Happy 6th Birthday Keisha! Thursday, October 29, 2009

Happy 6th Birthday Keisha! I love you sweetie!

Arts and Crafts for Kids Friday, October 23, 2009

It is quite usual for parents to provide the best books, toys and games for their children. However, there are other fun and educational activities that parents can add to their schedule such as arts and crafts sessions. These activities are important tools that can help a child’s general development.

Arts and crafts allow youngsters to be in touch with their creative side and give confidence them to discover how things are made up and look for ways to make things work. They learn how to become creative and resourceful.

As parents, we have to take an interest in their art in order to encourage them to take interest in arts and crafts. They will have arts and crafts projects in school and when they present them to us, we need to show them that the results of their efforts are important to us. Otherwise, we will be sending the wrong message that the results of their efforts are not at all important and worthless. We have to show them we care about their efforts.

Helping them appreciate the value of arts and crafts as kids can lead to a better appreciation of other artworks and other types of arts. We also want to them to love literature for example. We can do this by reading to them from the book or accompany them to watch a well made movie based on that book. We can also let them listen to an audio version of the book. These are effective alternative ways to introduce and let children develop a liking for other forms of arts and crafts.

Arts and crafts also teach kids other important values such as determination – they learn to how to focus at a particular task and do it until they have completed it. They also learn to develop concentration – children learn how to sit and stay put and complete their assignment even while in the midst of many distractions.

By providing an area and schedule for arts and crafts for our children, we can help them understand that there are times that they need to wait to get the results of their efforts evident. It is during this time that they learn how to be patient and be more reasonable.

Arts and crafts activities can help children to develop their confidence in their own skills and abilities. We praise them for the tasks they finish and they learn to take pride in what they can do through their own hard work.

OwnADayCare.com gives you all the information you need to start your own daycare business and also has a listing of day care center nationwide.

This is a guest post from Anne Stephanie Cruz of Own A Day Care. Thanks!

Thoughts on Web Hosting Tuesday, October 20, 2009

I have given serious thought over having my own domain, my own dot com where I can host this blog as well as the others. Since I am really not knowledgeable when it comes to HTMLs or other codes for that matter, I am worried and afraid as to what will happen should I encounter any problems with my blog. Also, since I am already very much used to the interface that my current blogs already use, which is pretty much just drag and drop, I don't think I can get used to another that would require me to do more than that.

With these things in mind, I tried to look for a web site hosting that would give me all of the features I mentioned above. Easy to use, quick customer service, and an affordable price are my priorities. Since I really don't know much about web hosting, it really pays to know as much as I can about it before I take the plunge.

I also came across an article about cheap hosting. Factors to consider like downtime, bandwidth, and support, were tackled in the article I read. It made me realize that just because it's cheap doesn't mean a web host is good or bad. It is really just a matter of evaluating the things that matter and things that you need in terms of keeping your online presence. It's not impossible to find a web host that's affordable, but also works as hard as you do in keeping your site up.

Happy blogging!

Awake at 3AM Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It's a little over 3AM where I am at and I am awake at this ungodly hour because I saw Henry off to work. Sometimes I wish we just ran a business or something so that I could see more of him each day. I only get to spend Sundays with him, and usually Mondays as well, but sometimes, he still gets called off to work during Mondays.

What I dislike about his job is the fact that he leaves really, really early and comes home late in the evening. Sure, there are times he does come home early, but that happens like twice or thrice in a month. He spends over 16 hours at work, and gets paid like Php1,000 (or sometimes more) every field trip.

Somehow, there is a little part of me that would like him to just look for a regular day job, but the other part of me wants to let him continue with this line of work as I can obviously see that he enjoys what he does, not to mention the fact that he gets to travel all over the country at no expense because of his work.

He asked me last night why I sigh whenever he tells me what shirt he needs to wear when he goes on a tour. I simply said, "I can't help it if I miss you all the time."

