Our Princess Leia

You know how I totally "careered" last year's Halloween costume for Miya? Well, this year I didn't DIY her costume. But I still thought hard about it and it wasn't a ready to wear costume. I initially wanted her to be Boo from Monster's Inc. I think they look alike.

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Miya would've pulled this off. I was actually already teaching her how to say "Mike Wazowski". I only needed to buy her a red shirt and then I can buy dolls of Mike and Sulley which she can carry around while trick-or-treating. And then I thought, this is too easy hahaha! So I researched for other cartoon characters and I was led to this link. Boo really looked like Agnes from Despicable Me.

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I thought I'll buy Miya the whole outfit and a big furry unicorn, and of course, teach her how to do that cheek thing. But the hubby vetoed my idea, saying that she won't be easily recognized as Agnes when we dress her as Agnes.

And then I remembered this photo I've pinned on Pinterest.

Source: craftster.org via Cris on Pinterest

This was the inspiration to our very own Princess Leia... (reveal after the jump)

Coco Chicka Multiway Mormal Dress

One of the prizes I got from Mikka is a Coco Chicka multiway dress, specifically the Multiway Mormal dress.     I used the dress for the last wedding I attended. The dress came with a manual but I still had a hard time visualizing how the dress will turn out when worn. Coco Chicka's Multiply site isn't not much of a help either since they only posted the "finished" looks for each dresses. I wish they'd post a video tutorial on how to do every single look for each multiway dress. I did my own research and good thing, I found this video on Youtube. In case you want to buy yourself a multiway dress, this video is very helpful.



Although the one that I have falls below the knee (shin area actually) and the Coco Chica dress actually leaves a big gaping portion in the middle (check out the Chicify link), I was able to cover up my tummy and cleavage area with a few turn of the dress. I have to say thank you to my dear hubby for helping me dress up for the wedding. And that I love my breastfeeding boobies because they made this look dress good on me hahaha with the plunging neckline and all!

An almost full body shot of the dress

This is how my dress looks from the back. 

Tip by the way if you want to do the other styles for this dress, buy those silicon bras that you just stick onto your boobs. I have one but since they were old (used them for my wedding), the silicon is tearing apart. Or maybe because my boobs are now bigger hahaha! The styles usually are backless. My hubby had a hard time covering up my bra at the back. Good thing I had some extra fabric magic tape that we used to keep the back part of the dress in place and covered my bra. In that photo to your left, you can still see the magic tape. We had to redo the dress again. Unfortunately, when I went to the bathroom the "wrapping" of the dress got askewed and my bra kept popping at the back. Good thing I went on a bathroom break at the latter part of the night. Although, some still noticed it. My officemates kept pulling up my back hahaha! I didn't want to go back to the bathroom and fix everything because it was photo and bye-bye time already with the bride and groom.

Here's a full body shot. Sorry about the face, I'm a bit sleepy na here kaya singkit na. Tanders!

Liebster Award

Liebster is a German word that means "dearest" or "favorite." Other meaning may include sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, lovely, kinda, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome. 

The award recognizes  new and upcoming bloggers  with less than 200 followers (or friends) who deserve the recognition and support for their contribution in the blogosphere.

In order to accept this prestigious award, one must abide by the list of rules which are:

• Each person must list 11 things about themselves.
• Answer the 11 questions that the tagger has set for you PLUS you must create 11 questions of your own for the 11 people you will nominate with this award.
• Choose up to 11 bloggers linking them to your post.
• Go to their page and inform them of their nomination.
• Absolutely no tag backs. Remember to ONLY tag bloggers with less than 200 followers. 

First off, thanks to Pepper for tagging me. I've recently discovered Pepper's blog and the first time I've read it, I was hooked. I love her posts about her crafts, about her cooking, and her life about her family. Btw, she designs the cutest dresses for little girls! Thanks, Pepper! Here goes:

11 things about me:

1. I am 32 years old married to my dear hubby for almost 4 years (this November!) and a mother to my kulit and adorable 20 month old daughter.

