Pinoys, Let us unite again for Monsoon Relief

Today is the 2nd day that I stayed at home due to the bad weather. As I watch TV or hear the radio, news about flood and accidents because of this non stop down pour are very very alarming.

The sky is dark and heavy rains, sheets of rain continuous to pour since yesterday. *Sigh*
Oh Lord, please have mercy on us and let the rain stop and the waters to subside fast.

I want to salute our heroes today. The volunteers and rescue teams who brave the rain and raging currents.

 

 

And only us Pinoys can smile and take light this type of experiences.

I also have my own share of photos of flood within our area:

Left Pic: No flood yet on the main street;  Right Pic: After 30mins of non-stop rain.

Inside our place.

Let us all unite and share what we can. Food, clothes, donations and even SERVICE will surely be appreciated. Ofcourse, PRAYERS is much needed too.

There a lots of NGOs and even mission groups who accepts volunteer help and donations.
For Red Cross, visit and read info here.

Religious Organizations like Victory is also doing relief efforts here.

And please please....those who are saying that this rain is God's punishment and insinuate RH Bill, I strongly suggest, STOP!!!! This is not the time for this. This time calls for UNITY in sharing, giving and helping. Plain as that.
And I just hope with the upcoming election by next year, government officials or candidates will not take this as an advance campaign for themselves.

A Baker is Born

I have a sweet tooth. I love chocolates, ice cream, cakes and anything that is sweet. My fascination and love for sweets made me curious on how they were made. And so one day, I just had this strong urge to try and bake. But how? We don't even have a microwave oven. I remember, every time we visit the grocery and pass on the baking section, I always stop and look at the baking products on the shelves. The devils cake, the yellow cake, brownies, muffin, etc.

And so march this year, when the LPG gas went on crazy high on early part of the year, we noticed that our consumption is getting faster. A's uncle said that our gas stove's burner consumes more than the regular one because it has double rings. To save on gas, we must purchase single ring with lesser holes.

This type of burner consumes more LPG. Double Rings.

Single ring with fewer holes in the middle.
Unlike the picture above, this one can help you consume LPG longer.

Ok...because we are trying to save on LPG, we went out to the nearest mall and look for a new gas stove. Guess what, we ended up buying and bringing home a gas range with oven. har har har!!! Now that's what we call cost cutting! :P
Well, A and I have our own hidden agenda in buying the gas range. We both want to BAKE!!!!
I want to bake cakes and pastries and A wants to bake dishes of fish, chicken, pork and do roasts too!

So now I have the main machine to bake, I started buying baking utensils, cupcake pans, mixing bowls, measuring cups, weighing scale and the newest addition is the mixer!!! Yey!!!

My Mixer

Ultra Moist Chocolate with Chocolate Whipped Ganache

Let's eat?

Chocolate cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My two recent bake products were both a hit to our tastebuds. And I was so proud of myself. (too proud actually! hahaha)

Thanks a lot to online bloggers for sharing there recipes. I really learned a lot. If you will notice too, I added another blog list on my sidebar on my favorite sites for baking. :P

To get a copy of the Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake, you may get it HERE.
Again, thanks to Aikko of Bake Happy.

I must admit, a BAKER is finally born in ME...hihihi.
Expect more baking adventures.... x-o-x-o

Photo A Day Challenge: Summary for May

I did post a couple of pictures in this blog for the month of May photo a day challenge. And I did try my best to post one picture per day. Unfortunately, I was not able to post 31 photos. But I was able to post a bunch! I think I missed 5 days or so...Pwede na di ba? :P

Too bad when I tried printstagram, they are not offering freebies anymore. All come with prices. And so I tried Instagrid but I can't filter for month May and so I have to manually pick each photo for May Photo-a-Day Challenge by FatMumSlim.

Here's a summary of the photos for the month of May. Enjoy!

Oooopss! I missed 10 days pala! ^__^

Golden B(o)(o)bie!!!

