Our Dream Home=)

I and my husband would sometimes talk about how we want our dream home to look like. And since sky is the limit when it comes to our dreams, we always fantasize about every detail on each portion of our dream home. Of course these are dreams that wouldn't definitely remain as dreams forever.. But it's indeed a good way to start building a family goal so that you know exactly how you want to see your family living in the future. And from this dream you can, at an early stage, start thinking about what you're going to do to achieve that dream.

We're actually aiming for at least two homes in the future. One would be built in the place where I grew up.. Baguio City! For us, this is the perfect place to build our dream house because of the following reasons:

1. The weather is great! At this month the temperature probably ranges from 14-20c.

2. I sooo love gardening..! And because this place has a cool weather and the red soil is very fertile, it's easy to grow exotic flowers.

3. Education is good and costs lower as compared to Manila. There are even International Schools like Brent=)

4. There are a lot of parks where you can have picnic with the family. We used to do this almost every weekend when I was a kid.

5. Vegetables, fruits, and flowers and fresh and so cheap!

6. There are a lot of nice restos and places to hang out at night. And since Baguio is not so big, these bars are not so far apart and you can easily stroll and hop from one bar to another. I miss doing this with my friends=)

7. There's SM Baguio so shopping is still definitely in!

Well that’s for our family house. The second one we’re aiming for is a vacation house beside the beach. Our country has a lot of amazing beaches to choose from so I guess looking for a nice location, which we haven’t though of yet, would be fairly easy. But for this post I would like to focus on our family’s dream home.

Since we’re only having one family house, we envision it to have different themes per division. Like the living room would be a bit contemporary. There would be an entertainment room with modern furniture and some Italian furniture in it..

Here are some nice designer furniture that we’d like to have at home. A warm, cozy, but chic and sophisticated look would be best for our living room. And this contemporary furniture below I believe would be perfect.



We'd surely love watching movies in our entertainment room if it has these modern furniture!

This modern tv stand sure looks like your in the jetson's house!


And i'm sure you'd also want to be sitting on this nice red leather massage chair..


and check out this gorgeous Italian furniture! This one would really give that aws to our guests if we have this on our entertainment room.

Oh well, that's just a small part of our dream home=) There's still the garden and the semi-indoor swimming pool which I'm really wanting to have on our dream home=) If you got interested in the furnitures I shared, check it out from www.eroomservice.com coz there's a lot more where those pictures came from!

Something that might interest you

I have already made tons of topics on this blog. From our babies baptism to their birthdays.. I've shared how we went on planning for these occasions and what happed on the actual event. I've also done some sponsored posts where I sometimes incorporate some ideas about me such as the post I did about the chef school where I mentioned that I started cooking when I was still a kid. I've also made reviews on some online shopping stores and from those posts you can see how much I enjoy buying stuff for my family. But what I realized is that I have never really blogged about myself. I'm not sure if you'd be interested to know more about me. But I would love to share with you some of my interests, hobbies, and maybe experiences in life. So for the coming month of October, I would be scribbling a little more about myself and hope that you'd find my life a bit interesting.

Okay so maybe you want some hints.. let's see.. maybe I can start my topic with some of the things I used and missed doing.. such as some of my favorite sports like roller/in-line/ice skating and dance sport.. I also want to talk about my passion for baking cakes and cookies.. and how I trimmed my waist from 29" to 24-25".. I can also tell you my secret on how i lost weight from 118lbs to 95lbs! =) Hmmm.. I still got a lot of topics running in my head right now but I'm definitely not telling you more about it just to keep you as excited as I am (I hope you do are excited.. but if not, I'll just pretend you are!LoL).

So.. Hope to see you hoping more on this blog and feel free to drop me a comment as I'd love to hear from your experiences too!

Take care!

She's not afraid to walk anymore=)

As mentioned on a post I did last July , CJ has already started to learn how to walk since her 10th month. But it was only until her birthday party last Saturday when she finally had the courage to really walk on her own. And now that she realized how much mobile she can be without my assistance, you won't easily be able to stop her walking from one place to another.

You should see how much excitement she has while she plays tag with her sister! The entire house is so full of their thrills and laughter.. They never actually stop til' they really feel tired and sleepy. And I so much adore seeing them enjoy each others company. I just love it!

