Category Archives: Family

My Father’s Day Post

It was a rainy Father’s Day this year. And with that ugly weather, my family were just stuck inside our home on this special day. Although we didn’t got the chance to go out we had a great bonding time together inside our home sweet home.
I woke up way too early on a Sunday (I’m off to Neverland as early as 9pm the night before) which was something unusual. In case you are wondering why, it’s because I was dead tired the other day. As my Father’s day gift to hubby, I decided to the general cleaning of our house which hubby was asking me to do weeks ago in preparation for my MIL’s proposed visit any time soon before she goes back to Las Vegas. That was even though we had a misunderstanding on Friday night and that he left our house without me talking to him.
I asked my youngest brother to help me in putting up some shelves inside our house then the rest of the cleaning was done by yours truly. I scrubbed our walls with soap and water, dusted off windows, cleaned our air-con filters, cleaned up the laundry area and thoroughly cleaned our bedroom. That was in between taking care of my three children, mind you.
He texted me around 2pm, asked how the kids are and said sorry. Then said he’ll be coming home early and asked if there’s something I like him to buy for me. I didn’t answered. I was busy. As my three kids went on to their afternoon nap, I sneaked outside our room and finished what I started. He arrived in a thoroughly cleaned home. Mission accomplished for me.
After we ate dinner, I told him to wake me up at 10pm because I have some online gigs to finish but he didn’t do it. He said I looked very tired and I deserve to rest. That’s why I’m up and about as early as 4am the following day. Our kids were also awake at 6am and we all ate our breakfast while their dad was still asleep. When he went out of our room at 7am, we all greeted him a Happy Father’s Day and kissed him. We were supposed to go out but it was raining so he said he will just cook Sinigang na Spare Ribs for our lunch. While he cooks, we were just lying on the sofa, ou son watching TV while our two girls were playing. After the sumptuous lunch, we all headed back to our room, watch two movies on compact discs while goofing around with our little ones.
After our siesta, hubby prepared ice cream for all of us as it was still raining and we can’t go out. Goofing around, chit-chat, catching up with our kids first week of school filled the rest of our day. As we all went to bed, hubby promised our kids that if it won’t rain tomorrow, we will dine out for our post Father’s Day celebration. And that’s how our day ended:)
Oops! for them, because here I am, blogging and it’s almost 5am! I’m becoming a Super Mom again huh?!

Cien Riley’s 2nd Birthday Celebration

Flashback:
I almost reached my 42nd weeks of pregnancy with my youngest daughter. I filed my maternity leave on May 12, 2009 because my OB said I’ll give birth any time soon since I’m almost 1cm dilated. But days passed and still no sign of my baby coming out. I was worried that time even though my OB assured me that there’s no reason for that. My baby was doing well and she will come out whenever she wants according to her. So I stopped waiting for her to come out until we were invited by my brother in law to their house in Makati. They picked us at our house but during that time I can feel something different on my tummy but I didn’t tell them. I just asked hubby to toss inside the car my bag which I prepared earlier for hospital admission. As we passed by Ospital ng Makati, I told them that maybe I should get myself checked in there. And so I’m right, I’m almost 5cm dilated as the doctor performed an I.E. on me. Good thing my SIL told me to use their address so they would admit me even though I’m not from Makati.
Exactly a month since I filed my maternity leave, June 12, 2009 was the chosen date of my baby to arrived ( I even thought hubby was so serious to name her Independencia! eww!). It was a bliss seeing her after a long wait. She looked exactly like her Dad. Chinky eyes and fair complexion.
Newly Born Cien Riley
 
We celebrated her 1st birthday in Hong Kong and last Sunday was her 2nd birthday. We didn’t prepared for a birthday party instead we planned for a family swimming get together. But the bad weather hold us from pursuing that plan. So, the final celebration happened inside Robinson’s Galleria. Yep, we just dined out and treated the kids for some rides. We had our lunch at Pancake House and let the birthday celebrant and her siblings enjoy the rides at Tom’s World.
Three kids in the mood to pose for the camera(“,)
 
Having fun at Tom’s World
 
Before going home, hubby bought a cake at Red Ribbon so she could blow her candle and we could sing her a happy birthday. Of course, we ordered again our favorite Special Pancit Malabon and shared it to my relatives and some neighbors. My mom even remembered the cake cutter we got from Hong Kong last year and used it to slice the cake.
It was not a grand celebration unlike her 1st birthday but in our hearts, we knew we all enjoyed and we’re truly grateful that we had another year of celebration with our Cien Cien! Happy Birthday again Buding! We love you!
Cien Riley at Two

