Alice in Wonderland costume for Book Week

For Book Week this year, my daughter decided to go as Alice In Wonderland. She was Little Red Riding Hood for Grade 1 and Hermoine Granger last year. I've been wanting to do Alice for the longest time so I'm so happy she finally chose this character.

A Pineapple & Flamingo Party!

My eldest turned 8 years old a few days ago and I really can't believe how time has flown!

DIY Hermione Granger costume

Now it's my daughter's turn to dress up for Book Week at school and she wanted to be none other than Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.

Smart Parenting feature

Check out Smart Parenting online where I was featured as one of 4 Pinay Moms who Share Useful Tips for Their Pre-Birthday Shoots.

I already posted about my daughter's 7th birthday shoot before, so you can click HERE to see more photos from that day by Mhel Mesa Photography. And if you want to read the whole article, head on over to SmartParenting.com.ph. :)

A 7th Birthday Photoshoot

For my daughter's 7th birthday, I knew I definitely wanted her to have a photoshoot to capture that time in her life. She had a small party in McDonald's but I didn't hire a photographer anymore for that day since I was just the one who took the photos. I figured I'll just spend for her pre-birthday shoot since that's where I wanted the photos to look extra nice.

The Tooth Fairy's 1st visit to our house!

Last night my 7 year old daughter finally lost her first tooth! What a milestone!

My Little Mermaid

Since I just posted about my niece's Under the Sea party, I figured I'll share this very rare sighting of a mermaid...

A 7th Birthday Party in McDonald's

To be honest, I already had visions of my daughter's 7th birthday party when she was still a baby, since it is a big deal here in the Philippines. I mean, I remember my 7th birthday was held in Manila Polo Club and my mom even got Lou Hilario as the magician. Well, I had dreams of throwing my own daughter a fashion themed party (with a runway) and going all out with decorations and stuff. But as the years went by, I realized that spending hundreds of thousands of pesos for a few hours just isn't worth it for me anymore. I believe you can create memories even with a simple celebration. Pero if you have the budget, go for it haha! But seriously, I think more parents are choosing to be practical nowadays and just going on a family trip or something. And when I asked my daughter about it, I was surprised when she said she would rather get her own room than have a party!

See, she currently shares a room with her brother, but of course we knew they would need their own space when they got older. So we figured it would really be the perfect gift for her. Instead of spending all that money for a party, we would just use the budget to fix up one one the rooms in the house. Plus, she really wanted a loft bed too. We already ordered one and I can't wait to see everything set up!

Anyway, I still wanted her to have a party since she wanted to celebrate with her friends and classmates. So we chose to just have it at McDonald's! Besides, I think everyone should have a McDo party at least once in their lives right? :)

Miley turns 7!

Oh my, I'm getting all emotional since I can't believe our firstborn and only daughter is now 7 years old. How time flies...

DIY Linggo ng Wika costume

It's the month of August already and for school kids, that means Linggo ng Wika! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to buy a baro't saya or Maria Clara outfit for my daughter since there wasn't one available in the mall I went to. I had to leave for a trip soon and didn't have time anymore so I just had to improvise. :)

DIY Little Red Riding Hood Costume

My daughter's school will be celebrating Book Week, and they'll be having a parade where the kids should dress up as their favorite storybook character. She actually has a lot of Disney princess costumes already, but I sort of wanted her to wear something different this time. Anyway, I was looking online for some inspiration and decided that an easy option would be Little Red Riding Hood.

Summer classes at LUNA Art Workshop

I'm sure most parents will agree that summer is usually more busy and hectic than when the kids are in school. We end up taking them to different camps or workshops, plus they're always begging to be entertained when they're at home! Aside from swimming, I made sure to enroll my 6 year old daughter in art classes since I can see that she's very creative. We're from the south so I found a couple in the Alabang area, but they were quite expensive. Good thing a fellow mom recommended this place, LUNA Art Workshop, which is located in Phase 1 of BF Homes.

A Happy OWLentine's Birthday

It's getting harder and harder for us to pick a birthday theme for my daughter as she grows older. First it was Wonder Pets. Then she wanted a colorful art party. Then My Little Pony. Then Sleeping Beauty. Then she wanted mermaids! I was getting so confused until finally, we both decided on an owl theme (we have a love affair with owls ever since she was a baby). Then she said she wanted it to be an OWLentine party (she coined that term herself ha!) since her birthday was close to Valentine's Day.

Coco Nail Studio

A few weeks ago, I decided to have some mommy and me bonding time with my daughter by bringing her to the nail salon, which she loves! Luckily, I found a gift check from Coco Nail Studio which I received from the first Mothers Who Brunch event I attended.

Pick & Polish Nail Salon

The grand opening of Pastry Armoire was held at Pick & Polish Nail Salon in BF Homes, Paranaque. Since the event was a SPArty, I was so happy that my little girl Miley was also invited since she loves having her nails done too. And it was a great way for us to have some mother-daughter bonding time.

so excited for our date! 

A Peppa Pig birthday party

I've been asking Miley for the longest time what theme she wanted for her 5th birthday and we've been pretty much set on a rockstar party. I've already had the colors all picked out for the decors (something like pink, black and gold) and have been eyeing giveaways (like those bubbles that come in microphone shaped bottles).

