Thanksgiving and Las Vegas

So here are our pictures so far. I'll just post them for now. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving pictures

Las Vegas Pictures updated

Smarty Pants!

So all this craziness we've been going through at home is paying off. Mark got an A in his first class! YEAH!!! We're still waiting for one more grade. He's off to a great start and his four girls (yes, includes Sami) are very VERY VERY proud of him.

And news about our other student, yes that's Bella! Yesterday we had a parent-teacher conference with her teacher Vicky. Bella is doing very well in school. She's up to level verbally and advanced motor-wise, and is a VERY HAPPY KID (which we all know :)) She shows empathy towards her peers (she even helps tuck all the babies into their cots during nap time!). She will be transitioning up another class in January, which will begin potty training (which I am not excited about since I don't want to bring her into public washrooms eventually). Her teacher made her a litle scrapbook of their summer activities, so cute! I wish I could be that creative, but scrapbooking is way too expensive and there's not enough time. Anyways, Mark and I are thrilled with Bella's review.

At least now we can relax a little. We have a couple of trips coming up, Thanksgiving tomorrow (although I am working the night) but hopefully I can wake up and make some kind of Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow, but we'll see. SO SLEEPY since it's my week on work. We have started x-mas shopping already. I'm thrilled to say that we've finished shopping at ToysRuUs for the holiday, so we don't have to go into that store anymore, what a headache! I'm really looking forward to X-mas. We're buying Bella baby ice skates (they have 2 blades so she can balance). Hopefully, Uncle Tom will be able to take Bella onto the ice with Kuya Little Tom. Unfortunately, I can't take her out because of the pregnancy, and Mark can barely hold himself up on the ice. We did buy her snowsuit and boots, so we're ready for the snow! This should be a really fun winter!

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

Update pictures

Ok, so I've been behind with my pictures. Now I'm happy to say that all my photo albums are now up to date, and I'm finally finding time to download to shutterfly. So here's the first set of pictures. These are from labor day weekend when our friends from Wisconsin visited with their son Andrew. Stela came over to play with Bella and Andrew. We ate at Wildfire for dinner, went to the Kohls's Children Museum, get the three kids to take a picture together at the studio (I'll try to post that one day, I need to scan it), then had the kids just play and hang out at home. After they left, we went to Arlington and Mark won his first bet!
PICTURES FROM LABOR DAY WEEKEND.
Here are the pictures from October. We visited Tom and family and then there was Halloween.
I know, my pictures are blurry, I still haven't figured out how to take pictures in low light and with a speedy little girl. My pictures will get better, I promise.

IT'S A GIRL!!!

Yesterday we found out that Bella is going to have a little sister!!! We were going to name her Charlotte Rose, but Mark wants to change it. So our new name for the baby will be... drum roll please............... Brianna Rose! Her nickname will be Bria. So I think it flows nicely with Bella, becuase when I scold them when they are old, I can say... "Bella and Bria, you behave!", flows nicely, right?

My husband is so smart!

So did I mention that our family is super stressed lately? Lots of new things going on. Mark started his part-time MBA program at DePaul this fall, along with working full time. I still work full time, along with waiting for the new baby to arrive, too many things to prepare!!! And then our dear Bella is WILD woman! Well this morning, Mark got his grade for his first assignment in one of his classes which is worth 20% of his grade. He got an A+!!! My husband is so smart! I'm so proud of him, it makes all this stress that we've been feeling pay off!!!

PS... we are going to find out the sex of the baby on saturday... shhhh...

Didier Farm 2007

So as I mentioned earlier, we went to Didier Farm for Miko's birthday party. Here are the PICTURES.

Bears Game

So a couple of weekends ago, we went to the Bears Game. Bella's first game! We had awesome seats, 3 rows behind the Bears. Bella was so good during the game. She cheered (even the for the other team) and she was yelling, "GO GO GO!!!". She also sat down by herself in her own seat at times. She's such a trooper, Bella stayed awake the whole game!
Chilling with Grandpa and a nice cold bottle of milk! What a life!