Weekend Movie Nights Collection

You know it’s fun to just curl up in your bed, with rain drops keep falling on your head roof (weird! I felt like singing that song lol!) and a great movie is playing on your DVD player. Well that is actually my children’s idea especially now that they have few allowed days to watch tv and CD’s before bedtime. Hubby was sweet enough to buy them new sets of CDs to watch over the weekend and here they are:
The Last Air Bender
Elmo’s World
SHREK the Final Chapter
 
Since we got three wacky kids, hubby bought one CD for each of them. The Last Air Bender was for our eldest son, Ciren. He loves watching movies with boys as the main character because he associate himself as that one (most kids do!). For our 2nd daughter, Erin, her dad got her SHREK the Final Chapter since she got all the other sequels of that movie and I hope this really is the final chapter. It was just recently that our youngest daughter learned to appreciate her siblings’ Sesame Street CDs especially those with lots of Elmo’s appearance. She already have one Elmo’s World CD and now she got two!
I have no problem with the our two children when it comes to taking care of their CD collection but with Cien, it is always a struggle to take her hands off those jewel cases. She loves to keep it near her just because she likes looking at the colorful CD labels. I just hope this time the cases are more durable to stand the hands of my little Cien.

 

Celebrated Mother’s Day in Advance

Last Sunday, though it was Mother’s Day, we didn’t went out of the house and just enjoyed the Pacquiao-Mosley Fight since hub paid for Pay-Per-View from Cignal aside from the fact that it was raining. But we did celebrated that special event in advance the other Sunday. We went to Sta. Lucia in Cainta together with my mom and our kids to have lunch at an eat-all-you-can food outlet for only Php99 which my mom recommended us to try. There was no typo error on that, the price was really indeed Php99! I’ll have a review on that of course on My Mind’s Outburst blog some other time.
After that lunch, hubby asked if there’s any Razon’s food outlet there and just from our next turn, there it was! We had their special halo-halo for our dessert while our kids played with the tableware served along with it.  It was my mom’s first time to try it and she said she would then be the one to recommend that place to her amigas. After that, we went to Worlds of Fun at the most top level of Sta. Lucia and let our kids enjoy the rides. It was a quick treat for them because as per our agreement with the kids, we will just dine out and won’t buy anything such as toys for them. But of course, we have two toddlers in towed so that agreement didn’t materialized. We were forced to go down the lower ground and buy them cheap toys in one of the booths there.
Razon’s in Old Sta Lucia East Cainta Rizal
Razon’s Special Halo Halo
 
It was a hot afternoon and since my daughter Erin once again cried her lungs out when hubby hailed a taxi (she don’t want to ride in that kind of vehicle because of the smell of air-freshener that causes her to throw up), we all sacrificed to travel via jeepney. It was almost 4pm so the minute we reached home, we all went inside our room and savor the coolness of a/c. That’s how we celebrated Mother’s Day for this year.
With my Mommy
Wondering why I did not mention any gift from hubby? That’s because he didn’t bought me one and I didn’t bothered to ask for a gift. But as of this posting, as hubby arrived from work, he handed me this one:
Hubby’s Post Mother’s Day Gift
He said it was a post Mother’s Day gift for me and that made me smile as I said thank you and gave him a kiss and hug while our kids looked at us with “uyyy” on the background:)

 

How We Spent Holy Week

When I was single, me and my family just stay at home during Holy Week since we do not have any other place to go unlike my cousins who have relatives in other provinces. So we just watch Senakulo, penitesya, crucifixtion and attend processions. My parents don’t like the idea of going on a family outing because they believe accidents are more likely to happen during this time especially on a Black Friday and Saturday.
But this year, me and my own family together with hubby’s relatives went out of town with my mom not really comfortable of our agenda. She didn’t come with us because of that, aside from the fact that my brothers will stars in a Senakulo which they do every year for almost 5 years now.
So, off we went to Cavite where my SIL lives together with hub’s other brother. We actually have no plans on where to go so we had a little brainstorming first. It was then decided to look for a nearby resort to spend an over night stay. Just a week ago we checked in at Island Cove so that place was crossed out from our list.
We left Cavite at 4pm and every resort with private pools we checked were jam packed! Even those private beaches were full too. We actually saw people coming in trucks and buses! It was getting dark and we were still on the road. We reached Tagaytay and from there, hub and his siblings talked and decided that we went straight to Pansol Laguna since according to them private pools are plenty in that place.
When we reached Pansol, we had several inquiries first before we landed at Hanleck Resort. Imagine, we had our dinner at 11pm! Luckily, we had plenty of foods to eat in take out boxes during what seemed to be a never ending road trip. It was the longest trip our kids had and we all swear that we were not going to that “penitensya” again. So instead of plunging into the hot spring pool, we just all went to our rooms and rest and just enjoyed the water the following morning.

Poor kids! Dead tired from the long road trip!