Javi's 5th Month and On Letting Go

I know I mentioned here that I will blog about Javi's first pedia visit but it was Javi's 5th month birthday yesterday so let me blog about that instead.

He's now able to roll over to his right side, and continue on rolling over hehe. He can sit up with assistance. He can stand up with assistance. He giggles like there's no tomorrow. He can blabber on and compete with Miya while talking hehehe. Oh he is such a joy to have in our home! I'm not sure if I've written it here how I worry if I could love him as much as his Ate, but now I find myself having so much love for this little human being I never thought I could give him. Which brings me to a moment I had with him a few days after we took him home from the hospital. I was smothering him with kisses and just playing with him, then it hit me: one day he will marry and leave me. Then I cried. This I was thinking of only a few days after I gave birth to him. And then this weekend I read this article which I got from my FB feed. After the first 3 paragraphs I was crying!

My little brother was married this weekend. It was a beautiful ceremony, with touching words being spoken, promises made, smiles from ear to ear, and new lives beginning.

I kept thinking that even though my brother is 27, I could so easily remember him at 4. The little brother who spent his days fighting super heroes and watching Toy Story was now reading vows to a beautiful bride. The same little boy who used to hide under beds with me, eat grapes with while we watched cartoons, and walk to the bus with me. How does time go by so fast?

It made me think of my own little 4 year old.

I also have a younger brother, although he's not yet getting married I can completely relate to the mother who wrote this. She wrote what I feared all along. 

There’s a fear that I think a lot of mothers with boys have; that boys go off and leave their mothers while daughters stay close. 

And I'm hoping she is right when she said. 

Yet I know there’s a deep love that a son always keeps for his mother. A bond that will always remain, no matter what or where he goes.

Oh Javi, I love you so much, Anak! Let me cherish you while you are still young. Iba pala talaga ang anak na lalaki sa mga Mommy. I can't really pinpoint what it is. I love both my children but I think my love for them is different from the other. 

Princess Party

For Miya's 4th birthday she specifically asked for a Sleeping Beauty cake. So I knew we should have a Sleeping Beauty/Disney Princess theme for her birthday. She's so into Disney Princesses now. Side kwento, my cake maker (naks! cake maker!) at the office told me beforehand that she might not be able to do Miya's cake because they have balikbayans around the time of Miya's birthday. I told her we can move the date of the school party just so she can accomodate my request. See our cake maker is an officemate of mine who bakes and makes these wonderful edible art just for her love of it, it's just her hobby. She prices the cake at cost. Can you believe that? But she does the cakes so meticulously that you won't even think that the cakes were done by a hobbyist. So I've been getting my cakes from her since Miya's 6th month birthday and she has greatly improved her cake decorating designs since then. Anyhow, when their balikbayans arrived and I was still making ulit if she can make my cake, she told me that I should probably get someone else to do the cake because she won't have the time. I was so stressed out because this was probably 3 weeks before the party. I tried looking for other bakers but I knew most of them will be expensive. I stressed out for a whole weekend over a cake. You know why? Because this was the cake I wanted her to make.

Isn't this perfect for Miya? Source

I knew she can do this cake because she's previously made a doll cake but not Sleeping Beauty. Come Monday, I called her again to ask one last time. Nakulitan ata sa kin at sya pa ang nahiya, she finally said yes! Oh my gosh! I was super grateful she can accomodate our request and the date she can give us the cake was perfect pa. We settled for the date of Miya's school party on the 29th of January so I got the cake from her on the 28th (my birthday). After I fnalized the cake, I went ahead with the planning of the party.

I went to Pinterest to look for invitation inspiration and found this. Actually, my first option for the invitation was a printout with Sleeping Beauty on it. But I thought this might give the other mommies idea to dress their kids in Disney Princess costumes. See, I didn't want to buy Miya the Sleeping Beauty costume because it was more than 1k and I didn't want to buy something she will only use one-time. Di ba nga I make her Halloween costumes so I refuse to buy this for her hahaha! Well, actually it's really not practica.l E ayoko naman naka-Disney Princess costume mga classmate nya tapos yung birthday girl naka-ordinary dress di ba? So I told hubby I'll just change the design of the invitation and go with that one instead and do it myself. Actually the first option was because I was lazy na sana to DIY. Gusto ko ipaprint na lang hahaha. Thankfully, I was able to find this link with a template of the Sleeping Beauty dress which I used. I sourced National Bookstore for the papers and went to Carolina's to buy the tulle.

