It was a stressful birthday for my hubby. He had a delay in renewing his license at LTO. The printer at the Ayala branch broke down and it cannot be fixed ASAP. The UAT that he was expecting at work didn’t push through that day. When we were about to go home, it was raining cats and dogs. The street outside the resto where we had a late dinner was even flooded.

It was a good thing that I bought him a birthday cake (though the icing to which my name was written already melted), complete with candle pa! I sang him a birthday song before our orders came. He smiled and was happy with my gesture.

When the flood subsided and we’re about to leave the resto, he posted that photo in Instagram. I was glad and relieved that after all the hassle that happened that, my husband was still able to enjoy his birthday.

This is an uber late post. Something went terribly wrong with the WP iPad app that I’m using. Finally, here it is!

We had a long day last October 20 but it was still relaxing and fun-filled.

Our day started with my routinary CBC (for monitoring my hemoglobin count) and the required oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). We spent about three hours at the HP Diagnostics lab. That’s because there were several patients when we came in early that morning and OGTT takes a while to be completed. Thanks to everyone who prayed for me. The results are normal and my hemoglobin count has already increased 🙂

A little past 10AM, we were on the road for our car’s break in. Hubby named our car Levi. Take a look at the photo below and you will guess why he gave him that name 😉

Since we were already late for the Sta Rosa and Tagaytay trip, we opted to have drive-thru Jollibee breakfast on the road. Traffic was a bit slow as we were getting near Paseo de Sta Rosa. We can feel the heat of the afternoon sun on our knees and arms as we drive along. By lunch time, we were already in Paseo and we scoured the outlet stores in my hubby’s search for a new pair of shoes. Sadly, the kind that he really liked was out of stock so we left Paseo and headed to Tagaytay.

Our first stop was at the Bag of Beans (BOB) . This is where we dined during our first year anniversary as a couple and when we came back with friends and hubby’s Kuya. Back then, they only have the one in Mendez. Now, they have a branch right after the rotonda.

Since we were both hungry, we ordered big breakfast meals. I ordered chicken and pork adobo while he had tocino. Both were served with two sunny side ups and side salad.

We’re both satisfied with what ate. After that, we checked out the adjacent Rowena’s pasalubong store and bought Sylvanas. We decided to buy the rest of our pasalubong loot at the market and the fruit stands.

We were able to test our car’s capacity en route to Tagaytay and back. We were able to drive at different speeds and varying traffic and road conditions. It’s been a long day but fulfilling and fun nevertheless.

I am blessed to have a friend who is going through (almost) the same season in life as I am. Though we rarely see each other, madalang pa sa patak ng ulan,  we can always talk about anything and everything about marriage, parenthood and anything and everything under the sun.  We have that instant connection with each other. We also find it easy to open up challenges that we can encounter in our newfound status. We are each other’s prayer partner and morale booster.

Here’s Dee during her last trimester and I on my first. She is now a doting and proud mom of Hannah.

We were in the same Victory group and our husbands were groupmates, too. Though we no longer do the meet ups, we still connect with each other through SMS and Facebook. I pray that we and our children remain friends forever 🙂

We’re through with my CBC and Glucose Tolerance Test. Now we’re off to Tagaytay for our car’s break in. And now I can finally eat and drink after fasting for the glucose test. This is going to be a great weekend 🙂

As I write this post, I feel dizzy after drinking 75 grams of glucose (think: syrupy Royal Tru Orange) for my Glucose Tolerance Test. It is the required test on the 24th week of pregnancy. My OB has also included our routine CBC so I wouldn’t have to endure a lot of extractions. I’d have to wait for an hour before I could pee again and collect another sample for examination.

Please pray that I get to have normal results for both tests. Thanks! Happy weekend 🙂

These are the things that I do while waiting for websites to load completely. I feel productive because I do something to fill in my idle time hehe…..

We try to chronicle our pregnancy each week by taking photos with an illustrated milestone. This is what we have for week 22.

FYI: We’re now 24 weeks and 4 days. We hope to post a collage of all the milestones after I give birth to our firstborn 🙂

Babies have an uncanny ability to comfort stressed adults. I have experienced these a couple of times in the past with my first nephew and niece. Without saying a word and without shedding a tear, they were able to sense that something’s bothering me. Each time, they would put their head close to mine and put their little arms around my neck. It was a sweet and loving gesture indeed!

Now that I’m pregnant with my first child, I am looking forward to have such moments with him. As young as he is, my baby can already feel when something is wrong with Mommy. He would squirm and squirm until I am calm. I would tell him that everything will be all right and I would stroke my belly so he would feel the comfort of my touch. That’s what I’ve read about intra-utero bonding. And it does work.

Babies are indeed blessings. They are the greatest gift to every woman and they mean the world to every mom.

My site was hacked over the weekend. I could not believed that it happened to me so I was surprised and was (half) laughing when I discovered last Saturday. My site was not at all that popular and yet somebody got interested in wrecking it.

It’s a good thing that we were able to come up with a fix. The site was restored and the stolen access was recovered. This whole hacking incident has taught me the following:

• You don’t have to be famous in order to be vulnerable to hacking.
• Do away with the defaults to increase security.
• Update your WordPress (blogging platform) version and plugins as soon as you receive a notification.
• Change your password regularly.

I’m in a zombie-like state today and I don’t feel like talking to people except through SMS and Gtalk, which allow for delay in sending replies. I am still tired from doing the preparations and hosting my Dad’s surprise and intimate party (and cleaning up afterwards). He turned 65 yesterday and so I asked the rest of the family to give him a mini-celebration. And so for weeks, we planned for the event through Facebook. But, my Dad, who is so keen of sniffing surprise parties, already knew what’s going to happen when he and Mom and my nephew came to our house. My sister-in-law was a bit disappointed. Ang hirap mo naman i-surprise, Dad!

Dad might not be surprised at all but we are all glad that he liked what we had for him. It was a simple gathering of family members where we shared good food, plenty of laughter and friendly banter. We gave Dad a framed picture of our family and the kids created birthday cards for their Lolo.
We also had a special number (speacial because we haven’t and never thought that we could do that) where we sang Hey Jude. My husband played the organ while my youngest brother joined him with the guitar. My sister, a close family friend and I sang with them. We chose that song because Dad is a Beatles fan and my hubby fancied playing that song on a piano.

The night ended well and and I can tell that everyone went home tired but happy with our pre-weekend gathering.