Caroleen’s Treasures

Last Saturday, I went to SM to meet my high school friends and of course my whole family tagged along. We are inseparables ya know. We were at SM a couple of hours before the agreed time. We brought the laptop to Thinking Tools to get the DVD ROM checked. Then we went down to the Food Court (our favorite tambayan) and pigged out on cheese flavored french fries and choco fudge black pearls. Nom nom nom.

Since we will have  dinner together with my friends, we brought the stroller so the little guy will be comfortable just in case he naps. The whole time we were there Ella was the one pushing the stroller around. She would get mad if we will take over.

She was showing his little brother around the windows we passed by, stopping for a while to let the little guy see those mannequins in fancy clothes. Read more… »

Early morning when no one in the house has taken a bath yet, they stayed longer in bed staring at a large picture frame.

Ella found my mother’s picture and for days she kept it close to her.

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Still am tired from our trip to our hometown to visit my mother’s (and loved one’s) grave sites for the All Soul’s Day. It was unplanned trip because I already have told everyone we are not coming but last Saturday, I was dropping some hints that I wanted to go. Donald was very sensitive when it comes to going home so I never have to tell to him directly. He even wanted to leave the same day but I have to dome some sewing first and we have to fix some things here in the house before leaving for a short vacation. I thought I left the camera because I can’t find it in my bag. Donald didn’t show any disappointment though but I know he was and I was! we waited for three nearly two hours before all the seats were filled and out of boredom I tried digging in my bag and found it under my clothes. Wohooo!!!! We could have missed taking these shots Read more… »

Meet Miyaki. Ella’s dear friend.

If you gonna ask me what’s her breed, I am not sure how to answer but all I know is her mum is pure bred Shi Tzu and her pop is half Shi-Tzu and half Chihuahua. I did the math and I must say she’s 1/4 Chihuahua and 3/4 Shi-Tzu.

Ella has been out of school since August so as not to bore her, we let her play with her new friends and ride her bike around neighborhood. At least it is much safer here and I never worry as much as I did while we were in Trento. Last week we went to the mall and we passed by the toy section. I was looking for a toy for Eman that we can bring to the hospital during the VCUG. There was none in store that I wanted. I want the one that plays melodies to distract him during the procedure but everything they carry didn’t suit my taste. However Donald showed Ella a hand held game and she instantly fell in love with it but its way too expensive for me. Donald could have bought it if I have only agreed but I cannot waste money on such stupid game so we told her the battery is not working. I call it stupid but honestly there was a point that I was the one who wanted it for her so she can be seated for a long time. I was tired of seeing her so restless and listening to her rants about being so bored that I thought giving that game to her will keep me at peace and so is she. But see, we are still paying off debt and the price will be enough for our week’s food.

That night, my SIL and I had a chat. She asked me if Donald wanted a puppy. He was already asleep (it’s past midnight) so I answered for him. I said yes because I know Ella will be very happy and that she was begging us to get her one even before she turned three. So the following morning, I asked her what she want….a puppy or the hand held game and she chose the pup. Donald and she are actually waiting for it for a long time (longer than the wait she did to have a brother). hahahahaha! And so to make the long story short, MIL brought it to my sister’s place the day before Eman’s CVUG. Such a pitiful puppy for she might be very confused for having the most number of names. When she arrived, she knew her name is Chai…..but we fiddled around and baptized her with more or less 10 names that even us got confused. For a week now, we are most comfortable calling her Miyaki so I think that’ll be it and she’d die with it.

This is another long shot, bear with me as I try to catch up. See yah again! Please see for youself the great site on projector headlights.

We had the lamest excuse of not going to church today and that is getting up late. Ella was the most disappointed and I just realized we should bring her to church every Sunday morning because she detests the evening worship. When I told her we will go to the mall first and proceed to Matina for the evening worship, she protested violently telling me she woke up early because she wanted to go to church in the morning because evenings don’t have Children’s class. I know, I know….the bad parents award goes to us. Anyhoo, even if justifying it won’t make any sense at all….I would just like to write down here that Donald and I are both working online until late last night (he even left the laptop on while it was running some seo tools software thinking it will get done before we leave for church in the morning) not to mention it was hot like hell that made me stay up longer, then the aching head and back that I got from the scares brought to me by the little fella with his rolling over and snake crawls. Many times did we catch him near the edge of the bed even if we just put him a while ago in the side of the wall. So back on the disappointed Ella…..since it will take us an hour to get there, we faithfully sworn that we will not miss morning service anymore (so help us God).