2. I'm the eldest of two siblings. My brother is one year younger than me. There is exactly two weeks in January, when we are of the same age. 

3. Speaking of birthdays, (I'm sure I've mentioned this here before) my birthday is special to my family. It is the birthday of my paternal great grandmother, the birthday of my paternal grandmother, my parents' wedding anniversary. Miya was two days delayed in coming for her to be included in the celebrations.

4.  I'm a Math major and quite proud of it. Back in college, when someone asks my course and I say, "Math" they're initial reaction is "Wow, Math!" Mayabang lang hahahaha!

5. I studied German in college as a foreign language course. So I kinda new what Liebster mean hahaha!

6. It's my dream to travel the world. I especially want to visit Europe. 

7. My shoe size is 5.

8. I am currently using a dilapidated Nokia E63 with a missing space bar and comma keys. Miya bit them off my phone.

9. I have Twitter and Instagram accounts. Between the two, I love Instagram more because I love seeing updates of people with photos (the same way I love reading blogs with photos and not just words). But in terms of getting updates of current happenings, nothing beats Twitter.

10. I miss sleeping. I love to sleep. When I was single, I can sleep for the whole day of Sunday. I wake up in the morning to attend mass then have breakfast at home then go back to sleep. My parents will wake me up in time for lunch and then I go back to sleep. I wake up early evening to have dinner and then after a few hours, I'll sleep again. After giving birth to my daughter, the one thing I miss the most is getting 8 straight hours of sleep. 

11. I was named after Dang Cecilio.

Here are my answers to Pepper's 11 questions:

1. What is your favorite  comfort food? Mcdo caramel sundae. If ulam, sinigang na baboy.

2. For dessert, cake or ice cream? Why? Any of the two actually because I'm a dessert person. But if I really have to choose between the two maybe ice cream. I love that it's sweet and cold.

3. The beach or the mountains? Why? The beach. I'm a water person. I love love love being in the water. Maybe because my zodiac sign is Aquarius.

4. What's good about blogging? Meeting new friends and discovering that other people go through the same things that you go through. And it's actually a good online diary. Everytime I need to recall something like details on where we stayed at or what did we do during our wedding prep, I only refer to this blog and search on it. 

5. Whats not so good about it? Maybe for security reasons, it's not so good to divulge so much in your blog. Although this is not from personal experience. I see some bloggers who have bashers. But I think when you have a basher, that means you are truly sikat because people are already affected by you hehehe.

6. Who or what serves as your inspiration when writing a post? if I don't have any new things to blog about, I actually get inspired by other blogs that I read. I get inspired to write a new post or I get inspired by the thing that they blogged about.

7. How long does it usually take you to finish writing a post? If with photos, atleast an hour. If no photos, then that can be done in 10 minutes.

8. What makes you giddy and happy? My daughter, my family.

9. How long have you been blogging? Wow, I never realized I've been blogging for almost seven years. I don't really blog to gain popularity. This is really just to chronicle my life. It started when I was single and then now that I am married and have a daughter, I continue to document the things that are important (and sometimes not so important) events in our lives.

10. What inspired you to pen a blog? Answer is here.

11. What's the story behind your blog name? As my profile said "I'm as small as a thumb. Join me as I trek the river of life afloat this leaf I call my blog."  I actually asked my husband what's a good online name. And he said Thumbelina because I'm small. As Thumbelina's story goes, she rode a lily pad as she escaped the toad.  So I added the Leaf part making it like this is my home or my page. 

My 11 questions. Sorry some of these don't make sense at all, let's have some fun, shall we?

