Must haves for your Baby's Medicinal Kit

Since I have a number of new moms and moms to be viewers on this blog, I thought that it might be helpful to share my ideal must haves for a baby's medicinal kit. These items I'm sharing are my well tested and pedia-subscribed items that I'm sure is also commonly found on medicine cabinets from other experienced moms out there.

1. Desitin - It's an anti-diaper rash cream that helps prevent diaper rash. Note that this cream is quite strong for baby's delicate skin so make sure to put only a small amount of this product on your baby.

2. Petroleum Jelly - Before, I only use this one as a lip balm and skin moisturizer. But I've been hearing from my mom that this one is also a good anti-diaper rash cream. So one time when we were out of Desitin, I tried using this cream on my youngest baby and was surprised that it does have a good effect on her. It did prevent the rashes from spreading further and I didn't have to worry on how much cream to put on her since it's just a mild cream.

3. Travacort - This is an anti-fungal/steriod cream that can be used together with an anti-diaper rash cream. I use this product to cure my babies diaper rash. And I must say that this is really my best must have at home.

4. Tempra - For emergency cases, it is always best to have Tempra drops (for 0-1 yr only babies) or syrup (for 2+ yrs old) on your baby's medicinal kit. This product lowers your baby's high temperature if he/she has a fever.

5. Betadine - This is an anti-bacterial solution that is generally used to wash open-cut wounds. We can never tell if our babies get caught up in an accident that's why I always have this one on mine. Note that it is not advised to use alcohol to clean open-cut wounds so use this one instead.

6. Chamomile Oil (Acete de Mansanilla) - This solution is used for gas pain and is specially essential for those with new born babies as they tend to experience gas pain more often that the older babies.


If I missed out on anything, send me your comments=) I'd love to know what's in your baby's medicine cabinets too!

Top Ten Most Popular Searches (source, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, etc..)

For those who are desperately in need of more site / page visitors, traffic, and are looking for ways to increase their pageranks (like me), below are the latest most popular searches based from seomoz.

1. source
2. Sarah Palin
3. Christina Hendricks
4. Facebook
5. Lorrie Morgan
6. ipod
7. Barack Obama
8. Britney Spears
9. Lindsay Lohan
10. Mena Suvari

Start creating your post with these included in your post title and let's see what happens next.

How I Lost Weight and literally removed 5 Inches on my Waist in 3-4 months!

Image credits from yevrah.blogsome.com

Hello there guys! I almost failed to shared with you my secrets on how I lost weight and removed 5 inches on my waist within a span of 3-4 months. I'm not kidding. So if you're into a strict, depressing, and looks like it's now working diet, you might want to try my tricks and see results that you never imagined could happen.

I started dieting for real when I was on my second year of college. Those were the days when being skinny was the "in" thing. I am itemizing my tips into two. One would contain a list of my healthy tips, and another my not so healthy but will make your fats burn faster tip.=)

Here's are my suggestions for those healthy dieters out there:
1. Don't eat rice. Instead, substitute rice with complex carbo foods such as sweet potatoes, oatmeal, cereals, wheat bread. This makes you full instantly because it is high on dietary fiber and at the same time it is a good source of energy.

2. Don't eat the yolk of the egg because this is high on cholesterol. Instead, eat lots and lots of egg white. Egg white is know to contain complete protein which is essential in the fat burning process.

3. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. This is similar to my no. 1 tip. Since vegetables and fruits are high on dietary fiber, it helps you feel full all the time. Plus it's good on your health and body because as everyone knows these foods are rich in vitamins and minerals.

4. Eat white meats (like chicken and fish) instead of red meats (like pork, beef, goat, veal, venison, lamb, mutton, rabbit, buffalo meat, and beefalo). Red meats gets slowly digested and contains more saturated fats and cholesterol than white meats.

5. Eat less sugary foods like chocolate, ice cream, cake, and candies because these are carbohydrates that can turn into fats once you exceed your normal calorie consumption and not burn these carbos through exercise.