Pre-assembly

The last line in the invitation is a quote from the movie: The princess shall indeed grow in grace and beauty, beloved by all who know her.

Tadaaa!

My cake maker was not able to accommodate my request for cupcakes anymore. So I just ordered from Brownies Unlimited since they have pink and blue icing cupcakes (Make it pink! Make it blue! - Flora and Merryweather from the movie). The cupcakes are P35 each and comes with individual boxes so that's a good-priced cupcake for birthday giveaways. For the birthday banner and tags for the lootbags, I asked Miya's Ninang Pam to edit the printables I got from this site. The other elements of the party like the lootbags, other decors and pinata were all sourced from Divisoria. I was actually too lazy to go there pa just to buy the lootbags but my parents volunteered to go so who am I to reject their offer heehee. I plan to use the paper lantern in Miya's future room.

Close-up shot of the cake. I found this doll for P99 at Toy Kingdom, came with a crown too so it was perfect for the cake!

Cake and the birthday banner

Cupcakes and lootbags - pinks and blues perfect for our theme and perfect for Miya's girl and boy classmates.

Pinata from Divisoria

I mentioned earlier that we didn't plan to buy Miya a Sleeping Beauty costume right? But two weeks before Miya's party, her Ninang Joy told me she will give Miya Kyla's old flower girl gown. All this without knowing that I'm preparing for Miya's Sleeping Beauty party. I thought that's perfect because it was pink and blue! My worry was it might be too big for her, but it turned out perfect. It was a bit too long on the hem but our little princess was more than happy to lift her gown during the party.

One strap falling off her but our princess was so pretty that day!

One family photo before the party starts lest we forget

More photos of the party after the jump...

Where to Stay in Tagaytay: Crosswinds Resorts Tagaytay

We got the 1-bedroom suite at Crosswinds Resorts for my father's birthday. I got a voucher from Deal Grocer which included breakfast for two but allowed us to have 5 adults and 1 kid in the suite. I paid for extra bed for the 5th adult, my brother. The layout of the suite is your typical 1-bedroom condo.

Here's the dining and living room. The extra bed was placed in between the sofa (which turns to a bed) and the dining table. The door you see after the living room is the door to the bedroom. To the left of the dining table is the kitchen, to the right is the veranda. 

Here's the kitchen which is to the left of the dining table (if you're facing the living room). Crosswinds had 0% corkage fee so we were able to fully utilize this kitchen without cost. We brought in food for cooking as well as cooked food for our merienda, dinner and breakfast. 

Here's the bedroom

View of the living room and dining area from the room

Here's the bathroom. The bathroom adjoins the living room to the bedroom. This photo was taken from the door from the living room. To the right of the sink leads to the door of the bedroom. 

The shower stall

Toiletries

View from our veranda

Another view from the veranda

Pool area

Kiddie pool

Playground beside the pool area

You need to have your own vehicle when you book here as the property is quite big. The drive from the hotel to the pool area is around 5mins which I'm not sure if you're willing to walk to instead of drive because the roads are quite steep. The resort is also far from the dining options in Tagaytay so it was a plus that they allow guests to cook in the suite as you don't have to go outside for dinner and just stay in your suite.

Overall, I would like to book at this resort again. Once you're inside, you can just spend the whole time there by going to the pool and the playground - very kid and family friendly.

Blogging Schedule

So I've racked my brains on how to do this back-blogging business and I have somewhat made a schedule:

Miya Mondays - anything Miya related
Javi Tuesdays - anything Javi related
Throwback Thursdays - anything that happened in 2014
Flashback Friday - also anything that happened in 2014
Anything goes Wednesdays - anything that has happened in the first two months of 2015

Using this schedule, I will finish my backlogs in around three weeks if I post almost every day. So let's see if I can keep it up. After I finish my backlogs, I think I'll still try to post by theme per day. Let's see if I enjoy this theme.

