4/52

"My daughter's photos, once a week, every week, in 2014."

We went to my cousin's place for a chitchat and short pseudo-blog mentoring on Friday. Streets in their village are named after kinds of horses, I suppose. I saw Stallion St. and then Pony! It thrilled me to show it to Pia since she super loves My Little Pony and actually learned to spell p-o-n-y without me teaching her. We were walking on our way to C's house when she recognized the street sign! At the first photo I took of her, she was hugging the post. It was too blurry and I didn't like how the rest of the picture looked. So I asked her to pose again (and another) for me. Well... that's what I got from my silly girl! ;)

10 Commandments to Consistently Get Along with an Abstract-Sequential Child

I got Pia's Developmental Assessment Checklist and her narrative report last week. Her head teacher, TS, said that my little popstar's love for music has clearly manifested this past 2nd trimester. He said that she can identify pitch and tone well; enjoyed the dance rehearsals for their school's Christmas presentation and showed interest in performing Math activities. On top of it all, she got a lot of WMs or well-mastered scores in the Social-Affective category of her progress report. I'm very honest about my child's tendency to be a spoiled brat, so to be told that she now has learned to reach out and mingle with her classmates is a big deal for me. 

Maruya ― Filipino Style Banana Fritters

My daughter is an active preschooler, who doesn't solely depend on milk anymore. So as her parent, it is my big responsibility to feed her right. By right I mean, nutritious and delicious. Our children's food has to have the nutrients their growing body needs. But sometimes we tend to overdo it. We forget that it must be something their taste buds can tolerate and what their tummy can actually take. So to help you prepare for a healthy and yummy alternative to MSG-filled chips and preservatives-laden cookies, I have here the recipe of maruya or the Filipino style banana fritters, which I tried cooking today.

I plated it in two ways as what you can see in the photo above. The left plate has a dollop of Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter and sprinkled with a bit of powdered sugar. That's for me! Since my girl doesn't like the ginger-y taste of the cookie butter, I prepared her her own plate, which was sprinkled with lots of powdered sugar (you can reduce it for your kid, if you like) and drizzled with Nesquik chocolate syrup.

Barbie: The Mommy

Pia now drinks fresh milk; two times a day, once in the morning and another at night before bedtime. Before that though, she used to take formula milk. When she turned 3, from her pricey brand, I switched her to Nido 3+. So yes, I love the brand. I can proudly say that. Anyway, this is Nido's new campaign for its 3+ category featuring Barbie Almalbis and Sharon Cuneta singing the refreshed version of the commercial jingle, "You're My Number One". I like Barbie's musicality ever since... ever since her Torpe days in 1998. Yup, aside from BSB and Moffatts, I listened to someone like her. It's thrilling to now see her as a doting mom, she makes motherhood ultra cool. As for Ms. Sharon, well... there's so much air, so much air in her voice! And it's vibrating, as always. Hahaha. But hey, she has four awesome children. I think she's a megamom. But sorry, not sorry — Barbie nailed this song and video. Do you agree? Please say you do. Oh well, let's sing along. ♡

*nope, this is not a sponsored post.

Beef Sinigang

I'm seriously loving this weather! I wore my colorful sweatshirt today and cooked one of my favorite broth dishes for dinner. I discovered that beef tastes so good in sinigang. I read a Facebook friend's status that she tried Sentro 1771's Corned Beef Sinigang and she loved it. I got curious that I tried cooking it, not corned though. And grabe, yummers as in. That "special something" in beef (that some actually hate) complements the tartness of the sinigang. I am sharing you this tried and tested recipe, as I believed I've cooked this for more than 5 times already. Never fails, my daughter loves it, not as much as I do though. She doesn't eat the veggies she's not ready to eat yet, like the radish, eggplant and okra. She eats string beans, kangkong and gabi (taro). We all have our own way of cooking this Pinoy favorite and this is how I cooked mine. You may want to try this recipe and I hope you'll like it if you would.

3/52

"My daughter's photos, once a week, every week, in 2014."

She got sick last week, Tuesday until Thursday morning. It's Baguio-weather here in Metro Manila ― loving it, actually! But when we, who are not used to this kind of breeze and chill, get sick, it can be really frustrating. Her nose was runny in the afternoon and clogged at night. She was active in the morning and lethargic in the evening. She missed a lot of activities in school but I can't let her do anything here at home to at least compensate with what she missed. So she settled to what her cartoons and small toys can offer. I think she watched too much TV and movies that when she got well, she super duper tested my patience. Oh well, we're now back to regular programming ― she in school and me in my domestic queen duties ― it's very routinary and dull but this is how we roll, in the meantime. 

Do you want to build a snowman?

I haven't seen a post on Facebook, Twitter or blogs that said something against the movie Frozen. It's that good! No, it is superbly amazing! To be honest, at first, I didn't like the "texture" of the movie. It's kinda dark and dreary and cold. But hey, it's supposed to be like that 'cause it is frozen. Right? What I like most about it though are the story and music. The music, the songs ― it were all awesome! Actually, one LSS-worthy song from the movie is Princess Ana's Do You Want to Build a Snowman. So much so that there were approximately more than 50 videos (covers and lyrics) of it on YouTube! One video stood out with over 500k plus hits. Watch this incredible cover by AJ Rafael, Jadyn, Justin and Marilu Bustamante. Btw, they are Filipinos.

AJ Rafael is an American musician of Filipino descent and Internet celebrity. Originating from Moreno Valley, California, United States he is best known for his original songs such as "When We Say" and "We Could Happen". (source: Wikipedia) You can subscribe to his channel here.