March festivities

March is always a festive month in our family because our two babies celebrate their birthdays in March.  This time, it's even more special because Dana is graduating from Kindergarten and she's the Top 3 in her class.

Here are pictures of her with her medal and toga :)


It's rather funny because we never expected her to get any honors.  We know she's always fourth in class but we never pressured her to be number one.  For us, just let her learn at her own pace and let her enjoy the activities in school.  We want her to look back at her first stab at school and remember it with excitement and enjoyment.

She made a lot of friends, she participated in a lot of school activities, improved well with her penmanship and math skills.  There's so much that she did!  Oh and don't forget the Educational Field Trip, the Christmas Presentation and the Family Day activities.

On the other hand, Dylan didn't have much to be happy about because about a week after his birthday, he slipped on the stairs and cracked his head open.  It needed about 4 stitches to close.  It was frightening to see so much blood but that's to be expected from a head wound.  It was harder to watch him getting stitched up because you know he's in pain and you want to take away the pain but you can't.  What's funny is, after getting all stitched up and he's done crying his lungs out, it was like nothing happened!  He was smiling at the nurses and chatting with the doctor like there's no bandage on his head! hahahah  It took about a week to heal, with much cleaning and re-dressing going on.  Actually, he was in pain not from the stitches but from the hair getting stuck on the bandages LOL

To cap off March's festivities, we all went to Subic for some family bonding time.  

Hectic February

It's been a couple of weeks since Dylan started his speech therapy sessions.  We are all adjusting with the new schedule but so far we're doing okay.

One highlight this February is our trip to Subic in celebration of Patrick's birthday and of course, Valentine's Day.  We spent  three days and 2 nights at the Bayfront Hotel.  Naturally, you can't have a trip without doing some educational and fun activity for the kids.  It's not just about relaxing but also learning something and remembering places that have enriched you.  So, we took the kids to the Ocean Adventure Park which is roughly an hour's drive from Subic Central.  Here, they came face to face with dolphins, seals and other wildlife. The kids really had a great time and so did we.  Even at our age we're learning something new too :)

 In school, Dana had her first Family Day activity and as a Kindergarten student she and her family were required to wear yellow shirts to better represent the grade level :)  She had so much fun participating in the games.  She volunteered for the sack race but halfway through the course she got her feet tangled up and skidded on the ground.  There were a lot of food kiosks as well so she and Dylan had fun trying out the different offerings :)

Another important event in February was our friends' Star Wars Wedding.  Patrick and I met Oneal and Rej through the Star Wars Philippines group and share with them our love of Star Wars.  Oneal is in fact Dana's godfather :)  We were really excited to attend their wedding because it's Star Wars inspired (of course!) and it's a privilege to be invited to take part in their union :)  Unfortunately, we didn't make it till the end because Dana became sick while at the reception (probably from fatigue) and we had to leave early.

Happy New Year kids!!

It's the New Year now - 2010... sounds like something from a science fiction movie, huh?  Well, the kids are doing okay, except that both kids got sick LOL Dylan with an ear infection and Dana with the usual cough associated with the stink of fireworks hehehehe

Dylan is starting his speech therapy this year to keep him up to speed with his speech.  If you didn't know, at almost 4 years old, Dylan still has yet to complete 4-5 word sentences.  For now, he is still stuck on 2-3 words and his articulation isn't that great.  This is not surprising since Patrick's brother, Stevie and my sister Sharon also had trouble with their speech when they were kids.  If I'm not mistaken they both only started speaking at age 5.  Now, there's speech therapy for kids like Dylan but oh it's so expensive.  Each session lasts an hour and costs P500.  Dylan has to have two sessions a week.  But we can see some improvement already which is good.  It's also to prepare him for preschool.

Another milestone in Dylan's life is his sleeping on his new bed by himself.  Before he shared the bed with me and Patrick.  Now, he's in the same bedroom with his Ate Den and Ate Dana but they each have their own beds.  It's such a relief to be able to sleep peacefully now hahaha  Also, he has started undressing and dressing by himself!  He's really on a roll now! :D

Dana is still doing good in school.  She has also stopped wetting her bed (at last!).  And to celebrate we bought her a cake hahahaha  Oh and when we went on that trip to Clark, she also taught herself to swim! LOL Imagine that! hahahaha

I'm sure there's more to come and more in store for them in the coming months.. so stay tuned! :D

3 months of catching up!

Hi there!

It's been a long time since I've updated my kids' blogs and I've been truly remiss in posting as I saw that the last post I did was in August. Well, here's 3 months worth of kids' activities to share with you. Let's do it by month hehehe

End of August - The kids and the rest of the family spent a weekend in Tagaytay, staying at the Days Hotel Inn and then heading over to Enchanted Kingdom for some entertainment (courtesy of Patrick's job!). Here's a picture of them enjoying horseback riding. Den and I had an amazing time riding the zipline. It was also fun playing with bubbles in the jacuzzi. We have so many pictures at Enchanted Kingdom so you'll just have to bear with this.

