Just turned 12

Happy 12 years JJ :)

One nice thing about having a different wedding date from your bf/gf anniversary is the chance to have two separate celebrations. As our wedding date is in between two big family occasions (Christmas and New Year), we usually just opt for a dinner/lunch celebration and then splurge when we celebrate our bf/gf anniv come February.

This year, we chose to stay overnight at the Crowne Plaza (courtesy of Popsy's Priority Privilege vouchers).

First stop of the day is Seven Corners where we had lunch. Priority Privilege voucher entitles the user to a 50% discount on the food bill when dining (party of two). Children under the age of 5 are free of charge.

That's our little boy enjoying the play area outside 7 Corners. It was pretty hard convincing  him to go inside and have lunch.

 Hubby enjoying the lamb chops and rib-eye steak

 My plate (or should I say plates?). Loved the lamb chops. They were cooked perfectly. With mint sauce, arggghh, it will make you forget you're watching what you eat. Also loved their Japanese station, particularly, the sashimi and the maki. Yup, you guessed right. Those two were , uhhmm, only part of what I had for lunch.

 We took turns entertaining the little boy while having our longer-than-usual meal.

Lucas just played with the marshmallow dipped in chocolate. Probably because the chocolate is not sweet enough for him. For JJ though, the chocolate was perfect.

Now to our room. We requested for a King-size bed. The hotel was fully-booked (Edsa celebration?) so there weren't any standard room with a King-size bed left. Good news is we got upgraded to a De luxe room :)

 The two beds...

 Dancing Lucas is enjoying the big space...

 Thomas... enjoying the view (of a building being renovated?)

Self-portrait...

Initial plan was to take Lucas for a dip in the pool. But plan was scrapped when the little one ran a fever the day before. We just stayed in the room and relaxed. After a short rest, we went out to the nearby Galleria mall and looked around. We also bought Lucas donuts. Since we're still full from lunch, JJ and I decided to buy a light meal. We capped the night off with decaf coffee courtesy of HSBC :)

The next day, we were up by 7:30 AM. Breakfast at 7 Corners is definitely a good way to start one's day :)

 Lucas and his pancakes & syrup

 JJ's waffles and bacon

My Tocilog :)

Believe me when I say that there are lots of choices. Breakfast staples like pancakes, waffles, bread, cheese and jams are all available. There is an omelette station. The grill station serves rib-eye and salmon steak. The Japanese station serves several types of maki. The Chinese station serves congee and noodles. There's yogurt and cereals. The Filipino station served tocino, daing na bangus and longganisa. There were fresh fruits as well. Oh and there is an Indian station but JJ and I didn't get the chance to try anything from there.

After breakfast, we went back to bed and watched Playhouse Disney until it was time to take a bath and prepare for check out. The little boy loved the bath tub :)

The tired dancing boy was asleep even before we got out of Crowne Plaza's parking lot. But it was quite evident that he had a blast. JJ and I did too. Though JJ was a little bored sometimes as Lucas had the TV on Playhouse Disney the whoollleee time he was awake. We opted not to avail the hotel's internet services as we found it ridiculously priced at P300 per hour.

The vacation was kinda short but we enjoyed the fact that we do not have to wake up early on a Monday morning :)

Here are snapshots taken before we left the hotel:

 Dancing Lucas

 My boys...

Lucas is undeniably my look-a-like here

Pagod

~*~

Wonder where we'll celebrate next year... :)

Our Linen/Silk Anniversary

I almost clobbered the hubby when he greeted me "Happy 3rd Anniversary" at a little past 1 AM this morning. A sweet gesture, yes. But he should've counted properly first. See, it's our fourth anniversary already :) I restrained myself (lest I have to drive him to the hospital (on our anniversary no less) with a head injury) and just said "Happy Anniversary Labs. But please count again" :)). Now, this kind of booboo would be unforgivable to some but lets give hubby a break. He really has issues counting years and months. But I digress, to celebrate our 4th year as Mr. and Mrs. Vallesteros, I would like to share pictures from the past years.

 Our 2006 Wedding. Gray skies but thank heavens it didn't rain. Think garden reception :)

 2007: Merely two months after our wedding, JJ was sent abroad for training. Took it as an opportunity to have our honeymoon overseas. This same year, after an HPT I took early morning of our 1st anniversary, we found out that we're gonna be Daddy and Mommy in about eight months.

 August 2008: Everyone was all eyes on the Olympic Games held in Beijing, China. A week after the opening ceremonies (August 15, 2008), I was watching the gymnastics competition in the Delivery Room while giving birth to our dear darling son, Lucas Ethan.