So here are the pictures:
Pictures from Bears Game


This past weekend we celebrated Ashley's cousin's birthday at Didier Farm. Bella rode a train for the first time! I was worried she would try and stand up and jump out since she can't sit still normally, but Ate Kayley had a good grip on her. We did the hayride to the pumpkin patch and got to pick our pumpkin. Then we took pictures everywhere.
Other than that, I am past the first trimester now! This pregnancy is definitely different than the last one. I feel more tired and nauseous with this one, but not as bad as other women have it. My body is always sore, especially when it's my week to work. It's definitely getting harder to work overnight by myself running around from the in-window to the drive-thru. I've had lots of crazy cravings, the grossest but yummiest for me was dipping my apples in fish sauce! Yummy :)
Anyways, will post the Didier pictures soon!

Summer pictures

So here are some pictures of when Tom and family came in town for Little Tom's 3rd birthday and for Maxine's ice skating competition. Jam packed week, I actually didn't take pictures everyday because of exhaustion. Highlights of that week was Little Tom's party at Chuckee Cheese, Cubs game, Bella wearing high-heeled shoes, Maxine's ice skating competition, Ashley sleeping over 2 days in a row, eating at every restaurant my brother missed, including Mark and I treating for dinner at Ron of Japan.
So here are the PICTURES.

So here are the pictures from our weekend at Wisconsin Dells with Mark's parents and Gil's family. Fun, relaxing weekend. Highlights of the weekend were a picnic at a rest area, High School musical 2, waterpark, Kayley and Bella swimming on their own, Bella going down a waterslide, shopping at the dirtiest Wal-mart in the world, dinner at the Kalahari, and the arcade.
So here are the Wisconsin Dells PICTURES.

Our Bella is going to be a Big Sister!

So Mark and I are having a baby! Yeah! Due date was March 26, switched to April 1, and now officially March 27, 2008! Bella seems to be taking the news well, and now we're trying to get her to play with her Bitty Baby doll so she gets used to babies. Lots of new things to post, I have pictures of Tom and family weekend here back from July when Maxine was competing in ice skating, and now more pictures of Wisconsin Dells with Mark's family this past weekend. Lots of fun this summer!

Bella's 1st Bike

Happy Birthday to our Little Tom!!! You're THREE!!!

So Mark and I bought Bella her first bike. She can't exactly reach the peddles, but there's a handle for us to push her and so she can just practice balancing sitting on the seat. We also bought her a helmet, safety first! I took this picture on my cell phone, not bad for a cell phone!

Bella's Alphabet Video

This is funny! My brother made this for Bella.

Mark alphabet video

Maxine's AWESOME voice!

Bella's First Trip to DisneyWorld!

Some of my favorite pictures:





Last week we had our annual family vacation with Grandpa, Uncle Tom, Ninang Maito, Ate Max, and Kuya Tom. This year we decided to do the Disney thing. Bella has already been to Disneyland twice, but it's not the same as DisneyWorld! DisneyWorld is AWESOME.... and exhausting!!!
Warning: some of my pictures are blurry, I couldn't figure out how to use my camera in certain lighting. At least the blurry pictures were also captured by Disney Photographers in the park, so I do have better copies of them, I just can't post them here, sorry!
Click here for first set of Shutterfly pictures.
Click here for the second set of Shutterfly pictures.
So Tom and family arrived a couple days ahead of us, since Mark and I stayed back to attend our highschool reunion. Can you believe 10 years has past already? Anyways, we arrived there last Sunday. Our flight was SO stressfull... we never usually fly with a connection, but this flight we had a stop in Miami (where we were supposed to wait for an hour) and then go on to Orlando. However, our plane was about an hour late leaving here that when we arrived in Miami we had minutes to get to our plane. On top of that stress, I had asked the travel agent at the desk here if I could check in my stroller so I didn't have to pick it up at the gate in Miami, and she told me I would have plenty of time... yeah, right. So when we arrived in Miami, I told Mark that I would wait for the stroller, and that he and dad should find out our flight status to Chicago. When he found out it was leaving in a few minutes, he bolted to the gate... guess who he left behind and did not tell... ME!!! So when I got the stroller, I looked around and no one was there... I tried to call dad or Mark, and no answer... So i just started to walk to the new gate, which Miami's airport is kinda confusing. I was totally pissed off though. When I saw Mark, guess who decided to vomit in the minutes that we had.... you guessed it... Bella (talk about GREAT timing!). Anyways, before we even had a chance to clean her and Mark up, we were dragged on the plane, the last ones on, everyone was already sitting down so it was kinda embarrassing. Now we were off... thank GOD!
We arrived in Orlando about 30 minutes later, and we did the Disney Magical Express, where Disney picks us up and takes us to our hotel, and they get our luggages for us and deliver it to us later. This was pretty cool, totally stress free. We got to the hotel, checked in, ate, headed off to Epcot to meet Tom and gang.
I won't go through our trip day by day, but we had a lot of fun! Tom went to all the parks, but we only went to Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon, and Disney Quest. Turns out, Bella is at that age that she's scared of the characters. I guess when we were at Disneyland, she was too little to be scared, but now she's terrified of them. She's ok if they are at a distant, and she'll look at them, but when they reach out to touch or hug or kiss her, she doesn't like. She still likes her rides, and she LOVES swimming and playing in the water. Little Tom and Bella are hilarious together, and Ate Max is her usual good Ate always helping out and wanting to take care of Bella. So we came back home on Thursday night. I'm still recovering, SO TIRED!!! So, THANK YOU GRANDPA FOR AN AWESOME VACATION TO DISNEYWORLD!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Our Memorial Weekend