6. Regularly exercise! Exercise burns your fat and consumes the calories you have stored from the foods you ate.

7. Give yourself a break. Assign a day (probably Saturday or Sunday) where you can eat anything you want like chocolates, cakes, or ice cream. Do not eat plenty of these though. Just eat some so you don't feel like you're depriving yourself from the foods you love eating.

And here's another thing I did to remove my fats quicker (not very recommended, specially for those with gastrointestinal problems)
- Buy a slimming coffee or tea from the drug store and drink 3 coffee/tea bags a day or after every meal. I personally use Bavarian Coffee. Note that these slimming coffees/teas have diarrhea like effects which causes dehydration and weight loss. With these, it is advisable to drink lots of water and eat lots of healthy foods like the ones I mentioned above.

There goes my tips. Let me know if this helps you alright? Happy dieting!

Weird Things About Me..

Got this tag from mommy lorei. thanks sis!

Rules are rules. To tag along: you have to list 7 weird things about yourself, post it in your blog, tag at least 7 people (list their names), and comment on their blog to let them know that you just tagged them.

Here's goes my share..

1. I love eating apple and ripe papaya when it's dipped in vinegar.
2. For my personal hair spa treatment, I sometimes put mayonnaise on my hair. Got this trick from Cory Quirino=)
3. I have a very talkative, friendly, and cheerful personality but i am not able to fully exercise this at work.
4. I sometimes imaging myself wearing sexy and stylish outfits but when I start to shop I always end picking up simple clothes.
5. When I pass by the mall during times when I don't have extra money for my 'wants', I tend to like a lot of items. But when I'm in the mall for shopping most of the time I don't like everything I see. My husband gets totally irritated when this happens.=)
6. I'm a chocaholic but I get really dizzy and tend to have headache when I eat too much.
7. Even if I feel like I'm half way thru my career life's goal, I still want to change my career from IT to something else.. like i sometimes want to sell cakes and chocolates.. or do events planning. just don't know where to start..


Would love to hear about your weird things: paolyn, rachel, g, jhonna, umma, april, and concon..

What is your IQ

I just tried out this free assessment awhile ago and here's how I scored



Try it out and tell me what's your IQ=)

Simple Budgeting Tips

Image credits from smartplanet.com

With the gloomy global economic crisis that we are presently experiencing , I believe its about time that we keep track of our daily expenditures and strictly follow our family budget so we do not end up on getting payday loans.

Here are some of my simple budgeting tips to help you out:

1. Start by creating a diary list of all your daily purchases. This list will help you track where your money is going.

2. With the budget diary list mentioned above, evaluate your spending habits. Try to itemize your list into two categories. First category would be for your basic needs
and second category for those you consider as luxury. This way, you'll
be able to assess if you're already spending more that what you really need. if you think that you're spending to much on unnecessary things then better adjust your expenditure routines.

3. Create your budget for the month. I highly suggest that you use Microsoft Excel to accomplish this task. Your budget table should at least contain the following categories:

1. Item : This will list all your spendings such as grocery, utility bills such as electricity; water; cable; phone; and internet bills, car expenses (like gas and other maintenance), loans (credit, housing, car, etc.)
2. Estimated Cost : This would be your estimated or anticipated value for the listed item
3. Actual Cost : This column would only be filled up once the payment is made.
4. Due Date : This will contain the item’s due date
5. Date Paid : This will contain the date when the payment for the item was made
6. Savings : The formula for this column is basically the Estimated Cost – Actual Cost
   

With this kind of budget list table format, you can even be encouraged to spend less since you can instantly see how much savings you can get out of your expenditures.=)

The Dreaded Recession in US

Image credits from weblogs.newsday.com

Even if US official has not yet declared that recession in already going on in their country, a lot of economic experts say that US is by now undergoing the recession phase. Just by merely watching CNN or Blomberg I'm quite sure you yourself would agree to what they’re saying.