Propagating Friendship Award

It's my second time to receive a friendship award. Thanks for this award Janis , Sheryll, and Kaye!



I love the blogs of these people and I'm glad to pass this award onto them! All they need to do is to leave the following message on their post when they pass the award on to their chosen eight bloggers.

They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut or that they propagate? Then let's try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this

I'm sharing this award to Imelda, Eds, Ann, Bonz, Yvelle, Anna, Joanne, and Jeng

Happy 1st Birthday Carrie Justine!

I am so happy that everyone enjoyed CJ's birthday bash last Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008. We held a simple celebration of CJ's birthday last Sept 18 (that's her real birthday) and schedule for a bigger celebration at Jollibee McKinley on a Saturday. I'd like to use this post to send our heart felt gratitude to everyone who made this event a success.

First, I'd like to thank God for making this special event in our child's life a success. All my little prayer requests were granted such as that there'd be more kids than adults on the party, that the final cost wouldn't reach our limited budget, and that everyone would enjoy the party.. Thank you Lord for always hearing my prayers!

Next, I'd like to thank my husband for being supportive while I plan for CJ's birthday party. My hubby really doesn't agree in giving out big parties like these but I'm so happy that he allowed me do anything I want for this one. So..thanks for that dad!

Third, I'd like to thank our family for the BIG help and support! They've always been behind us and I know always will be. Special credits goes to my mama and papa=)

Fourth, I'd like to thank the party hosts (coz we had three of them), Jollibee mascot, and the rest of the staff of Jollibee McKinley Branch for making the birthday party a hit! I really believe that the party's success also greatly relies on the party host.

And lastly, I'd like to thank CJ's god parents (specially those who sponsored some of her party supplies), and all our guest who came over, played, laughed, and enjoyed the entire time with us. Words are not enough to say how much we appreciate the time you devoted to help us celebrate and make this day a fun-filled one=)

Since I am still not able to edit the pictures at this time due to my dead laptop, I'll just put you on hold and keep you excited for a while. Anyway, I'd try my best to post the pictures latter this week or most probably early next week.

Thanks for the read my friends:)

A Bit at Lost

Our company recently started to dissolve members of the .Net team. And being a .Net Solutions Architect, I honestly don't know how I should be reacting to this sudden movement in the company. I have been using .Net Framework for roughly five years now and this change for me is really alarming.

This change does not have anything to do with bankruptcy guys. The administrative body has just notice the trend in the business intelligence market. And since our BI projects (using Vendavo) are gaining more profit than the .Net projects, they have finally decided to focus on the BI tools.

Since August I have already moved from .Net to Oracle Hyperion. And this is where i'm starting to get lost. Oracle Hyperion is one of the emerging BI tool and app in the IT industry today. I cannot discuss to you the details about Oracle Hyperion in this post as it will surely consume the entire page to do so. But if you're interested to know more about this tool you can checkout my niche blog.

I am tasked to focus on Oracle Hyperion Planning. But problem is that there are different Planning applications available..! So, where should I be focusing on really.. I DON'T KNOW! Aside from the fact that I have to learn Hyperion Planning, I also have to learn all the tools that are used within the Planning application.

Anyway, my laptop has already been upgraded to 160GB of hard disk space and 4GB of memory just for this tool. Now can you imaging how big this BI tool and app is?

Today CJ Officially Turned ONE!

Wow! Time really flies so fast.. My youngest sweetie is now 1yr old. I can still recall what happened on this same day of last year.. She came to the world three weeks earlier than expected because my latest biophysical score showed that the amniotic fluid was already below the normal range.

A lot of moms were delivering on that day. So even if I was scheduled for a C-Section at 5pm, we had no choice but to wait until almost 7pm. At 7:10 I was already in the operating room. The first epidural anesthesia was given at around 7:30pm. But since I was still able to move the lower portion of my left body even after 15 minutes, they had no choice but to do a retap (my second shot). Weird thing is that they still had to literally sway my legs from left to right to spread the anesthesia on both sides of the lower portion of my body. Good thing the swaying helped because one of the doctors mentioned that it's not advisable to do another shot(third shot).