Here are our pictures of this weekend. Enjoy!

So I decided to finally post some pictures. Alti and Shawn got married on Saturday! The wedding was beautiful! It was raining all day (for good luck!) and when they were saying their vows, the sun decided to come up (the timing was perfect!). Bella had fun, she actually walked down the aisle, but Mark followed her anyways holding the basket since Bella didn't want to hold the basket. As she walked down the aisle, she saw me on the other side and ran to me while laughing! What a crazy girl!!! I'll have to post the video soon!
The next day, Mark's brother had a BBQ... yummy! The kids played outside on the swing. Ate Joy bought the kids bubbles to play with. These bubble machines she bought are AWESOME! Although, it just shows how lazy our kids are these days. To use the new bubble machines, you no longer have to blow on the dipping thingy anymore, you just press a button and thousands of bubbles are released!!!

Anyways, enjoy the pictures and hopefully I'll update again soon!

Bella has hair!!!

We've been so busy, going here and there. Now that the summer is approaching, we have first communion parties, weddings, birthdays, and vacations! Although Bella will never remember all the places we'll be going to, she'll have lots of pictures to look at... so I'm making sure she knows that we put effort into everything she wears. Bella has so many dresses, but one thing I've been really itching to do is fix her hair. The day has finally arrived...

PIGTAILS!!!

Rest in Peace

To the sweetest dog with the biggest heart,
We will always love you, baby!

Starlight: April 18, 1991 - April 6, 2007

I don't usually like to express to much of my feelings on this blog, mainly since I just use this blog to share pictures and stuff with family and friends, but I guess I need to get my feelings off my chest since this week has been REALLY hard for me. So this past month has been really fast for Starlight. We noticed that she has been throwing up more and not wanting to eat. One day she wasn't really moving and was really out of it, so we had brought her to the vet a few weeks ago to check it out. We had always known that she had congestive heart failure, and had expected her to pass awhile ago, put she kept on going. Mark and I thought that maybe that was the day, but the vet said to try her medicines and go in for a follow up in a month and see if there was any improvement. The next appointment was scheduled for April 17. So about 2 weeks later, Starlight was doing really bad, throwing up more and really not eating. I called the vet, and he adjusted her medicine and told us to call him if any problems. She never really improved. So last Friday, Mark was driving me to work. For some reason I was really down and couldn't stop crying. I started having all these flashbacks of my life with Starlight. On Saturday morning, Mark picked me up late and he told me that Starlight had died. My first reaction was relief, then shock, then sadness. I was relieved that she was no longer in pain, I mean if you had seen her that last week, it was awful.
This rest of that day and the rest of that week was a busy blurr, plus I was working, plus I've been sick.
Now I finally have time to just mope around. I look around, and sometimes call out for her and she's not there. I know that some people think I'm taking this way to hard since she's just a dog, but she was my baby. My dad gave me Starlight a couple days after my mom died when I was eleven years old. Through all the ups and downs in my life, there was this one constant which was Starlight. We pretty much grew up together. We did have time apart where she lived with Tom and Ate in the Philippines, then lived with them here while I was at college, but when I came home, she was here lying down on the couch or just moving room to room with me. I really can't believe she's not here anymore. I look at Sami and feel sorry that she doesn't understand what's going on. In a way, Sami probably feels like I did when my mom died... not really understanding what was going on, and still thinking that she'll be back. Mark says that what makes this really hard for me is that Starlight helped me cope with my mom's death, and so technically I'm grieving for her again along with Starlight. I know through time it will all get better, and I have some many great memories with Starlight. But for now, I just can't stop crying. I just have to think of the full life that I had with Starlight. She was there for all my graduations: 8th grade, high school, college, and pharmacy school. She was there in the Philippines for my brother's wedding at Manila Hotel (she was even served water in a crystal glass!), she was around for Maxine to play horsey with her, she was around for my wedding, and she was around to see Little Tom and Bella. I will never forget when we brought her home from the store, she was so scared and so little. She smelled so pretty since the store put that powdery perfume on her. I remember how we picked her name. I was sitting in the back of the cadillac, and Tom was in the front seat. We were thinking of names, and the rule was that it had to start with an "S" since all our pets started with an "S". We already had Sparky (Tom's dog), SnowWhite (my bird), and Snowball (my hamster). Tom started to just sing songs, and he sang the Madonna song, "Starlight Starbright", and that's how we got her name. Starlight was loveable, she loved everyone who walked into our lives... Those who were not dog lovers, loved Starlight. I will never forget you Starlight...