This global financial turmoil that I keep on hearing from the news since the first quarter of 2008 is very much alarming because it has a domino effect on everyone living on this planet. It is extremely depressing to see that this chaotic situation that we now have seems to be inevitable. I mean every single day news reporters and journalists would talk about major stock market losses, big companies declaring bankruptcy, which then leads to many individuals getting laid off their jobs, and which then adds to the growing population of jobless individuals.

In this time of crisis I’m sure a lot of people now seek for ways on how to get cash advance. I do hope this economic situation gets better soon.

Basic Kitchen Equipments to start Baking Cakes and Cookies!

Baking cakes and cookies for my family is a hobby I loved and enjoyed doing since I was in my third grade. I can still recall those days when I used to sell chocolate and banana cup cakes for Php3.50 each. I would always bring 20 pieces each day and everything would literally sell in an instant even before our break time starts. What’s great is that I get to keep all the money I get from my sales even though my mom purchases all the ingredients for me! haha..

I really need to buy some kitchen equipments for baking these goodies soon though since both my girls already appreciate eating solids. Below is what I have on my list of items to buy. If you’re a mom or someone who’d love to bake cake or cookies for your family, check out these basic baking equipments that you need to have to start:

For baking cakes:

1. Oven
2. Mixer
3. baking pan
4. measuring cups
5. measuring spoons
6. bowls in different sizes
   

And don’t miss out on these items if you want to bake cookies too:

7. rolling pin
8. cookie cutter

If you plan to buy these items online, you may want to explore them at shopwiki. Aside from giving you a wide range of brands to choose from, it also let's you pick the best item since this revolutionary shopping search engine checks the item you want to get from all the online stores you can possibly think of. Plus, you're ensured of choosing the best product from the best online store because aside from showing the price and the online store where the item is being sold, customer review and rating can also be seen.

Go check it out right now and register if you want to get an Ipod Nano for free!=)

Enjoying Sunday at Dave's Fun House

Our family had another fun filed day last weekend.=) After going to mass at the 3rd floor of Market! Market!, we had the two girls with their nanny play at Dave's Fun House for a treat. Missy has been here several times already but it was CJ's first time to go in this cute little playhouse. This playhouse has miniature kid’s size facilities like the clinic with doctor and patient’s uniform, bed and other medical items; the salon with toy scissors, razors, blow driers, and artificial hairs; fast food outlet that has Mc Donald and Jollibee looking foods such as the fries and burgers; a grocery store with lots of vegetables and cute little carts and an ATM machine located outside of the grocery store; cute little rides with a gas station on one side; and a house with small home furniture like living room set, water dispenser (with no water of course), refrigerator, and microwave oven; plus two TVs where kids can watch and play games. With all these miniature stuff our girls sure did had a blast!

For a very reasonable price, putting your kids in a make believe fun house like this one and seeing them get fascinated and enjoy the entire time is worthless. So if you're planning to visit Market! Market! for the coming weekend, be sure to bring your kids along with you and try enrolling them there too. By the way, the fun house requires all kids and guardians to wear a pair of socks.

I didn't notice how much each child cost, but we paid Php395 for two kids, one guardian + extra socks. Wish we could have enough space at home for a playhouse so the kids can enjoy playing in such at their own home.



At Dave’s Fun House
NOTE : Double-click on the image to get a bigger view of the pictures.

Feedback and Thank You's on CJ's 1st Bratz Birthday Party at Jollibee McKinley Branch

This is an overdue post about my feedback on CJ’s birthday party supplies. I made an earlier post to thank all our friends and relatives who were able to make it to the party. You can click on this link for that thank you post.
Here goes my feedback:

1.Venue and Setup – Jollibee McKinley Branch
I already knew that Jollibee offers Bratz Pixies as one of its party themes. Considering our limited budget and the fact that everyone loves Jollibee, this venue was for us a perfect choice.

We initially wanted to hold CJ’s birthday bash at Jollibee The Fort branch. But after going there to inquire about their packages, we got a bit frustrated..