To give you a sneak peek for the first week but I can't promise to do this everyday next week as most of these posts are photo heavy:

Flashback Friday - Where to Stay in Tagaytay: Crosswinds Resorts

Miya Monday - Princess Party

Javi Tuesday - First Pedia Visit

Anything goes Wednesday - Papal Visit

Throwback Thursday - Mama's 60th Birthday

Papa's 60th Birthday

So I'm going to do a little #throwbackThursday and #flashbackFriday on Thursdays and Fridays (obviously) for my backlogs. And then for the rest of the week, try to write something more current although most of these posts will really be a few days late already hehe. So without further ado, here's my first #tbt post on my father's 60th birthday. I actually drafted this post before I gave birth to Javi.

21 - 22 June 2014

My father turned 60 years old last June. I booked us a suite in Crosswinds Resort via a voucher I bought from Deal Grocer. Ever since I saw this property in Anna’s blog I wanted to go. So this was a perfect time for us. I booked a one-bedroom suite for us – 5 adults and 1 kid. Joema and I got the room while my parents bunked in the sofa bed and we got an extra mattress for my brother.

We had lunch at Buon Giorno at Cliffhouse and then had ice cream at the gelato place there.

We were so thrilled with the steak we got when we were last in Tagaytay so I told my  parents we can buy steak at the market and eat that for dinner that night. So that’s what we did, only I forgot to bring a pan to cook the steak so we also stopped by the Robinsons supermarket before heading to Crosswinds. We arrived at Crosswinds a bit earlier than 2pm. They were very strict with the checking in time so they had us wait at their restaurant until it was 2pm and then we were led to our suite. Miya was asleep while we were waiting for the time so when we got to our suite she was all hyper again. Some of the adults tried to nap and rest. Around 4pm we were on our way to the pool at Crosswinds. Note that their pool is open until 5pm for free. Afterwards, you can still stay there for a fee (they consider it night swimming and I suppose the fee is for the lights).

Thank God, the grandparents willingly took care of Miya at the pool

Sobrang saya lang ng anak ko di ba?

Was very much pregnant at that time!

When our little girl got tired of swimming, we stayed at the playground just beside the pool and ate some junk food hahaha and took more photos!

That night for dinner, my brother cooked the steak. It was yummy! We bought tenderloin I think it was cut into thin strips and we also bought steak sauce from Robinsons earlier. Yum yum! After eating, Joema and I went out with my brother to buy cake for Papa. We couldn’t find any bakery so we decided to go to Starbucks and buy cake from there. When we got back to Crosswinds, Miya was still awake but I’m glad she decided to sleep with her lola. I savor those nights when she sleeps with her grandparents. No feet kicking preggo me while sleeping hahahaha!

The next day we surprised Papa with our gift and the cake.

Surpise, Lolo! Happy birthday!

Happy ang mag-lolo

Happy birthday to you!

Make a wish!

Papa and Mama then went downstairs to have the free breakfast. The room only came with two free breakfasts. While the rest of us stayed and ate our baon na adobo for breakfast heehee.

We had just enough time to go around Crosswinds and take a few pictures. It’s very picturesque there. It’s like you’re not in the Philipines any more hehe. Too bad Santa Claus’ house was closed when we were there. Sorry my photos are not high-res, these were downloaded from my brother's FB account hence the not so clear images. 

After checking out, we heard mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish. We were supposed to have lunch at Nuvali but we stopped by Good Shepherd to buy ube. When we got there, they also sell cooked food so we tried their arroz caldo and lumpiang sariwa. We were stuffed by the time we left so we decided to skip Nuvali and go straight home. As per Miya’s request, we had Jollibee chicken joy for lunch hahaha!

Papa thoroughly enjoyed his birthday. This was all a suprise to him. He didn't know where we were going until we were actually there in Tagaytay. He was just told to pack a few things for an overnight stay. So happy to be able to gift him with that weekend with us and his then only apo.