feel blessed to be able to get a short but meaningful glimpse of the Pope. #PopeFrancisPH #PopeTYSM

A video posted by Louise Fandiño-Santos (@mommypracticality) on Jan 15, 2015 at 11:39pm PST

Job Promotion 
Last 2014, I was awarded as the team's Specialist of the Year.  My promotion or upgrade came after that.  My performance allowance was also extended which financially helped our family a lot.  I know there are also other teammates who deserve the recognition and allowance, but this blessing was given to me and the family and I'm really overwhelmed and happy about it.  I made sure I put this to good use by organizing two outreach programs this year involving Macky and our kids during their birthdays.  I hope we instill the value of work discipline, of being selfless when you receive more than what you asked for, the compassion for others in need, and the heart to help the unfortunate.

The Brand New Family Car
It was a dream to finally purchase a brand new car for the family.  We prioritized renovating the house in 2012 to accommodate the growing family.  After paying off our loan, we intended to get an economical family car.  By economical, we meant a big enough car, like a 7-seater one, but which is gasoline efficient, a 1.3L would do for us.  Finally, March 27 came and we were able to cross one of our dreams in our family dream list.

The Proposal

A photo posted by Louise Fandiño-Santos (@mommypracticality) on Mar 28, 2015 at 7:04am PDT

We took the car break-in the following day when we used use going to our planned barkada family-outing in Baras, Rizal.  Little did I know, Macky was already preparing his wedding proposal a month before the outing.  I was totally clueless that he would actually do the production, from background music, fireworks, sparklers, lights, the plot, and the ring of course.  I was speechless and majorly overwhelmed by everything he did that night.  Of course I said YES!

TV5 Happy Wife Happy Life Episode Guesting
I was surprised when TV5 contacted me around April to ask if they may interview me as a resource speaker for the topic "Internet Safety".  It was a surreal moment when the whole production crew went to our house for their location shoot with Ms. Danica Sotto-Pingris.

Wilkins Distilled Drinking Water Digital Ambassador Project

In April, I was contacted by the agency of Wilkins for a one-year Digital Ambassadorship with the brand I truly use and trust.  I was one of the three bloggers to represent their brand digitally and it was an honor to be part of this project.  This launched my fifth TV commercial, but this time using my real name, as Tita Louise.  I shot the commercial with my bloggy friends Jackie of gojackiego.com and Ginger of mommyginger.com.

Del Monte Pineapples Digital Ambassador Project
I'm happy and proud to be part of one of the brands closest to my heart, Del Monte.  I, together with Glaiza of moomymusings.com, was approached by the brand last August to represent Del Monte Pineapple to their mommy target market.  It was indeed a humbling honor to be part of the #DelMontePineappleADay campaign because I love pineapples and my kids do too!  We consume it, we love it, and I could go on talking about benefits of it.  We've had two major event launches for this campaign already and shall continue early this year.

#MackyLouiseFinally - My Practical Rustic Themed Wedding

Finally, I married my best friend, my soulmate, my band mate, my (monkey) business partner, and the love of my life on November 28, 2015.  The intimate wedding of 70 pax attendance took place in Antipolo, quite a remote area from where we reside.  It was a simple, well-planned (by me!) and well-executed (thanks to all my suppliers) life event where we also did some DIYs!  It was a dream wedding where our union was witnessed by the people whom we only want to be there, no pressures from both sides.  I remember how beautifully the sun was shining that day for our garden wedding.  Everything went smoothly.  More than us as a couple being happy and feeling accomplished, we felt the joy and pride in our children's eyes.  We also felt the sigh of "finally" from our parents.  To us, those were the moments most precious to us.  We feel very blessed.

Baby Number 3

A photo posted by Louise Fandiño-Santos (@mommypracticality) on Dec 20, 2015 at 11:20pm PST

Life has its way to surprise us in so many ways!  We thank God for blessing us with a third child.  We really wanted one, we've been planning to have one since last year but I guess God said it wasn't time and made us wait.  The wait was worth it and having this new fast-growing bundle of joy inside me is the best gift we've received this year.  More than anything, the car, the major blog milestones, the wedding, having been chosen by God to be a mother of another child and be responsible for raising him (hoping it's a baby girl), is humbling.  Of many trying mothers and fathers, we were chosen to receive this miracle.  Indeed the best thing that happened to us this year.  We're praying it's a baby girl this time, but if not, it's okay as long as it's normal and healthy.

This rounds up my happy 2015.  I'm thankful for a beautiful year that God has blessed our family with.  There were some bumps along the way, it was all glittery and colorful.  But I'd rather not write that but instead make them my life reminders and lessons so I could pursue doing better and choosing what's right.

To summarize my 2015 learning, here they are:

1. Put God first and trust Him in everything.
2. Prioritize your family.
3. Learn to say no.
4. Nothing is permanent.
5. Compete not with others but with yourself.
6. Fulfill your commitments.
7. Pursue your passion and devote some time.
8. Sometimes we have to let go of some people in our lives.
9. Be charitable.
10. Teach your children by example.

