Baby's Bestfriend :)

Julia's usual encounter with Lily :)

New toy box

I've been wanting to get this wooden toy box/organizer when I first saw it at S&R a couple of months back. It was P2,500. Last week, we were there to pick up some fish fillet for Julia's party and there it was...on sale for only P1,200! I didn't even think twice! It was such a good buy and we really needed it for all of Julia's stuff. Plus, I'm a sucker for wooden stuff for kids... puzzles, toys, wooden stamps, kiddie furniture...


It took almost an hour to put the whole thing together. It was quite a piece of work! Thanks Drago and Romy! :)

I love it :)

Julia's 1st Birthday Party (friends edition)

Inspite of the bad weather, Julia's party turned out better than expected :) I was surprised alot of people made it. Thank you all for braving the rain just to celebrate Julia's birthday with us.

Because it was impossible to set up tables outside, we decided to contain everyone in the living room. It was a bit crowded pero ok lang, people didn't seem to mind. My tita sent her best all around guy Lito who did practically everything (pumped balloons and decorated the place, set up the buffet and did on the spot grilling, and finally helped with the packing up and cleaning). He was the best! My Tita who is our ultimate party organizer-slash-caterer took care of almost everything (she was the one who did our pre-wedding dinner and Julia's baptism among others). I was surprised there was even an inflatable clown, party poppers and a chocolate fountain! To think i told my friends it was just a simple merienda :) Thank you tita vicky! You're the best! Thanks also to my Lola for the yummy baked orange chicken (one of her specialties) and my dad for the bbq! Come to think of it, i probably only spent half or even less of what i expected for the two parties we had for Julia's birthday since we got alot of contributions from our family. Mama, Tatay, Lola Cely, Daddy and Tita Vic! Thanks so much for everything! :)

Anyway, everything should be back to normal now. Party's over :) Julia is officially 1 year old!

Welcome to the party!

can you recognize our living room? :)

OUR GUESTS:

highschool friends

Elorde friends :)

My co-teachers and very dear friends

Julia's friends =p

You should've seen how Julia's face lit up when she saw tita jill, ninang krissy and ninong melo! Relief and excitement written all over her face as if saying "finally! familiar faces!"

Rainy Day

It's been raining the whole afternoon. They say there's a typhoon coming (or is already here). I hope the weather gets better tomorrow. We are having a small party here at the house to celebrate Julia's 1st birthday (again) this time with our friends :)

I wasn't going to have another party. It's just too much work and too much spending. We were fine with just the family party. But then again, 1st birthdays ought to be special and worth spending time, effort and money for :) I want people to remember Julia's 1st birthday even if it's just for the food, giveaways or the company of good friends. We aren't expecting too many people, just our closest friends. We wanted to keep it simple :) I just really hope the party turns out okay :)

Dear weather, please cooperate. Our living room is not big enough to hold all our guests.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEY!!!

Taken on the morning of her birthday :)

Julia's 1st Birthday (family dinner party)

Julia's Birthday dinner party last night turned out exactly how we wanted it. Simple and intimate :) We really had a blast! Thanks to everyone in our family for being a part of this special celebration!

For more pictures. Check out our smugmug site. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Special thanks also to Tiffany's Fusion Cafe for the wonderful service and great food! If you are looking for a place to hold small group events (birthdays, baby shower, corporate meetings, etc) I am recommending Tiffany's. They have the nicest private area that is perfect for small parties :) Plus the food is not pricey and the place is nice and homey :)

Located along Aguirre ave., BF Homes Paranaque

I recently started tutoring and so far it's doing pretty well. My schedule is mondays-fridays 4-5pm.
After I resigned from Zobel I had this nagging feeling that I had to get another teaching job. A small school that accepts part time teachers (it has to be part time of course since I gave up my job in Zobel to be able to spend more time with Julia so it defeats the purpose if i take another full time job) but when i asked around, most schools require full day and there's one that accepts half day but as my friend put it "the pay is pathetic." So unless i'm some millionaire's wife, (no offense Drago :) and teaching is just my hobby then maybe i'd go for that.

