Father-daughter Moment

Just want to share some pics of the husband and the little girl while doing her school assignment. I took this while they were busy sticking the pictures of orange things. The little girls was as usual curious and wants to do it by herself but daddy said no. He was the one who put glue on it and help the little girl arrange it on her notebook. One father-daughter moment to cherished...Cute!

Sleepy.

The little girl called yesterday after her school and I can't help but laughed at what she said... "mommy, I sleep in school!"

I didn't understand it at first but the husband explained that the little girl slept on her class. The kind teacher did not wake her up and let her sleep instead. Poor little girl..maybe that was the effect of the colds and the medicine that she took before going to school. She also wake up a little early yesterday. Maybe she can't control her sleepiness and can't help but slumber. She was not able to finished her seat work as well so she had to take it home and work on it. That's what I saw her doing when I arrived from work. So today, I told the husband not to let her drink Dimetap before going to school.

So far, she's doing good (except this one incident, lol!) and hopefully she'll survived the school year. :D

Expecting?

I don’t know yet if I’m expecting but I hope I am. A lot of people are already telling us that it’s time to have baby #2. Hubby and I are not really planning but if God wills it, we will accept it with our whole heart. I just wish that I’ll see what we want to see next month. And if it’s positive, I’ll definitely announce it here so that you can already prepare yourself to buy baby gifts for me, lol! I’m sure Babynest.com will be a great help for you. I’ll just post my wish list here so you would know. Lol! Here I am hoping and getting futuristic again.

Corndog

I was able to buy cornmeal at healthy options. After the long search, I finally found the cornmeal that I've been looking for since God knows when. And so last Saturday, with my daughter as my assistant, we cooked corndog. See the pictures below? I took the first 5 pictures. The next four were taken by the little girl, she insisted to be my photographer, lol!. And the rest were taken by the husband.

Anyway, I had a hard time frying the corndog since I don't have a pan deep enough to contain the length of the hot dog. So I gave up and used the cocktail size hot dogs instead....lol! See the last two pictures?

Preparing the batter was as easy as ABC. Here's the ingredients of my batter:

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
a pinch of salt

I just mixed all the ingredients then I coated the hot dogs (which I already placed on barbecue skewers) and deep fried.

They all liked it except for the appearance, lol! I hope I'll be able to buy a corndog maker so I can make perfectly shaped corndogs for the family. :D

Manic Monday #174

I was late but anyway, here's my manic Monday entry:

What is the longest love relationship (partner) you have had, and if it has ended, why? the longest love relationship I had was 6 years with my ex-boyfriend who was also my first boyfriend. We ended not in good terms, a long story to tell... then I met my husband. :)

What is on your bedside table? Many. Books that I read before I sleep, my alarm clock. Our family picture and a lampshade.

How many pillows do you have on your bed? Do you make your bed every day? Lots of pillows. One for hubby, 2 for me and since the little girl is sleeping with us, her pillows are all over the bed as well. She got 6 pillows all in all including her comfort pillow :). And yes making our bed everyday is a routine already. But when I run out of time, the helper makes our bed.

More entries here.

Finally Fixed.

Did I already mention here that our car has been fixed? Yes. It’s now in a good running condition. Hubby has been so zealous and patient with it. I admire how he went gaga over it. He was at the mechanic’s shop every day just to make sure that they’re doing their job fixing it. And now he’s working on its registration. He asked our neighbor’s help and we are now on the last stage. Hopefully, we’ll get the registration sticker today.

We’ll be going on a family vacation this week end so he wants to make sure everything will be okay before we go. I was hoping we’ll be traveling by plane to the Hidden Beach Resort of the Mexican Riviera Maya, but no, we’ll just go far north and travel with our newly fixed car. Hopefully, the car will run smoothly and won’t fail us. I pray that God will bless our trip! :)

Money thoughts...

If you have a lot of money what would you do? Would you buy a property at Wilmington NC real estate? Would you invest on business? Buy stocks? Would you buy the most expensive luxury car and jewelry? Would you be happier with everything you will be able to get with money?

I’ve read this quote from Benjamin Franklin..:

“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.”

…that’s why here I am thinking out loud again…

Thankful Thursday: Appreciation

The speaker for our midweek service last night talked about trusting God, not just on our bigger problems but also on small day to day circumstances that we face. It's true. Most people only asked God's help when things are already out of their control. When problems are as big as mountains. And when they know that they can still do something about their problem, they put God last on the list to be the last resort.

