This is the scene every afternoon in our house – the kids playing at our mini playground. We all can’t wait until the little boy is big enough to walk and run around with his achie. I bet it will be a riot – a happy one at that.

Simply looking at them is bliss. People who don’t have kids yet won’t probably understand but those that do I’m sure can relate. Kids are every parent’s everything. Agree?

I’m getting all mushy here and I don’t know why. Lack of sleep, maybe? Haha. The little boy has colds again so he hasn’t been sleeping well at night. So you see, been awake most nights lately which is why I got to blog a little and was even able to check out Titan luggage. Downside is, I think I’m going to get sick now. Ugh!

November was filled with parties and boy was it fun! The last we attended last Sunday was no exemption, it was a Hawaiian 7th Birthday Party of the twins Allysa and Allison. Sophia and I tried our best to dress up for it as indicated in the cute invite we got.

Here’s the best Hawaiian look I can come up with last minute for the little girl.

Sans the dad who was watching the much awaited Pacquio-Cotto fight somewhere in The Fort with his friends, me and my little girl still had fun. Games and food, what can go wrong?

We even had our share at the photo booth. Sophia insisted to put on the pink wig, look.

Now is the time I need you to say that the slimming pills are working on me. That dress I’m wearing my sister in law bought last year I never got to wear. It didn’t fit.  Until now!  Spell happy – ME!

September and October haven’t really been very good months for my kids – health wise. As you all know, Sophia was hospitalized for a week but even before that, the two have been having on and off coughs and colds. Hay, every mom’s frustration, agree? I was thinking it was because of the weather at first but later on found out that maybe we need new furnace filters too to avoid allergy attacks. I hope this does the trick or else I’ll really go nuts already.

Anyway, on to the brighter side of things, updates on the kids …

Sophia
She has officially lost her baby fats (to the daddy’s delight!). Her legs are slender and her body is slimmer. Gawd, she is this.close to becoming a tweener already judging from the way she looks. And I am in denial! Hahaha. Jon and I can’t believe how fast she has grown, really. Five months away from being 5, she looks like an 8 year old when dressed. She’s also very picky with clothes now and even talks like an adult. She’s growing up to be looking a lot more like her dad and is very interested with singing and dancing. She aces her school exams – Math and Reading and gets very good reviews from her teachers. She still enjoys school and is a Hannah Montana fanatic.  A doting “achie” to “little Mateo” and a very loving daughter. She sent me to tears during her hospital stint when I said I’d rather be the one sick and not her. She replied with a resounding NO and said that she doesn’t want me to get sick, siya na lang daw.

Mateo
Fondly called “little Mateo” by his achie, he now is 11 months and one day old as of this writing. He still isn’t walking but has been trying to. He loves talking, eating solids and has almost given up on the bottle. He drinks his milk via his bottle’s cap and poops in the toilet already too. His hair has grown so LONG and I can’t wait to cut it. He weighs 10.6 kilos during his last check up and unlike his achi, he is “thin” as per my standards.  Not that I am bothered though, as long as he’s healthy, I’m all good. I hate that he’s still into thumbsucking but I guess I have to live with that. A month to go before his 1st birthday, he has four teeth now and is looking a lot like his angkong. A good friend though said he looks like me. I don’t know. What do you think?

While everyone was worrying about typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng, I was busy attending to my sick four year old daughter in the hospital. After our family lost a five year old niece to dengue last December, you could just imagine how scared I and the rest of my family was when the doctor said that our little girl is inflicted with the same virus. I wanted to believe that I was just dreaming and everything isn’t really happening but it was. The worst part, Jon was in Singapore for the F1 race the time I rushed Sophia to the hospital initially because of high grade fever. I never felt so afraid and so alone in my life! I was in panic so I called him while I was packing and cried my heart out. He took the next available flight back home after we put the phone down. He was then at the hospital in no time, thank God.

To recount, all I remember now was Sophia being down with fever Sunday morning. I took her temperature and was surprised because it was 40C! She suddenly looked so weak too and didn’t even want to move around. That night, with her temperature not getting below 39C even after doses of tempra, I knew that it was no ordinary fever and that there was something really wrong as with her previous bouts with fever, she’d still be active and all. I instantly took her to the ER in minutes and then as they say, the rest was history. I am now glad that I did what I did – taking her to the hospital for confinement ASAP. This was probably the reason why she recovered fast and well because she got immediate medical attention.

