Maximizing Summer Vacation With Family Without Breaking The Bank

How have you been spending your hot summer days of late?

My health has suffered the wrath of this uber hot weather. Extremely hot, humid weather outside and winter like temp in the office is a recipe for disaster, healthwise. Yesterday I finally went to see a doctor. Now, I have to take plenty of medicines to hasten my recovery.

Anyways, as much as I wanted to make this summer a fruitful, learning filled experience for the little miss, coming home exhausted from trying days at work just makes me look forward to lazy, home-confined weekends divided into bonding times with the husband and the little miss and an hour or two of me-time. Me-time mostly spent window shopping.

I've been looking to update my office wardrobe and that of the little miss’s as well as she seemed to have undergone a growth spurt lately and I found just the perfect online shop to search for fashionable women’s (and little girls’ too) clothes at Zalora. This online shop is just the perfect place to burn my free time on since it caters not only to women but to the entire family as well (I couldn't resist looking at the men's section as well and making mental lists of several things that I can score for the husband). While I build up my shopping funds, I content myself with ogling and listing pretty things that I come across online.

my baby girl, all grown up

 Apart from online window shopping, I'm equally ecstatic to get my cooking mojo back so I also spend some of my weekend time at the kitchen experimenting on some recipes. I tried baking blueberry muffins today and made some cookie dough in advance for the little miss's afternoon snacks this week. She's about to start her summer classes (got her free passes to an 8-session ballet class) as well and she's bringing some homemade cookies to share with her classmates.

can you spot her from this crowd of pink?

We've had chances to raid the village facilities too lately - the pool and the playground - particularly and this is one activity that I've sort of missed doing too. When the kid was still a toddler, we used to spend plenty of time strolling and playing at the playground. Now, we're making the excuse to visit the playground so we can limit her TV and computer time.

We still have a couple of activities lined up this summer. But I will have to reserve them for the later part of this month and maybe early May. I hope to recover completely this week so I can finally spend more time outdoors with my loves (if only to kill time at the playground and the pool). I'm also thinking of coming up with a summer income generating project (inspired by what my friend Maqui and her adorable little Aki's summer project) for the little miss since there's an ongoing basketball tournament in our village. I'm thinking of letting her sell ice pops and homemade cookies to the tournament participants.

Plenty of ideas, eh? I hope before summer ends, I get to actually do half of them.

Sight Reader

I thought she has now master early reader but a few days ago I seem to have been proven wrong. Has she been just pulling the art of sight reading on us and her teachers?

What do you think?

Goodbye, Kindergarten! Hello, Grade School!

Twenty years from now, she probably won't have the faintest idea of how her moving up day went but to me and her dad it was a milestone that will be forever etched in our memory.

Moving Up Day fell on a Tuesday. Both me and my husband have work. But we knew when it was going to happen, just a few weeks after the school year started so we have no excuse to miss it. Well, I still ALMOST missed it. It fell on pre-close week and my boss was coming over for just a week. With all the things I needed to iron out, missing a day seemed really bad. But my boss (who is a family man himself, thank you J for understanding!) told me a story about a parent who missed her kid's kindergarten graduation because of an important meeting and yet 20 years after, the kid never forgot about that day (because probably of the missing parent) while she could not even remember what the meeting was about. "You wouldn't want that to happen to you, do you?".

Time to pay it forward.
These secondhand uniforms are going to a new home come school opening.
Ate Inday made sure they were well taken cared of and would still be deserving of a 3rd chance.

Mommy, sabi ni teacher wear bright, shiny shoes!

Of course not. And yes, I always know where my priorities lie. So I stuck to my decision. 

And yes, we didn't go home with any award but the kid was just so proud to be called a graduate and share that moment with her parents. THAT is more than enough.

Did I cry? Almost did. After all, we are not just saying goodbye to kindergarten. We were saying goodbye to being overprotective, controlling parents. We are saying goodbye to our "baby" (and yes she reminded me to not call her baby again today). But cuteness was just overflowing that today and the tears of joy decided to take the back seat.

I never figured I bore a performer but today proved to me I did! She was having so much on stage I could almost hear her voice even if I was a couple of meters away. She was jumping, singing, dancing, reciting with pure, unadulterated joy. And that to me is what performing always ought to be.

Her class adviser for SY 2013-14. The very patient, Ms. Jas.
We will miss her stories about you!

Post by Faye Pachoco-Paras.

Infographic: The Science of Raising Happy Kids from Happify

I first saw this post in Lifehacker but since I can't keep track of all the sites I bookmark anymore, I thought best to bookmark this infographic from Happify here on my blog. And hoping that maybe 20 years from now, my little girl will still be able to access this blog and get to read this as well (when she preps to start her own family yes I am THAT forward thinking).

Summer is Here! (Pre-elementary edition)

The kid is a week away from officially bidding preschool goodbye. I know it's just a moving up ceremony but this is the first time I am going to see my kid actually go up a stage as a culmination of something she signed up for the long haul.

In two months, we officially begin the elementary phase. I still am a little overwhelmed by the thought that I already have a kid in grade school. But yes, we are also very excited to start that new chapter of our family life.

Before that excitement starts though, there is two months that I will need to fill with activities. Activities that would require longer that 15 minutes to complete since the kid has a longer attention span now. Thank God (as always) for Pinterest, I can easily plan ahead. I haven't really gotten down to serious planning but this morning, while she was showing me her latest doodles, an idea popped in my fuzzy head. I didn't realize she still is having a hard time spelling the word "party" so I thought of coming up with 7 new words every week (of her summer break) to add to her vocabulary and help improve her spelling skills as well. I plan to give her a short quiz every Saturday morning as a review as well. I do think that will ward off boredom and will also help a lot in keeping her interested with learning and "studying". I don't really plan to make this serious so I hope I can find a way to make this project interesting.

I had her pick the 7 words on this first week.

And while we are on the subject of summer, we welcomed the hot season today by spending the entire afternoon in the pool. It was fascinating to watch the kid plunge into the big pool by herself and try her hardest to swim her way from one point to another by merely kicking her feet while clinging unto a beach ball.





Lastly, yesterday was an extremely fun-filled day as well. WE learned how to make royal icing, how to make sugar cookies and frost it. I might just add this to the kid's summer activities with her neighborhood friends as well. I do hope I get enough energy to put enough activities together in two months.

For now, I'm just really excited and so looking forward to what this summer can bring. Last year was a crazy one that I really didn't get to spend with my family but this year, I do intend to make up for that this year. Mind museum, Fun Farm's Balik Bukid, Beach with fam, Roadtrip with friends! Can't wait!