my supposed "13th Journal"

Good Monday y'all! i had a great Sunday at home with the fambam, although that's all the weekend I could get for this week. I'll just make it up til' next  :-)

I planned a lot of things to do but failed. ( even posting a new blog entry ) ended up staying at home watching TV and cleaning my car and playing with Summer and Rain. ( Summer's cousin.) 

So I'm here at work now doing this again (just like with my first post. haha! )

I was planning to show you a notebook I got where I can write about anything 'Summer'. I had it last August and so far I only have about 3 entries :(  sad. Im toooo lazy to update it, and also got lazy to post it to this blog.

But here it is. I just had the picture taken this morning while I was on my way to work and while I was on stop to a red traffic light. hehe!
So, I got this notebook from the dept store. It caught my eyes because its yellow and it has gold edges on each page. And right on the cover, it says "Beautiful days of my life" which is exactly how I feel every time I think of my daughter.♥


Here's a photo of that diary. It already got kind of dirty since its always in my bag together with other stuff. But I never get to open it as often as I want to. 

Like I mentioned on my introduction, I have 12 diaries I still keep. This notebook I got for Summer is supposed to be the 13th, but I guess Ill only get stuck with those 12.

But here I am with this blog trying my best to update it  with my new life's little pieces.

I don't know if there's still anyone who still keep a diary, but if I only I could keep up with my busy schedule, I would still like to keep one. I remember putting all of my emotions in there, there was one diary i had, that if anyone read it they would think whoever wrote whats in it is such an ugly and insecure girl. LOL. because it was full of bitterness and self pity :)

But of course I was too young to filter my emotions then. So it should be different now. And like they say, we don't really grow up we just learn how to express ourselves in a more discreet manner as you age or sometimes act more appropriate in public. ;-)

I have read some do's and dont's in blogging, one is not to over share. I tend to break that rule sometimes so I guess this time I have to be careful.

Sometimes, my beau Mayce would tell my that I am "over sharing" on Facebook. but I don't think that I do. But sometimes realize it too late, :-) a couple of times I had to remove a post.

Prolly the bad side of not letting out what you feel. I'm so used to having friends around to diss all those emotions. But since we're all too busy now, Facebook seems to be the most convenient alternative.

But I guess, these things you have to live with, reason for us exploring other things with out the things or people you used to having around all the time. My readers can be my new friends and I would really appreciate a small talk and what you think about the blog. Thanks for visiting :-)

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Precious Moments Baptismal Celebration

The first ever big celebration I had to plan for my Summer was her Christening.
This happened over a year ago, July 2011 and I just wanted to share this very precious moment with all of you.
It is such a wonderful and fulfilling event for parents to bring their child to the Christian world so I made sure that day was well spent with friends and loved ones.


Giving birth through a C-Section wasn't just physically painful but financially excruciating as well. Plus, Summer had to be in the incubator for a week since she had a little bit of complications due to some difficulties during her birth, reason also for the emergency C-section for me. And so, our planned budget for childbirth was waaaaay out of what we expected. But we were able to manage, thank God! We just had to adjust a little bit. But we are very thankful that despite a rough start, Summer turned out to be a healthy and happy baby.

With a limited budget in mind, I still wanted to make sure that her baptismal celebration will still be special. 
As a first time mom, I went through different mommy forums to ask around and learn from other seasoned moms so I could get ideas in preparing this special occasion for my daughter. As I go through these never ending conversations, I stumbled upon this thread at the Smart Parenting website about Baptismal celebs and all. I didn't wanna settle for just any ordinary venue. I know there's something nice and fab out there that I could afford where we could hold Summer's first ever special event. Then, I saw one member post a restaurant called 'Precious Moment Tea House and Restaurant'.

I checked the photos and I was delighted with what I saw. So I researched further and found out that Mr. Sam Butcher, the creator of the iconic and endearing teardrop-eye children owns and runs the place. They also have a main branch in Aklan, in the Visayan region, which I heard was also a great venue in that area.
So I checked their rates and found their packages very reasonable. The place isn't just a restaurant but also a showroom of Precious Moment dolls, figurines and other PM items.
It was so petty. Without a doubt, I found the perfect venue!
I even made a special invitation to our guests, here it is:

  

And with no second thoughts, I had my daughter baptized at the church of my Alma Mater, "The Most Holy Trinity Parish Church" in Balic-Balic Sampaloc, Manila where I finished elementary school and where I was baptized too!