Christmas day may be over but definitely not the feeling of giving, being kinder, and most especially of love for family and friends.  I still have a hangover from our last family reunion when Daddy, my brothers and I, and each of our children gathered and bonded over loads of food, storytelling, playing, and gift giving.  Christmas is all about spending precious time with your loved ones, the family.

First, let me talk about our Christmas lunch.  We usually have a pot luck so it's more economical plus every family gets to bring their specialty food.  Of course as I've shared in my previous blog posts, I always prepare special and creamy macaroni salad made with Lady’s Choice Real Mayo which makes every reunion and gathering more special.

Dad and us his children, missing in the photo is my brother from SG.

The whole family

Wacky pose just like how mommy would instruct us to pose for the camera

My eldest brother in Johnly, with his family

Daddy with our growing family.  That's Macky, me, Dandre, Wes, and Baby Tummy

The youngest brother with his son.

Daddy and his grandchildren.

One more wacky pose kids!

We get to see each other oftentimes in a year, whether there's a special occasion or none.  But the bonding and celebration is different when it's Christmas.  Iba ang feeling kapag Christmas.  It's a reason not only to celebrate our togetherness but more importantly the birth of Jesus Christ.  The main reason why we celebrate this season.  It's when God ultimately showed His love for us, when He gave His only son Jesus Christ.  This love is what we should share with one another.  The love we should be sharing not just with our family, our close circle, but most importantly with others who are less fortunate than us.  For me, LOVE is the true meaning of Christmas, to share it, to give it.

Pamilya Santos in matching Maroon and Navy Blue hues.

Color-coordinated during the holidays.

Wacky!!!

One of the most memorable and prettiest blog gatherings I attend year after year, is the one with my Make It Blissful (MIB) family, the Blissmakers.  I always look forward to attending an MIB event, because it's guaranteed fun, inspiring, pretty, positive, and joyful.
Last month, during the busiest days of my life, the Blissmakers gathered for an event in partnership with Luminisce.  I almost didn't make it, but I'm glad my supportive husband, pushed all our schedule for that day, to a day earlier so that I could attend.  Our schedule was crazy during those days because of our wedding preparations.  The event happened exactly a week before the wedding.

Source

Did you ever believe in Santa Claus when you were younger?  Do you remember the sleepless nights as you anticipate for the Christmas season to begin so you could start writing your wishlist to Santa and hang your stockings by the door?  Do you recall the times when you rush to your stockings to see what treats Santa left for you in the morning as soon as you wake up?  I did and the feeling was awesome.

I remember how exciting Christmas season was for me when I was younger.  The cool breeze, the Christmas carols I hear everyday, the parol, lights and other decors which people start to hang by their homes, and the small and simple Christmas Tree we had at home all made my Christmases merry and exciting.

I believed in Santa Claus and he made my Christmases magical when I was younger.  But not until when at the age of six or seven I discovered that he wasn't real.  How?  I saw Mom and Dad wrap a special gift and hid it on the top of their closet.  I was a very curious child, so I reached for it and saw my name written on it.  The gift was for me, from Santa it read.  But how?  I saw my parents wrapped it.  When I asked them about it, they told me the truth.  My Christmases after that year weren't the same.

Now I'm a mom myself.  I made sure I didn't make the same mistake of spoiling the Christmas spirit and magic of Santa Claus for my children.  I even wrote about How To Make Children Believe In Santa Claus in one of my blog entries, which lists all the things I do for my children.  I am still doing them up until this day for my two children.  Here were some of Santa's gifts to them:

Hello loves!  It's rather late to greet you all, but here it goes, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

From our still growing family to yours, we wish that you all had a memorable, meaningful, and happy Christmases together with your loved ones.   

I just recently turned a year older the other day.  I'm already 37 and like most women, aminin natin loves, we get really conscious about our appearances, most especially the condition of our skin.  I have been taught at an early age by my mom how important skin care is.  I didn't take her skincare tips seriously until I turned 30.  That's the only time I started religiously doing the three-step skincare regimen which are to: Cleanse, Tone, and Moisturize.

Knowing how my skin reacts to other products, I'm very particular with my choice of cleanser.  One it has to be hiyang to my face, meaning, it doesn't contain irritants that may worsen my skin condition.  I have a combination type of skin by the way.  Second, my cleanser should be able to cleanse thoroughly and remove excess oils and dirt without leaving the skin dry that it becomes too tight to smile.  These are my requirements because, I don't want to have breakouts, which I usually experience with wrong cleanser choices.

Buti na lang, I recently discovered Myra VitaSmooth Facial Wash & Myra VitaWhite Facial Wash which are multi-benefit products and will be the only facial wash in the market that has Vitamin E beads to work its magic in cleansing the skin making it healthy and nourished without leaving it dry.  These are the exact formula my combi skin needs.

It's just a few days before Christmas loves.  I’m sure most of you who are working had most probably saved your vacation leaves to use them this holiday for that much-awaited vacation, right?  If only I had some more left, I would have done that too, like how I used to do in the past years.  But unfortunately for me, I have used up all my leaves for family getaways.