But a few weeks before, she suddenly changed her mind and said she wanted a Peppa Pig party because it was cute! The thing is, she was addicted to Peppa Pig last year then sort of grew out of it. It's actually her younger brother Sabe who watches it all the time now. But I was still happy to work with that theme since she has so many Peppa Pig toys that we can use. :)

Our princess with her Peppa Pig doll. Taken by Sugarpuff Photography.

I started with her invites first. I decided to use the Peppa Pig princess fairy character since Miley even has the crown and magic wand toy. I also decided to incorporate polka dots in the whole theme (check out the washi tape I used to seal the envelopes).

I then made cupcake toppers and used colorful polkadots as the border:

I was looking for loot bags to match the designs I did and I came across these party supplies from Metro Department store. Look at how the colors matched my cupcake toppers exactly! I was literally jumping for joy when I found these. I just had to get them even though they were a bit pricey at P169 for 8 pcs. I also decided to get the matching Happy Birthday banner which cost P179.

The only problem with the loot bags were that they were a little bit narrow. But I figured it was ok since I wouldn't have to buy so much candy to fill them up. ;p

I love buying stuff to fill the loot bags and one thing I found was these KooKoo Birds surprise bags which I got on sale for just P20 each last year from Toys R Us!

I also got these jelly beans from 168 Mall in Divisoria. I love how the colors matched my whole polkadots theme too. The whole set cost P160 and it had 20 bottles.

For Miley's girl classmates, I added these bracelets and rings:

And of course, more goodies!

I also made personalized name tags for each loot bag:

To make it easier for the kids to carry the loot bags, I punched holes in the top and added strings for the handles.

For the kids' juice, Miley helped me pick these out which were colored pink and yellow. I just made bottle labels to cover the brand.

Got these balloons from Divisoria as well. I bought a lot of the star balloons which I also gave out as giveaways to all her classmates. I just wished they came with a stick though, since I wanted them to be like Peppa's magic wand. But the kids loved them nonetheless and they kept saying it was a shooting star hehe. :)

For the cake, I just bought a simple one which cost less that P500 and used the kids' Peppa and George toys as toppers. Cute right? :)

And even though she was celebrating her party in school, I made sure to make a nice set up at home to surprise the birthday girl when she woke up! And of course, so that I can take lots of pics hehe. Oh, and notice the table cloth I used? That's actually the kids' bed sheet which again matched the colorful polkadots perfectly! I just love it when everything comes together with items I already own. :)

So again, happy 5th birthday to our little princess! We love you so much!

Our monggo plant

About 2 months ago, we received the Breeze Sige Sabado Playbox which included, among other things, materials to raise a monggo plant.

My daughter was really excited to plant the monggo seeds in the small plastic pot. I don't really know if there's a correct way to plant monggo (like soil to seed ratio?) but I pretty much just let her decide how many seeds she wanted to put in the soil (she placed a lot!). And then she was even more excited to water it after (I think she might have drowned the seeds too haha!). ;p

There were still a lot of seeds left over so she decided she still wanted to plant more in an empty space in the garden. I just let her dig away and plant as many monggo seeds as she wanted...

The seeds in the small pot grew really quickly and then died after a while. I honestly forgot all about the other seeds my daughter had planted until our helper excitedly called us out one day. We didn't even notice that a full-blown monggo plant had already sprouted! :)

look at the ripe seeds ready for picking!

and more are growing!

So cool right? ;p I don't have a green thumb, but this makes me excited to plant other stuff in our garden like basil or calamansi. Hope it grows! :)

Goodbye Summer, Hello School!

We are officially done with the 1st week of school! I can't believe summer has come and gone so quickly. Now we're back to homework and baon and hatid-sundo. :)

Last May, we enrolled Sabe in a summer program in order to prepare him for school. Like I mentioned in my post last month, it was really a struggle for us since Sabe was really crying the whole time and didn't want to be left alone during the first few days. It took a while, but eventually he started to warm up to his teachers and began enjoying himself.

some of the activities during his summer classes

Watching him perform during the culminating activity made me so proud because I could really tell how much progress he made during all those weeks. From the scared little boy who didn't want to let go of me, he was now able to interact with his classmates and follow the teacher's directions.

Sabe as a cow during the "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" number

But I have say, we were anxious again during his official first day last Monday since he didn't want to wake up in the morning and was giving us a hard time dressing him up. He was very cranky in the car but all that changed the minute we got to school. He confidently went inside, greeted the teachers and walked to his classroom like a pro! We couldn't believe it! We were prepared for some tears but I'm so glad we were wrong. :)

he's always so excited to show us his stamp everyday after school

Miley, on the other hand, had ballet lessons this summer. As a mom, I really couldn't wait for the day I could finally bring my daughter to ballet class. I have to say though that I think she enjoyed making new friends more than the dancing itself. She would always be making chika her classmates and I'd always have to signal for her to follow the teacher haha!

To be honest, we weren't really expecting much from her dance recital since it seemed like she wasn't that into it. But I was really surprised when she gave a wonderful performance and was able to do all the steps. I'm so proud of her for finishing the program however she says she doesn't want to do ballet anymore. Swimming classes na lang daw! Ok fine! My ballet dreams are forever crushed haha! ;p

Miley used to be in the afternoon batch last year, but I moved both of them to the morning classes this year. They're still getting used to sleeping and waking up early (especially Sabe!). But I'm happy that any moodiness disappears once they get to school. And I have to be honest and say that I do quite enjoy the few hours of peace and quiet I get in the morning when both kids are at school lol! ;p

back to being the kids' driver

What about you moms? How was your kids' first week of school? :)