As my ticker says,

So Yes, I earned my GOLDEN B(o)(o)BIE Award! Yey!

I am ofcourse happy and very much contented that for more than 12 months and still counting, I am able to nurse and feed my baby and give him the right nutrition, bonding moment, patience, perseverance and endurance a working mom can give.

Though I am no longer exclusively breastfeeding Jared, still I feel so much blessed.

I really really thank God for this gift a mom can offer to her baby.
I promise myself that never will I stop nursing Jared until the last drop or Jared decides to wean on his own.

Afterall, it's Natures gift...FREE MILK! :-)

Bday Preps #2: Aedan Jared's 1st Birthday!

Hah! I'm back again, after a long hiatus. I'm trying to balance work, mommyhood and being a wife 24x7, so some personal-blogging-time has to be sacrificed. I'm sure my fellow N@wies can really relate. :-)

Allow me to look back and gather my thoughts so as to update this blog. Ok, I'm supposed to give updates on our baby toddler's first birthday.

From the first blog entry about preparations (click here), I was able to pull it through in a month's time. (ofcourse with the help of hubby A, my brother, mother and Anna - our househelp. Thank you guys!)

Party Theme - Jollitown. As if there are many choices. Just two for boys, Jollibee itself and Jollitown. The other one was Barbie Party for girls. We chose Jollitown.

Invitation - They are included in the party package that we avail from Jollibee. 30 pcs in total. However, we were not able to distribute all. Still have 5-7 invitations with us. I wish I did not write on them so I can make use of it by next year. hahaha.  The Guest List ate most of my time. It's always a challenge on who to invite and updating who will be attending. *Sigh*  We are targetting 100 guests (adults + kids combined). But we are blessed with friends and big families from both sides so the list went on 160. Wow!!! The rest were invited online via FB and email.

Guest List and Invitations

Jollitown Them for Invitation

Party Favors/Loot Bags - All from Divisoria. Ofcourse!!! So that we can stretch the budget and give Jared's guests (kids) some cool prizes and nice take home goodies.

B for Boys; G for Girls

So what's inside the loot bags?

Total of 8 items per Loot Bag:
Sulit na sulit!
Peso Power = Php 35/loot bag
:-)

Pencil + Eraser Top

Candies in Cola Can and Mini Gas Tank

Coloring Books to match 8-pcs of Crayons

Mini Toys for Boys: Robots and Cars

Jack Stone for girls

Bubble toy and plastic balloons

Game Prizes

Party Crew:
My brother Jett, Me & Anna

Photo Booth - By Party Boothster: We got them on promo!!! Booked last year (2011). As expected "BLOCK BUSTER"!!!! Guests keep on coming back. For a 3-hour packaged, we dearly enjoyed it a LOT! The photo printing quality is very nice and printing itself was speedy! I can highly recommend them.

Loved the Photo Layout. Swak na swak sa party theme!
Peso Power: Php 4000 (Photobooth=3500 + Customized backdrop = 500)

Party Clothes - For our baby, its Debenhams for Toddlers for his shirt and Market Market mall find for his maong pants. His shoes are from SM Baby Company but are no longer new because his Nike shoes from Tito Ninong LA that is supposed to be his shoes for the party are still too big for him he may look like a little clown. :P

Cake - On the actual day of Jared's birthday, I'm supposed to bake him cupcakes. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of time. I will make more kwento on what transpired on his actual birthday (June 28) and a separate post on the birthday celebration at Jollibee (June 30).

Chocolate Cake from Red Ribbon.
I customized the design to have a unique look.
DIY cake candies are from Goldilocks. 

Party Cake from Jollibee c/o Red Ribbon
Flavor: Chocolate

Photo/Video -  It's Daddy A. We are working on a tight budget so professional photographer and videographer were out of the game. Good thing, Daddy A is good at this craft. Sulit din! :-)
Video were taken using my humble iPhone. Enough to capture the highlights of the party. Tito Ninong Raymond (my youngest brother) and Daddy A were responsible in taking videos.