The operation started around 8:20pm and CJ came out crying at around 8:32pm. I really did a time record of all the events that was happening during the operation and I made sure that I won't fall asleep (even with two epidural shots!) because I wanted to hear her first cry and of course I wanted to make sure that she was alive and safe.

I haven’t had the time to create a post about this story so I think this is the perfect time to do it.

Anyways, here are some pictures taken on CJ’s birth day!




Her christening day followed three months after. Check out my post about her christening day and my preparations from this link.

Learning the Art of Cooking

I have always loved cooking since I was a kid. I actually started baking cakes and other pastries ever since my 3rd grade. I would say it was influenced by my mom's colleagues who were mostly Americans. And since my family loves the foods I prepare, would you imagine that I have even thought of enrolling in a chef school!?

There are a lot of culinary schools out in the market right now. You can easily find the perfect culinary school for you on the web through the help of culinary school finders like Culinary-School-Finder.com.

This site helps you choose the best culinary school without difficulty because the schools are arranged either by theme or by city. It even features culinary articles that discusses topics such as Typical Courses and Foods Prepared in Culinary Schools, Salaries of the Culinary Industry, A True Day in the Life of an American Culinary Student and a lot more!

Creative Award

Thanks for adding me on your list of nominees Sheryll=)



The rules are:
* The winner may put the logo on his or her blog.
* Put a link to the person you got the award from.
* Nominate five blogs.
* Put links to the blogs.
* Leave a message to the nominees.

I’m passing the award to: Jannesse, Kathy, Sheila, Janis, and Anna.

My Bet for the Great American Seafood Cook-Off

The Great American Seafood Cook Off which is annually presented by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board has once again started to cast out votes for the best seafood recipe in US. This prestigious seafood cook off event has been going on for 5 years and is aimed to bring together the best chefs in US and to showcase their creative and unique domestic seafood recipes.

Among the five recipes to choose from, my best pick would be Maryland’s best bet: Chef Tarfi Campbell's Pan Rasted Glazed Rockfish with Peas and Carrots. If you check out the image of this recipe, you can see right away that the presentation of the food already looks so enticing. I so love the taste of crab and shrimp sautéd in salt, red pepper, and butter because it really brings out the flavor of the crab and shrimp. I believe this also adds more flavor to the rockfish. I love the combination of peas and carrots. The pea puree surely looks extremely tasteful too!

And since it used domestic seafood, you are definitely assured of its quality and freshness. Cooking this recipe will be easy on any mom’s budget too since domestic seafood normally are cheaper. This definitely is my best bet and I will surely try this one out for my family.

So if you love cooking, seafood recipes, and good food go check out the top chefs’ recipes at www.GreatAmericanSeafoodCookOff.com, cast your vote for your favorite recipe and have a chance to win a trip to New Orleans!

Child Proofing Our Homes

It is very important for us parents to child proof our homes to ensure child safety of our little ones. Even if we have a nanny to take care of them, we can not always ensure that they are a hundred percent accident free. I actually am guilty that until today we have not yet bought any baby proofing items for our home. My youngest daughter recently got a dead nail on her right thumb because she and her sister were playing around and the big sister pushed the door which unfortunately resulted in the accident.

With this, I am very determined to include baby proofing items in my online shopping checklist. Thanks to KidSafe. Now looking for baby proofing items is easier since this website specifically sells baby proofing items from brands like Safety 1st, KidCo, Evenflo, Gerber, Mommy’s Helper and more!

There are a lot of cool features that I like about KidSafe’s website. Some products either has a Watch the Video or a User Guide button that shows you how a particular product is installed and used. Note though that I haven't really seen any of their videos work. so.. I'm not really sure if the error is due to my network connection, my firewall, or if it's really a bug on their site. But other than that, i would say everything looks good. The links on the site is well organized which makes it easier for you to browse for whatever item you want. And it has about 34 product categories to choose from and some, which I believe are a must in our homes, are mentioned below:

1. Baby Gate Extensions


2. Baby Gates Stairway


3. Bathroom Safety


4. Child Door Safety


5. Electrical Safety


6. First Aid Kits


7. Fire Place Safety


8. Kitchen Safety


9. Pool Safety


10. Toddler Safety


11. Cabinet Locks

Another good thing I like about this site is that it has a Google Checkout button that allows you to put all the items you want to shop online from any online store. By the way, aside from the major credit cards they also accept Paypal for your payment. So check out their online store right now!

