My Daughter and Son

Just sharing a few pictures off my overloaded camera.

I love, love, love you so much!

And Then There Were None

October 8, 2011 - Luigi's 2nd official trip to the barber... this time, to have it all shaved up.

The "before" shot:

The "during" shots:

The "after" shot:


With a small black spot in the middle of his forehead - due to a bump he had because of his kalikutan - but, nevertheless, still cute!

Focus on Fitness

Have you ever experienced feeling bloated and lazy? Or are you often in an eating craze and too many drinking parties?

Do you want to get fit and lengthen your life? Do you want to live your life happy and full of energy?

Well, if your anwers if no, no and yes, yes to above questions, then why don't you start over, leave all of those bad habits behind, get into those athletic apparel and focus on your health and fitness today? At first, it may not be easy but if you think of the benefits of living healthy, then you will be encouraged to really fight for fitness.

Below are some of the unique benefits of regular exercise and getting fit:

1. Regular exercise reduces your risk of premature death. You avoid developing heart disease and different kinds of cancer, which are the main causes of premature death.
2. Your immune system is also strengthen with regular exercise.
3. You sleep better and it's what you need to feel relaxed and energetic the next day.
4. Even without a rigid diet, you tend to cut off those extra pounds.
5. You will even look younger than how you would normally would for your age!
6. Overall, you feel great and happy!

Now what could be better that all that?

I highly encourage you to take up regular exercise not as a daily chore but something that you are doing and will be doing not only for yourself but for your whole family. You may actually start off with just light exercise routines like walking or stretching. When you feel more comfortable with your body, you can do more aerobic exercise such as jumping, running, swimming. After you have managed to take control of your body and energy, you can move forward by adding some strength and muscle conditioning for your routine. With these, you can be fit in no time. Make sure you take nutritious meals and enough rest as well.

Now if you are like me who needs a little bit more boost than the rest, you can allow yourself to be enthused by buying some new clothes for your exercise activities. What I did for myself was to browse and buy through an online clothing store. I was able pick several polo shirts and other women's clothing that fit my body and boost my morale. Now, I am ready to start my exercise routines because I feel good about the way I look and I know in my heart that this is the best thing I can actually do for myself.

Going back to Scrapbooking

If there's anything that I missed while I was super busy with work - it's blogging and doing digital scrapbooking.

I challenged myself recently to try it out again -- I knew that my photoshop skills are going a bit rusty --- by creating Zoe's school party invitation DIY.

Hmm...although this looks okay - I think I need to practice some more. :-)

Hope I find more time to sit down to create more cute stuff.

Revisiting Ongpin Street

My new officemates and I went on a mini-field trip to Chinatown last July. It was more of a food trip actually, but nevertheless very culturally enriching.

Let the pictures speak for themselves.

Posing with the group:


Poong Nazareno found inside Binondo Church:

Kalesa ride, anyone?

What is a Binondo trip without stopping by at Tasty?

Siomai to perfection:

Siopao which I couldn't resist:

Colorful version of the siopao infront of Eng Bee Tin:

Saying a little prayer thru incense:

Fruits at a very low price:

Luvet! I'm definitely coming back!

Shopping Alternative

We were gifted with this colorful picture frame a couple of years ago and it's only now that I was able to take it out from its "hiding place" and be able to put the kids' pictures inside.

How lovely it turned out to be! This one now sits on the glass table in the living room. :-)

Now I realize how we can easily forget gifts received through the years. When Christmas or birthdays pass, we sometimes forget to immediately put the gifts to use. In some instances even, we forget them altogether and they rust away or get spoilt, making them useless stuff.

I know that I have a lot more "good stuff" which I have on storage and not used. I still have a ton of bags, lotions, perfumes, etc. etc. in the cabinet!!! Don't you think this is enough reason for me to skip going around the mall for now and stop buying stuff here and there? As an alternative, what I just gotta do is really bring out those gifts in storage and make use of them. It's like buying new stuff without spending a single cent.