September - A whole slew of events happened in September too. First, we all traveled to Subic because of Patrick's work. Patrick was test-driving a Honda City car as well as attending a car-related event there. We stayed at the Bayfront Subic Hotel and though it isn't obvious in the pictures, Dana ended up being very sick during the trip.

Another event, this time a major catastrophe for Metro Manila, was Typhoon Ondoy and the deluge that it brought many affected cities. This was the worst flooding we've ever experienced and even Stanley our car got flooded up to the flooring. But that's already a godsend considering other cars and houses ended up being buried in mud and flood waters, and some people's cars even ended up getting washed up somewhere else because of the raging waters. Look at the water level mark on the house.. If the cars remained in the garage, they'd be buried too!

October - The highlight for the month is the kids' having a blast at their cousins' Lance and Hannah's double birthday party. The party itself was initially postponed because the venue was flooded due to Ondoy. Stevie and Toni were able to secure a spot in Jollibee, fortunately and the kids had a great time!

November - Though we didn't actually go anywhere exciting this month, we did get to test drive Stanley's younger sibling, the 2010 Subaru Legacy Station Wagon! This is one cool car, cool enough that Dana even branded her Sally!!! If I had the money, I'd definitely buy this car, but nothing can and will replace Stanley ! :D

December - Well, naturally, you'd expect to see Christmas pictures here and you won't be disappointed. But, you'll also see pictures of Dana's first Christmas presentation in school! woohoo.. they were singing and dancing to "Kumukutikutitap!" and being a proud parent, I have to say, Dana was really great at it! :D

On to Christmas pictures: This year, the kids had a lot of toys because I got crazy at the toy sales that we went to. Imagine 70% off on most of the toys that the kids liked, man, it was hilarious!! LOL Oh and we also went to Clark and stayed at the Lohas resort (again!) this time with my sister Sharon and her family. Originally, the plan was to go there with our grandmother who's visiting from the States. Unfortunately, the series of out of town trips took their toll and she got sick with pneumonia so that when it was our turn to be with her, she couldn't make it but we still had to go through with the plans because the hotel has been paid for in advance.

All in all, it's been a good year for us.. Lots of opportunities for the whole family to travel and enjoy being alive and together as a family. It was also a blessing that my grandmother was able to come and visit because she also wanted to see her great grandkids and that's a privilege in itself. Den also turned 18 this year so that's also a milestone in her life. We are really blessed!!

Ice Skating in Mall of Asia

For many years, I've always been intrigued by what it feels to ice skate. I had that curiosity when they first launched the ice skating rink in Megamall and then now in Mall of Asia they have it too.

But old age has caught up with me LOL yeah, my knees aren't what they used to be and I've left it to the kids to enjoy the feeling and I just spent the time looking at them from the sidelines. We were lucky to get free tickets to ice skating, though you still have to pay for the ice skates rental so Dana, Den, Ate Mel and Den's friend Uyeh took advantage and went ice skating last August 21.

As luck would have it, nobody in the group has even skated in their lives before and there were some hilarious moments on the ice LOL Dana was very excited and she loved being on the ice. I promised her that next time, we'll hire an instructor and I'll skate with her waaah!!! hahahaha

Here are some pics :

Dana's First Educational Field Trip

August 11, 2009 - Dana went on her first educational outbound experience (otherwise known as The Field Trip) with her classmates and schoolmates. Patrick went with her as a chaperone LOL

Their first stop was at the Fun Farm in Canlubang Laguna where they got to enjoy a little bit of horseback riding, riding a wagon being pulled by a carabao, a little fishing and petting some rabbits and hamsters. Needless to say, when she came home the chatter was non-stop and she even brought home 2 gold fish as pets, a fish bowl and accessories. Here are some of the pictures from the trip:




There was even a rope course that the kids needed to climb. Fortunately for Dana, she's used to to doing these things. She just came from Enchanted Kingdom where she kept going up and down the ropes in the playground. Some of her other classmates couldn't even finish the course! She went through it three times much to the amazement of her very own teacher and the facilitators of the trip!! hahaha



For more pictures, just click here.

Dana had lice.. uggh..

okay so that caught your attention I bet hahaha even though it sounded gross, it deserved to be in the blog because it's still a milestone in my child's life hahahaha especially after that last post about new firsts hahahha

Before we realized that she really had lice, I saw her scratching her head like there's no tomorrow. I figured she was all sweaty from riding her bike that that was the reason why she was itchy. And then, when her babysitter was combing through her hair after her bath, she mentioned that Dana indeed had lice and there were so many of them LOL

I immediately told the babysitter to remove as much as she can and instructed Patrick to buy medicinal shampoo to stop the lice from multiplying.

It took 2 days for us to get rid of all the lice and some of them have hatched too. We then went to Dana's favorite hair salon and had her hair cut. It was all good timing because school was about to start. Here'a a picture of Dana with her new lice-free hair :)