Here's a sample of their best sellers. I really need to get one of this Adhesive Mount Magnet Cabinet Lock.


Happy online shopping moms!

Learning Alphabets, Numbers, Shapes, Colors, and More!

Image credits from thelearningresources.com

When did your toddler start learning about alphabets, numbers, shapes, colors, and the other stuff which normally is taught during preschool education? This post is not intended to brag about my eldest daughter. But as a mom, it is so much fulfilling to know that your two year old daughter already knows all these basic stuff even without the help of school teachers.

Missy is only two years and a month old. But at her early age she can identify colors such as the ones mentioned below:

1. Pink (pronounces by her as Ping-t),
   
2. Yellow,
   
3. Red,
   
4. Orange (pronounced by her as Owaynge),
   
5. Blue,
   
6. White (pronounces by her as Wyt),
   
7. Black,
   
8. Green, and
   
9. Brown (which I heard her say just today as she pointed to a brown colored print on my shirt)
   

She can also clearly recognize shapes like the heart, circle, triangle (which she nicely pronounces as trayngol), diamond, square, and rectangle.

As for the numbers, she has already started counting from one to three since her first year. But now she is able to unmistakably count alone from one to seven (big thanks to Dora’s The Seven Seas song!).

Hey don’t think that she can already sing the Alphabet Song at this age! She’s not that genius yet! But, what I like about her alphabet is that she can cleanly pronounce each of the letters while I say it to her. And, she knows how to spell her nickname, which she does by reciting each letter M-I-S-S-Y and then ending it will a long shout of Mmmmmissy!

She also knows most of the parts on the face and some body parts too like the ones mentioned below:

1. Eyes,
   
2. Ears,
   
3. Nose,
   
4. Teeth,
   
5. Tongue,
   
6. Hair,
   
7. Head,
   
8. Neck,
   
9. Shoulders,
   
10. Knees, and
    
11. Toes (I’m sure you can already guess what song she can sing with these body parts)
    

We started inculcating all this basic stuff to her since birth. Pointing to colors on her surroundings and telling her what color it is subconsciously retains this little learning in her mind. Counting numbers while dressing her up is also another technique.

I am also thankful that nowadays we have educational DVDs, educational/musical toys that teaches basic shapes; numbers; and colors (thanks to their Chicco, Fisher Price, and VTEC toys), and hardbound books that helps us in teaching these basic stuff in a more enjoyable way.

Traveling to Another Country?

Moving from one place to another is not that easy. Believe me I’ve tried this several times since birth! Aside from the fact that you are leaving behind friends and neighbors you’ve already known for like forever, you also have to prepare yourself for another new atmosphere. This means new friends, new neighbors, and maybe new school or work.

Back then, one of the things I hated when moving is looking for someone to help you bring all your stuff to your new location. My moving experiences are simply about moving either from one town or city to another. But have you ever though of how hard it might be for families moving from country to country?

One of my good friends used to have this dilemma. Would you believe her husband’s work requires their family to move from one country to another every 2 to 3 years!? I can’t say that it’s ridiculous since it is part of the job. Traveling for work or vacation from country to country for a couple of weeks or months I believe is just fine. But moving your home from country to country is different.

Now, you might be wondering how all their furniture are traveling with them. This, my friend is done through the help of a moving company. If you would like to know more about these moving companies, you might want to check out this site that offers a network of over 500 different moving companies. It has a quote checker so you can easy keep track of your budget since you will already know in an instant as to how much you'll be spending to travel your stuff in your new location. It even has good articles and advices to help you prepare for your long journey! For the international movers (like my friend), this company has a wide range of international movers that can help you ship your items from US to just about anywhere in the world. So if you’re planning to move anytime soon, call their hotline anytime from Mondays-Fridays 9am-6pm EST to personally request for your free quotes.

