pre-Media Noche

Today I cooked chili garlic prawns for lunch as per the kids' request. It's not often that they make these types of request, and since it was a holiday anyway, I obliged. Of course, as expected, after the meal, I had two very satisfied and happy customers. :)

This early, I’m already starting the pre-work for tomorrow's media noche. I’ve cut up and washed the veggies for the salad, grated cheese for the lasagna, cut up the veggies I'll be using for the pasta sauce, etc. Our maid has been on extended vacation, so the less work for me tomorrow, the better!

Our menu for media noche?
- Lasagna
- Roast chicken and pork
- Salad (veggies, apples and blue cheese)

The rest of our feast, I'm buying ready-made. Or my friends are bringing over. I don't want to over-exert myself and prepare so much. The less stress for me, the better! The focus of our get-together would be the company of friends. And besides, there's so much food in the ref already and I hate the idea of throwing away food! So there!

December 26

While the rest of the household was still sleeping soundly and dreaming of holidays and toys and gifts, I was trudging off to work. I felt alone going to work, since traffic was very light. Getting to work, I was early as usual and so I didn’t expect many people to come in. But at 9a.m., there were still barely half of the staff in the office. Uh-oh. Hangover season.

It was a slowww day at work, which made it much more bearable for me. No ringing phones and I was able to finish the work that I planned to do. Not so bad going to work after all.

The highlight of my day? Going to the gym and after weighing myself, discovering that I lost 3 lbs! Imagine! What with all the parties and good food I gorged on (burp! Excuse me!) I still managed to lose weight! I was actually aiming low and was just thinking that maintaining my weight this month would be okay. But actually losing weight?! Wow! What a great reward. I felt so motivated that I did an extra set of crunches and additional reps using the weights. Whew.

And i think that green tea is really helping. I'll post about that on a later date. ;->

SUPASTAH!

The pic says it all. :)





In the pic are me, my brother, Paolo, and the superstar-wannabe, Patrick. :D

More pics (Christmas Day '07)

As you can see from the pics, we're a family that likes to ham it up for the camera. No one is shy, and we'd happily oblige with wacky poses. But my favorite is the last picture, which we call our "telenovela" pose, MarimARboleda... Get it? heheheh... :D

Christmas Day '07

CHRISTMAS DAY!!! The kids already opened their gift from me and seeing their excitement at getting a Nintendo DS (to replace the one that was stolen), was well worth the money spent.

What they’re looking forward to now is the annual Christmas party of our clan at my aunt’s house, and the gifts their getting from their aunts, uncles, and grandaunts and granduncles (as opposed to “grandparents”). The kids’ grandparents (my mom and dad) are in the US, and the monthly care packages they send us have always been filled with goodies for the kids. One time it was baseball mitts and baseballs. Or board games. Or various handheld games (video or otherwise) like 20Q, Deal or No Deal, Magic 8 ball, etc. So really, it’s like it’s always Christmas Day for the kids when a big box from the US arrives.

For our annual Christmas party, the fiesta-like preparations resulted in a beautiful and mouthwatering spread of goodies such as kare kare, sauteed prawns, pork barbecue, imperial chicken, lumpiang shanghai, molo soup, baked macaroni, roast beef, baby back ribs, pancit luglog. Diet? What diet? Thoughts of slimming down flew out the window seeing the fabulous food on the dining table.

And for a dessert lover like me, I was in dessert heaven when I saw the chocolate marjolaine cake (which happens to be Patrick’s favorite), fruit salad, brownies, lychee pandan, and brazo de Mercedes. As I always say, “Dessert is the most important part of the meal. Yum yum. In fact, you could say that my “no-rice” diet for the past few days (4 days and counting!) is specifically so I could eat my share of dessert! Hehehe…

The kids spent most of the day playing wii. It was fun and funny watching them! Paolo and Patrick did well on the games, and that was not a surprise to me knowing how good they are at video games. Patrick did especially well in Wii bowling! hahaha! which reminds me, he really loves going bowling, and he wants to take it up as a sport so I told him we'll see about getting him bowling lessons next summer.

Take note of one of the pictures. Patrick is lying on the floor, near the Christmas tree. Patrick blurted out that he’d pretend that the Christmas tree was falling on him, so he takes the pose of lying on the floor and shouting “Saklolo”! My cousins laughed at loud at his antics and promptly took photos of him in that pose. I honestly don’t know how (or why) Patrick comes up with this stuff. I guess it’s his naturally funny side shining through. Always the life of the party. :)

All in all, it was a great day spent with family, with lots of fun and laughter. I just wish my parents were here to celebrate with us. They would have so enjoyed the celebration plus the fun times with the whole clan, and especially their two “apos”.

The Christmas rush (December 24)

December 24 – I braved the malls and as my friend is fond of saying, “everyone and their mothers was there”. The malls were packed! Believe me, if not for some urgent errands, I would have preferred to stay at home. I opted to leave the car at home. It afforded me the freedom of walking as fast (or as slow) as I wanted. And I didn’t want the stress of finding a parking space. And if you regularly go to the malls, you know how stressful that is. So hooray for valet parking! No matter that it costs Php 50 more. It’s well worth it considering the stress I save myself from. My sanity is worth more than that! :)

I went to LBC to send out a package, then on to Megamall. Woman with a mission! I knew exactly where I was going, and I didn’t dilly-dally going there. I went straight to Hang Ten to buy the 2 blouses I’d been eyeing. Then the war field which is Toy Kingdom to buy another dance pad. Yes, another dance pad. This way, there will always be two players for each game. Yes, I am an addict of Dance Dance Revolution. They say acceptance is the first step to a cure…
;-> But the way I see it, it’s a great way to bond with the kids PLUS it’s great exercise.

Walking home, I couldn’t believe that I and was in and out of the mall in 15 mins! Oh, wait! My watch stopped pala. heheheh... In reality, I was at the mall all of 1 hour 30 minutes. To go to just three shops ha! It will be a long time coming before I go to the malls again a day before Christmas!