BuzzyVeez - buzzyveez

Nathan v/s Publix

Going though the isles at Publix brings many levels of anxiety. For the most part, I wish Nathan could just imagine the place is full spiders . Wouldn't it be really great if Publix would provide a "child care station" for shoppers like Ikea ;) During unavoidable circumstances, if Nathan has to tag along for the grocery hunt we try to count our victories and deal with our losses.

Nathan v/s the cereal isle. It sounds innocent enough but their marketing people are smart enough to tease parents by hanging hot wheel cars at the end of the isle. I have tried to make a u-turn before I get to that point but I haven't been able to trick him this way yet. Believe it or not, I only gave in once. WIN

Nathan v/s the produce department. It's a given, the boy loves fruit! He wants to buy every fruit represented in the area ;) But then there's the bakery next to it. Again, smart Publix idea. To this I give in most of the time. LOSE

Nathan v/s the meat section. Yes, this is a battle ground too ;) I ended up paying for a pack of "chicharon" upon check out yesterday 'cause someone put it in my basket. Oh no, not by accident. He begs for it every time. You'd think the meat section is a safe place. LOSE

And finally, the check out counter. This is the ultimate test of how long I could stay calm. He wants to help put the groceries on the counter. If I don't mind bruised produce and broken eggs, I would let him. And then he wants to pay and handle the touch pad. As long as we don't scare any cashier by the time we leave, we've triumphed over Publix!

Publix! Where shopping is a pleasure! That sure came from someone who shops without kids ;)

This is supposed to be funny but I'm not laughing ;)

No, it's Mommy!

Right, call me Mommy (mostly Mama)! Nathan just turned 3 and should know what to call me. Well, recently he starting calling me "Miss Chat". He hears me teach the kids in the church nursery what to call me. At home, he calls out "Miss Chat" and so I correct him (repeatedly). I'd say, "no, it's Mommy". Alright, how about "Mommy Miss Chat". I can't win but at least now I don't feel so bad because he also started calling his Daddy, "Mr. Jonathan" (although I think I hear him say Miss Jonathan).

Marriage talk

No, I won't be talking about Jonathan and me. We're doing alright, I promise! I am writing about Mia and the subject of marriage. Too early, I know, but this is on her mind so I have to address it. While in the car, