what is retro now?

so it's another production number...this one is somehow tiring at masakit sa bulsa haha… (at idaan ba tawa) and I don't know if this is the last...and I'm even too exhausted to type. I've been feeling sleepy these past few days, and I've just yawned three times now.

So they have this surprised retro dance contest...obviously this school have a penchant for variety show...showtime etc. i think I might transfer Zadee on a different school next school year.

The kids have been practicing in the house for three days in a row with the instructor we hired to teach them, at ang mahal ng TF!!!

I just realized that our house is a home for kids and the kid at heart. My cousins love to stay here, just to have a taste of Mama's cooking, and it has been our headquarters with my childhood friends, we would chat, watch tv after school and every Saturdays...or we would play patintero, I don't see children now play those games today, and probably it has to do

with Viva Hot Babes titilating the song. Okay, now what am I talking about, sobrang pagod na talaga 'to. Since i spent so much with the instructor's fee, I have to scrimp to bring Zadee at a salon for make up. I tried doing it myself... and me who don't like to don my face with cosmetics...tried to do a retro look. not a bad start hehe...magbuhat ba ng sariling bangko. okay I need to be in bed now.

ps. they won third place

12 fruits of the year

It’s 2012 and I am glad I got the chance to spend the New Year with Zadee. So thankful…I bought two of the famous new year noisemaker…torotot hehe for both of us…

just a simple barbeque meal during media noche but no 12 fruits this time.

I just decided to just do the 12 pieces of grapes tied for each door. Mama Nene’s way of bringing luck for the coming year, bought one kilo and then Zadee ate the rest and shared some with her friends.

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday Ate Rachel

Happy Birthday Ate Rachel

I couldn’t be more thankful for having the most amazing Aunt which I do call Ate…

She’s always here for me near or far…she always is and knows when I’m troubled, bathed me when I was a kid :P, play bahay-kubo together, sell mangoes on a humid afternoon, fought for me, from bullies to bitches lol…worked on the same company together, drove me to the hospital when I gave birth...

And all the things that she did for me…there are just so many things

And so I do have the best Ate after all

Happy Birthday Ateng…love you

tres marias

a photo of us the last time she went home from Dubai

we love to wear our pambahay get-up

somehow it's Christmas

misa de gallo or dawn mass

our humble parol

this tree has seen [better days?]

let there be lights

[home after the dawn mass]

I think I always have mixed emotions about Christmas but all I know is...it isn’t my favorite Holiday…

There’s always something in me that makes me wish I’d feel the Merry in Merry Christmas. I will always missed Mama Nene, She would make halaya…and I, her reluctant kitchen assistant would peel and grate the ube yams. And she would cook it using charcoal on a terracotta stove. And boy! it gets heavy to stir as the yams gets thicker in consistency.

And then she would cook my favorite dish…hamunado, yum, leche flan…all of my favorites.

sigh. But we usually don’t eat during noche buena. She’d rather go to sleep, well, I think, she is too tired from all the Christmas brouhaha cooking. And I would go to Ate Rachel’s house and spend Christmas with her family, and I also miss that so much. The exchange gifts, the aginaldo, the eat all you can noche buena feast.

And yes, attending dawn mass/misa de gallo. This is where I miss my childhood friends.

We would try to complete the nine mornings, which they say for a wish, and whoever gets up first will wake the sleepyheads up. And then it’s been freezing cold to walk on the streets, even if we’re donned on warm sweaters along with our highfalutin spraynet bangs...if Justin Bieber was born on this era, i wonder what would he do with his, probably he would be an anti spraynet bangs. Well probably that helps, I guess spraynet is one factor of global warming which is why I can no longer feel the 'malamig ang simoy ng hangin/december breeze' when zadee and i headed to the church.

And then, somewhere in my memory, I had not practice the Filipino tradition eversince…

Maybe it’s the hectic sched of College life and growing up…and not being that religious, sorry Jesus. Yay

I guess my friends will be surprised and they will surely banter silly jokes on me like “magpamisa kayo, nagsimba si Anna Lee.” Oh me Oh my, I attended a dawn mass…with zadee. It’s so hard to wake her up. But that’s the only start of the struggle. I have to keep her up from being sleepy during the mass. And we just stood outside the church for better ventilation since it is already fully crowded inside.

Well, we’ve managed to stay until the homily but decided to leave when the priest started preaching about Politics. sorry po ulit.

I will not be able to complete the "nine mornings" but my Christmas wish is that we' d be able to survive this Christmas and this coming year.

Christmas Party

her best buddies

Alyanna, Queenie and Kobe

especially when you're friends with their Moms too

During their Christmas Party…Thanks KC for the pics

I wasn’t able to buy her something new to wear in

time for their party. Sorry anak. Dami ko ng kasalanan

sa’yo…

something angelic...

This is another School Activity, quebarbaridad! This school never run out of production numbers…

So this December, from purring little kittens, they become winged babies…angels. I tried making her a wing out on a box of nachos I asked from the minigrocery, bought cottons, feathers and they cost 42 pesos per bundle which I had so much difficulty looking for and they have a smell of poultry stench…and yes, I have to scrimp for a bottle of Elmers glue, bought a pack of starch for gawgaw/home-made paste. I suddenly remember Mama Nene, making this and she would use it to make tons of pambalot ng tinapa from newspapers, and then she will sell them at the market.

I remember helping her make those…sigh

So the wings turned out to be a disaster, yay. Back in highschool, I am always assigned on the props department . So I guess I no longer have the creative prowess of making things like angel wings, I just only have the stage mama in me

And then I saw this ready-made angel wings at the Dept . Store for 170 pesos, ok thanks. I spent so much with my handmade wings. And then the halo…why on earth that I couldn’t find a feathered or a furry boa…sniff. They don’t even have it on Pambansang Bookstore. And yes the white dress and the white shoes that she will have to wear. Good thing, I bought her this little white dress which I think isa little too expensive but I bought it anyway…because I like it for her, So I don’t have to worry about it, just the shoes.

She is very excited to be an angel…And I am sold, I bought her a new pair of shoes. I’m still scrimping though…hehe

Sunday and orange mornings...