Are You Ready For School?

The question is for you moms. 

It's barely two weeks before the start of the school year. And I can't say I'm ready yet. We haven't bought books and other school supplies and uniforms yet. When the classes start I would need to wake up 5AM (or earlier) everyday to prepare my son's and hubby's breakfast and packed lunch. If we'll push through enrolling Winter to Kumon, my morning schedule will be filled up. It'll be busy everyday studying and doing home works with the chores side by side. 

I think blogging will be pushed at night. Oh I might not have energy to blog at all.

Though sometimes I wish my son is in school already. Their bickering and noise gets to my nerves most of the time. Not to mention the toys all over the floor and cleaning up after them.

In the meantime, let me enjoy the lazy mornings.

Thanks To The Floaters!

This was a scheduled post but I don't know why it didn't came out last week. Anyway, I'm using this chance to share it for Family Time.

Last Saturday, the daddy had a (pre-nup) shoot session in Tagaytay, Picnic Grove. So to forget my little tampo to hubby for not bringing us with him despite my proddings, I and the kids had a dip at the village pool. And also the summer heat pulls you to the water.

Look at kuya Zach! I convinced him to use the floaters instead of holding on to the pool side. He got his palms and fingers wounded last time from rubbing on to the cement for a long time. He eventually discovered that he doesn't sink with the floaters. So I taught him to wave his arms and kick his legs. And then he's so happy that he can swim with the use of the floaters. He said he's like a jelly fish :D

He's so afraid before when we try to teach him how to swim. Hope he can learn how when we teach him little by little.

With Gabe, he's still content splashing water from the shallow part.

Oh! the photos aren't bad. I used my Samsung Champ phone.

Have a great day everyone!

Very Cute Letters To God

I wanted to sing along to Hallelujah (Your love is amazing...) so I looked for it on youtube. I found it but I wasn't able to sing reading these very cute letters from kids.

How pure are the hearts of little children. I hope our hearts can always be like a child's - so pure, true and vulnerable. As how God wants us to be.

My faves:

Dear God,
Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother.
Larry


Dear God,
I think about you sometimes even when I'm not praying.
Elliott


Dear God,
Thank you for my brother but what I prayed for was a puppy.
Joyce

Family Time: Advance Birthday Treat

Yey! It's my birthday. I'm past the calendar and moving on to the bingo card. haha! :D
Yesterday after church, we had a simple celebration of my birthday.

in the last photo you can imagine how hot the weather is that the three boys had to take off their clothes when arriving home. They're watching Jurassic Park 2 in this photo. Note: Zach's reaction is exage for photo's sake. hehe :D
Happy birthday to me! I didn't have to cook dinner last night coz we still have take-out pizza and pasta :D

Do You ♥ Nuffnang?

Top reasons why I love Nuffnang:
1. Advertising Opportunities. Nuffnang gives me additional chances of earning online through the ad banners. It has a great range of trustworthy ad partners.

2. Putting Me On What's Hot And New. They give me great news about new products or services, promotions, and even contests. Because of Nuffnang I'm on top of what's new and I never get behind on the buzz.

3. Events. I like attending events to beat the monotony in the life of a the stay-at-home-mom. Events make my life online and offline more exciting. Experience is the best teacher! Not to mention the freebies. And of course, you know that events create bondings with family and friends. And be able to meet beautiful people.

Speaking of events, hope I can attend the first Nuffamily Day on May 28 at Crosswinds, Tagaytay. I'll be bringing a group of 4, which is none other than my family. I'm sure my kids would love to see the lanterns up in the air. We'll ride whatever it is coming from Binan, Laguna.

This event is being made possible to us by:

Love And Hate Relationship with FB

FB isn't my hubby, it's EQ. But I guess i don't have to tell you who or what FB is. Unless you're my Papa.