CJ's latest Photo shots for her coming birthday=)

This is the last weekend before Cj's big day. So obviously my entire weekend was devoted to her birthday preps. Yesterday I again had another photo shoot with the coming birthday girl and this time I made her wear her birthday outfit. You can check out our first photo shoot from this link.

I am really happy and excited that everything is ready (except for the tarp and the signature frame which needs to be printed early this week of course.)

Anyways, here's her gown from US which really looks extravagant on her,







Her adorable shoes which nicely pairs the color of her gown,


I got her this cute crown at the well know Divi Mall for only 75.00PHP!,


My do-it-yourself favors with the ribbon,


And some of my favorite shoots of CJ! (pictures edited by me)




Hope you liked my shots! Wait til I post the birthday pictures next week:)

Preparing for your Toddlers Room

We have been noticing lately that both our two girls enjoy sleeping together. This for us is a good sign that they are already prepared to have their own room!=) Yeah! Personally, I am soooo happy about this great news because I will be able to utilize one of my sleeping and long lost talent in interior design! I'll tell you about my other sleeeeeeping talents on another post;) If you're also planning to decorate or prepare for your toddlers room then you'll surely enjoy reading this one.

Okay, now let's get down to the details of our project. The size of the room, color, and the theme are some of the important things to consider when doing interior design.

Let's start focusing on the size. Since our pad is a bit small, cute little kids bedroom furniture like the ones below would be perfect!

I love the dollhouse like headboard on this white toddler bed


But this one is way better than perfect!!!


It would be nice to pair it with a toy box too


When I was a kid, I did enjoy having a kids desk in my own room coz with it I more enjoyed writing, coloring, and most importantly i did love pretending like my room was my office space. Hahaha=)! So I'll definitely get one of this and hope that my daughters will share the same feelings that I had back then.

The next thing to consider is the color. Experts agree that lavender and pink go together. And since both Missy and CJ love watching Dora the Explorer (who happens to be using these colors), I am more and more absorbing the idea that these two colors might just be best choice. Also, I believe these colors will give that baby girly atmosphere in the room.

Lastly, the theme of the room. I would say this is the easiest and most fun part of the conceptualization process. I find it similar to picking a motif and a theme for your wedding! Since my soon-to-be new room owners are two baby girls, let us then settle with a Dora the Explorer Baby theme=)

Now it's so easy to decorate and select what items you want to buy through the help of online stores. There are exceptional online stores like the one where I got the images above. Honestly, this is the only online store I found so far that has the widest variety of wooden children's furniture.

Christmas is almost near!

I am so much looking forward to this year's Christmas season because I am finally decided to buy gifts for my family online! And since one of my aunts in US has mentioned that she is planning to send us a package, I can simply ship my online shopped items to her home so that she can just add it to the box.=) All I have to think of now is what items i'm getting for my family!

Here are some items I’m planning to get for my kids :


This cute sippy cup from The First Years is only worth $4.99 each! I'm sure my daughters would love to have one of this



I need to get a pack of this stack ups from The First Years too!



Both girls will surely enjoy drinking juice from this Playtex First Sipster Spill-proof cup


I found all the items shown above through the help of ShopWiki.com. This amazing shopping search engine site which I recently discovered provides you a way to search any items from all online shopping stores! I never thought that my shopping experience online would be as hassle free as this! This site is almost similar to Google or other search engines out there. The only difference is that this one is purely getting list of products from the online stores.

I really encourage every online shoppaholics to try this one out. I’m pretty sure you’ll thank me for sharing this post to you! Lol.=) All you have to do is type on the entry box whatever product or item you want to buy online, click on the search button and wait till it checks all the online stores that sells the item you want to get. What makes it even more helpful and convenient to online shoppers is that aside from just simply listing the product you searched for, they have already included the price and the online store where that product is being sold. With this, you can easily compare the prices of a particular item from different stores in one glance. This means you can easily choose the online store the sells the cheapest! Cool huh?!

