GT - All Time Favorite

Sorry for the late submission of this entry. Anyway, my most favorite book/s would have to be Lord of the Rings series! I finished three titles in less than a week, that’s how addicting these books were for me. I just can’t wait to see the ending that I finished one book after another. I know that some people find it hard to digest Tolkien writing because it’s just too complicated or too deep for some but I fell in love with how he developed each and every character in the book, how things unfolded in each and every chapter. It was captivating! I remember reading Tolkien even at night with flashlight in hand after mom announced lights out already (yes, I was still young and bid mom’s rules at the time I read Tolkien, way before they thought of making the movie). 

When the movie came out and with all the gorgeous guys playing Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir and with Enya’s single as theme song, PERFECT movie for me! lol.

I got so hooked with Tolkien that I read even his other titles like Sirmarillion, The Hobbit, The Shaping of Middle Earth, etc. and his biography. I was in love for Tolkien for a looong time J

Mommy Moments - Before and After

Sam at his christening, barely 5 months old. Very much a baby with the skin allergies 

 Sam at 1 year and 6months. Thank God he outgrew those allergies when he turned one year old. He has a personality all his own now :)

Sophie at 8 months. Toothless and with very thin hair

Sophie now. This was taken last weekend when we attended a birthday party. How much she has grown up, soon she will enter school *sniff*

As a mom, we both feel proud and nostalgic as we watch our children grow up into their own individual selves. I just always pray that God bless them and provide them protection every single day *sniff again*.

My entry for:

O Christmas Tree!*

With a rather tight budget and a tighter space at home, I opted to make a small Christmas tree. I have been musing over what design style to incorporate for our decors this holiday season and I said I wanted a pink and silver Christmas tree here. But when I got to Landmark Trinoma last Saturday and was looking over the decors I thought, pink and silver would look boring with so much color options this year! So I decided to add more colors like purple, magenta, royal blue and metallic green. This is my inspiration: Moroccan-inspired colors, the color of jewels, bold, bright, exotic and exciting!

Here is my Christmas tree during it's production period:

First, I wrapped a cone-shaped chicken wire (yes, chicken wire you normally use to decorate outdoors) with glittered cartolina paper (body) and newspaper (bottom).  Initially, the paper craft was not part of the idea but not covering the chicken wire will make the tree more expensive because I have to cover up so much wire. Then, painted the newspaper pink and added christmas greetings and random paintwork on the paper. I used poster color so it's water-based and not flammable. Paint job c/o Sophie and me :)

Then, I added the lights and green garland and the decors, in that specific order.  I used a combination of purple, different shades of pink, silver and added royal blue and green highlights.

Perched it on the white table that I repainted last month to see how it looks. I added cream sequins from my craft box to add glitter especially when lighted. It's still a work in progress by Saturday. Initial cost of this tree with decors is P1,000. 

Yesterday, I went to SM The Block to buy baking chocolates and orange sugar for our community's Trick or Treat party on Saturday and chanced upon their Christmas decor. I bought teal, metallic green and more deep purple decors to add depth and highlight to my tree. This is how it looks this morning :

A little improvement, don't you think? Notice Sophie's red ball is on it too while Sam's glittered ball is inside the glass vase beside the tree naman :)

closer look at the tree. i like that the paintwork still shows somehow :)

To incorporate the theme around the house I added these small decors. Again, I recycled last year's red and gold decors and used them with my new decors. The angel and string of stars are old while the green and blue balls are new. This now hangs over my kitchen sink. 

Silver, purple and green decors on a black vase. The vase and colored glass mosaic candle holder I bought when I was still single at a bazaar.

It's a little avant-garde but I like how it turned out so far and it's been getting quite nice reviews from visitors :)

Materials Used/Cost:
Chicken wire tree, 3ft - Landmark dept. store, about P 150.00
purple, pink, silver glittered flowers - Landmark dept. store - price ranges from P29.00 to P69.00 each
blue and green balls - Landmark dept. store - less than a hundred for a set of six
indoor light - Landmark dept. store - P 169.00
green garland (no wire) - Landmark dept. store - P160.00
green butterfly/purple flower/blue - The Block Supermarket - price range P39 to P49.00
angel decor/star string - Tutuban mall, Divisoria 




* O Christmas Tree! is a old German carol.

Kids' November Calendar

I found two interesting activities from Clickthecity.com to add to my kids' November calendar :

This is a play for kids of all ages. It's gonna be held at CCP Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theatre). For more details on the gist, click here. 