I avoid opening my FB account. But it's always open every time I go in front of the laptop. Well, nobody checks on my fb except hubby. (That rhymes!) So I need to turn it off every time I'm finished running through the updates. It's so enticing to check on new photos uploaded by friends and then commenting on the photos and messaging. It eats up lots of my time. Especially when a chat pops up. Once you pop you can't stop! Good thing you can turn your status offline in chat while still being online in fb. :-D

I can hardly find time to blog. Add to that, the laptop screen crashed 2 weeks ago. I think you've noticed I haven't been posting lately. I'm using the tv as my laptop monitor so it isn't really conducive. The only time I can be online for hours without breaking my neck is during weekends when hubby brings his laptop from work.

On the good side, I use fb to share my blog posts. I notice that my blog's page view stat goes up when I do this. That's the reason why I love fb.

Family Time At Home

Sorry for me, we can't find where hubby uploaded the photos during the day before Mother's Day when we went to the mall. haist!
This weekend we just stayed home except for the grocery last Saturday and the church on Sunday. Kuya Zach also attended the Kids' Camp which I'll share in a separate post.

The day before Mother's Day we bought books from booksale. These are all for P600+ only. We couldn't have bought the encyclopedia for that amount if it's not for sale.

The Goodnight Max book is Winter's fave because of the touch-feel parts in it. And also the Curious George Discovery Day book because of the many suprises like the pop up at the end. While kuya said that we can learn lots of boring things from the white book. He's talking about the Children's Encyclopedia. haha! I'll buy more books for the kids when I can. They learn a lot from them and they're entertaining as well.

Here's Winter on the twist car. It's actually their lola's gift to kuya Zach for his graduation.

Kuya Zach building his imaginations

Didj Game Console

We're blessed to have relatives from other countries who are generous to give us pasalubong. We don't mind if some are hand-me-downs. They still look brand new. I'm lucky to have a size closest with tita among her nieces (he's hubby's tita actually) that's why I got the most clothes heehee!

The Didj is just one of the many surprises we got among clothes, slippers, etc. for hubby, me and the boys. The boys called the Didj (Leap Frog Game Console), PSP since it looked like one. What's different is that there are parts in the game when you have to answer math equations to be able to save the "cuties" (as what the boys call them). The other console didn't work anymore after few tries. But thankfully, the other one is still working. They have another option to ease their boredom.

Zach himself noticed that he's improved in answering addition and subtraction equations. You can choose the grade level from K to grade 8 :D

Winter, wearing his dad's dart competition medal while playing Didj in his usual kagat-labi style haha! He guesses the correct answer for the equations. But most of the time, he kills the cuties when his kuya isn't available to help him answer them.

Mommy Moments: Preggy Tales

Happy Mother's Day To All The Moms! I guess it's high time for me to share my pregnancy stories. Been blogging for quite a while now but it'll be my first time to share the stories of my prego days. So be ready for this.

I got pregnant the first time after 1 and 1/2 years of being married. We planned not to be pregnant for 1 year. We have me and hubby as our own babies for the first 1 year of our marriage :) Then I thought it'll be easy to conceive just when you want to. There were times when I felt sad every time my period comes. But after 6 months, God gave us a healthy embryo in my womb.

I started to lose my appetite and hated hated the smell of instant beef noodles. I've never hated any smell like that in my life. But aside from that, I didn't have any problems with my first trimester. No morning sickness. Just once, I vomited for having eaten too much. haha! :D

My tummy just continued to bulge until the coming months when I regained my taste for food. My OB gave me multivitamins and told me to drink milk twice a day (Yikes! I stopped drinking milk when I was 4 yrs. old) and eat everything I want. Which the latter I was so willing and happy to oblige even if I wasn't told to. I didn't gain much weight though, 125 lbs. total pregnancy weight, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe because I walked alot. I walk part of the way going to office and back home. But I remember I was so sleepy everyday and our boss allows me to sleep in the office. haha! :D

I was always excited for monthly check-ups coz I know I will be hearing my baby's heart beat through my OB's fetal doppler. Hubby had a chance to hear it too.

