Kids

AJ’s smile and early morning ramblings

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It’s 4 o’clock on a Monday morning and I am wide awake. I feel like I had slept off Sunday although I didn’t really. It’s just a relief that now, I am up, showered, and headache-free. But my my, I am hungry!

To get my mind off food (although I should probably heed my body this time, I wouldn’t want to have another tummy episode later), let me just show you my current desktop:

Photos from AJ's first birthday - 6/18/2005

Photos from AJ's 1st birthday - 6-18-2005

Credits: Desktop Calendar template freebie by Mushy. Background papers and elemenst form the PopN’Art kit by the Scrapbook Graphic Girls – freebie from Scrap N’Art

That’s my nephew AJ on his 1st birthday, three years ago. Isn’t he just cute?

Oh and I was going through my Multiply Inbox and found this. I first heard of lomo from another blogger and I immediately asked a photographer hobbyist friend about it. I was under the impression at the time that one needed special filmand printing services for lomo; apparently I was wrong. The cameras are fairly inexpensive, if I still want one by the end of this week I’d probably order one 🙂

I actually visit the seller to checkout their Local Obagi set. I don’t have a lot of pimples but my skin is prone to black/whiteheads and I have those white pockets of oil all over sometimes. I didn’t see a price tag but I’ve sent them an inquiry already. It all boils down to the cost. It’s not a necessity for me at this point, but if it will be more cost effective that having facials then I’d take it.

I realized that the story of our Bohol adventure isn’t complete yet, now is probably a good time as any to get back to it. I’m not sure if a single post would be able to finish it off, but I know I’d like to take time in writing them. Sunday morning on TV, Kim Atienza’s Matang Lawin, I saw him cruise through Loboc River at night. I knew it was going to be awesome at night – he saw hundreds of fireflies! It was such a beautiful sight. 

It’s still way too early to take Zune out for a walk, and he’s sleeping. Yet I can already hear little Sharpei yelping two doors down. I still haven’t taken a photo of them together, but I’ve already got a very appropriate journalling for Zune’s behavior when I do get to scrap a layout of them. Haha 🙂 

My friend and colleague, Ingrid, signed up for a Globe post-paid line because they had a promo at our office over the weekend. It was a great deal actually because the phone that came with the Plan 500 already has a 3-megapixel camera among it’s other  brilliant features. Our first Kodak digicam was 3.2MP, so no one can really say that that small phone’s photos aren’t of good quality. If I had one, I’d probably buy a micro sd card for it for extra storage. It’s a Samsung phone and it’s really cute, small, and lightweight. I thought my phone was small, but that one was even smaller!

Anyway, enough of this chatter. Lemme grab a bite before I hunker down on my next Bohol post. Until then! 🙂

Kids. Prayers. and a Freebie :)

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Wow. Since coming back from Bohol, I have not spent as much time on the computer lately, as I used too.

Pre-Bohol, my days off work were alternately spent between sleeping and all things related to my blogging. This weekend, I have been sleeping, yes, but I haven’t been on the computer much.

Kids.

Whenever I get the chance, I take a nephew or a niece (or two, or more) with me, or tell stories about them to anyone who would care to listen. It is not at all surprising that the whole extended family is interested in what happens with each child – be it at school or elsewhere.

My 11-year old niece Dal, E’s elder sister,  was in a concert yesterday and all hands were on deck to support her. Even my Papa (grandfather) came with us to watch. It was a showcase of sorts and it was more like a school presentation than a concert, but it was fun to watch 🙂

While at the mall a few months ago with my cousin Candy, Dal was approached by a talent scout and was asked to audition for a spot at a kiddie show at some UHF channel. After discussing things with her parents, they decided to give it a go. She was accepted to attend a series of workshops. It went on from some time in May and they had their graduation rights on Sunday before last. I learned last night that she had already been chosen to be one of just 10 new kids to join the show. Yay!

We were all so proud of our girl, and it’s not just because she’s ours. She was so confident up there dancing. I always knew she could dance gracefully but this was the first time I saw her do so quite confidently. She wasn’t conscious at all in front of a full auditorium!

Here’s a video of the kids performing outside, just for me, three years ago. Dal is the one to the very left.

Prayers.

Joy, a friend of mine from Asia ACTs, was with us at the concert too. She had known Dal and the other kids from when I would take them to work or to an event we had.

From the concert and some snacks, we went to see Daddy Abueva at the hospital. He had suffered a stroke (there’s a more technical term to what actually happened) while in Davao with his son and son-in-law checking out wood for his various projects. With the doctor’s approval, and with an actual doctor accompanying them, he was flown back to Manila a few days ago.