He also talked about thanking God for everything that he has given us. Because sometimes, people also tend to overlook the small things around them. Specially when they are busy and preoccupied. Sometimes they don't appreciate renewed life when we wake up on a new day, the things that we can see, the sounds that we hear, and so on. His message focused on two special woman. Frances Jane Crosby (Fanny Crosby) and Helen Keller. These women have disabilities but was far more trusting to God and more appreciative of life. Crosby was never bitter about her disability. At the age of eight she wrote these verses about her condition:

Oh what a happy soul I am,

Although I cannot see;

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy,

That other people don't;

To weep and sigh because I'm blind,

I cannot, and I won't."

She later remarked:

It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me.

And of course, Helen Keller was an inspiration to many.

If they, blind and deaf, did not waiver, trusted God, increased their faith and move on, appreciated life despite disabilities, how much more us with complete senses and lives a normal life? We should be more appreciative of the things that God is giving us.

I'm thankful for the message last night. It made me appreciate more, the life that I have and the things that God has been giving to me and my family. I am so thankful that God has always been with us. Through good and bad times. We are currently experiencing some down times but still, we're putting our trust in God. He is good!

More thankful entries here.

We're entering pre-school....

We were able to enroll the little girl to school yesterday and she also started that day. She's one week late since we were undecided if we'll send her to school. But last week she showed excitement to go to school already. And the "school", "teacher", "classmates", and "assignment" are always on her vocabulary. She really wants to go to school so we decided to enroll her.

Yesterday, when she went home, she showed her daddy a star and a "well done" stamps on her hands. The nanny said nothing untoward happened. She behaved well and listened to her teachers. She also brought with her a list of school supplies and grooming kit materials which we bought last night when I arrived from work. Then after dinner we worked together (daddy, yaya and me, and the little girl as our "entertainer") to cover her books and notebooks, and stick name tags on her things. We're almost through when we heard the news that classes will be suspended. The husband joked, "second day of class, bakasyon ka agad ha...hehehe!" .

I can't believe we already have a pre-schooler. Another milestone for us!

Saving loose coins.

We’re teaching the little girl how to save money in her own little way. We bought a big piggy bank where we can drop our loose coins. So whenever the little girl sees some coins lying around the house, she will always ask mommy or daddy’s help so she can drop it inside the pink piggy. One day, she saw a rare coin on my wallet. It’s not a gold coin like what Monaco Rare Coin offers but it’s different among others that’s why it caught her attention. She asked me if that’s also a peso (she thought all coins are peso coins). When I told her that it’s money from a different country, she also dropped it in the piggy bank. . I think it’s good that we’re able to teach her the value of saving even loose coins.

Funny Father's Day

How did you spend Father's Day? As for us, we just ate out. Lunch out actually. We had lunch after our church service.

We had a funny pre-celebration the day before (Saturday). Here's what happened:

After spending some time at the prayer mountain in Antipolo, I went straight to the mall to buy hubby a gift. I bought a nice customized shirt which I kept hidden until dinner time and two cards (one will be from me and one from the little lady). I was hoping that daddy will go out for an errand so we can work on the cards. And an opportune time came. He need to buy a paper bag for his gift to a pastor. So when he left, I immediately took out the card that will be coming from the little lady. I helped here wrote some mesage and her name. Then sealed it with her kiss (mark), which the little lady enjoyed doing. She was practising what to say to her dad while I returned the gift bag back to where I hid it. I didn't know that the little lady saw what I did.

When daddy returned, I was busy working on my pc. The little lady greeted her dad, "happy father's day!" which surprised hubby. And then without my knowledge, she went inside the room, get the gift bag and gave itto her had...she's realy an spoiler! lol! Daddy was left laughing on us. And teasing that we are not a good team and that I cannot keep any secret from her. lol!

This was one unforgettable Father's Day celebration for us!

Hmmm.....

...I love the scent of the candle and the oil that we bought last week at SM. Hubby said he was also using an oil burner and scented candle in his room back in Riyadh. I didn’t know that he likes scented candles too. I’ve been meaning to buy this before but thought that it will just be a waste of money. Now we’re enjoying a refreshing scent inside our living room and bedroom.

