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.

Buntis 08: Party! Party!!!

In 2 days time, I am officially full term!!! Yey!!! Entering my 37th week on Friday. Whew! (konti na lang, we will get to see and hold of our baby boy!) *super excited*

Last Monday, June 13, my friends and office mates threw a baby shower party for me. It was a short but very fun-filled celebration that we squeezed in during lunch break. The food was uber great and tasty. There were games as well where our boys participated willingly. Hilarious and exciting get together.

I will share more details on a separate entry. I want to back up my kwento with pictures. Still waiting for the pix from my office mate.

Well, as mentioned on my last entry on buntis moments, we have a name for our little one!!!

DIY gift boxes for the guests with yummy brownies inside! ^__^

Updates!!!

Wow! Time flies so fast....Seems like it's been ages since the last time I posted an entry. Well, it's 40 days to be exact. hehehe.

Ok. Many developments has happened. We booked our last batch of suppliers at Wedding Expo at PICC last Sept. 5.

Invitation Supplier: Booked, Down Payment made. We chose Impress Prints by Calliope Printing. The first time I learned about them was from a fellow W@W sister Hazel. Luckily, they were part of the wedding expo. Yes, they offer very reasonable rates. And they were very accommodating as well. To date, they are working on our layout now. It should be done this month so we can release them by Nov.

Ring Supplier: Because of the very good discount being offered, we decided to change supplier. Our first supplier was a good friend. No bad experience or what so ever. The compelling reason was just BUDGET....MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!. We just need to slash funds and save as much as we can. Ofcourse, in due respect, we informed our friend that we found a great deal and asked for her permission. She's very understanding and gave her blessings so that's it. We then signed with My Diamonds. How can you say no to a 50% discount??!!!!!
Happy us, Happy wallets!!! ^__^

Souvenirs: We decided to add tokens for the Ninangs. Another item to match the first one we bought. Ofcourse, it's from Eventi again.

What other activities we had?

• Pamamahinkan = DONE!
  
• Girls of Bridal entourage has taken their measurements
• Adrian had his confirmation at Loreto Shrine in Sampaloc.
  
• Adrian's Birthday celebration!!!! = fun! fun! fun!
• Application for marriage license certificate and Family Planning seminar
  
• A's mom has taken her measurement as well.
• My Bridal gown first fitting = DONE!!! ^__^
• Marriage License Certificate = DONE

The first one happened last Aug. 22.It was my Mom's birthday. We held it at Bagoong Club Resto in Q.C. The second one happened last Aug. 29. The 3rd happened last Sept 13. The 4th and 5th happened Sept. 18 which was so much fun! Hahaha. Hope the other seminars will be that fun too. While 6th and 7th happened last Sept. 26 when Ondoy has spread his angst in Metro Manila. :-(
I had my own share of story about Ondoy. Really really sad on what I witnessed on that day.
The last happened Sept. 28.

Here's to share some pics taken from our couturier's shop, Noe Reyes.

(My BF, Lady)

(My Cadz, Chinkey)

(My cousin, May)

(A's Tita, Tita Nora)

(My Niece, Tin)

The Girls!!! Girl's talaga lahat

Chinx, Me, Lady

I wish I had the time to "kwento" each detail that happened on each milestone we had for preps. For now, just to catch things up, i think this will do. Nakaka-addict kasi ang mga games sa facebook! hahaha! Yun ang reason why delayed ang mga posts. *wink*

Time to sleep! Zzzzzz in a while.

Supplier Booking No 7 & 8

Oh yes, I know! I should start at No. 1 but Supplier 1 was 5 months ago. So just to keep up to date, i'll start with the latest booking. I'll promise to post flashback preps....just you wait. *wink*

Yey! Finally, we have our suppliers for:

• Photobooth
• souvenirs for the female entourage (Ninangs, MOH, Secondary sponsors and bride's maids

We booked them at Celebrations! (A Bridal Show & Special Events Expo) yesterday, May 23 at SMX Convention Center.

First, we had our 2nd food tasting with VS&F since they were one of the major suppliers for the Expo. We enjoyed the food yesterday than our first food tasting. Hehehe. Good thing our AE Val is so accommodating that even we were not really bound for food tasting, we had our share of it. I loved the food. We loved the food. It's yummy and FREE!!!! The first food tasting seems to be just So-So. A and I agreed to the fact that maybe on our first food tasting, we were simply overwhelmed with so many foods (naging Takaw-mata din kami). To be honest, now my worries about VS&F are fading away. Why? we got further discount from our AE on the our package, our requests were attended well and we (as in A & I and our AE) are click!!!

During the Expo, we had total of 7 photobooth shots plus one free shot from another photography supplier. More of free tasting of sweets, cakes, etc. Wedding preps are getting so much fun!!!

Nwei, let me close this entry by posting this. This is a very strong demand of my Moks. (Pabigyan na, minsan lang sya maging photogenic eh...hehehe)