Joyful Parenting, just the Food Demo

Since I forgot to make a blog post about Joyful Parenting event last Sunday, I will just share what I received from them.

In the bag: Avent items, CordLife information packet, and discount coupons for Avent and Goody

It's such a shame I came in late to this event, with the unexpected visitors who arrived while I was getting ready to leave for the event and Una's accident I missed all the talk about motherhood and breastfeeding. But I did arrive during the cooking demo and I love it! The food were easy to make, has lots of veggies on it and very tasty! I will definitely make time to try them for myself, especially the pesto pasta with malunggay and Cajun chicken.

 

I didn't expect a lot of mommies attending the event but there were many of them with their kids and some daddies too. I didn't get to take photos of the cooking demo because I was holding a sleeping Una on a sling. With the hot weather these days, it's really hard for her to get a decent nap so I took advantage of the cool AC in the mall. There were also a lot of raffle prizes, I was actually hoping for the breast pump but I was unlucky. The pregnant lady sitting beside won a breastfeeding book. 

I'm really looking forward to attending next year's event. I hope by then, there will be no more accidents and I will be able to attend on time.

Goodbye March

Time flies so fast! It's already the end of March and summer officially started with the Holy Week. Vacation hot spots all over the Philippines are expected to be filled with families spending some fun under the sun on this long holiday. There used to be a lot of pabasa during Holy Week but we don't see much of them anymore. I didn't participate in reading pasyon but the rhyming chants of poetic prayers is kind of nostalgic to me, our neighbors used to hold pabasa when I was younger. And that's really rare to experience since I spent most of my life in Manila. Now that I live in the sub-urban part of the Metro, there is still not much going on around here. My guess is that this Catholic practice was kept preserved by those who live in the province and was passed through their younger generation.

When I was working, I love to take work loads during these days. There's nothing much to do on Holy Week in the city, the malls and most establishments are closed so I would take advantage of the double pay offers by our company to work on these days. Plus, it's nice to travel to work on Holy Week, not much traffic on the road.

This year, we won't be having any out of town trips on Holy Week because DK is working with clients who are living in the US. Hmnn, walking in the park nearby sounds wonderful though.

What do you have planned on Holy Week?

Flawless skin no more

I never thought that the unfortunate day I would mark my calendar for Una's first injury came way sooner than I expected. 

I saw her scratch when we were getting ready on our way to the Joyful Parenting event in the mall near us. Obviously, this didn't happen while she's with me so I asked my MIL if Una fell while I was having my shower. She said no so I assume that it would be one of DK's cousin and turned out I was right. I know it is to be expected for toddlers, especially around Una's age to be still clumsy and have the tendency to fall. But what annoyed me was that she never mentioned it when I took Una from her. Accidents do happen but I'd like to treat my daughter properly with first aid when it does. So I bought this expensive antibacterial ointment to put on her scratch and I'm really hoping and praying to God  that I won't have to use it again on my daughter. Call it overreaction on my part but that's how it goes.

Turn off your lights now

Counting down the hours before Earth Hour. Don't forget to switch off your lights later in the evening at 8:30 pm. Or better yet, why not switch them off as early as now. It's summer and the sun bright outside, open those windows and let the fresh air in. If you want to listen to good music, head over to Bonifacio Global City to join the Street Party.

Image source: WWF.org

Joyful Parenting: A Symposium on Breastfeeding

Kita-kits tayo mga Mommies.

Mommy Moments - Summer Days

Summer started early this year. With the El Nino, extreme heat from the sun and daily temperature averaging to 32°C, it's just normal for families to start planning the summer outings as early as February.

With a 14 months old daughter who is a bit overwhelmed with the amount of water in her inflatable pool, we have no choice but extend her bath time to help sooth her in this heated weather. 

We also coax her to drink lots of water and fruit juices to help her cool down her body temperature. No plans for summer outings yet but hopefully we will have one of those spontaneous swim in one of the pools in the Camp near us.