Another brilliant functionality I like at ShopWiki is its capability to allow users to filter selection by color not using the usual and boring drop down selection but instead using the color palette! And, it also has a wide variety of buying guidelines that showcases the different well known online stores like those sites to help you before baby is born, site that focuses on baby health guides, sites that help you in taking care of toddlers, and a lot more! Now, can you just imagine what other extra ordinary things this shopping search engine site has created for us to enjoy shopping online even better?:)

Keys to Successfully getting high Page Ranks!

I'm not really an expert here. I was actually shocked when I found out about my RealRank and Alexa score=)

As a continuation of my earlier post related to this, here are a few more tips to help you pull up your blog ranks fast:

1. My first tip is for Google PageRank: Since they are focused into backlinks which means getting you site clicked from somewhere else, exchange links with other bloggers. My special note, choose bloggers who you deem have high PRs already. I've read from one news letter that getting your site clicked from high PR sites adds more value to your site.

2. Here's my second tip for Google PageRank: Add your site to Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs). With this, the titles of the posts you create easily gets extracted by Google.

3. My third tip (again) for Google PageRank: Link back to yourself! If you are creating post that is a continuation or related to one of your older post, find a way to add a link to it. Aside from helping your blog readers, you are also helping yourself since clicking this added link creates another hit to your site.

4. My fourth (but hopefully not the last ) tip for Google PageRank, visit and edit your old post and add some more details into it. This adds more value to your posts and Google gets to notice them once again.

5. For Izea's RealRanks, you need to get an ITK (Izea Tool Kit) installed on your blog before the data collection starts. You can get this from SocialSpark. From what I understand, aside from getting the number of page views per day, ITK also tracks the number of unique IP addresses visiting your blog. So if you want to get a high rank, my advice is you join sites such as LinkReferral, BlogCatalog, or BlogRush. Also, enjoy checking out other blogs and leave simple notes on their shout box or comment on their posts. Most often than not, they too will add to your list of new viewers (and hopefully new blog buddies)

6. Although my Technocrati Ranking is high, i'm not pretty familiar as to how it works. But as per sis anna, tags do help increase your Technocrati ranking. And since tag will leave a piece of your link to other blogs (backlinks) which again is related to Google PR, tag all your friends! =)

5 Lastly, make your posts unique and try to talk about new things. My IT niche blog can attest to this. Oracle Hyperion is a new buzz in the Business Intelligence and Oracle market. And since my discussion is now mostly related to this category, this blog is getting tons of visitors mostly from US even without my effort. If you try to search topics such as "Hyperion Planning Overview", my blog will always be added on the first page of Google's searchable links!

Hope this helps you! Good luck!

DIY Preps for My Little CJ's Coming 1st Birthday - Part 3!

My official count down to CJ's birthday is now down to only 1 week and 6 days! And this time, I'm almost done with my to-do's.

Here are additional updates I have as a continuation of the Part 2 post:
1. We have already given our down payment at Jollibee McKinley. The cost of the down payment broken down into the following:
a. 50% of the food package for the kids which already is inclusive of the Party Favors (with 20 assorted game prizes, 10 crayons, 1 mascot appearance for 30 mins, 30 party balloons, and a themed guestbook)
b. 50% of the food package for adults
c. 100% of other party add-ons such as the loot bags, nametags, party hats, party liners, etc.

My side comment : I find this branch better than the other branch we visited along Fort Bonifacio. All the staffs here from the service crew up to the manager are very friendly, courteous, and easy to talk to. Even if we were not able to get the invitation the day we paid our down payment (due to their stock shortage on their bratz themed invites), i still would recommend people near these locations to choose this branch rather than the other i mentioned earlier.

2. I'm almost done with the thank you note / souvenir item.=)

This is what we're giving out on that day


Here is what it looks like with the Thank You note clipped

Check out the different selection of CJ's growing up pictures that will be given out on her birthday from here.

I just need to add white or gold or both colored ribbons before I consider it done.

3. We already got the party invitations and have already distributed them to most of our guests. I really love Jollibee's Bratz Themed invites!! So glad we decided to choose Jollibee and this theme for our baby's birthday.

Sharing some sample shots of the Bratz themed invitation card

This is the back portion


This is the front portion


And what you'll see when you open the card


4. Her growing up collage which will also stand as her signature frame is also almost done. I only need to take a picture of CJ on her real birthday(September 18) before i have it printed.