We were there for about five hours. Yep, that was a long visit. We didn’t really intend it to be that long, specially knowing that he needed to rest.  But only Mommy Abueva was there when we arrived and we actually got around to chatting with her and keeping her company. In my years at Asia ACTs, and the many times she had us over for dinner, I didn’t really get the chance to just chat with Dra. Abueva like that. It was actually very easy. 🙂

There were other visitors too, and then eventually, Kuya Jimmy (Ate Ami’s husband) and son Dino came over; then Kuya Lawin, who was taking night watch. That was our signal to exit, we didn’t realize it was already late!

Daddy Abueva doesn’t seem to be in any danger anymore, in fact, he is raring to get back on his feet. But he still needs to rest, and go through some therapy. Being in bed though has not stopped him from being his funny self. 🙂

The family would appreciate prayers for Daddy Abueva’s fast and full recovery.

Freebie.

No, I am not giving away anything. But Flergs is. I’ve been a fan of Flergs for some time now and I couldn’t pass up the chance to win a kit that she had made.

Growing in Grace Magazine is running a promo to give readers the chance to win the Dusk Mini Kit, or perhaps even the entire Dusk til Dawn set? See the lovely new badge over at my sidebar? Click on it so you can read all about the promo. Before you go though, check this out:

This is my current desktop wallpaper. It’s a freebie desktop from Flergs’ blog and it was made using stuff from the kit in the promo. I just plopped it over one of my photos at the white sand beach of Panglao Island in Bohol 🙂

Go on over and check out the promo and the freebie desktop. You know you want to 😉

Other stuff. Come on, you’ve made it this far in my post, take a few more minutes 🙂 Thank you!

Yesterday, I saw a banner over at the tennis courts about individual lessons. I had asked my mom to check it out further since the court is just right in front of her office building. If I can afford it, I’d give it a shot. It’s been four years since I first tried the sport, with my uncle giving me free lessons.

Tennis would give me the much needed full body workout, and probably the kick in the butt I’ve been needing to get back to losing weight. I’m still not sure if FitRight is helping me out in that department, though I think it is. I’ve also been thinking about dietpills lately. I used to swear never to go near any product like that, but maybe it ain’t so bad?

Scrapbook Saturday – Feet!

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It is still Saturday in the US and some other countries right? 😉

So instead of speedwriting to make it before Saturday 11:59 PM Manila time last night, I slept. So here I am with a late SS post, and not even the third installment to my Organization series that I thought I’d be writing. Nonetheless, I have something even better! I have a new layout for the mini-album! Take a lookie:

All the photos were taken by my god-daughter Iskra, Chelle’s daughter, the same one with her tongue and kilikili exposed in a previous SS layout :).

I can’t wait to finish this project and start scrapping our vacation photos.

Don’t forget to visit Scrapbook Saturday HQ for the Blogroll! Go on and start with MammaDawg!

Edit: I forgot to include a link to the credits. Find them here: http://www.snapandscrap.tv/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=11732&cat=500&ppuser=946

Tuned in to Kids

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Sunday night turned out to be kids’ night. No, the kids weren’t around here. Rather, we spent almost the entire evening watching kids on TV.

First up: Pinoy Dream Academy’s Little Dreamers.

By golly, those kids have got oodles of talent. Really. I love watching them and I truly believe there is more talent in them than their teen/adult scholar counterparts.

Cristina was named this week’s Outstanding Little Dreamer, and she deserves the award. She’s always very energetic in her performances. You could check out a video of her performance here. Hers was the last number in the video in that post. Check out the Archives for performances of the other little dreamers. You will be WOWed by their talents.

Later in the evening, ABS-CBN had a feature story on the two faces of malnutrition in the Philippines. On the one hand, there’s the more common scene of skin and bones children who, because of poverty, and/or neglect, do not eat enough. On the other, obese children who give off a false front of being healthy but are actually are at high risk for heart disease and diabetes.

The Health and Social Welfare bureaus have programs to address the growing problem, but I know they are barely scratching the surface. Development groups and NGOs are also there with their own feeding programs and health programs for moms and their children. But how can we really save more children from dying of hunger or obesity?

With the food crisis hanging over the air, many of this kids are even more compromised than ever. But really, it’s not just the poor who can’t afford the enough healthy food for the entire family who’s in danger. In fact, I have a nephew who the doctor said was malnourished. It is sad. He has an enormous appetite and I’ve never really seen him be picky with his food. But I guess he’s not eating healthy.

And the overweight/over-indulged kids featured in the story have become too big for their age because their diets weren’t carefully planned by the adults caring for them. So it’s not just money needed to ensure that kids are healthy and grow up to become adults themselves.

It wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the feature, but this got me to thinking about how the pending law on Reproductive Health is being vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church here. I mean really, I am all for educating parents-to-be before they bring more children in the world, that’s a long term solution. But we’ve come to a desperate point already and government has the responsibility to at least make available various options to allow couples to choose the best family planning method for themselves. I just don’t see what’s so wrong about that. I don’t think the law endorses abortion, does it? I mean, c’mon!