Una with her Papa Boy, taken last year

(He is actually DK's Uncle but Una calls him Papa)

6.2 Magnitude Earthquake in Metro Manila

Click photo to zoom

The kids in the shop said they were getting dizzy and felt like it's having an earthquake. I'm not really sure if it's because I became numb when it comes to earthquake because I was traumatized when I was in grade school and experienced having our school's ceiling collapsing in the front row of seats of our classroom.Even if that's the case, I'm entirely sure if it's a good thing.

Did anyone feel this?

Young at heart

Or maybe just childish.

Have you ever experienced looking at kiddie toys then realized that you want to have it not for your kid but to keep for yourself? I always have that kind feeling whenever we visit any toy stores.

Growing up in a family with only one parent working for the 5 of us and my stay at home mom, we don't get that much budget for toys. If I remember correctly, I only had three toys that I grew very fond of: a rug doll, a baking set (that Santa gave to me,) and a doll house made by my father. When my doll depleted into just a rug and there were no more clays to bake, I spent my childhood days playing with my siblings outside and making paper dolls and clothes out of comics and magazines. Despite having no extra budget for toys, my parents tried their best to provide us with our most wanted toys.

But with the new technology, you just can't imagine how toys evolve into something much more. Just imagine buying one of those Science kit for kids in grade school and have an erupting volcano in your own home. Well, I didn't buy that particular kit for the lack of space in our home but I left the store a happy girl. I bought one of those Sudoko kits for a very cheap price I got a tray with many holes like the one in Mastermind with numbered pegs and 100 puzzle to solve. Cool, huh.

Now I got distracted just by talking about toys. Let's go back to what I originally planned to post. So I was being a good follower and reading these blog posts of the lovely people all over the world and saw this cool indoor tee-pee by Moozlehome.

Just look at that! I used to make forts out of blankets and umbrellas and now they have this! Isn't it a beauty? It's very expensive too so I'll just look at it from this post.

Hmnnn... I wonder if I can make this on my own, big enough to fit me. *squinting eye with concentration*

Una's Day Out

Guess she'll learn to drive first before me.
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PhotoHunt: Three

Late post for the PhotoHunt.

What would you do if you could turn back time?

Giveaway: Postcard Printing Ends 3/31

We have another giveaway, this time from our friends from UPrinting. Now read carefully to be able to join this giveaway. But before anything else, you also might want to check out UPrinting.com to see what you can print online in their site. One of my favorites is their poster printing feature. How cool is that, you can make your own postcards and send it to your love ones. I know I'd love to send some to my sister in Canada and brother in Singapore. Maybe showcase our family travels or simply make a no fuss invitation. It's also a great way to market your business with a postcard. I used to collect those promotional postcards in cafes and mall stores. They're just colorful and really neat looking. Enough of my rambling, see below what we have saved for one lucky winner.

Giveaway Prize: 100 4 x 6 Postcards for One (1) Winner
Paper Stock: 14pt Cardstock Gloss
Specifications: Full Color Both Sides; 3 Business Days Turnaround
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping
Eligibility: Limited to US Residents only, 18 years old and above

Ends:  March 31, 2010, 12 midnight MNL Time.

To join the giveaway, just leave a comment in this post with your name and email address and that's it!

And as a thank you, you'll receive an extra point for each post you made to spread the word. Please leave a comment with the links to your post so I can credit you for your hard work. You can use that little gadget that appears in the beginning of this post to help you share this giveaway to your friends.

Extra 2 points for subscribing via Feeds or for being a follower.

Just a reminder, make sure to write your email address in words or with spaces in between to prevent those pesky spammers from recognizing your email address. You can mask them with this format: username[@]myemail.com. Please know that your email address will only be used to contact you in case you win the giveaway. If you're not comfortable with leaving your email address, please leave another way for me to contact you, whether it be through your blog or Twitter.