1. What was the last movie you saw in a cinema? How was it?

2. Are you a bag or shoe person? 

3. What's your favorite sport (doing or just watching)?

4. Who is your favorite Disney Princess?

5. What can you say about the Gangnam Style? :)

6. What's your favorite country?

7.  Would you cross the road like the chicken did? And why? :)

8. Are you dressing up for Halloween? What's your costume?

9. What is your ultimate dream?

10. How did your parents come up with your name? (still inspired by that post)

11. How long does it take you to prepare when going out (for work or just going out)? What's your routine?

People I would like to tag (I'm pretty sure some of them have more than 200 followers but some of them I've recently followed):

Anna of Blue Law by Anna

Jill of Frugal Honey

Marsy of Planet Marsy

Ging of Forty Weeks

Liz of Mrs. T

Anj of From A, to Zo

Milet of Momiespace


Ana of Ana Banana

Chery of chill*Axing


EJ of Recipe for Disaster 

Eds of h0dgep0dge 

D's Bridal Shower

A little rewind to my post yesterday, we threw D a bridal shower. My officemate who organized the shower booked a room at Victoria Court.The room is called Divine - it's really nice! I want to go back there with Joema hahaha (TMI!)

With the then bride-to-be D

More photos after the jump...

Pig and Bird's Wedding*

On the first Sunday of October, I attended the wedding of my officemate D. It was such a lovely wedding. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the wedding ceremonies and I don't really do that. So all of my photos are from the reception. The reception was held at EDSA Shangrila. It was intimate and elegant. Here are some photos.

We bumped into the newly weds outside the reception hall, waiting for the program to start. Lovely lovely bride!

I love weddings! - from my Instagram 

During the program. What's a group photo with the newly weds without the wacky shot.

We're actually waiting in line here for the buffet hehe

Chico and Delamar were the hosts...we had to take a photo with them :)

Congratulations C and D!!! 

*Those are their terms of endearment for one another :)

Breast Cancer

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Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month? I didn’t know this until I’ve read about it in Daphne’s blog. I would actually just read this and not mind about it if not for a colleague of mine. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. After a week or two of the diagnosis, she had mastectomy. This was done only a week ago. She is 32 years old, my age. The first thing I thought about was her daughters – she has two, ages 3 and 5. Even though we're not very close, I am saddened by this news. I can empathize with her having a daughter of my own and knowing that we’re of the same age, although I can only imagine what she’s going through now. I only learned today that she has stage 3A breast cancer. We’re all praying for her to survive this. Will you please help us pray for her, too?

And please click the link to Daphne's blog for more details on breast cancer awareness. 

What's In A Name?

This post is inspired by Deepa’s post on naming her little mango.

Even before I had a child, I knew exactly what to name him/her. If it’s a boy I wanted the names Rafael, Inigo or Joaquin. But tough luck, a very close friend of mine named her sons .. Ynigo Rafel and  Joaquin Matteo. So those off the list when I got pregnant. And then I got into F1 and I really love Sebastian Vettel. So I wanted Sebastian for a boy name but I thought it was too long a name for a first name. For first name I singled out on Noah (from Noah Wyle of ER)...Noah Sebastian. But when I got pregnant ABS-CBN came out with the teleserye Noah. So I was kinda hoping our baby wasn’t a boy hahaha! I'm pretty sure a lot of Filipino moms who gave birth around that time named their boy Noah. For baby girl names I liked Maya or Maja and Margaret so for a full name I wanted Margaret Yasmin or Margaret Jasmin. I also like the name Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty). Although if I name our girl Margaret Aurora my dilemma was should I nickname her Mau or Maui (as in Maui Taylor)? Hmm...

This would make you think I made my own daughter e  noh? No input from the father??? Really, everytime someone asks me if we have a name I say that we already have. If its's a boy it's Noah Sebastian and if a girl it's Margaret Y(J)asmin.

When we found out we were having a girl I conceded that hubby has to have an input too. So I asked him to come up with a girl name for our baby. I'll give one name and he'll give the other. Boys being boys he waited until the last minute. I remember I was already in my last trimester before he looked for a name. Heck, maybe even after we already packed our hospital bags. He wanted a Japanese name. With the help of a website he searched on Japanese names. I remebered he suggested Rei and I think a few other Japanese names. We also found Yanni in the website which is a Hebrew name with the meaning God is Gracious. I liked Yanni because we can still nickname our child Maya by just replacing Yasmin with Yanni. Or maybe Yanni Aurora so that I can still use the name Aurora. We were a bit undecided on it so he went back to searching for Japanese names. And then he stumbled upon Miya which means increasingly beautiful. And I loved it!

