QT Movie Date: Because February spells L.O.V.E

Lately, It's been a challenge for A and I to go out, just the two of us basically because, we do not have someone to look after our toddler.

So whenever we got that rare chance, we make sure, we will spent our day out to the max. hahaha
Last Feb. 1, we attended our church's event entitled NEXT in the morning until 1PM.
It was so fun and inspiring especially to upcoming leaders like me. (Yey!)

Got this lovely tokens.
Felt so much privilege to be given a copy of Pastor Steve Murell since this book is only available in USA.
He is such a generous man. Thanks a lot Ptr. Steve!!!

Lovely tokens from Victory Fort. Photo grabbed from a dear friend, Minoll

After the event, we immediately went to the nearest mall since we know for a fact that going somewhere else will just stuck us in traffic and will be a waste of time. :-)

Had a quick lunch at NYFD and straight to the cinema.

Baking is Money Making

Yes, you heard it right. I'm starting to make money out of my newest hobby...and that is baking. *big grin*

If you will notice too, my sidebar has more links and blog list about baking. Hehe. Actually my sweet tooth pave way to my interest in baking. It all started with a wishful thinking. When someone gifted us an oven toaster and turbo broiler, I fancy how to bake using these electric appliances. I even looked for possible recipes to bake using an oven toaster and turbo broiler. However, it seems too tiresome than buying an out of the shelf slice of cake from my favorite bakeshops. 

But I guess the saying "When there's a will, there's a way" or sa tagalog, "Kapag gusto, maraming paraan..." is really true. I was able to persuade the Mister to buy a gas range with  oven when we were looking for a new 2-burner stove just to save on LPG. Hahaha. That's what you call, creating the interest and the need of a buyer. O di ba?, nagamit ko pagiging ahente ko sa asawa ko. :P

The story behind was told on this post, where it all began.

I started baking ready made batter from the grocery. Then started reading blogs and looking for online recipes of cupcakes, cakes, bread and cookies!!! My eyes get big and almost drool on beautiful plating and recipes I get to see online. Some of my favorites sites/links are already in my sidebar.

Last year, I was able to sample and gifted dozens and dozens of cupcakes. My block buster flavors are chocolate and carrot cupcakes! They were a winner!!! And last Christmas was indeed crazy. I gave cupcakes as Christmas gifts to friends. Cupcakes as our share for parties (pot luck) and cupcakes almost in every celebration we attended.

Majority of my creations were posted in Instagram and FB. Shame on me, I failed to write about it here due to my limitations when it comes to time management. Blame it on making priorities. Mommyhood comes first than blogging. :P

Devils Cake with Chocolate Ganache. The cake is a ready made batter mix  but I made the ganache.

The Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake. Recipe is from Aikko of Bake Happy. Such a generous lady to share recipes.

First attempt to bake a cake. This was for Jared when he turned 9 months.

Chocolate and Vanilla Cupcakes for Mama's 58th Birthday

Rainbow cupcakes. Aren't they pretty? 

Practicing how to write on red velvet cupcakes. :-)

Chocolate Cake for my Nephew's 3rd Birthday. The frosting was not  perfect. hehe

Christmas giveaways

Banana Bread with Chocolate chips

My latest creation...chewy chocolate chip cookies.. Winner!!!

My first sale were 4 dozens of cupcakes (2 dozen chocolate and 2 dozen carrot) for a simple debut of my friend's sister. I was told that they were a big hit to the guests and my friend, (the hostess) forgot to save one for herself. hehehe. 

Anyways, I'm so darn excited to be an official entrepreneur and who know's, I, este, we might own our Bakeshop. We have tons of ideas in mind but still on the blueprint.

For now, I'm glad I have a tall order of 9 dozen of chocolate chip cookies!!! God is so good. 

My dough is already done waiting for it's 24 hour countdown before I can bake them. Ohh, I'm so excited.

Baking is one of the reasons I'm getting a bit healthier than before. :P

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

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.

It's a Date!

I'm excited!!! A and I will be watching 3 different shows for the next couple of months. We bought tickets to the ff. shows.

1. Basketball game at Smart Araneta: Brgy Ginebra and BMeg on March 11
2. 4 D Best "Pak na Pak" at Music Museum on March 17
3. Planetshakers & Israel Houghton and New Breed Concert at Smart Araneta on April 21

Yey!!! I'm excited to these shows as in!!! I remember, A and I used to watch live shows a lot when we were still GF-BF. But for obvious reasons, having a delicate pregnancy and giving birth and taking care to a demanding baby has its fair share of sacrifices to make and priorities to choose from.

I know we are getting there inch by inch. We're also considering going out of town trips and even out of the country. Just have to iron out our schedules and prepare our documents and ofcourse have our travel-vacation budget all settled and secure before we even book for any reservations.


For now, watching live shows is A-OK!

Perpective 14: Hearts Day

Love Note from A

A's Valentine  Gifts for me ! ^__^

No fancy dinner for two, no expensive nor traditional gifts like flowers and chocolates but A's presents still melts my heart. Got 2 of my favorite food that I was actually craving for since last week.
1. Quickly's Super Taro Ice
2. Special Hot Bibingka

I love you Honeyko! Mwah!
You never fail to surprise me! *hugs*

Friends, I hope you had another memorable Vday yesterday....coz, I did! :D

Marshmallow Mama's Malunggay Cookies

I have been EXCLUSIVELY nursing Jared for exactky 7 months, 2 weeks and 2 days now. It's really an effort to keep my milk supply with Jared who's growing bigger and bigger and consumes milk very quickly. I am taking supplements and always have soup and malunggay leaves included in our meals at least 3x a week. I tried malunggay pandesal and even malunggay juice!

