To the Carnival We Go

To the Carnival We Go

DD2 and DD4 will be having a joint birthday celebration next week. Their birthdays are only a week apart. DD2 wil be 7 years old and DD4 will be 1! How time flies! Can you believe that we are at that first birthday milestone already?! OMG!

We will be having a carnival theme for their birthday. I've been all over Pinterest gathering inspiration and stuff. I'm so excited and so looking forward to putting it all together. A lot of it is going to be DIY. We just cannot afford it buy all these wonderful stuff.

We've hired a face painter and a balloon artist for the party. There will also be a bounce house. I'm renting a popcorn machine too. We will also have a cotton candy maker. All the sweet treats one would normally get at the carnival. My plan is that instead of party games, we will have game booths where kids can go and play for their treats. I won't be giving out goodie bags at the end of the party because the prizes they win at the different game booths will be enough. I'm not sure if we can really pull this off because I will need the help of a lot of the other parents and big kids to man the booths.

One other thing that I am still undecided upon is a DIY photo booth. I saw in a mag that they used just a striped red and white tablecloth as background taped to a wall. They put a stool in front of it and voila! I may do this if I can find someone to take pics. I can either use the pics to give away as personalized keepsakes for the guests to bring home that day or include it in the thank you notes which will be simpler for me.

I feel like there is a lot to do. I'm getting a little stressed. The major things are taken care of but we all know that it's the details that make the party memorable. However, I remind myself too what's important: that my birthday girls are happy.

"Splat" I Go

"Splat" I Go

An embarrassing moment happened to me last Saturday.

I feel the need to precursor my story with the statement that I have not ridden a bike in a long long while. It has probably been 20 years (?) since I last rode a bike. They say that once you know how to ride a bike, you never forget.

In all fairness, I did not forget how to ride a bike. I just forgot how to stop it! LOL!

A few weeks back, the whole family went on a bike ride along the bike trail that connects several cities here in the inland empire. Everyone except Baby E and me had bikes. I was content to walk and push Baby in her stroller as the rest of the family went on ahead on their bikes. DH, however, did not find this acceptable. He wanted me to ride along with them.

He bought a nice bike child carrier so that Baby could ride with us. And he bought me a bike too. The women's cruiser bikes were too high for me so we needed to get a girl's bike at Toys R' Us.  I tried it at the store and it felt like the right size for me.

DH assembled the bike we bought at home. When I rode it, it felt a little high. He refused to bring down the seat any further because he said that it was the lowest it should go according to the manufacturer's manual. Hmp! So I tried to ride it. It took me several tries but I was able to get on it and ride. I was riding around our neighborhood streets with Kuya behind me. DH sent him after me to make sure I was ok. LOL. Well, the road started to go kinda downhill and I was going to turn a corner. I saw that there were a lot of cars parked. I panicked as I realized that there were no hand brakes. I had to kick back the pedals to brake. And then everything seemed to move fast forward. I fell. Badly. Embarrassingly. In front of some people. Who ignored me. I bet they were trying hard to suppress their laughter. Sigh.

I have 3 large bruises on my knees and thighs as evidence. I'm embarrassed because I panicked. I wish there were a nice story about how the accident came about because my riding boots snagged on the pedals or there was some malfunction of the bicycle mechanisms. But no...there was malfunction alright. My brain wires got crossed and I panicked. Hmp!

I have not been back on the bike since. It's a mental thing I know I need to get over. I hope I get over it and get back on that bike.So if you see a mom flailing around your neighborhood, that just might be me!

Sigh.

Marriage Sustains Your Love

Marriage Sustains Your Love

Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal — it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As you gave the ring to one another and have now received it a second time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Inheriting the iPhone

Inheriting the iPhone

DH recently got the iPhone 4 so I've inherited his old iPhone 3G. I don't have a data plan with my phone plan and I have no intentions of getting one either. I don't think it is worth it for me. I just use available wi-fi hotspots.

DH is so cute when he gives me something techy. He makes sure that everything is set up. When he passed on this iphone to me, he made sure that everything was set up. He transferred the contacts from my old phone. He made sure that I knew how to sync my calendars and notes.  He even got me a new iphone case because the old one looked a little ragged. That's my hubby for you. Taking care of the techy side of life for me.

Enjoying my iPad!

Enjoying my iPad!

I really do! It's almost the first thing I reach for each morning. I say "almost" because I've disciplined myself to reach for my prayer bag first and spend time in prayer as soon as I get up. If I even touch and turn on the iPad before prayers, I am bound to lose time for daily prayers.

It is also the last thing I turn off at the end of the day.

I love the apps! Late last year, a friend commented on a post I made about getting the iPad. She mentioned the appshopper that lists apps that have gone down in price. Oh my! I love it! I like getting free stuff or stuff that are seriously marked down so this was perfect.

My photography apps by far outnumber any of the other categories of apps I have. I also enjoy the convenience of reading all my mail in one place. Facebook is up there too as one of my most frequently used apps. My next fave would be the Overdrive app that allows me to borrow books from the library. I've read more books now that I have ever had the last 5 years or so. Seriously! And this is from one who used to shut herself in her room and read and read and read! Another frequently used app is Flipboard. I enjoy its ease of use. It's really how I get caught up in the latest news around the world and around my social circles. It's just plain convenient. The games I've downloaded were mostly for the kids. They do enjoy playing them. They can only play them on the weekends though. House rule: No TV or playing on the Wii/Xbox/computer on school nights. And that includes the iPad of course!

I've also downloaded the calorie counter hoping to aid me in my weight loss. Alas, it has only been opened thrice at most. I've realized that downloading the app does you no good unless you use it. It's pretty much like how weight loss pills or exercise videos don't work unless you actually use them. LOL! Oh well...it's gonna get used soon...I hope!

Having the iPad is not really a necessity for me. My life will still go on should I lose it or something. But it has made living my life more convenient. And I am all for making life easier any way possible.