My Baby's "Monthday"

It has always been a ritual in our family that we document the monthly pictures of our babies and Phoenix turned 4 months old yesterday so I brought him to The Picture Company in Alabang. Here are some of his pictures that are just soo cute!

Addicted to a new book series

Reading books are one of my favorite pastimes and my friend was able to make me read a new series--The Vampire Academy Book Series. I know I know...some of you are probably thinking vampires again?! It's true that vampires have become the "in" theme with a lot of books and tv series but there's always something new that people add to it to keep it interesting.

Vampire Academy is a cross between Harry Potter and Twilight. Here's a description from Richelle Mead(the author) about the series:
Two races of vampires walk our world. One, the Moroi, are alive and wield elemental magical. The other, the Strigoi, are undead and evil--feeding on the innocent to survive. Rose Hathaway--a half-vampire with poor impulse control--is training to be a bodyguard for a Moroi princess. Learning to decapitate and stake is hard enough, but Rose's real danger may lie in an illicit romance with one of her instructors...


I was hooked on it from the first few chapters of the first book and it was so easy to read that it was hard to not finish the 5 books(the 6th and last book will come out on December 2010) in a week! For people wanting to have a light read that would engross you into a different world then this is a MUST-READ! Go ahead to the bookstores and get a copy or borrow from your friends. This is in the young adults section so reading it is easy :)

Trip to the Barbershop

The mental image I used to have of barbershops was that of a small space filled with no nonsense looking men just waiting to pounce and shave your whole hair off. Thankfully, Mickey's Barbershop here in Alabang has changed that image for me.

Cairo's hair is a bit of a challenge to cut because his hair strands are thick and they only fall one way. We used to take him to a hair salon but when we moved to the south we decided to make him try going to a barber.

I'm one lucky parent when it comes to my son behaving while having a haircut. He was never a child who fidgeted and cried because he always found it amusing to have his hair cut and shaved. I took him to the barbershop last week and this was his fourth time to go and he didn't even wait to be seated, he just marched along to "his seat". I was actually surprised that he already knew which seat was his.

Here are some pics of our trip to Mickey's Barbershop:

The interiors of Mickey's is bright & clean with rows and rows of chairs that allows them to accommodate a lot of customers

Before & After

HELP! Why do kids become shy?

I've been pondering this question in my head for a couple of weeks now and this is because I cannot understand how Cairo has suddenly become a shy kid when he was once so self-assured and confident. I remember that his teachers in Gymboree would even tease him that he'll become a politician one day because he greets everyone that he gets into contact with.

I had no trouble sending him to different classes before and making him learn different things but now I can't even make him try a new class. This all started when he got sick more often and ended up staying home more but I still had play dates for him to make sure that he had some socialization.

I enrolled him to gymnastics last week because he told me that he wanted to learn but when it was time for him to join a class, he wouldn't budge from his seat. He didn't even try going near the teacher. I thought that he'd be better the next time he goes but he was even worse the second time around because he kept on crying.

I don't want him to not do anything and just stay home to play video games here because I want him to have a balanced lifestyle. My hubby & I have decided to take away TV, video games and all of his power ranger toys from him and to just make him play with things that he can benefit from. We're thinking that maybe he's changed because we added these things to his daily routine. I honestly don't know if we're right but what else can we do?!

I'm truly lost and any thoughts regarding this matter would be a great help.

Yummy Chinese food in Alabang

My hubby & I celebrated our 5th year anniversary last June 11,2010. This year we both wanted a simple celebration with good grub food. We decided to go to Bellevue Hotel in Alabang to try out what they have to offer.

We were both impressed with the hotel's interior and staff. The hotel looked so chic and stylish that if we didn't live so nearby we really would have considered booking a room. We checked out Phoenix Court since it seemed like a good place to eat good chinese food.

We were glad that we chose to eat there because the food was soooo good and it was also moderately priced plus the service was excellent and the ambience was not your typical chinese restaurant. We ordered the hot and sour soup, vegetable dumpling, peking duck, beef chinese style and I forgot the name of our fried rice. Everything was delicious! It's one of the best peking ducks that I've tried and truly comparable to the food in HK. The beef was also so tender and tasty that it was hard not to stuff myself with it.

I highly recommend Phoenix Court to anyone who's in the south and have been having a hard time finding a good chinese restaurant. It's a must try!!!!!

Last year to be included in the calendar

I just celebrated my 31st birthday this weekend. When my hubby asked me what I wanted to do, I said that I wanted to just go out of town to subic and anvaya and i want to be stress-free for one weekend. So our family packed our bags and went to subic last friday. 


The ride going to subic was good because there was no traffic so we were able to reach our destination in under 2.5 hours. That's not bad considering that we came from alabang all the way to subic. We had dinner with our friends in Sakura, this japanese restaurant that serves the freshest sashimi and sushi. The food was great especially since it was also moderately priced.


Because it was my birthday weekend, my hubby told me that I should have a treat for myself so should I let get some decent sleep by making Phoenix sleep with his yaya. I agreed since I've really been running low for a couple of weeks now. So, instead of waking up every hour or two, I just had to wake up every four hours to pump. 


It rained the whole weekend so Cairo wasn't able to swim since we didn't want him to get sick. So, he and his bestfriend, Kenzo, just played in the different children's amenities in anvaya that allowed them to stay dry. As for me, I decided to take a dip in the pool with hubby and we were glad to just lounge and relax for a while just like old times.


I was able to sleep in rather late(around 8am) on sunday because it was raining and the aircon was just so cold that all we wanted to do was stay under the sheets. It was the perfect bed-weather that it was truly hard for me to get up but since I had to pump, I forced myself to get up. We had our usual coffee run then met up for lunch with Kenzo's parents in one of our fave subic restos, Texas Joe's. We had a super yummy lunch of ribs, chicken and corn bread before we headed back home to manila.


The weekend was relaxing and I loved it! It pays to have slow days sometimes especially when it rains :)