Cyber Boost Marikina 2010

I cannot believe I forgot about this event. We received an invitation to this event being as one of the few internet cafes in our area that have the permit to operate. It's actually required iCafe owners in Marikina to be a member of ICAM (or Internet Cafe Association of Marikina) before being issued a business permit. With DK doing the technical stuff in the computer shop, MIL also assigned him to be her representative in their meetings. Obviously, we forgot to attend the event and just realized when we went to the mall and saw some gay cosplayers with the closing remarks of the program. It's not a big deal event but it's nice to be there and be in the know of the latest gadget news.

Free music in Yahoo! Music

I seldom get to listen to the radio anymore but we do listen to our favorite station on road trips or via streaming online. Sometimes I'm in a mood for some nostalgic music and I seldom get to listen 90s music anymore unless it is requested on the radio or we play it from our mp3 collection. And with the number of times we move the files from the shop's server to the laptop then to the portable hard disk drive, we get confused where we transferred them all. Well, I get confused because I don't want DK or anyone for that matter touching my things. It disturbs my mental map and get lost with my own clutter. Plus I hate DK's filing system. Imagine opening a folder with sub-folders named New Folder to the nth power. Crazy right? I mean, is it so hard to type a few words to differentiate those folders?

Point being, I get stressed just looking for said songs. There are times I would bug DK to access the laptop remotely from his office just to find it for me but most of the time I have to just suck it up and do the searching on my own. By the time I see those files, I was no longer in the mood for listening to the music I was looking for in the first place and just focus on renaming and arranging the sub-folders he made.

Thankfully, he did his unromantic way of pleasing me and introduced me to Yahoo! Music. Not only do I get to listen to the kind of music I am in the mood for on certain times but there is also an option to listen to kids music for Una, especially the Lullaby music. I especially love the non-English lullabies.Ah, I love free music.

Do you have Yahoo! Music installed in your YM?

~ ~ ~

Have you seen the Eclipse trailer? I can't wait for that one!

MM | Cars + Kids

Una loves going on a road trip. I guess she got that trait from me. She's actually familiar with the sound of our car alarms. She also made a bond with DK's Uncle. They would take her everyday on a school day to fetch her Tita Nessie from school. And whenever she's in our car, she would fuss over the radio buttons and adjust the AC or even go to DK's side to hold the wheel.

Left: September 2009. Right: January 2010

We still have to buy a car seat for Una but with all of her vaccine expenses, it's just so darn expensive to purchase a decent car seat for her. But we are pushing to get one for her as soon as we're done with the car loan by he end of May. It's all about her safety after all.

While we don't have that car seat yet, I have to think of ways of amusing her once she's stuck behind the seat belts.

What do you recommend Mommies?

{ daydream believer }

I've created a separate and more personal blog named { daydream believer }. Can I say deepest darkest secrets? Nah, not really. But expect a whirlwind of emotion on each post. Probably just a PG13 version of this blog. There are still a lot to be fixed there but feel free to drop by and give me some love. Or just stalk on my emotional vault. I'm so emo these days I even put up a blog for it.

Follow the cosmos.

Alice

A very late post.

More details later. DK is using the laptop so I'm stucked using the Mail2Blog feature of Blogger via of Ovi Mail in Nokia. I'm quite loving it actually. And a new blog in the works.

Enjoying the mid-week so far?
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Daddy Mischief

The caption to this figurine cracks me up!

via The Naked Redhead

You'd probably heard some adults making a joke about doctor and a patient who eats corn. If you don't, I'm not sure if I can pull it off like how my father and uncle delivers it. They're a bit crazy and crass with their jokes and I admit that they could be a bit disgusting.

Back to the photo above. We've been munching on corn on the cob recently. Actually we have it weekly as an afternoon snack last month. Una is in the time of her age where she gets curious about anything, especially food. It's their nature to put most of the things in their mouth just to recognize it and learn about the things they are curious about. So when we were eating corn, she's begging to try it, with it's lovely yellow color and the aroma of butter waking up all her senses. And with her being young, I'm afraid that her stomach won't handle it (I actually have that crappy joke as a reference) so I forbid Una to eat corn. 