I am proud to say that we were able to fit in within our allotted budget of 25,000 (max)!
Promise, I will give more details. More kwentos on next entry. I hope I can find the time! :P

Good night for now.

Mother's Day

Yeah, yeah, this is a very late post. But what the heck, it's all worth it! I am now a mom too and I take took part of this celebration.

Playing with his toy balloon.

This year was my 2nd year as a Mom to celebrate Mother's Day. We actually celebrated it a day earlier (Saturday, May 12) primarily because Mama (my biological mom) will have to go home to Caloocan that weekend. Together with my Papa who was visiting that week, my youngest bro who is staying with us for a vacation, Adrian, Jared and I went to Makati to dine out and buy a gift for my Mom. (a surprise gift actually) I just told them that we will have lunch outside and buy milk for Jared.

We ate at Superbowl Glorietta 4 and stuffed ourselves with our usual favorites, beef broccolli, steamed fish, dimsum plater, chicken molo soup, yang chow fried rice, halo-halo for dessert and unlimited prawn crackers. All dish in family size serving. Matatakaw kasi...kasama pa ang utol kong construction worker kung kumain. hehe

The little boy got a sword toy balloon as a kiddie treat and enjoyed seating on the high hair. (his first time actually coz he can now really sit straight independently).

Mama & Papa

Want some?

Can I order Mommy?

When we say "Pa-cute" This is his response. ^__^

After lunch, we had a short stroll inside the mall. Mama and Papa clueless of where we are heading. They are itching to go home already because of big chances of being caught up with volume of people commuting via MRT.

And so, I went inside an optical store and told Mama to pick her choice of spectacles. I thought Mother's day is the perfect time to give her a new one (since 2009). We canvassed for several designs between 2 optical stores in Glorieta and finally she ended up with this.

Mama's Mother's Day Gift: A brand new red spectacles.

On the actual day of Mother's Day. We attended our usual 8am service and started a brand new series entitled "Take Home". Very timing 3-series lessons about how to transform families. Victory Fort is really generous (as always) and gave each mom a token of appreciation on Motherhood.

Mother's Day Gift from Victory Fort. A notepad with quotes about mothers. Very nice.

I was in waiting mode on how will that day end...but I think I expected much...or better say too much and ended up with nothing. As in nothing. Not even a greeting. *Sigh*

I think, when A joked last Saturday (May 12) that I am not his mother and there is NO Wife Day, therefore, no reason for him to give me anything...I think he really mean this. Feelingera rin naman kasi ako. Nalimutan ko na diretso nga pala magisip at magsalita ang mga lalaki. Walang paliguy-ligoy. Nagexpect pa ako.

Hmmmm....Or maybe we've been together too long (as BF-GF, almost 10 years) that he's been too comfortable having me around...but being husband & wife?.....it's only our 2nd year and turning 3 by the end of the year.

When I confronted the husband come monday evening....he said he thought he greeted me already only to find out that he was still dreaming. Oh yeah! But reality really hurts when he admitted he planned nothing.

Ok...past is past...I should move on. Anyways, I was able to blurted out my frustrations here. (thanks blogspot). After all, I am entitled to my own opinion here.

Better luck next time. :-)

Belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the world!!! 

Photo a Day: Day 2 = Skyline

I woke up early today as usual but decided to get up early. Well, waking up has a big difference in getting up. Hahaha. In most cases, i tend to fall asleep again when I stay on bed chillin' some more with our pillows and sheets. Hehe.

The little one (baby Jared) also woke up early today pinching my nose and turning up and down, rolling over and over on my side of the bed thus, I find it hard to sleep again. And so when I look outside the window, the sun has risen (it's around 5:30am), the sky is already bright but not yet blueish bright yet. I grabbed my iPhone and took 2 shots of my skyline view. Here it goes:

Take 1: Jet line :-)

Take 2: Look, It's a plane!