LA and Las Vegas!

Ok, so I think I mentioned that I won't be going on anymore trips and just relaxing at home for awhile. I was wrong. Mark had a last minute trip to California for work, so that being my off week from work, we joined him! So we arrived on a Monday and flew to Las Vegas on Friday for the weekend to visit our cousins. California was fun and relaxing. Our flight on Monday was delayed due to the snow, so we got there pretty late. Tuesday, I decided to just relax with Bella, I was exhausted from the flight and needed to recover from work also. We went to dinner at Universal Studios City Walk that night. On Wednesday, Bella and I went to Disneyland (again!)! It was different going there pretty much alone without Mark. Whenever we went on rides, I would ask Bella, how was it... her reply, "WHOOOOOOOA, ba ba ba ba ... da da?" She definitely enjoyed more this time then when we went last July. We were able to go on more rides, and Bella was so alert and having a good time. Her first ride was the Buzzlight year ride. This ride had zapper guns, and when we hopped on the ride, Bella grabbed the the guns and started screaming, "WHOOOOOAAAAAAAA.l... woooooowww!!!". Then she grabbed this joystick that caused our seat to spin around! Other rides we went on were: Winnie the Pooh, It's a Small World, Innoventions, Jungle Cruise, and Adventures of Pinnochio. I was going to go on Peter Pan and Snow White, but I got scared. We were on the Adventures of Pinnochio ride and were sitting by ourselves in our car. The ride was very dark, so dark you couldn't see the car in front or in back of you. I guess I had forgotten the Pinnochio's adventures were scary. The only thing keeping my from crying on the ride was knowing that my little Bella was protecting me. So after that, it brought back memories of how scary the snow white ride could be. So I opted not to go on those rides.
Anyways, Thursday we hung out and went to Santa Monica. Friday, we went to see the starts footprints. We saw Shirley Temples (my mom's favorite actress!). So I took pictures of Bella fitting her hands into hers. SO CUTE!!! Then we went to the Kodak theater, saw the Hollywood sign, then to Santa Monica again. We boarded a plane and off to Vegas to meet my cousins, and my dad joined us on Saturday!
Vegas was SO FUN!!! Walked to all the hotels, ate all the buffets, gambled (Mark & Dad won, I lost :(, but I did win when Mark bought my DIOR (which I LOVE since the pattern was from the 1970s when my mom had her bag)!!!

Anyways, here are the CALIFORNIA AND LAS VEGAS PICTURES!!!

Belated Christmas Pictures

Totally late, but finally up! Here are our CHRISTMAS PICTURES and a couple pictures of us celebrating New Years at my work. There's a ton of pictures of us trying to take our x-mas card pictures with my 3 babies. So I would just fast forward those pictures. There's some pictures of us making Mark's parents x-mas present of Bella's hand and footprints on a plate, then I think pictures of the stocking I made, then some pictures of Bella trying to open her x-mas presents early. Christmas started at Ninong Gil's house on Christmas Eve with the usual Christmas Eve group. Then Mark and I headed off to church, and then celebrated Christmas Eve again with the 3 grandparents at our house. The next day we celebrated Christmas Day with Mark's mom side of the family. Then off to work I went!

Bella's 1st Birthday Party

Before we left for the Philippines, we threw Bella her 1st birthday party at Maggianos. We had a lot of fun seeing people we haven't seen in forever, we had a magician who was fantastic, all in all a good time.


Click here for more pictures of Bella's First Birthday Party!