And then there's tutorial... It's definitely not full time and considering it will only take an hour or two a day, its not bad at all. The pay is not bad either. So far i only have one student, a first grader and she's quite a character :) So when i did the computation, this will be paying for our monthly gas consumption. As you know the prices are ridiculously high and are still going up. So at least now tutoring will shoulder gas expenses. I'm considering getting another student or maybe even two. If i do, then i'd be earning as much as I did when i was in Zobel--tax free! And the best thing about it is it's part time :)

All the rest of the day I get to hang out with Julia and watch her goof around with Lily while she's practicing on her walking :) Right now she's in the crawling like a madman stage so thanks to char for these wonderful baby legs (we have them in like 6 different designs!) she gets to crawl all she wants without getting her knees dirty :)

Happy Fathers' Day!

Julia was born on Fathers' Day last year. Guess it will always be a double celebration :)

Happy Fathers' Day to all the dads in our family: Drago, my Dad, Tatay, Lolo, Santi, my brothers Bam and Archie, Patrick (my brother-in-law) and all dads and soon to be dads out there!

Our bedspacers, Drago and Joey

Flashcards 2

here's another version of the flashcards video :)

Flashcards

Sometimes we think she's just guessing, but most of the time she seems to know :) It's a result of playing with flashcards everyday. Gutay-gutay na nga eh! :)

p.s. tito gary, this is for you! :)

At a Jollibee children's party we attended last Sunday

p.s. We then discovered that Julia is afraid of Jollibee :) Or mascots for that matter. Baduy!

Photo Exhibit at CCP

My cousin Nina who's a photographer in New York, together with a group of artists, opened a photo exhibit last night at the CCP. My cousin has been working on this project for quite some time now. They've been holding workshops for young, aspiring photographers, providing them professional training and gathering them for project shoots in various sites. One of their major project trips was Sagada and it comprised a big part of the photo exhibit. The photos were beautiful. With the theme "photobaryo" they were able to collect pictures of beautiful sceneries, landscapes and snapshots of people in the barrio and their different activities. The pictures of children were my favorite :)

Nowadays, anyone with a camera can be a photographer. But I realized it takes more than that. Taking a nice picture of your friends at the beach with a breathtaking view of the sea in a black and white or sepia effect is nothing compared to a picture of young children in worn out clothes and slippers playing with empty cans looking as happy as could be, as if they haven't got a care in the world.

Congratulations Nin! You guys did a really great job! :)

The exhibit will run until July 28. If you have friends who are lovers of photography and art, please spread the word!

Drago and what he'll look like 10 years from now

With my cousins

he has a baby goat, i have a baby kangaroo

Julia with my cousin Nina

It was my last week in Zobel this week. I gathered the last of my stuff, cleared my desk (four years worth of clutter) and emptied all my drawers. I turned over all my files to the new teacher who will be taking over my subject assignment. I went back to my old classroom one last time and disposed all my trash. I gave away some of my nice classroom materials to the other teachers and brought home the ones i think i would still be able to use. After all, I still have Julia to practice on ;)

So while my co-teachers chattered excitedly about their new section assignments and classroom design themes, I went from one office to another having my clearance signed. And somewhere between formalizing my resignation and collecting all my stuff, I felt a sudden wave of sadness :( After all it's not easy giving up a job in a school that's literally like my second home.

I can't believe it's been four years...Id say it was one heck of a journey and a learning experience I wouldn't trade for anything else.

So here's to all the memories, to the many wonderful people i've met and friends i've made along the way; parents, co-teachers, school admin and staff and of course the kids... working with them has been an incredibly rewarding experience :) Something I will always look back to with pride :)

I will be teaching again, definitely. But first things first, i promised my Dad i'd help him out in the bakery and promised myself i'd go back to school for my MA.

And whenever i feel sad and confused about giving up my job, this reminds me of my most important job of all. And suddenly i'm not so sad :)