Preparing for Keisha's 6th Birthday Sunday, October 18, 2009

For today, I planned on going to Jollibee to inquire about their birthday party packages for Keisha's 6th birthday on the 29th. Inspired by one of her classmates that had the party on their school complete with a character/mascot appearance, I wanted to do the same thing for Keisha and I knew that was what she wanted as well.

I got the kids and myself dressed up and we were going to leave Ron Weasley to our neighbor who also happens to be Henry's aunt. As we were saying our goodbyes to Ron, Henry came home. I knew he was going to come home early, but he is the best when it comes to timing. So we waited for him to change clothes and we all went to the nearest Jollibee.

The Jollibee that is just a few blocks from our house that sank in Typhoon Ondoy (and by sank I mean only the roof was visible and the service crew awaited for rescue and the waters to subside on the roof) was currently not accepting birthday parties as they did not have the materials for it at the moment.

We proceeded to SM Valenzuela and went to the Jollibee there. Sadly, the manager informed me that they no longer accept take out birthday parties beginning this year. Keisha was obviously sad, but there was really nothing we could do. I decided to ask at McDonald's.

Since I am a big fan of McDonald's french fries, we asked about their birthday party packages. We got all the info we needed, and the price including all the invitations, loot bags, thank you cards, party hats, and all of that were included. The only problem is, since the mall opened at 10AM, that would be the time they can accomodate the take out party. Keisha's classes end at 10:30AM, so from 10AM including travel time to their school, there really won't be much time for her party.

As of right now, Henry and I are still thinking about what we can do so that her party at school will be successful. I guess we'll just have food delivered to her school, but having games and prizes would make it extra special for her.

Catching Up! Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Whew!

I totally have some serious catching up to do on my blogs. With everything that's been going on in my life right now, this is one of the things that I have neglected so far.

For starters, there have been so many changes in my life recently. One of them is the fact that my mother in law has already migrated to Hawaii last October 3. She will be able to vacation here after 2 years though.

Since my mother in law has already migrated, I am now officially a full time mom and housewife to my two kids. Being hands-on to them also means I have to be hands off on some things, and obviously my blog is one of them. I also had to let go of some clients that I have for my online writing jobs. I honestly prefer not to work for them anymore instead of me always missing deadlines.

My daily routine at home is pretty much mapped out. On weekdays, I wake up extremely early (and by extremely I mean 6AM) so that I have enough time to make Keisha's breakfast and heat her water for her bath, see her off to school, then clean the house while she's gone and feed and comb our new pet shih tzu Ron Weasley. When Nicole wakes up a few hours later, I attend to her until Keisha comes home.

When Keisha comes home from school, Nicole doesn't fret too much anymore as she already has a playmate with her. Together they play with the puppy as I make our lunch. After feeding them and giving them their vitamins, I give Nicole a nap and we all take our afternoon nap. Sometimes I don't want to sleep in the afternoon but taking care of two kids and a puppy can be really exhausting, so I sleep with them.

When we wake up, we play around with each other and the puppy until it's time for me to cook dinner, wait for their dad to come home, clean them up for bedtime, and then tuck them in. My routine is broken by trips to the mall or a day out with the entire family.

I love taking care of them, but I guess until I learn to properly manage my time, I will have to keep my online career to a minimum.

A Happy-Sad Goodbye Sunday, October 04, 2009

Yesterday, we said our happy and sad goodbyes to my mom in law as she flew to Hawaii aboard Hawaiian Airlines. She needs to stay there for 2 years before she can come back to the Philippines for a vacation.

I asked my dad to drive us to the airport so we could use our van. Henry, the kids, me, my sister Elena, my mom in law and her brother plus my dad all came to bid her goodbye. She had been crying the night before and was having second thoughts on leaving.

Today, I already got to chat with her on Skype and she's still crying, especially when she sees the kids. I know in time, she will get used to it. But on the other hand, I am glad that she's seeing how beautiful Hawaii is and how clean it is plus how good the air smells and all of that stuff. In time, especially when she begins to work, I know she'll do just fine.