Dana's Artwork #2

I just wanted to share one of Dana's coloring pages with you. :) Her style is so different, like she's not content using only one color (what's the fun in that?!) hahaha I guess it really shows her personality.. she likes colors and she likes them in a riot!

I used to stick with one color or two and just filled in the outline more being careful of not going out of the line than anything else.. :) I wasn't really talented in that area hahaha

So, I wonder where she gets this from.. her dad? hehehe

Great Work, Dana!!

So, Dana and I often try to do new things. The other day, we thought of doing some artwork and this is what we ended up with:

From Blogger Pictures

I helped her with cutting the heart shapes but all the rest was done by her. I'm so proud of her. She has a lot of drawings at home, 3 notebooks full of them, so it's kinda hard to document all of them :)

Here's another one of her accomplishments, a bit of writing:

From Blogger Pictures

This is great, right? :)

Milestone for Dylan! woohoo

Okay I know that some of you might find this offensive but I'm a proud Mama so bear with me LOL

Dylan made his first poop in the toilet today! LOL

It's easy to see when he needs to poop because he lies down on the floor with his butt up so I just picked him up, took him to the bathroom and sat him on the toilet seat.. within seconds, voila! he did it! hahahhaa

I'm one proud Mama... LOL

Cooking with the Kids

I have found out that kids will eat more if they take part in the preparation process. It stimulates their imagination as well as they learn practical things about nutrition, about the stuff that they eat, the names of the vegetables (yes they eat veggies!) and best of all, it's a bonding moment between moms and their babies :)

Recently, we had a 3-day weekend. We cleaned the house, the microwave, the dish drainer and Dana and I cleaned the carpet :) She had her own soap and brush and she had fun doing it :)

Patrick and I experimented with some recipes to make eating interesting. I found that I can make chicken nuggets out of the canned chicken breasts that my mom sent before. I dipped them in egg and rolled them in Italian breading (it's just bread crumbs with Italian seasoning). Dana also helped out and she loved rolling the chicken in the breading mixture :) Dylan of course was sneaking and eating some of the chicken flakes that were on the plate :)

We also made a dipping sauce out of cream, ginger, garlic, leeks which (we found out) that you can use with any type of fried food and still tastes yummy :)

We also made a simple pasta dish made with cream (yet again!), garlic, parmesan cheese and bacon bits :)

The kids loved it and so did the adults hahahah our stomachs were stuffed!

Jurassic Park and Dylan

The past few days, I've been very harassed writing my articles. The kids were very demanding and I ended up staying up late to meet my deadlines.

So I thought what can I do to keep them occupied. Dylan used to be satisfied with his Elmo DVD's but lately he wasn't contented with them. I guess he got tired of Elmo. I thought that maybe he would like to watch Jurassic Park because there's a show on TV called Prehistoric Park that he enjoys so much - he becomes animated, entertained and so lively when he watches it :)

So I put in our Jurassic Park DVD and let him watch it. Little did I know that it would become his favorite movie.. And it didn't stop at the first movie.. He watched Jurassic Park 2 and 3 too.. over and over again.. for a couple of days we were having Jurassic Park marathons at home. And what's funny is that, when he wants to watch it, he says "Park!" and points at the player LOL

The Gift of Reading

I'm pleased to announce that Dana is really reading now! Ever since she was able to recognize letters (At 2 she already knew them by heart, not just from memorizing the ABC song but from recognition) we've been learning how to write them and only lately did we start the rudiments of reading.

I know that some parents use flashcards and other tools to teach their kids. I did that when I was teaching her to learn the alphabet. It also helped that we had alphabet puzzlemats that I stuck to our wall which made learning fun and easy :) Why did I stick puzzle floor mats on the wall, you ask? Our bed is beside the wall. If the kids play on the bed and they bounce sometimes they bump their heads on the wall. So to prevent any hard bumps, I stuck these letter puzzlemats to the wall to cushion the blows :) you don't know how many times my kids have bumped on these mats LOL

Anyway, back to Dana's reading. I taught her the sounds of the letters through song.. Watching a lot of Sesame Street helped and is a good source of ideas for me too, seeing as how I was also raised by Sesame Street :) When I felt that she knew the sounds, we moved on to putting the sounds together.. but we did it mentally, right before we slept.. it's like our nightly ritual. she would write the words in the air which also helped in practicing her writing skills.

So fast forward to yesterday where we read a book together. It was raining very hard and there was thunder and lightning so we turned off the PC and the TV. To keep them occupied, I made them choose a book to read. I was reading it at first and then little by little, I would ask her to read the words.. Imagine my surprise when she read the word "Grandma" by herself!! It was such a good sign that my Mom was watching us!!! For her first "long" word to be "Grandma"...

She didn't notice that she was already reading the book by herself.. The book was "But no elephants" by Jerry Smath (if you were wondering)...

I'm so proud of my daughter!!

Where have we been?

If you're wondering where we've been.. the answer is nowhere! hahaha we've all just been staying at home and there's really nothing interesting happening to us so I didn't want to bore you with nothing-ness!

Oh but we've recently watched "The Karate Kid" movies and it's such fun seeing your kids appreciate them as much as we did when we were young :) Nothing beats "Wax On, Wax Off!"

It's too bad though that Dylan is a bit sick today. I think it's asthma again, it runs in the family.. It's a good thing that there's such a thing as nebulizers that make it easier to handle attacks.

Dana's 1st Visit to the Dentist

So, yesterday was my schedule for the dentist to see what needs to be done to my aching tooth. I brought Dana and Dylan with me and their Ate Den also got a cleaning :) Dana was excited because it was her first visit to the dentist.

She wasn't scared at all because we never really scared her about going to the dentist. Sometimes, children become scared of dentists because they're used as a means to scare children into following their parents orders, much like police or monsters.. (at least here in Manila)

Anyway, what's funny is while Dana was on being checked out, Dylan was also showing his teeth to the dentist :) Both got good marks because they don't have any cavities and they really have good teeth :)

So that was fun! :)