How cool is that?

Funny Find: Lunch Bugs

The page says: Sick of sharing your sandwich with your co-workers? This is one way to be totally sure that no one will ever want to touch your lunch again.

Eww and LOL!

Vacation's Over

Vacation is over. Well, at least for me, of course. I was on quite a busy but memorable vacation for the past days with my family but inevitably had to go back to my corporate life, this time with a new company. Hopefully, I will find my stay in this company so worthwhile.

Speaking of work, one of the first emails I got in my inbox is an email from HR informing everyone about the annual vaccination program for the employees. Unlike in my previous job where you get one free vaccine for yourself, all of the vaccines to be availed here are to be charged to the employee, albeit at a lesser price. Nurses and doctors wearing hospital scrubs uniforms will come in at a given day to administer to the employees the vaccines which they've ordered. I'm actually thinking if I should also order at least a flu vaccine for my kids. Hmm. They are both due for that same vaccine anyway. Oh, by the way, this reminds me that I still need to do some research for a nurse-friend of mine looking for scrubs. I will tell her that she can actually find cheap but nice nursing or medical scrubs in this link http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Women/Original-Scrubs/. I am quite sure she will find what she needs there.

Ta-ta for now!

Our St. Nick

St. Nicholas of Bari is a popular saint often associated with asking for financial assistance, protection of children, and of course, Christmas gift-giving.

Because my husband and I have been praying to him to keep our finances sound and our kids and house safe for the longest time, we've always wanted to get a St. Nicholas statue for the house. It is also to replace/complement our already-dilapidated St. Nicholas novena prayer card that is posted on our cork board near the telephone in the living room. :-)

Happily last March, I was able to find a lovely wooden figure of him from Deinar. Fina of Deinar handed St. Nicholas to us with the reminder that we can truly pray to him to give us money, a lot of money, but just enough.

So, here he is.

The figure fits perfectly at the wall adjacent to our main door. And as we had the figure blessed and then hung on the wall, we pray that he continues to be one of the guardians of the kids, the house and our wallets. :-)

For more info and stories on this saint, click here.

So, House Everything?

This blog has been an utterly neglected space in the world wide web. Huhu. But I think I'm about to do something about it now.

Find more interesting articles in the next minutes or so. I'm definitely back in the grind! Ha!

Love,
Vina

Zoe with Zoe, Luigi with Luigi

Just a quick post...

As a young lady, I was never really the one to think ahead of the names of my future children. In fact, we only thought of the names of our kids just a few months before I gave birth to them. Sometimes, I, myself, feel amused on how my kids ended up with their respective names. :-)

Anyway, speaking of names, it was quite cute that my kids incidentally both have cartoon characters named like them.

Here's Zoe with Zoe (of Sesame Street):



And here's Luigi with Luigi (of Mario Bros.)

So cute, right?

Strawberry Sofa

Trust new upholstery to oomph your old sofa...

I decided to move our old rattan sofa (which we replaced with a brand new one from Mandaue Foam) from the sala to our family room in the attic. And since the family room had a new red color-theme, I had the sofa reupholstered using a strawberry-printed cloth.

All I can say is: it came out SWEET! :-)

From this old look:


...to this new look:

Before:

After:

Peso Power:

Strawberry-printed textile: Php 1,200

Labor: Php 600

It was a great project!

Yellow Painting - The One

My hubby and I have been "forever" looking for a yellow painting or artwork to put in our living room to replace the old oil painting that we've had for years.

After quite a long wait, we finally found something that fits perfectly in our wall and best of all, it's swack on the budget. We got it (of all places) from Dapitan and we've satisfied with how it looked.

See here:

Now our living room looks so much brighter and happy!

Goodbye Red, Hello Green

Early this month, we bid goodbye to our loyal but storm-battered friend (red) Mica.

And immediately after said HELLO to a new and bigger friend Mica (now colored green).