Reasons for our disappointment:

• There was only one slot available for the September 20 event so we had very limited choice on the time of our occasion.
• The manager mentioned that they do not offer any other themes anymore except for the Jollitown character themes. I was upset after hearing this since I have already started creating my Bratz themed layouts for CJ’s banner and favors with thank you notes. Worst is, he mentioned that all Jollibee branches now are only offering the Jollitown character themed birthday party.
  

However, since we always pass by Jollibee McKinley branch, I know that that guy we just talked to was probably misinformed because I just saw the McKinley branch hold a Bratz themed party a week before we went to The Fort branch.

To cut the story short, we went to McKinley branch and reserved the 4-6pm time on September 20. We were so fortunate that nobody yet has reserved for an event on that day=)

The party package we got already included 30pcs of balloons and Bratz themed party supplies such as the party hat, name tag, banner, loot bags, prizes, plus a gift for the birthday celebrant.

We were so happy that we decided to hold the party at Jollibee McKinley branch. Everyone enjoyed the entire time because the two party host were amazing! They really knew how to make the party fun and full of life. I personally enjoyed Jollibee's four wishes because he always dances before and after he gives his wish.

2.CJ’s dress – Muńeca from www.sears.com
This dress was given as a gift from my aunt Becky. Both my two girls had exactly the same design. I wanted both of them to wear it on the event so that the elder one won’t feel at lost. These dresses looked so fabulous on them. It even has an underwear to match the gown. Thanks for these gowns ninang Becky!

3.CJ’s shoes – Baby Shoes from SM Makati
We were already set to buy CJ’s shoes from Chicco. But since my two girls are wearing the same outfit, I thought it would be nice if they too wore the same kind of shoes. Unfortunately, the cute Chicco shoes we saw doesn’t have a size that would fit her sister’s so we opted to look for another one. Luckily, we saw this adorable pair of shoes that both has CJ and Missy’s size. The color of the shoes perfectly blended with their dress. We also bought the black knee high stockings from SM. I could probably say that both the shoes and the stockings were comfortable on them cause they would normally remove it if incase the stockings made them itch or if the shoes didn’t fit right.

4.CJ’s Cake – Max’s The Bake Shop and Kitchen Krafts
CJ had two cakes on that day and I was so blessed that those cakes were sponsored by two of her godparents. We were not able to distribute it on the venue though since Jollibee prohibits distribution of edible items other than those they have. Anyway, we shared the cakes to some of our guests and neighbors when we got home. Without doubt both cakes were yummy! I enjoyed eating Kitchen Krafts's cake because it was moist and not too sweet. I also heard lots of complements from Max's Caramel Butter cake. Thanks for the cake ninang Lourdes and ninang Che..!

5.Banner, Favors & Thank You notes : My DIYs!
I created the layout of the banner, Cj’s images on the favors, and the thank you note using Adobe Photoshop. I had the banner printed at Signex for a very cheap price=). The printed copy was a bit darker that expected though. So, incase you plan to have your banners printed by them, maybe in would look better if you give them a bit brighter image.

Since the thank you note was in a form of a picture and was not covered or protected by any plastic or frame, I decided to have them printed at the Kodak kiosk. I’ve heard that pictures that gets printed from these kiosks are water proofed and has lifetime warranty (from dust and lost of color due to age). Sweet..!

We bought the favors from Divi mall in bulk for an incredibly cheap cost. Like what I mentioned on my previous post, a piece of this favor would cost you Php50.00 in Market! Market!. The ones we got were 50% lesser than that! Another cheap buy for us;-)

6.Photographer – Tita Lala
Due to our limited budget, we had no choice but to utilize our own digital camera. Thank God my cousin offered to take the pictures on that day. Thanks tita Lala..!

Unfortunately, some of the images didn't come out well since the camera had low resolution. For this reason, I just though of grouping the images into a digital scrapbook pages.

Hope you enjoy looking at the pictures as everyone enjoyed the event.=)

Carrie Justine’s 1st Birthday Party
NOTE: For a bigger view of the images, please double click on the slide show above.