 2009: Big year for me and JJ career-wise. We also celebrated Lucas' first birthday.

2010: Yey! Lucas is big enough to take vacations with us! Still challenging but at least he already appreciates the change in scenery.

~*~ 

Looking back. I cannot believe how much our lives has changed in the past four years. I am looking forward to celebrating more years with you JJ. Cheers to a brighter future for our little family.

Happy 30th!

Happy 30th Anniversary Popsy and Momsy :)

I hope you had a great time at Taal Vista. Thank you for re-scheduling the celebration so I can join the party :)

Love you both. Cheers to 30 more years together.

Our Tagaytay Weekend

To celebrate our anniversary, our family spent the weekend in Tagaytay.
Here's our wonderful (but bitin!) weekend in pictures.
Lucas wanted to wear Daddy's shades.

Eating invisible food. This was taken while we're waiting for our Kanin Club order. We enjoyed the food (ordered Crispy Dinuguan and Sinanglay na Tilapia). We'd definitely try other dishes soon.

Yum yum yum. JJ and I finally learned the trick in eating at peace with our son. We just have to let him eat on his own and occasionally feed him :-)

JJ looking a little worried as Lucas plays with my sunglasses.

After lunch we decided to show Lucas the fishies in Nuvali.

He kept on pointing and saying "pish.. pish.."

Lucas: There's more under the bridge mom

Taken after the boat ride.

Lucas having a grand time at Taal Vista's play area. We weren't able to let him loose at the viewdeck area as there was a wedding taking place.

My other boy trying out the toys :-)

He can't seem to make up his mind on what toy he'd try.

At the Taal Vista viewdeck.

Having dinner at Pancake House. He was eating his spaghetti noodles by hand. Messy but at least he had fun :-)

My boys :-)

He discovered one giant slide

Not a kiss mom. I just want your sunglasses :-)

Overall, it was a fun, fun getaway that we plan to repeat in the near future. The only downside of going out of town as a family is that we don't get to have family pictures taken :-) A must on our next trips! (tripod JJ?)

Our 11th Year

I still cannot believe that it's been eleven years since that I-Still-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer movie date :-)

Happy 11th Year JJ. Lucas and I are lucky to have you.

28th Week

Yup, you read it right. We're on our 28th week already. According to babycenter.com, our baby boy is about 15 inches from head to toe and weighs around 2.5 lbs already. We're in the homestretch as we're in the third trimester na. I am excited to see my baby and at the same time a little (well, okay, more than a little) scared of the pain that comes with childbirth. But I guess what I feel is normal.

Last Saturday was a full day for me and baby. I had my Glucose Challenge Test at 7am in the morning. Nagulat ako when I saw that I have to drink like 25oml of the glucose solution pala. I thought mga 100ml lang. Buti na lang I was able to drink it and keep it down (it was really sweet and I have stop once in a while before finishing the drink). Thankfully, the results were okay as confirmed by my OB's assistant this morning. But then she warned me that this does not mean that I can go back to eating chocolates and other sweets whenever I please.

We were scheduled to have our 3d/4d ultrasound around 8AM that same day (Saturday) but we had to move it to 8:30AM because of the GCT. Luckily, the one scheduled at 9AM was late ( initial usapan kasi is we have to stop and balik na lang if the 9AM preggy lady comes in and di pa kami tapos with our session). Baby L was asleep the entire session. Good, because the sonologist was able to measure easily dahil di siya malikot. Me and hubby just didn't see him move around much. So happy when the sonologist told us that everything is a-ok in my tummy. No fetal anomaly detected. :-) Below are our babies first pics...

Baby happily playing with his foot. Yup, that's his foot!A smile for daddy and mommy :-)

Cutie fingers.

There are video clips from this session too. I will find ways to upload it later. Our families were all happy to see the pictures/ video clips. When I showed the videos to my 3-year old nephew he said, "Tita, bakit parang moo moo si baby?". Hehe :-)

On another note, my parents celebrated their 28th church wedding anniversary last Sunday (June 1). My sister prepared lots of yummy food for the occasion (I helped by slicing veggies and washing the dishes :-P). She cooked kare-kare (so yummy), lengua, angelhair pasta with white sauce and fried chicken. Me and my brother bought ice cream and cakes for dessert. It was a fun day as my 2 nephews were there to make everyone smile with their antics. To my parents, happy happy anniversary and many, many more anniversaries to come. Next year, our baby will be joining the celebration na. I can't wait!

Two more months to go. Please continue praying for my and baby's health.