Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope all of you are having a fun and joyful Christmas with your family.

I had a busy Christmas Eve. I started cooking our Noche Buena feast at around 10 am and finished at 8:00 pm. I just had enough time to dress up for the midnight mass at the chapel a block away from our house.

Here I am with my son in front of the Belen or Nativity Scene after the midnight mass.

with Ruel

 We celebrated Noche Buena together with my parents and uncle who came to our house for the feast.  It was the first Christmas Eve I didn't celebrate with my sister. :(

One of  the things I gave my son for Christmas....a pair of Converse rubber shoes with comics design. He collects comic books.

 Ruel, Toots and I went to Bulacan on Christmas Day to celebrate Christmas with Ruel's parents and his brother.

    We left Bulacan at 4pm and went straight to my sister's house to have dinner there.
Here I am with my son, my sister and my baby nephew.

   We went back to our home at past 9pm.  You can bet we were exhausted....exhausted but soooo full!

It was a happy Christmas, filled with changes and yet a happy one.

How was your Christmas?  I wish you all the best --- peace, love and joy!

This Weekend, I... v.4

This is my first link-up after the wedding.  My last seems centuries ago.   I miss my blogger friends.  I miss posting every day and I miss linking up but my schedule has not allowed me to do much blogging since the middle of November.

I am just so happy today that I can do this quick post right before I dress up for the midnight mass.

This weekend, I had lunch with my family at Romulo's. My sister and her husband wanted to check out the place because they were planning to hold the reception for their son's christening there.  Romulo's is a quiet restaurant tucked away in the corner of  Sct.Tuazon and Dr. Lazcano St.  in Timog.

The food was delish! Here are some of those we ordered that day.

Here's my mom and me.  

My sister's baby. He slept all throughout lunch.

my two boys

This weekend, I went shopping for gifts.  Yes, I just did it this weekend.  I really had no time to do it before and I was so surprised it's already the fourth week of advent! Good thing, I only planned to give gifts to the most important people in my life --my family.

This weekend, I went grocery shopping with my son and Ruel.  We shopped for our Noche Buena feast. Not a fun thing to do because planning a big dinner feast is really not my thing.  Plus, everything was just so expensive! That greatly added to why it was not fun at all!

So that's my weekend.  How was yours? Link up at Sar's.

A New Family Member

I once told you that big changes were going to happen in my life and my son's before this year ends.  One of the reasons is my wedding and another one is that I'll be an aunt and my son is going to have a cousin from my side. He has cousins from his dad's side but they live far away in Mindanao.  So they don't really make such an impact in my son's life.  

But this cousin will.  His name is Manuel Emilio. He got his name from his father who is also named Manuel.

Here is my son ( His name is Manuel Fernando. He got his name from my dad and from his dad's dad. And no, Manuel is not the most common Filipino name. In fact I only personally know four people who are named Manuel. And they are the ones in my family.)

Here is Baby Manuel in the arms of my husband who loves babies sooo much!

See him drink his milk from a cup.  My sister does not have enough milk so sometimes he drinks formula but the doctor does not want the baby to drink from a bottle.

So there you have it, a new addition to our family.  I have been so busy....sleeping only for four or five hours a day.  So you have to forgive me if I have been remiss in my posts.

Our Wedding and Some Raw Wedding Pics Part I

Up to now I still do not know how to go about telling the story of our wedding but I figured that I had to tell it now because if I didn't do it today, the story would already go stale and I didn't want that.

So let me just start where I left you hanging last time.

Back to the surprise....

I remember telling you about how my sister could not attend the wedding because she was pregnant with her first child after eight years of waiting, and she and her husband did not want to risk going too far from the city on the month when she was scheduled to give birth.  I was very disappointed with that news because she was my only sister  (the only sibling I have, in fact) and I couldn't imagine getting married without her.  

It's really now back to the surprise...

There was a knock on our door somewhere between 12:30 to 1:00 am.  I was so surprised when I opened it and I saw my sister and her husband standing there!  (Oh, maybe not SO surprised, just surprised...because I was kind of hoping they would still change their mind about not going.)   

So as you may guess, I didn't get to sleep until it was almost 2am!  So much for my beauty sleep!

I had a very light sleep which had to end at 5 in the morning when my phone rang. It was my makeup artist telling me that he and his assistants were already in front of the villa!  

As you can imagine, I was not able to sleep anymore after that.  I had to start the day early even if the wedding was still at 2:00 pm.  Maybe you are all wondering why the makeup artists arrived so early.  Usually, the ones who do the makeup and the photographers really start four to five hours before the wedding.  But that day we were all expecting heavy traffic in Tagaytay because there was a scheduled marathon that would start at 4am and end at 4pm.

And then the stress began...

At 8am it started raining and I got all stressed out! I cancelled the tent the day before because I saw that the weather there was sunny and because we have been praying for good weather and I believed that since everyone was praying for it, we would be given what we were asking for.  And I just couldn't believe what was happening!  I called my friends and asked for more prayers.  There was actually no wind but it was stronger than just drizzle.  It was more of a shower which luckily ended during the ceremony.

Anyway, while it was all cloudy and wet outside, the photographers were taking these pics.

                             my shoes and the Taal Lake / Taal Volcano

the dress I designed

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The reception area is what's behind the glass window.

our rings

I guess I have to leave you hanging again because it's almost eleven pm and I have to go sleep.  I promise more pics next time!