Back and updating...

It’s been a while again. Since blogger and all other networking sites have been blocked in the office, I cannot even sneak a quick look on my blogs. Aside from that work has been taking its toll on me lately. It stresses me out so when I got home, I cannot even turn on the PC. Not until now.

Anyway, a lot has happened lately. Some good, some bad. But I won’t dwell on the bad ones. Something good happened on the little lady. We started giving her milk in drinking glasses since last week and so far, it’s working. She’s now drinking milk twice a day, one in the morning and one at night before she sleeps. She’s also not cranky during the night. Thanks to daddy. He’s helping me on this tough move. It’s really good that you have someone to help you on matters like this. I’ve done this before but failed. Hirap pag yaya na pasaway pa ang aasahan mo.

So that’s one good news, and a milestone for us. We’re happy and hoping that we will succeed on this.

The little lady is growing up so fast and wants to go to school already. So this week, will check out the Christian school where she had her trial class and we’ll see if she can still be accommodated (I hope she does) on the nursery class, anyway they just started the classes last Monday. Here’s hoping…

Our Weekend {June 12-14}

So, how was your weekend? As for me, I had a wonderful one. We had a long weekend since last Friday was a holiday. We were supposed to visit hubby's relatives in Baler but due to some conflicts in my schedule, we did not push through. Instead, here's how we spend it:

Friday was an adventure for the little lady. We went to Manila Zoo. Yes. We thought we should bring our daughter to the first Zoo in Philippines before we go to the latest and much newer ones. And yes, the little lady enjoyed it. She was able to see some animals (that were already there since I was a child, lol!) like the elephant, monkeys, eagles, turtles, tigers, crocodiles, snake, and a lot more. Unfortunately the old giraffe is not there anymore. According to the taxi driver (the driver of the cab that we hired to get tot he zoo), it died two years ago...

When we left the zoo, the little lady saw a children's playground across. We stayed there for a while. Played see-saw and enjoyed the swing. Then we took a ride to rotonda, had our lunch-snacks at Mang Inasal Metropoint, took the LRT to cubao, strolled at Gatewaymall, walk through Rustan's supermarket (the little lady rode the cart with little tikes car), then went home. We just took public transports but we really enjoyed the day.

Saturday, we went to SM Marikina. When we entered the mall, we were greeted by the music from Banda Kawayan (Bamboo Band) my college alma mater's pride. We listened for a while as they entertained their audience. The little lady was amazed. After that, we took the little lady upstairs to play at Bounce.

And today, after attending church, we just stayed home. I cooked some special dishes (read the story here) which the husband and the little lady enjoyed. It's a wonderful feeling when someone praises your cooking. Specially when I hear this from my little girl: "Hmmmm, ang sarap ng luto ng mommy ko ah!".

So that's our weekend, how was yours?

WW: What's Inside?

Visit my other entry here and view more wordless entries here.

Fireproof

I just remembered to post this. This is actually a long overdue post. I was browsing my list of "To Blog" and found out that I haven't written about this yet.

Anyway, when hubby came home, he brought with him a copy of the movie "Fireproof". Fireproof is the latest film from Sherwood Pictures, which brought us Flywheel (2003) and Facing the Giants (2006). Hubby said we should really watch it. He even joked that we might decide to get married again after watching it, lol! I have heard about it but didn't bother to really searched what the movie is all about. And after watching it, I found it a very inspiring movie. with a strong message to tell. Something that married couples (whatever religion they have) must see.

Fireproof tells the story of Caleb and Catherine Holt, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Caleb is captain of the fire department and has his own personal demons to face. Catherine works in public relations at the hospital and has to deal with the flirtatious advances of one of the doctors there. Tensions rise between the couple and escalate into a threatening divorce.Caleb’s father, advises Caleb to try to save his marriage by following the directions of “The Love Dare”, a workbook of sorts in which the reader is assigned one task per day for 40 days. This book is actually being sold as well at Sherwood Baptist Church so those who watch the movie can have a real life changing experience by following the "dares" of the book.

If you haven't watch this, please do. You won't regret it. Get your marriage fireproofed :)

HoT #94

The theme/prompt for THIS week, June 9, is:
HEADS - "Tune"

Make any kind of post using the theme/prompt "Tune."