In our week stay in the hospital, Sophia proved how brave a girl she was. She cried a little on all her six blood extractions and one IV insertion but nothing hysterical or not even close to it. She was very cooperative too, taking all the doctors’ and nurses’ advices by heart. She did however became impatient in the last two days because according to her, she was “very bored”.

We were able to go home only last Saturday and what was waiting for a tired, stressed, harassed mommy like me? A ten month old son running a fever too! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought I would lose it, really. The thought of Mateo going through what his achi went through in the hospital, all the extractions and all, I couldn’t fathom. He’s too tiny! Good thing his proved to be just ordinary fever maybe caused by the change of weather. His temperature went down after a coupe of tempra doses so I was finally able to relax and write this post.

Three weeks worth of writing load is waiting for me and I don’t know where to start. This is what I get with procastinating big time. Now I have to work triple time, will start off with looking at motorhome insurance and then I’ll take it from there. Hopefully I won’t spend too much time on it so I could move on to the next. Wish me luck!

Lastly, with the whole thing that happened, to this day, I couldn’t believe how Sophia, my ever so “protected” and pampered daughter ever, has caught the dengue virus.  May this be a lesson to all that we and our kids can never really be safe.  What we need is vigilance and what we don’t need is complacency.

Typhoon Ondoy has been wrecking havoc since last night and so many people need help right now. Lets pray for each and everyone to be safe and hopefully the rain will stop soon.

From where I am, the rain is not as hard any more and the husband being away (he’s in Singapore), this is all I am asking for. As much as I don’t want to panic, I can’t help it as listening from the reports over the radio, the scenario is really getting worst by the minute. So let us be one in praying for everybody’s safety. Please.

I am diverting my attention at online shopping for the kids and searching the net for the best diet pills so I won’t panic. Seriously. I need to relax or else I might lose it and cry.

We attended a family reunion in Pampanga last weekend and everybody was asking what my secret was as I really lost a lot of weight (daw). **grin from ear to ear** Well, did I? Here’s my sole photo with the husband that day.

Some even asked if I was taking some fat burners while others think I was hitting the gym. All wrong!  As I have said in my flickr account to those who have been asking the same question when I posted my latest photos with my muse bag, unhealthy as it is, but surprisingly works for me, I starve myself. HAHA

I don’t know until when I’ll last but so far so good. I only eat twice a day and I’m getting used to it!

If there is ever a place we love visiting over and over again, I’d have to say its Hong Kong. Why? Well, aside from being a shopping haven, its also very convenient to go to because it only takes about an hour and a half or so via plane to reach. So we love going there all the time! I also love love the busy streets while my kids (well, my eldest actually) adore Disneyland, what else. So for the nth time for me and Jon, 5th time for Sophia and 1st time for Mateo, we trooped to the cosmopolitan centre where the East meets the West last August 28.

While it was freaking hot as its summer there, we still had a blast. My eldest won’t stop talking about her last Disneyland Adventure while my boy, at nine months, of course, doesn’t have a single clue where he was and what he was up to. I’m sure though that the mere fact he was with daddy, mommy and achie, it was more than enough for him to be happy.

Honestly, I was hesitant to go on with the trip as it’ll be my first time to travel with two kids if ever. I was thinking of postponing it until Mateo is atleast one. But we went ahead since my in laws were HK bound too. We boarded on different flights though. So what can I say about the trip? It wasn’t as hard as i thought! Not at all. In short, sisiw. My eldest is turning out to be a very good traveler at 4 yo while my little boy was such an angel. Now we are all geared up for a long haul flight!

I’ve posted all the pics at my flickr account while selected shots are also at facebook. All in all, the trip was stress free (to my surprise) and it was truly a great bonding experience again for our little family as with every trip we took over the last four years. Here are some of the photos but before that let me share how we evolved through the years with our every visit to Disneyland.

Past photos …

Our latest photos at the very same spots …

***I was just pregnant with Mateo in the 2008 picture and look how big a boy he is now with the latest photo. Ang bilis talaga ng panahon!!!

Anyway, on to more photos …

Breakfast with the Disney Characters

Sophia with her faves …

The kids at the hotel lobby …

It was indeed a happy trip. Never mind that Mateo’s two bottom teeth chose to come out while we were there so he didn’t like drinking milk (but would eat a lot of solids thank gawd), Sophia came home darker than ever because of too much time under the sun and we didn’t get to shop much (but we did check out some bluray laptops), it was still worth it.