During my ultrasound at 6 months, it felt so great to see the red tiny dot beating fast through the monitor. We were so happy to know that the gender of our firstborn is a boy. I wanted a boy for my first.

At 38 weeks, when my OB did an internal exam on me, she told me to have an ultrasound since she can feel small parts - feet or hands and not the head. Her hunch was confirmed in the ultrasound. My baby was in footling breech position.

Since I have a Rheumatic Heart Disease, my OB's first plan was to have me on painless normal delivery. But because of my baby's position, I was scheduled for C-section delivery the week after that. It's riskier than the normal delivery but there's no choice since the baby didn't move until the last hour when they run another ultrasound.

In short, my baby was delivered through C section and weighed 3.06 kgs. I'll be sharing my birthing experience in another post.

After my delivery, we were advised by my doctors not to have another baby due to the great risk for my heart condition. They called my baby "golden boy." But after 2 and a half years my OB was surprised when I came back to her. It was unexpected as well for me and hubby. But I knew in my heart that I wanted another one even if the doctors advised me before not to have another baby. And during my first check up with my second baby, my OB told me right away that I should be ligated after she delivers the baby.

For my second pregnancy, it's quite the same with my first one. No morning sickness (just felt nauseated twice), and of course the normal pains of pregnancy. But this time I resigned from my new job of 5 months in my 4th month of pregnancy. I felt like my back's breaking especially in the last months. And still the same dilemma. Especially this time when we knew at first that he will be delivered through CS. My OB wants my baby to be leaner when he comes out. She ordered me to take 4 glasses of milk everyday (eeeekk) and eat meat. She said, "Kawawa naman ang baby paglabas ay payat."

In the 7th month, I was so excited to know the gender of my baby.

Since we knew that this will be the last, I've been wishing for a baby girl. I was dumbfounded upon hearing the sonologist say that he's seeing "eggs." That night, I needed to cry out to God for my heart to be resolved.

At 38 weeks I gave birth to my bunso, another baby boy, who is a little bit bigger than my first one. Though I felt he's still tiny after all the efforts hehe :D

I'm so grateful to God that He has given me the opportunity to experience how it is to have a little person inside me and finally seeing and touching him. For me, it's more on the emotional and mental pains, knowing and not knowing the risk of pregnancy and giving birth when you have a heart condition or any chronic illness (or even without). But I really felt that God was there with me all through out these experiences.

More tales of preggyhood at Mommy Moments!

Just Beautiful: Batangas Resthouse

Very qualified for the meme Just Beautiful. No doubt! My kids had great fun running around and then swimming at the inflatable pool.

 Tita bamba brought out her dresses and shoes. Nag model-modelan kami haha!

Thanks for the beautiful shots honey!

We can't miss this opportunity to have our family picture.

More beautiful things at

Family Time #1: Holiday With My Folks

My first time to join Family Time hosted by Jes. The history of this meme is somewhat dramatic. :D
I want to share my family time when my my parents, sisters, BIL, niece and nephews visited us here at home. This was during the Holy Week Saturday. We took the opportunity to stop by at Nuvali.

This first photo is my Pap posing beside the lake full of colorful kois

They went boating. Just like celebrities waving at the paparazzi.

Family photo minus hubby who's on the lens. Upon seeing this album in fb, my bro who's in Australia with his family, commented that he missed us and he hoped he's here. Well, we actually feel the same.

At our village pool. The kiddos had fun in the water. 

Walking on water? No, a failed jump shot

I guess they had a good time taking a dip coz summer here in the Philippines is like you're inside the oven.

After this shot, I went home to grill hotdogs on stick while my sister baked cookies. Times like these aren't enjoyable without food. Don't ask me why no one remembered to take even one shot of all those food, all lost in our tummy haha :D 

Visit Jes's blog to see how others spent their family time. Have a great week!