Back in high school, the very timid and insecure me was introduced to theater arts. I guess my mom practically pushed me to the performing arts because she knew how much I needed it. I used to stutter and shy away when facing a big crowd. Then I was hooked to theater. This medium has helped me develop my confidence, widened my perspective on life even as a teenager (from studying diff. characters) and gave the kind of maturity that helps me even until now. Although I still get scared during big office presentations but at least I learned a trick or two from theater on how to deal with this. Notice how much theater actors have so much passion and have strong personalities? Being in the arts does that for them. So I hope I can also convince Sophie or Sam to try performing arts that's why I'm thinking of introducing them to it at an early age.

Here's another nice go-to for the kids. Toy Story Toy Caravan at SM Malls :) Sophie and Sam love the series of Toy Story, I was even surprised that an 18month old laughs at the funny parts of this movie. Does he really understand the plot? Anyway, they have so many nice activities for kids. click here for details.

Have a happy and safe weekend everyone! :)

Mommy Moments - Kissing Scenes

my husband just loves to smother his kids with kisses everyday. he and sophie even have this lambingan where he kisses sophie's kili kili when he comes home from work. the little girl enjoys that so much!

Sophie kissing our weeks old Sam

Sophie and Sam kissing for mommy's cam :0

My entry for the :

Happy Thoughts

Before I sign out for the night, I just want to share my very happy thought for today. Aside from being able to pay for the Redemption Mortgage Insurance of our house (that's the bank's cue that we're renewing our loan with them), I finally paid the last amortization of our memorial lot. After I removed the billing coupon from my booklet, this is what's on the next page :

Simply put, I'm fully paid. Yey! After 3 years, that's one financial load off our budget. 

Yeah, I know, a memorial lot? My friends call me weird but I just want to prepare for the inevitable. You’ll never know what the future holds. Plus I keep telling my husband I do not intend to work til my retirement so I’m helping him invest now and prepare for our future and for the time when he will have to work for the family J

Etude House Manila

It pays that husband is in the marketing business. When he was in the cable industry I got lots of HBO, Star Movies, Disney, Cartoon Network,etc. items that my friends really go green with envy. lol!( I share naman sometimes  ) For one, I got this special Sex and The City calendar that I reaallly love and keep until now. My very sturdy umbrella of present is a Star Movie giveaway. It’s been keeping me dry for more than 4 yrs. now 
 Then, he moved to the banking industry and I thought I’d get boring stuff already but no  Just last week, he brought home ETUDE stuff from an event. The loot bag contains several facial and makeup items and a cute pen.

face powder with spokes model Lee Min Ho's dedication and signature. It says on the mirror 'You are my girl'. Cute :)

This is Precious Mineral BB Cream. It's a powder, sunscreen and whitening tube. This one I already tried and it's great for my skin esp. since it's liquid and works for my combi-to-oily skin :0

cute heart-shaped pen :)

Goodies from the cute pink bag. The blue and yellow packs are toner sets, same as the white pack. I'm excited about the blue pack since it has a face spray :)

Having combination-to-oily skin I was especially excited to try the toner sets. I tried the O2 White pack 2 nights ago (tried this first since it says it has vitamin C) and the next morning I noticed the improvement on my pores!Yay :) I hope I have finally found my product. 

ETUDE House has a store in SM Megamall Bldg A.

GT - Suspense Books

 My suspense book/s would have to be Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice. My personal faves are Interview with the Vampire, which was made into a blockbuster film starring my guys Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and The Vampire Lestat. The book is far more interesting than the film, as the usual case. Even The Queen of the Damned film version of the book was so much blah.

Thing is, the books delves so much into vampire history, personal experiences and battles that you can get hooked at vampire life with these books (while imagining all of them look as gorgeous as Brad Pitt J ). It’s really fascinating how Anne Rice created the plots of each and every character in the books that any other vampire books or stories will seem bland. I guess that’s why I never took any interest in the Twilight saga, no pun intended.

The Vampire chronicles is as far as I will go with Anne Rice, however. All other books were just too twisted and disturbing for my taste.

My suspense book for :  

Kids Say the Darndest Things

During yesterday's school time with Sophie.

I was teaching Sophie alphabets in relation to common things around her. After our book lesson, I went on pointing out things from our room and demonstrated how their first letter sounds. I picked up the bottle and said:

Me: Sophie, b-b-bottle. Starts with letter B.

Sophie: B-b-bottle 

Me: Very good! Then, I picked up a hairbrush. How about this one?

Sophie: Su-su-suklay!

I laughed so hard it took a while before I could correct her! 