My friends were even teasing that I chose this church just because the church is yellow, my friends know that I absolutely love anything yellow, its hard to believe,  but really It was just a coincidence that favored me big time! :-)
 
So after the wonderful ceremony that sealed my daughter's Christianity, we headed to the venue and more than anyone, I was suuuuper excited!
On our way there, it rained a little bit, I was kind of worried because the reception was a bit far from the church I didn't want my guests to have a hard time looking for it or get caught on traffic but surprisingly our guests arrived just on time. ;-)

The venue is decorated with Christmas theme all year round, and that is one thing that really got me in booking this place.

Christmas in July! Perfect :-)

Here's some photos of the venue.

 

These are just a few of the photos we took during the event. I was so glad they loved the place, it was so pretty and dainty!

Don't even get me started with the food! I really didn't expect too much, but man, it was superb! I am not even kidding, from the soup to the main course to every dish, I really couldn't think of anything that's not nice. It was absolutely delicious! I hope they keep that up co'z people aren't only gonna go there for the ambiance but people would keep coming back for the food!

For the souvenirs, I did it myself too!  
I would love to give out PM figurines but they are really expensive. These are considered collector items so can you just imagine how a small piece of figurine would cost.
So I had to think of other options that would also be fitting for the event theme.
I wanted to give away something useful so I thought of giving out hand sanitizers. 
So I bought some small pink bottles, got me liters of  hand sanitizer, mixed it with some of Summer's cologne for a personal touch. I also made a sticker label with a Precious Moment design and put Summer's face on it. Then I put it in a small little cutesy pink pouch. 
And here it is 

I was soo happy it turned out great! The effort I put into it was definitely worth it and I wouldn't mind if I do this all over again for my precious little daughter Summer.♥

Precious Moments Tea House and Restaurant used to be located at Laredo St. in Palanan Makati, that is where we held the event. But they moved to a more convenient location along Buendia.
You may visit them there to and  check out the place or try their food, pastries or coffee.
Here are their contact details:

Contact Numbers	(632) 887 5252  and (632) 387 1092
Address	95 Sen. Gil Puyat Ave. (Buendia) Cor Osmena Highway Makati, Philippines
Website	http://www.preciousmomentsmanila.com
Email	preciousmomentsmanila@facebook.com http://twitter.com/manilapreciousm

this took me forever!

I have always, always wanted to make a mommy blog. Now finally, after countless attempts to start one, I feel that this is going to be the real thing.

More than anything, I want to make this blog because i'd like to share my experiences, thoughts, joy and even my worries and frustrations about being a parent.

I have a daughter named Summer and if I start telling stories about her, I would need more than one day to share stories about her and she's only 1 and a half! So I will just make a separate article about my precious little Summeroo and let me just continue with my first ever post on my first ever mommy blog. ( i feel really excited about this ^_^ )

So why did it take me forever to start this? Well, like most of the working moms' dilemma,  its really difficult to take your time, or even just find the time to sit down and do something for yourself or in this case, write something specially when you get home. The first thing you would usually want to do is play with your child and spend some quality time with her after spending your whole day at work, and of course get some rest too. 

I am lucky to have my mom and a 'yaya' to help me take care of my baby, but of course I make sure that I get to spend time taking care of her too. Every time there are milestones in her life, I am so amazed (sometimes to a point of having tears in my eyes, lol! ) and I feel that I have to capture that, but a lot of times it happens so fast and I'm afraid that I might even miss some of those milestones. 

Every time I get home from work I always ask my mom or yaya to tell me how Summer's day went and what she did that day. As much as I want to always be there for her, I know sooner or later she will understand why mom and dad has to go to work everyday and that we will always be there to love her and care for her, but there will be some time apart so we can give her the best for her future.

There's so much more Id like to share about the beautiful, messy, crazy and complicated life of being a mom.

From how my world turned 360 degrees, and just how crazy for 2 pink lines on a pregnancy test change your life forever! From a carefree single career woman who drives around town like I have no house, to a mom who has a "little me"  to take care of  and works her butt off with a watermark trace of my now gone night life :-)

This life I thought I couldn't live, is the life I couldn't imagine not having now. It surprises me everyday how I go by enjoying every minute of it, yes even without the things I thought would make me happy before I had a child.

This is still surreal for me. But I am enjoying every day, every struggle, every tiny heart attacks, every big or tiny food stain on my blouse, toys on the floor I trip on,  little sleep and a small bank account. This is my life. And I love living it specially with my little love.

So, here you can see me live and learn all these. 
This is the life of a hard worker, a complicated partner ,  a stubborn but loving daughter ( not proud! :/ ) and a happy mom. Watch how I balance this out :-)  I'll see guys around!