A and I dining at stock market resto in High Street, Fort Bonifacio

my malunggay juice

Just to keep up with my son's milk demand, I read and look for other ways to consume malunggay and keep my milk flow at constant. And I'm happy to find this! Cookies made of Malunggay!!!

Mango Malunggay Cookies by The Marshmallow Mama

I read about this from Jenny of Chronicles of a Nursing Mom. And I am really interested and would love to try this. This blog entry is not only for the sake of joining the promo but I just simply want to write about it and really uber interested in this product. Even If I win or not will give this product a try.

Haha! I remember, I once labeled myself a cookie monster! Coz I always munch on cookies every so often. There was a time, I hoard every flavor or my favorite cookies (Mrs. Fields and Soft Baked) for a 2-month worth of supply. hehehe.

Will send and email to Marshmallow Mama to order. ^__^ (excited?)

Perspective 08-13: Down

Alright, the reason why I have not been able to post any entry since Feb. 7 because.... I'M SICK!!! I was having pain in my throat since Feb. 4, Saturday, but just ignored it hoping that my immune system will take care of whatever bacteria I have. But I was wrong. My immune system must have been down since I had few sleep taking care of our sick baby 2 weeks ago + the ever changing weather and so BOOM! It hit me. Maybe Jared's throat virus transferred on me...Hmmmm...wait a minute...I remember praying one night to spare Jared of his sickness and let me suffer instead. Waaaahhhh!!!!! Masyado naman ata akong spoiled sa 'yo Lord. You granted my prayer. Ang sakit pala!!!! huhuhu.

From my previous post, I mentioned about Jared's throat illness HERPANGINA. And apparently, it hit me too! Actually, as I write this post, I'm still on Sick Leave (SL) since Thursday, Feb. 9. I'm not yet totally well...Aarrrghhh...I'm still in pain...big time!!! though no more fever and headache. I was donw Wednesday evening, Feb. 8 coming from a whole day client meetings from Makati-Manila-Makati. I was not well at all in the afternoon of Feb. 8 and already suffering from a headache. I thought, It was just from the long drive from Manila and how Kuya Jack, (our company driver) drives the car. Kuya Jack has a reputation of getting his passengers dizzy but the good thing about him is, you'll never get late on meetings because he let the car fly and swerves like a crazy snake. Anyways, back to my kwento...I came home late Feb. 8 from a dinner meeting with my client at Conways, Makati Shangrila chilling excessively. I thought, the room was just cold, the hotel lobby was cold,the hotel ladies room was cold and even the cab I took was cold but apparently...I'm chilling big time because I was already burning with fever.

The following day, Feb. 9, I was still able to go to the doctor at Healthway, Market Market and saw an ENT doctor. By the way, I must share with you that he is indeed handsome and yummy!!! hahaha!! Kung di lang malamlam mga mata ko, malamang nahalata ni doc. na crush ko sya! hehehe...Well, he has a manly body, a good height of about 5'10" or more, handsome face, and gentle voice. Basta, gwapo sya!. Anyways, to cut the story short, I was sick because of several reasons...my throat illness + rhinosinusitis. I was given a couple of medicines to take. But since I was nursing, the medication to lessen the soreness or blisters on my mouth was taken out from the list because according to Doc. Henry C. it will give Jared hyperacidity. So the mommy in me has to take the sacrifices. Oh, good Lord, I am really in excruciating pain for days until now. I can't eat much. I can't talk much. I can't drink much and I can't even swallow my own saliva. I remember Jared drooling so much when he was ill with Herpangina.

In the absence of the Mefanamic - an anti-inflamatory drug, I tried gargling hot water + salt, Bactidol and now I'm using Betadine Gargle. Among the 3, Betadine gives me a more soothing relief because of its mint flavor and cool effect. However, this only gives me minutes of less pain and afterwhich, i'm back to hell-throat-feeling. Waaaahhh!!!

I admit, this is the worst throat illness I ever had in my entire life. I am now thinking and considering to have a tonsillectomy - a surgical procedure in which the tonsils are removed. Hayyy....I just want to get over this. I hope the antibiotics I'm taking now really kicks in.


To catch up with my love-related photo journal post, I'm putting the ff. pictures altogether. :-)
Advance Happy Heart's Day everybody. I don't know yet how will I spend it. Let's see, what tomorrow brings.

08: Love note from A way back 2010.

09: This picture reminds me how A and I used to held our hands (pinkies only) when we are still dating

.

10: Even our toothbrush is a family! :P

11: This soothes my sorethroat

12: My Precious! Proud of his two front teeth! :D

13: Advance Happy Hearts Day Everybody!!!!

Perspective 07: Sisterhood

Our weekly talks is sweeter than my hot chocolate! :P

I love my Victory Group!!!

Perpective 05: cravings

CHAMPORADO with Condensada: Hot, Sweet and Sticky.

Would you like some? ^__^

Perspective 03

kisses