Pink Run: My Run #2 and Counting…

Last Sunday, I participated in the Pink Run. This event was spearheaded by Philippine Society of General Surgeons, Inc. as Breast Cancern Awareness project. There were 4 routes: 3K, 5K, 10K and 15K. I joined the 5K and was able to bring along 2 officemates with me. My first run was the Avon Run and being a first timer then I ran alone but I thought it would really be more fun to do this with friends and it was! J

Having ran two different events, here are my observations:

1. Mc Kinley Hill is really difficult to run, for an amateur like me. I found that it’s harder to traverse the hills of McKindley than breathe the MOA sea air. I got my MOA run for 45mins but I think the McKinley run took longer;
2. Joining a run with various routes and a run with one category are basically the same in terms of waiting for your turn to run. With several categories, unless you’re running the longest category you will have to wait for your turn. While in the one category run, you will also have to wait for your turn to run also because there’s just so many of you in one category;
3. I like the digital meter on the finish line better than the Chrono RFID shoe tag. For the digital meter, you can immediately see your unofficial time while with the shoe tag, you will have to get your time from the database guys and, of course, you have to lineup for this. I have very low patience for lining up and, unfortunately, when it was my turn, my time was not yet registered on the database L
4. It’s always fun to run with friends and run for a benefit! J

my first fun run. The Avon Run for Breast Cancer

my loot after the event: a non-wire skin tone bra, slippers with 3 changeable straps and so many others. good thing the slippers and bra fit perfectly :)

sophie sporting my race shirt and necklace

my race kit for the Pink Run. After the race, participants were able to get freebies from Hygienix, Medical City, Le Donne and other sponsors :)

A friend has envited me to Adobo run on October 30, 2010. This one will be a night run and will be held at McKinley also. I hope I can join this one too J 

Christmas 2010 Decor Ideas

Excited over Christmas season so I'm sharing these photos of last year's decors :

Red Xmas balls with glittered Sophie and Sam names. My husband requested that I also make balls with our names on it. I think that will be my project this year.

We spruced up our stairs with garland and red and gold decors. Our home is smaller than the apartments we have had so I decided not to put a Xmas tree last December. 

Then, two days ago, I brought our garland and decors outdoors. I guess I just got 'umay' with the decor since it'e been our theme for 3 consecutive Christmases. 

a work-in-progress outdoor decor

See? These red and gold decors were on our 2008 white Xmas tree. 

these angel decors are made of wood (for the head) and metal (body) so they're very sturdy :)

all decors and the Xmas tree bought from Tabora, Divisoria . White Xmas tree (6ft.) for P600.00

This year, for our indoor decors, I'm thinking of a theme that has cool color scheme like blue and silver with purple highlights. Whatchathink? It's time to schedule that Divisoria trip :)

Couple's Corner - Yes Wife

Yes wife? Let me see. If he asks me, ‘do you like a 24K diamond bracelet’?, of course I would say yes! But if he says, can we buy a new acoustic guitar the price of a 24K diamond bracelet, I would definitely say, hell NO by all means! lol! Our men are sometimes our first born babies, we have to guide them and teach them the ways of the world J But we love them, anyhow (kaya nga we married them, di ba?). My husband always tells me he’s my first baby J

Seriously, I would say I was a total NO girlfriend to my busband now boyfriend then. But now we married, I do not say yes nor do I say no. I just make sure we say yes together, or no together for that matter. Of course, that doesn’t happen all the time. How can two different people, raised differently think the same all the time? The phrase Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus is sooo true in every aspect.

Whenever, there is a matter we need to decide on, we make sure to sit down and talk about the pros and cons. I’m kinda dense (as my husband would sometimes say) and being that I have the tendency to analyze (or over analyze) even the simplest matter before I decide. Good thing my husband loves me so much he understands my qualms J

I think it’s just we both value each other’s opinion; we’ve been together for so long (15 yrs and counting) that we are like the extension of each other. 

GT- Thursday Funnies

I'm so looking forward to Thursday so I can share my entry for funny book/s I've read. Here it goes:



Photo from:http://www.impawards.com/1999/angelas_ashes.html

My funny book is Angela’s Ashes, weird but true. Weird because, in a nutshell, the story is about the struggle of Frank Mccourt’s very poor family (as in below poverty line) while living in his hometown Limerick, Ireland. In a nutshell, his life is really that of an impoverished one with practically nothing to eat on a daily basis. What will make you enjoy this book is how the author narrates his life as an adolescent boy, somehow understanding what was going on in their life but his innocence, humor and guilessness as he recounts the tragedies he experienced and witnessed gives it a hilarious twist to even the saddest moments of Irish Catholic life.
Here’s an excerpt of Time’s interview with Mccourt sibling about Frank’s Angela’s Ashes: 