I just didn’t realize that our 15 month stay in Trento had made a great impact to her. She’d knew it was Sunday because Donald plays acapella Christian songs while we are still in bed. She will wake up hearing the songs and she even memorized even the part of the base and alto. Then she is used to me teaching them at Children’s class. We live in the parsonage right next to the chapel so she was never absent from the class (except when we had trips to the city) and that is what she is missing. I honestly thought it’s fine with her to be absent once in a while. Now I know it would be a major disaster. Read more… »

Waaaah! It’s so hot in here!!!!! It’s almost midnight and all windows are open but I feel very very hot. The kids are asleep peacefully but Eman is surely sweating profusely on the head. We are actually on much higher ground and we should have cold wind blowing now but the weather forecast could have been wrong when they say we will have rain today. You see we only have one fan here. We used to have two but we don’t want to mess with the walls here because we are just renting so we decided to gave it away when we moved.

I hope it will rain. I am not really a person who complain about being hot…..I am pretty contented with just a little fan that blows humid air but lately I can’t help it anymore. For the sake of the kids Donald was talking about getting an AC for the room so they could sleep comfortably especially during daytime because we don’t know what to do anymore. If we keep the windows open, bugs and other insects will be coming in and Eman will get more of these bites and rashes. If we keep it closed……he will float from his own sweat! But anyway, the AC could come last. We need to settle other loans first before thinking about that so for now I am crossing my fingers weather will be nicer tomorrow, the next day, the day following the next….and so on.

Yesterday was special because Eman turned 6 months old and it was “Family Day” for Ella. I am becoming lazy in taking pictures of the kids which is bad since Eman is showing more antics than ever and I missed to capture most of that. So to mark this day, I propped him on the bed and started clicking away.

He seemed not so in the mood for photo shoot.

then he started praying or was he counting his little fingers?

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I promised to post a photo of her new haircut and so here it is…..another long overdue post. Isn’t she looked so adorable? This was taken when she got home from school at noon. I usually ask her, “Kumusta ang school nak?” (How’s school?) but she did the asking that time. Right when she stepped inside the house she asked, “Kumusta ang laro Mommy?” (How’s the game Mommy?) because for several days she has been seeing me toooooooooo engrossed in Farm Town. The other day she said she, Eman and Daddy are already in bed and when she got up from a dream she looked for me and saw me still infront of the pc. I said I was busy doing some work. Guess what she said? “Busy ka nagtatrabaho? Nag harvest ka na naman?” (You are busy at working? Harvesting again?) Hahahahahaha!

When Ella was three, there are still a lot of non-airconditioned taxi in Davao. We seldom ride airconditioned taxis since it is way too expensive. So when she went with my sister Crislyn and BIL (together with my sister’s PIL) to attend the christening of BIL’s nephew, she was beyond thrilled and exclaimed, “Wow!!!! Aircon!!!!” She is just a big fan of AC’s. Now that the city government of Davao has not been renewing franchises of non-airocnditioned taxi units, I guess she is one of the happiest member of the riding public. She was even telling us over and over that when she is big, she will buy a car with an auto ac compressor that is as good as the blue taxi in Davao.

This a long overdue post but I am always a believer of the adage “Better Late Than Never” so here is my more than two weeks late post.
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Last June 25 and 26 we were in Davao City. That was Thursday and Friday but Ella has no class so we decided it is best to travel that time so we could be back when the Balikbayan boxes arrives here. It was originally addressed to my sister Crislyn’s apartment because we were planning to move to Kabacan last summer. It took 5 months to get those most awaited boxes due to some delays. Well when Eman did come out all plans must be canceled for financial reasons and we were lucky that the forwarding company let me change the address from the city to the province.
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We left Trento at 10:30am and we were already in Davao at 2pm. Since the bus takes the route that passes by SM, we got off there and went inside to look for the little boy’s clothes. He has outgrown most of his baby clothes so fast and at 3 months, he wears 6-9 mos or 9-12mos clothes! There’s not much on sale there so we headed my sister Crislyn’s place at almost 6pm.

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Ella, Tita LynLyn and Eman
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With Tia Cheche

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