Essence of Being R

With R turning one year older a few weeks ago and with nothing better to do one lazy afternoon, I decided to do an impromptu photo shoot to try to encapsulate the essence of being R. To capture for posterity his numerous moods and hilarious antics, if that was at all possible.

I caught him an eager and willing participant, as can be seen by his wide smile, reaching his ears.

I click and click away. Tho novelty of sitting for the camera has started to wear thin on him, and his interest has shifted back to the Ritz crackers he was busy munching on before I interrupted him for this shoot.

Unmindful of his disinterest with me and the camera, I continue to take photo after photo. Continuously asking him to shift his attention from the bag of crackers he was hard at work eating to "smile" at me. Hence, this photo...

Not willing to give up that easily, I went on with my task. And R, not wanting to give up without a fight, gave me this "masterpiece." Maybe, celebrities tired of running away from paparazzis could learn a thing or two...
I guess that was my cue to finally put down the camera and give him a hug for being mischievously adorable . tee-hee-hee!

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Cupcake train

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For this year's celebration, R wanted a Thomas the Train birthday cake. I made use of this occasion to test a new chocolate cupcake recipe. I am always on the look-out for the perfect chocolate cake recipe, and I think I have finally found it with this last one. It is moist and chocolate-y, without being overly sweet. I have tried a lot of recipes which includes a vegan one from Divvies, and the one I made for J's birthday party was a Martha Stewart recipe. (While Martha's cupcakes were wonderful to look at, with beautiful domes, they lacked flavor and moisture.) For the frosting, I relied on my trusty Swiss Meringue Buttercream for its flavor and stability to hold up at room temp in spite of Manila's sweltering heat.


Here we are, taking a break after frosting all the cupcakes. R loves to help whenever I am in the kitchen. He was tasked to put the sprinkles on all those cupcakes.


This is taken at his school party, where all his classmates went crazy over the cupcake train. I got great compliments from the parents, too.

Here is a closer view of the cupcake train.


And here is the birthday boy, loving those cupcakes!

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My girl, J

J celebrated her 8th birthday (sooo) many Fridays ago. I started a draft on this post a few months back, but I never go to finish. My main job (being a SAHM) has kept me busy that the blog posts have been very few and far between. So here's one more try at it....

She just wanted a simple celebration with her good friends. And so on that day, twelve girls took over our house with their shrieks, laughter and girly interests. The late afternoon celebration quickly extended into late evening. J was still in her personal cloud nine long after the last guest went home. While I was exhausted from baking and frosting all those cupcakes. She wanted some Pokemon cupcakes, and so I bravely told her she'll have it - not knowing how hard it was. After several tries and not going anywhere with the cupcakes, I finally succumbed to time pressure and took the easy way out. I put on swirls and threw in some sprinkles... voila!


J is slowly growing up to be her own person. She is naturally kind, oftentimes funny, most of the time forgetful. She is curious about everything around her. She loves reading Junie B. Jones, Archie, and looks forward to the delivery of my InStyle monthly subscription. Loves walking around in my stilletos, platforms and wedges; getting a kick that we have the same shoe size already.

Sometimes when I look at her I am amazed at how fast she is growing up. And it makes me question myself. Am I patient enough? Kind enough? Loving enough? Understanding enough? Am I the best mom that I can be? Can she see God's goodness in me?

In a recent Guidance class activity, she proudly came home announcing that she got the most number of friendship bracelets. All the girls were given a friendship bracelet and they were supposed to give it to a "good friend". It made me so proud to see her in such high spirits, delighted in the fact that almost half of the class favored her to be their "friend". But she quickly mentioned that she is not part of the "club girls" which she went on to describe as being "chitter-chatter girls", which I assume would be their equivalent of the bully kids. One of the girls who gave her a bracelet, a notorious girl, who has a long standing history of being the class bully, wrote down, "thank you for always being nice and kind to me." Awww!

It seems to me that most of the girls chose her not because she is fun to be with (even if she is), but more so because of her genuine kindness towards other people. Seems to me like I am not doing so bad in this thing called motherhood after all. :)

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