 I also submitted a picture via instagram. #photoadaymay.
For Skyline, I choose the 1st picture since I can't fit the 2nd picture in Instagram scale. :-(
I like the 2nd one more.

Until tomorrow....need to sleep by now.

Sleepy,

Photo a day challenge: May -- Day 1 = PEACE

Yes! I'm joining. I wanted to join April but for obvious reasons, I was not able to share even a single photo. And since today kick starts May. BTW, Happy Labor Day! Majority of the work force are chillin' and enjoying the holiday.

Ok. For the month of May, the list is:

I hope I can submit a photo everyday! :-)
For the mechanics, click link here.

BTW, this idea is from Fat Mum slim. You may read and follow her blog here.

Hmmm...it's May 1 but I have no choice not to do domestic chores today. No helper yet. :-(
So far the ff. were accomplished

• Went for a short 20 mins work out. 
• Send Jared for a swim in the pool.
• Bath Jared and fix him up for sleep.
• Cooked Pork Sinigang for lunch.
• Checked/Browsed FB
• Update our Saver's file.
• Create entry for this blog.

What has to be accomplished for the rest of the day?

• Iron clothes (waaahhh....obviously, I'm procrastinating...hahaha)
• Visit nearest parlor for a pedicure
• Prepare things for tomorrow's work.

*Sigh* May 1 is indeed LABOR day for me! :P

My entry for the "Peace" category will be:

The house is at peace when the little one is asleep! :-)

Bday Preps #1

Yes, our little one is turning 1 already in exactly 1 month and 4 weeks as our ticker says. (found at the right sidebar).

A and I decided that we will just make it simple. A party in a regular fast food store will suffice since Jared still don't know how to enjoy his own party. We are only targeting 100 pax (adults and kids combined).

So, before the sun sets in today, I started to inquire in the nearest fast food (the happy bee) in our place. I checked on the available themes to choose from and there are only 3 options. I learned that the minimum booking is 30 pax. We can bring cake of our choice but should NOT be the brand of their direct competition. Cake from not-so-commercial bakeshop will do but it's a Big No to eat the cake during the party. It's only for candle blowing and picture taking purpose. Well, this is acceptable since they avoid being blamed for food poisoning issues and if such thing happens, the only culprit will be the food served from their store and nothing else.

There are 4 Food Packages to choose from, well, technically 5 since the other one is Build-Your-Own-Menu.
From the packages, I can sense that we might will go for Package 5 (Build Your Own).

I could say, it's a blessing in disguise that we were not able to book for a face painter because the store does not allow it. They only allow Videographers and Photobooth. And it will cost us additional 200/hour for electricity for our Photo booth. Yes! We are having Photo booth too for Jared's birthday. hehehe. Similar to our wedding, Photo booth pictures will serve as souvenirs for his party. Actually, the Photo booth was the first supplier booking we had in preparation for Jared's 1st Birthday. We booked it last year pa! hahaha. (Adik lang mga parents pagdating sa photos. :P )

Ok, as the Q & A portion went on, I was surprised that it will really cost me almost 19K for 100 pax. Complete Birthday Package na ito.

• Food
• Party Fee (Misc) - Mascot with 30 mins appearance, guestbook, crayons, balloons (ceiling displays)
• Party Add-Ons (Party hats, party liners or the paper placements, 30 pcs. balloons (P12/pc for add ons)
• Special Loot Bags (P50/pc) - The Standard is P25, Premium is P80
• Cake - Only small and regular size available. Regular size is 900.

So If our guests will exceed 100 (I'm sure it will) then we will be over 20K budget! Waaahhh!!! Kami na lang kayang 3 magcelebrate. hahaha.