Sunburn, waves and water proof paper!

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I feel like I’m on vacation right now but I’m just on my regular weekend off. I had such a fun day yesterday – water fun under the sun! I had the best company ever – boyfriend, my friend from work Vanette, my niece Dalnes and my nephew Esban.

Vanette loves swimming. She’s gone to two swimming courses in the three years I’ve known her. We’ve been talking about taking a dip for the whole month of April but didn’t get to go then. Oh when we finally got to go, the sun was really on it’s brightest and hottest! Yesterday seems like the only day in the past week that didn’t have rains in the afternoon. There were threatening rain clouds at around 4PM but they didn’t blow over Taytay (the municipality where the resort is at), and even when it started drizzling as we were on our way home, it was just brief like the wind just blew them over there.

We went to Club Manila East, a resort that’s about 35-45 minutes away from here. This was the same resort that Vanette and I went to 3 years ago with 3 of our other guy batchmates from work (who are all no longer in the company). This visit was in stark contrast to the first one: we were practically alone there on that Friday afternoon while we shared the resort yesterday with hundreds of people! They have more pools this time around though so it didn’t really feel very crowded, except perhaps in the Beach Waves pool.

As my dad drove us in to the entrance of Club Manila East (CME), we were overwhelmed by the number of people hanging around at the gate and the vehicles that filled the parking lot. Thankfully, the queue for tickets wasn’t that long so we were in after about 5 minutes. While waiting, Alfred lifted Esban to see the people on the kayaks. We also saw the sign for surfing lessons up front. At first we wondering, how could they do it? Surely, the artificial waves wouldn’t be that strong. Later in the day, we learned just how possible it was to really ride those waves!

The only thing that kept me from really enjoying the trip to the max was that I caught a cold the night before and it’s just no fun swimming with colds. I also couldn’t stand the intensity of the sun’s rays. It was really awesome that one of CME’s maintenance guys put up our table and chairs about five feet from this pool that had the least people in, and right under a mango tree! Shade! We had the coolest spot ever and we only had to pay 100 pesos for it. Before we got that spot we wanted to rent a hut or a cabana but all of them were already taken. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise really.

The kids really maxed themselves out swimming, it was fun to have them because they could both swim already so we didn’t always have to fuss about them. All we had to was just make sure we had our eyes on them. They did venture out on their own to the Kiddie Pool on the other side of the resort. Dal is very capable to watch her brother though so I didn’t worry too much. They came back in less than 15 minutes.

The first pool we checked out was Beach Waves. Of course, within 5 minutes of our arrival, the kids were on there. Good thing too because the waves just started. Us three adults didn’t get to experience the waves yet in the morning, it’s like the waves went on break or something. So we checked out the other pools and found our awesome shaded spot.

When our pool (yes, I claimed it) was closing at 5PM, we decided to go back to the Wave Pool. Vanette and I would not leave without getting a taste of it (not literally okay). Alfred and the kids went there after lunch so boyfriend already knew why Esban just couldn’t get enough. So off we went and WOW, those are some waves. The whole time I was thinking, real waves are more forgiving! Haha. We stayed for like three cycles, the last one were just at the “shore” where the waves break. It was so much fun. I kept worrying about Esban though because as violent as the waves were, he kept taking them on and pushing forward! I had Alfred and Dal alternately chasing after him. Near sundown though, he was the one who said we should go – he was hungry and looking forward to going to SM Taytay!

The shower rooms weren’t crowded as I though they would be. Thank God. There wasn’t much hassle getting the kids cleaned and dressed up. Esban even came back for me asking me to hurry – that’s just because we thought it was going to rain. We had to take pedicabs to the main street as the shuttle was no longer available (too bad, we were looking forward to taking a ride on those). And then we took a jeepney to SM Taytay. We really just wanted to check it out a bit and maybe find something other than Jollibee to eat, but we ended up eating at McDonald’s! I figured it would be easier to get a cab from there too. Okay, it wasn’t easy, but we did get a cab that agreed to take us home.

Esban fell asleep on the ride home, just as expected. He came up here after lunch to tell me he liked it at CME and wants to go back. That’s just as expected too. I want to go back too sweetie 🙂

Any regrets on the trip? I guess only that I didn’t borrow Edsel’s camera pack to get the digicam water proofed. Another would be that we didn’t ask other friends to tag along. There’s always a next time. 🙂

Oh, this has turned into a long post and I haven’t even mentioned the water proof paper bracelet they make you wear upon entrance. No worries, I’ll have another post on this later with pictures! I’ve just transferred them from the camera and checking them out!

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