DK, being the good daddy that he is and couldn't bear his daughter begging for food, gave Una some of it. Of course, he's smart enough that he didn't tell me sooner about what he did. I learned about their mischief the next day when Una poop and some yellow stuff welcomed me when I looked into her soiled diaper. 

Friends

Thank you so much for all the virtual loves and hugs. I can't thank you enough for lifting up my spirits.

I want to share one of the virtual gifts sent to me my by a very dear friend.

It's a panda latte. This feels so special between Kathy and I, she's Pusa and I am Panda. It's been so long since we last see each other but it's amazing how she can sense that I needed a friend even without her knowing it. She made a blog post about this, showing me that she remembers me. Below is a photo of us two years ago on my birthday.

I miss you Pusa!

Everybody hurts

Please excuse me for a few moments for this is not a happy post.

Beautiful girl?

We have a new girl in the house and I've never been more insecure in my whole life, especially now that I have short hair.

Can you guess who this person is? Read more to unveil the shocking truth.

Trigger happy no more

I miss taking photos.

Flower, not Universe

We're done party people! From monochromatic template to a feminine one. Thanks to YummyLolly for providing this wonderful template. She makes wonderful templates. It makes me want to create new blogs just for them. This particular template is called Flower, not the Universe, cute no? If you feel the need to change your blog layout, visit her site. It took me just a couple of minutes to figure things out. No coding needed. Just upload the template on your Layouts page then rearrange some of your widgets according to your preferences and you're good to go. I was too busy staring at my new template to update you through a blog post but the so called site maintenance is actually done a few minutes after I made the advisory.

Oh, notice the navigation menu on the top of header? That's the only coding I did there. I followed the instructions here and viola.

See below to compare my layout.

Hard Hat Zone

Hey there lovely ladies and dashing gents!

Don't be shocked to find my blog layout in a disarray. I'm currently in a mood of changing my template and expect some additional color and maybe a bit of a feminine mood around here. After dealing with daily distractions also known as a little girl smiling and laughing in all her cuteness to get mommy's attention, I am now headed to danger zone with fingers crossed to not mess up. While I'm busy behind the scene, you might want to check out some online gifts for your friends or loved ones. I hear there are many March celebrants around here. *winks*

For the love of Dilis

Dilis or long-jawed anchovy is one of my favorite Filipino food. In other countries, dilis or commonly known worldwide as anchovies are this itsy-bitty common saltwater fish that are usually included in complicated pasta dishes or even as an eclectic pizza topping but here in the Philippines, dilis is as down to earth as any Juan dela Cruz. Internationally, it may come in preserved bottled goodness that needs just one fish to enhance the flavor of your dish but here in the Philippines, dilis are dried into perfection and can be bought by kilos in your nearest wet and dry market.

As humble as this little fish is, you don't need to be an expert in the kitchen to get it's crispy goodness. Just stir fry desired amount of dilis into a hot wok with some cooking oil until it's golden brown and perfectly crisp. Throw in some tomatoes and a dash of salt and viola. Crispy dilis to perfectly matched your newly steaming hot rice... yum! Add some vinegar to side if you'd like some kick to your dish... double yum!

Did I mentioned that this is pretty cheap? With a rough estimate, a serving of  this dish is just $ 0.25. Affordable but good. I love Pinoy food!

What's your dinner today?

26 days before Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a global event organized by Word Wildlife Fund encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential electrical appliances and lights to raise awareness against climate change. This event takes place every last Sunday of March. On it's third year, Earth our will take place on the 27th of March, 2010 and over a billion participants are expected to switch off their lights at exactly 8:30 pm and ends at 9:30 pm local time.

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour. Read more in EarthHour.org