My daughter loves singing. She always mimics me whenever I sing in the church or at home. And guess what? She's only 3 years old but when she sings, she can hit the notes! :) She also knows several songs and can sing it even if she just hears the first tune. I hope she'll love singing until she grows up.

Shopping for Medical Supplies Online

Nowadays online shopping has been a trend for most people. Specially those who are so busy and had no time to visit a physical store to buy stuffs. I’ve read over the internet that now, even medical supply can be bought online like what Alegro Medical is offering to their customers. Allegro Medical has a website (AllegroMedical.com) that offers over 50,000 products in different categories and sub-categories. The site also shows their RSS feed, blog, and product guides. Online customers can shop by category, by brand or by condition. This is a great help for those people who needs medical products but cannot go to a store personally due to incapacity or disability. Alegro Medical is one of the trusted online retailers of life enhancing products in the United States. So if you need to purchase medical supplies, check out Alegro’s website.

Happy Friday

Thank God it’s Friday once again. The dark clouds are gone and the sun is smiling on us today. It’s a beautiful day! I hope that we’ll have a good weather all day. If the weather will stay this way, I guess will push through with our plan to go to PRC and pick up the doctor’s licenses. Then we’ll have our lunch out. Do some filing. Attend our G.A. and go home early. How about you? What’s your plan today? Anyway, have a great Friday everyone!

Checkbook --> check!

I’m happy that I’ve accomplished one important thing today. I was able to finally open a checking account and that gave me a relief. I’ve been meaning to do this since January but was not able to pay my bank a visit. But I’m thankful because I know that God always lead us to the right time on when to work on it. And that day is today! Perfect timing since, I don’t have any work load, I have ample time to spare and most importantly, hubby is here so we can open a joint account. We signed quite a number of forms but after forty five minutes, we’re done. And we now have our check book at hand. I’m so happy with our accomplishment. Now, we’re ready once HDMF or our developer calls us for our PDCs.

All I want for next month is...

This post is for hubby (I hope he’ll be able to read this, lol!).

Next month is a month of celebration. We haven’t celebrated these two occasions for two years together so I’m really hoping that we can celebrate together this time. We’ve been blessed with four blissful years of marriage and that’s quite an occasion to celebrate and be thankful for. And of course, I know you won’t forget the very special day of your doting wife (ehem!). My wish? I'll leave it up for you to grant. But I hope you’ll be able to guess one thing I want. A fancy fashion jewelry package from Holsted Jewelers is already extravagant. But I will accept it with an open arms (lol!). But if you’re still on your scrimping mood, a bunch of flowers will do good. Whatever it will be, I’ll be happy. :D

Thankful Thursday: Rain

It's been a while. I haven't posted entries for TT for a month and I missed it a lot. But even though I haven't posted the things I'm thankful for the past week, I haven't forgotten to thank God for them. God is good!

Well, today I'll talk about rain. Our country experienced rain in summer. The rainy season came quite earlier than usual and we didn't understand it. I thought (logically) that it's one of the effects of global warming. Since the month of June came, it's raining incessantly. The classes started last Monday but the department of education canceled the classes since yesterday due to heavy rains. And most people I’ve heard of are complaining on the rain. Yesterday, I received a text message from an unknown sender and the message goes:

“How great is our God? Study shows that Swine Flu Virus (H1N1 – Influenza A) is acquired through air. Ecologist says that the best way to clean the air is by rain. We Filipinos wonder “why rain in summer”? Now we know. God is good…all the time!”

I thought about it and I agreed. We have to thank God even for the rain!

I remember the lyrics of one of the song that I prepared for our worship service last Sunday (my theme is about giving thanks) it goes:

For all you’ve done, for all you’re going to do
We give you thanks and we lift our praise to you…

We give thanks, we give praise
For we know that ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD
We give thanks, we give praise
For by faith we know your grace will see us through..

At any time and any circumstances, we should give thanks to God. For everything has reason and purpose, and God knows everything for He is the author and director of our lives and this world, right? He knows best...


Read more thankful entries here.

For Sale: Nokia E66

A friend asked my help for this. He wants to sell his Nokia E66 phone. Used for more than one month only.