If we are to book with the happy bee, then my choice of having a themed cake like on his baptismal will never be possible anymore since they don't allow it. No famous characters or brandings allowed like mickey mouse, barney, ben10, etc. If we are to insist to bring in our cakes, the general designs will be acceptable. Hmm....ayos na rin....we can have a 12 x 8 in cake at 900 only. Tipid! :P

Well...this is just my initial inquiry. Will ask the pizza store nearest our place maybe this weekend. As for the the other happy clown store, the nearest is in Market Market, while the nearest chicken store is in Fort.

On this preparations, I will have to remind myself again and again of our Goal. Just a SIMPLE birthday celebration.

Let go of the nice and fancy loot bags.
Let go of the clowns.
Let go of the face painter
Let go of the party carts.
Let go of the balloon toy making.
Let go of catering service.
Let go of the professional photographer and videographer.

Hahaha...so far, I'm on track. (Can someone give me a pat on my back pls.)

Again, the photo booth is already booked so that's not counted as "Kaartehan". :P

More update on next posts.

Need to sleep for now.

Ooopsss! I was tagged!

Ok. I confessed, I've been too lazy too tired to write even a short update on this blog for more than a month now. All I can do nowadays is to post some tweets, check out FB, link my tweets to FB, took some photos and post it on instagram. Blog hopping and blog reading will be of lesser priority if I still have an extra time or two to spend...like now...before hitting the bed.

And so because of me blog hopping, I found out that I was tagged by N@wie friend, Micah.
As a sign of gratitude, (number 1 pa naman ako! :P) Let me do my part.

Here are the rules of this game:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

To answer Micah's questions:

1. What scares you the most and why?
Death of someone that I dearly love. I can't simply think of it. Ok stop na.

2. What do you do in your free time?
Surf the net. Play with my baby.

3. Do you like chocolate?
Super dooper to the highest max!!! :D

4. You can have one of the following two things: trust/love?
Trust. It's harder to trust than to love likewise more harder to win trust than love.

5. If you could do anything OR wish for anything that would come true, what would you wish?
Salvation for my whole household.

6. What was the last thing you ate?
Longanisa + Sinangag

7. Which is your favorite body part of the human body and why?
Hmmm....no favorite. But I like to look at human eyes, teeth (especially beautiful set of teeth), hands.
Why? Eyes - window to the soul; teeth - makes a good smile; hands - tool for creation.

8. What makes you bored?
Idleness.

9. How often do you go online? and why?
Almost everyday because I need to, I have to and I want to.

10. When was the last time you lied and to whom and why?
Today. To my hubby. Told him it will only take 15mins for me to blog this and then I will sleep, but I guess, i'm going to take more than 15mins. :P


11. Tell me about someone you really admire.
I admire Jerry Yan. Ultimate crush ko. :P
I admire Ninang Net. She's an amazing woman of God.
I admire Ptr. Joey Bonifacio. His passion for being a worker of God is truly something so remarkably adorable.


Now, Here's my questions.

1. Why do you blog?
2. How do you view yourself 5 years from now?
3. What pisses you off?
4. What is your most wildest dream?
5. If you only have 24 hours to live, how will you spend it?
6. Think of 3 persons you hate/hated or angry with. (no need to name them) Why do you hate him/her / Why are you angry at him/her?
7. Do you have the balls to say "Sorry, I was mad at you. Can you forgive me for hating you?" to the 3 persons you thought of in no. 6?
8. Can you totally admit that you are indeed happy and contented with your life now? Why yes/no?
9. Do you know love Jesus?
10. How do you show that you love Jesus?
11. What can you say about Romans 6:23 and John 3:16?


The people I tagged:

1. You - that read this blog. I challenge you. :P
2. Micah
3. Suyen
4. Giday
5. Nani
6. Mei
7. Khim
8. Mae
9. Mar
10. Annaley
11. Ayen

Alive

Hello!

I'm Just

You may follow me on twitter or facebook. :-)