Taken during the car's binyag :-)

The kids instantly fell in love with him! :-)


Thanks be to God for another blessing like this.

Great Finds at Dapitan

At long last, my hubby and I found time last week to go to the popular Dapitan Arcade. It's crazy how it took us so long to come and visit the place. It's a shopping haven for those who love bargain house items and it's perfect for those who want to be the next Martha Stewart. LOL.

First up, cutie ceramic containers, best for those on the side toyo-patis-suka during meals. Only 15 bucks each.

And then, this cake tray, which I thought was such a hard thing to find in the malls, was literally all over the place! It even came in different shapes and colors and only for around 150 pesos.

Our next great buy are these matching candle-holders and bowl which complements our brand new sala set. Love it!

Something now for the bathroom - a pink fish-shaped soap dish. I like the color a lot so we bought it. At 45 pesos, who can resist it?!

Last, but not the least, a stylish liquid soap dispenser (pang-hotel ang dating). I love the flowery detail at the center. It makes our bathroom look so "five star".

Actually, there is one more thing we bought there. It's not so cheap but it's definitely the best buy of them all. I'll post it here soon after we put it up.... :-)

Dapitan Arcade - we're definitely coming back for more!

New Sofa

My husband and I finally found the perfect sofa for our living room. We had it custom-made and it arrived just this week.

Lookie here:



It turned nicely and it really matched the color of our walls.

Now all I got to worry about now is keeping the big sister from enjoying the sofa too much...

Foodie Find - Lydia's Lechon

My husband and I recently discovered that the nearby Lydia's Lechon in our place actually has a restaurant at the back portion. All along, we thought that it was just take-out place. Because of this discovery, we had found ourselves flocking there for "instant handa". One time, we got ourselves a couple of kilos of Cebu lechon. It was so yummy that it disappeared in no time.

Lechon is really a Filipino's guilty pleasure. Yummy!

My oh my...

I really seemed to have taken a vacation from blogging here.

There are just so many things going around now and it's mostly work, work, work. Nah, I'm not complaining (well not yet). God gave me a new job and I'm bravely taking on the challenge. I believe that better does not exactly mean easier. And at this point, I think it's foolish to think otherwise.

My oh my. I just hope I have enough stamina to go through all the changes in my life.

The house got robbed.

I never thought I could be writing something like this in my blog or anywhere else. Yup, our house (mainly our house annex) was broken into last Saturday in broad daylight. Nobody discovered it until it was already about nine in the evening. When the yaya got into her quarters, she couldn't seem to open the door to her room. She sensed that something was wrong so she immediately went down to ask F. "to look for her keys". So when F. went up, he found the doors of the two rooms destroyed, the room broken into and everything in chaos. He immediately tried to wake us up but to no avail since my husband, kids and I were already in deep sleep at the time. So he decided to ask the help of our neighbor instead to check the vicinity of the house just in case the burglar is still hiding or is still around the area.

Anyway, that's then that they discovered that all the valuables of the two house assistants were already stolen. The two rooms were a total mess and it seemed as if the trespasser was there inside for quite a long time since he was able to find all the hidden money and jewelries that our maids have and own.

Oh it's so sad.

We think that the robber went through our wall at the back or maybe through the garage. Plus I really hope he won't come back and try getting inside the main house (dear God, no!).

On our part, we're planning to build a higher wall with barb wires, pieces of glass -- the works -- so that this won't happen again. I also have been looking for a garage door remote that probably help us in terms of safety. With a garage door remote, we don't need to go out of the house to open the garage for the car that's coming. I saw the Linear and Genie brands and I think it's both good.

At any rate, please pray that this kind of thing would NEVER EVER happen again.

Zoe's a Flowergirl

This was taken during Ria and Michael's wedding last May 22 at Christ the King Parish, Church in the Sky in Taytay.

For the very first time, Zoe walked to the altar on her own. I'm such a proud mama. She's really growing up and becoming more independent now. Sigh .