Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

In the Philippines, Halloween was not a big deal and "trick or treat" only happens in one of those big/close-gated villages: Magallanes, Forbes, etc. I don't even think I've ever been to a Halloween costume party! I do remember once, when I was really young, my friend and I went to the gates of Magallanes and begged the guards to let us in - did.not.work. Heh.

However, Nov. 1 (All Saints Day) and Nov. 2 (All Souls Day), being national holidays, brings back memories of family traditions like spending all night in the cemetery, creating candle waxes, and telling scary stories on top of the niche ("nitso"), ours happen to be a three-story one (one on top of each other). Staking a place on top of one means getting there early or bossing your cousins around. It does have the best view of the place. This is probably the only night that the cemetery doesn't feel like a scary place. There are people everywhere - vendors line the streets selling candles, flowers, and refreshments. I wonder if the younger generation of our family still honor this tradition?

Here in the US, October 31, November 1 and November 2 are regular days (bummer). And aside from Halloween, I don't even know if people do special things on the other days. In the first few years, we didn't participate in the candy giving. But when we moved to our house, we'd leave a bag of candies on the porch for the kids.

Xam will have her first Halloween tomorrow. I hope the weather cooperates so we can go around the neighborhood. It is still a weekday - but fortunately, I am jobless :) so I will be home waiting for the kids to knock and wow us with their costumes. My little Xamie is a butterfly.

First Chuck E. Cheese's Experience

Nothing much to say today. However, here's what we've been doing for the last two weeks. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Where did my baby go?

Time really flies when you're having fun OR when you have a baby. I never realized how radical the changes are during the first year. First you have this teeny tiny baby, its almost scary to handle them in case they break. And months later, I look at Xam, and I don't see a baby anymore -- I see a little girl. What happened to my baby? :)


I never knew that teething kids drool a lot. And by a lot, I mean buckets of drool :) Xam has her two bottom teeth out, and her front tooth wanting to come out soon as well.


Her motor skills are really good, she crawls everywhere, she can sit up by herself, she can pull herself up to a standing position, and she can even walk (creep) while holding on to something (couch, toys, you). She's so fearless, she'll even do it with one hand. Her favorite activity at the moment is jumping. The intellitainer bores her, and she'd rather play with it while standing outside the seat but she can entertain herself just jumping up and down on her jumperoo. Sometimes, she jumps so hard and so high we fear she's going to fly out of her seat!

Apple Picking and Pumpkin Patch

The beauty of our child's first year is experiencing lots of activities that we never got to do when we were "childless". This year it was our first Apple Picking and our first visit to a Pumpkin Patch. Granted, it was really nanay who insisted on picking apples, but we all enjoyed it none the less.

On September 18th, we visited Garden Patch Farms & Orchard at Homer Glen, IL. It is about an hour drive away from home. They grew apples, peaches, raspberries, pears, tomatoes, chilis and lots of other fruits and vegetables. Since it's also late September, they already have a pumpkin patch. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone, yeah! Armed each with a basket, we walked the lines of apple trees, taking pictures, eating apples freshly picked from the tree and tossing some in the basket to take home. We were fortunate that Xam is already able to sit up by herself without support so we didn't have to hold her amongst the pumpkins.



I will post the Apple Picking Album in the next few days.

Birthday Shoot with Mom

So Xam turned 7 months last weekend. As is our custom, nanay will usually bake a cake (though no one but her eats it), and we would do a "shoot". In the past few months, they have all been casual photos using my trusty little Canon S1. However, I did ask for strobes for Christmas with the excuse to properly photograph Xam instead of paying studio prices, but it has been relegated to the basement by my neat-freak husband since June (Baptism shoot). I haven't found the motivation to dust them off and set them up again, that is, until this month.

So we started setting them up last Sunday - but as it is unplanned, nothing was really accomplished. My husband, good at cleaning up my junk, has packed them up so well, that I can't seem to find important items like my light meter, sync cords and infrared slave. To compound the problem, my digital camera battery is dead and needed to be re-charged. Poor Xam, all dressed up and energetic, we had no choice but to cancel and re-schedule.

Three days later, we're back. Batteries charged, boxes opened, and accessories found! A cute, little dressed up baby and voila! a recipe for cute pictures...

I am a little proud of the final product, Xam at 7 months...

She turned 7! er, months, that is

My daughter Xam turned 7 months old today. I still can't believe I'm finally a mother - me! As babies go, she's perfect (what else do you expect me to say?). She's active, smart and her motor skills are improving every day. It seems one day, we all woke up and there she goes: crawling, sitting, pushing herself on a standing position and now, she's even trying to walk. Everytime she lets go of her support post, be it the living room couch, or the makeshift crib bumper or her Stationary Intellitainer, I gasp a little, expecting her to fall on her butt and scream her head off. So far it hasn't happened.

We got her ears pierced today. Our pediatrician doesn't do it, so we had to find a place that can do it safely - it so happens that Wal-mart does this sort of thing. I'll post a picture in the next few days. At least now, she'll not be mistaken for a boy. Although, if wearing pink onesies and having pink blanket still don't clue people in, I don't expect earings to give these people a clue.

Here's a picture from her last shoot. My little woodland fairy.