What kept McCourt alive then, and would make him as a writer, was his humor and his love of words. "In reality, our life was worse than Frank wrote," said McCourt's brother, also called Malachy. "Insane outbreaks of laughter saved us." McCourt once said that as a child he dreamed of being a prison inmate in the U.S., for the food and warmth. Instead he became a hospital inmate: he caught typhoid at age 10 and spent three months well fed in a well-heated hospital. The hospital also had a well-stocked library. It was there that he read his first lines of Shakespeare and began a lifetime as a devoted reader.* 


Ireland during this depression age is practically very much like Philippines in culture since they’re very devout Catholics (sometimes to a fault also) and how they succumb to gossip. One part of the story I can’t forget is how his family members made him go back several times to church and do confessions with their parish priest for something stupid he did. In this book you will see how many lived as 'Banal na Aso, Santong Kabayo' during those times. 


Another worth mentioning part of this book is Frank’s relationship with his Father. His father played a very significant role in Frank’s creation of this book, although not in a reputable way. Here’s a sample: 


 “I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the stories and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland.”


Life is not a walk in the park and that is a tremendous understatement for the author McCourt but, just like us Pinoys, Irish has a way of finding humor even in the most difficult and tragic times in their life. 
Humor, no matter what form or shape, helps humanity thrive in this world.


My entry for :

*Read more: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1911633,00.html#ixzz12KCgrRxR

Okay, my head is already spinning from looking at figures and emails galore so I'm blogging to let me off some stress (but not off the computer :) )

I just want to share that last week Sophie and I went school hunting. We went to Falcon School in Dahlia St., just a good 5-10 minutes commute from home depending on traffic on Sauyo Road. I heard good reviews about this school so it's the first thing we checked out. 

We got there at the time that flag ceremony was about to start so we parked ourselves in the waiting area and waited for the whole ceremony to finish. Sophie, seeing all the kids in uniforms was asking 'Mommy, san yung uniform ko? Bihis na 'ko (mommy, where's my uniform? i want to change). I explained that we're just there to inquire and that she can't join the kids yet. She's been eager to go to school since last year. 

After the ceremony, we went straight to the office to inquire. A nice registrar gave me a brochure showing the school's facilities, requirements, etc.  This is Sophie's first time to go to school and she's 3 yrs 9mths old now. She'd be 4yrs and 5mths by next school year. According to the requirements, nursery students need to be at least 31/2 yrs old by June while Kindergarten needs to be 41/2 by June. Now I'm torn between enrolling her for nursery or hopping kindergarten and skipping nursery altogether. I'm worried she may be too matured for nursery but that she may get overwhelmed if she goes to kindergarten sans nursery. Gosh, this is my first time to deal with my kids' schooling and I'm so worried, nervous, excited, confused, jittery and sooo amateur! I have been asking around moms with school kids and been doing some research and so far it's boiling down to Nursery first so she can get a feel of what school discipline is like and get her ready for kindergarten where kids are faced with more serious and structured curriculum. I hope I make the right decision for her. 

Anyway, my next school trip would be Diliman Preparatory School near Mindanao Avenue. Been hearing good reviews about this school also and I hope that the facilities are better. The nursery and preschool classes of Falcon is tucked away in a subdivision in Falcon St. and not in the main school in Dahlia. It's a home school, although very private I was quite bothered by the security since there is no security guard manning the school gate which I noticed was left unlocked. When I checked the interior, I didn't notice a clinic or any first aid area, is this okay? I guess they did not bother to put a clinic since the nursery is a spitting distance from FEU hospital. 

Oh well, I have 2 more school options to explore. I hope that I can finish this school hunt before the year ends. 

Mommy Moments - Hairstyles

Sophie, practically hairless before 1yr old

at 1 1/2 yrs old, she grew hair. we just cut her hair to give her bangs. we don't cut the rest of her hair and hoped it will grow longer.

now at 3 yrs old, she had so many haircuts already and sports long hair :)

Sam's hair is practically everywhere when he was about 6 months :)

Before Sam turned 1 he grew a very long hair. We couldn't cut his hair yet (as our belief has it) so we tie them up in a knot which makes him look like a siopao (bola bola flavor) :) 

now he sports a barber's cut and looks very much like a little big boy :)

The thing with my kids' hairstyles, I almost always do their haircut (except for Sam's barber's cut which was done by a professional). I hope that when my kids grow up and see their photos with haircuts c/o mom, they will still love me lol :)