I was also becoming undecided on the fact that our daughter’s nickname is a combination of her first and second name. See, I work for an international organization and most of the times other nationalities don’t get our (Filipino’s) knack for nicknames. I have a Maria as my first name, and most of my contacts refer to me as Maria instead of my nickname. Foreseeing my child’s future in the international arena (arena daw o!), I wanted to give her a first name which she can use as her nickname.  

So there, that's the story of how we named our daughter...our increasingly beautiful pearl.

When Miya Met Babee

As with all Filipino children, Miya was not spared from this big bee's charms. We don't really frequent Jollibee but when she started knowing the bee, we had to give in. She loves their spaghetti (although she loves all kinds of spaghetti's, my cooking, McDo's, basta spaghetti she will eat - kinda like her love affair with pizza but with spaghetti it's more like affair). We actually discovered this one. Our first quiet meal as a family of three was at Jollibee Shangri-la. She ate her spaghetti quietly while Mommy and Daddy finish our own meal. Well, she was doen eating before I was so Joema had to take her out and watch the water display at the basement. But still, she behaved and ate at their high chair for a solid 10 or maybe 15 minutes. Hurrah!

This is on another occassion of eating out at Jollibee. She didn't want to seat at the high chair and wanted to sit on my lap but she still ate a lot of spaghetti. 

So I was excited for her when we went to our first Jollibee party - my inaanak's first birthday party. Unfortunately as it was a Saturday and we were coming from Mandaluyogn while the celebratiion was in QC, we arrived at the party super duper late. As in Jollibee was already about to give the lootbags. But it was still a good thing because Jollibee personally handed Miya's lootbag to her. But alas alas, the little girl was "tatot!" (takot as she says).

This was after convincing her to look at the camera. Look at her hand holding on to me haha.

But you know what, this little girl of mine is brave. Even when she was "tatot" with Jollibee she still wants to look at their photo together every day. Every time she sees us holding the Iphone, she will say "Babee, Babee!" And then when she sees the photo, she says "tatot" although she just says it matter-of-factly like telling us she got scared when she saw Jollibee.

A side note on that tatot thing, she really scurries off sometimes when she sees something on TV that she's scared off like one of the characters on Hippa Hippa Hey (we just couldn't figure out if it's Hippa, Sofie or Bowow she's scared of, or even that thing they ride). If she's watching near the TV and then she sees that this show is about to start, she will run towards us and hug us while saying "tatot tatot" but she still watches the show. She also have one book she's scared of which she calls "Moo" because the cover is a cow. It's a pop-up book with the snout of the animals being the pop-up part. She removed the pop-up parts so what's left of the animals are just the face with a big gaping mouth, not even an open mouth ha. Imagine your mouth getting blown off so your gums are showing and the outline of the mouth is gone, that is the image of the animals in the book now hahaha. So she really has a point there in getting scared. But as I say, she's brave or maybe courageous because even if she's scared, she wills herself to look and hold the book. She gets over her fear of the book although she still doesn't want to open it. She just says hi to the cow on the cover haha!

Christmas Came Early

... for me and Miya!

Miya's Ninang Rhoda gave her this wonderful desk! This was actually given to me Monday but was not able to bring it out of the car because Joema was feeling sick when we got home (the box was huge and I can't carry it myself haha). So last night, even though we had grocery bags when we got out of the car, I told Joema we should go back to the car and bring out the box for Miya to finally see her Ninang's gift to her. Miya was so excited when she saw the big box. When her Daddy unboxed the parts, she was there picking some of the parts (see those pink tumblers at the corner of the table, she picked those up). She said "sulat, sulat" in her bulol way hehehe. And then...tada!

Sulat sulat

As for me, my loot from Mikka arrived! And since there were a lot of items in the bag, it felt like I was really opening Chrismtas gifts! I was pleasantly surprised that the Coco Chika dress is pink! I thought it would be black as seen in Mikka's post. So yey I finally have something to wear for a wedding I'm attending this weekend!