Here's the specs:

General	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 900 / 2100
		HSDPA 850 / 1900 - American version
	Announced	2008, June
	Status	Available. Released 2008, July

Size	Dimensions	107.5 x 49.5 x 13.6 mm, 62.6 cc
	Weight	121 g

Display	Type	TFT, 16M colors
	Size	240 x 320 pixels, 2.4 inches
		- Five-way scroll key - Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate

Sound	Alert types	Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, monophonic, MP3 ringtones
	Speakerphone	Yes
		- 2.5 mm audio jack

Memory	Phonebook	Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
	Call records	Detailed, max 30 days
	Internal	110 MB storage, 128 MB RAM
	Card slot	microSD (TransFlash), up to 8GB, hotswap, buy memory

Data	GPRS	Class 32, 100 kbps
	HSCSD	Yes
	EDGE	Class 32, 296 kbps
	3G	HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
	Bluetooth	Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
	Infrared port	Yes
	USB	Yes, v2.0 microUSB

Camera	Primary	3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Video	Yes, QVGA@15fps
	Secondary	Videocall camera

Features	OS	Symbian OS 9.2, Series 60 v3.1 UI
	CPU	ARM 11 369 MHz processor
	Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
	Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
	Radio	FM radio; Visual radio
	Games	Java downloadable
	Colors	White Steel, Grey Steel, Black, Red
	gps systems	Yes, with A-GPS support; Nokia Maps
	Java	Yes, MIDP 2.0
		- MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player - Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) - Push to talk - Voice command/dial - Turn-to-mute - Organizer - VoIP - Printing

Battery		Standard battery, Li-Ion 1000 mAh (BL-4U)
	Stand-by	Up to 264 h (2G) / 336 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up to 7 h 30 m (2G) / 7 h 30 min (3G)

Selling for local buyers only. Price: Php 16,000 (neg.)

UPDATE: Item already sold :)

WW: Delicioso!

Visit my other entry here and view more WW participants here.

Free Kit from EM

I finally used my free kit from Everyday Minerals. I was able to get my free kit courtesy of Toni. She's so kind to offer this to me and I only paid $4 for shipping. The kit is composed of 1 concealer, 3 foundations and 1 cheek color. I love make-ups, so when Toni shared this info to me, I immediately grab it. I didn't buy any brushes. I just made do with my brushes at hand. At first I really don't have any idea as to how to apply them. You see, these small containers contain powders, even the foundation and concealer. So it's really my first to use this kind of product. So far, I'm satisfied with the result. The foundation stays longer than I expected and I haven't felt any skin irritation while wearing them. I'll try using this everyday and see if I won't encounter any problem. And hopefully, this won't be my last kit. :)

HoT #93

The theme/prompt for THIS week, June 2, is:

HEADS - "Motion"

Make any kind of post using the theme/prompt "Motion." It can be anything that has motion or moves or has movement.

Here's a picture of the little lady as she swims around the pool with her dad. It's the first time I saw her really enjoying the water and did not get scared. She flaps her arms and feet trying to follow what her dad was telling her to do.

The Happy Last Weekend of May

We are now entering the last month of the second quarter of the year. It’s June already and here in the Philippines, it’s the first day of classes. How soon time flies. Summer is finally over. But we’re happy that at least before summer finally ended, we were able to had our family outing. The month of May ended quite well and exciting for me.

Here’s a recap of our weekend in bullet points:

• Last Saturday was the little lady’s 3rd birthday.
• I had experienced some problems before and during the day of the event but thank God, everything went well.
• A week before I already set my mind that we’re going to have a swimming party but only for the whole family.
• I had last minute preparation as to what food to prepare.
• I ordered her cake just two days before her birthday.
• Then, I found out that the resort that I’m eying for the party was reserved for an exclusive use only last Friday so we have to find an alternative. Good thing we found one that is also close to our home.
• And the worse, it was raining hard the day before so I really prayed hard for a good weather.
• And we did had a good weather during the day but it rained in the afternoon.
• But amidst all this, I’m very thankful that the little lady had a wonderful party. And for us, that’s the most important. She enjoyed swimming under the rain. :)
  
• And she enjoyed it even more because she had her dad this time.
• That was the little lady's first birthday party with her dad.
  
• Then, yesterday, after our church service, we went to the mall to buy groceries.
• Then we had our dinner at Max’s Restaurant.
• We were able to go home by quarter to nine.
• It took as long to get a cab because of the heavy rain and the long line of people also waiting for a ride home.
• Went home tired but happy.

Here are some pictures: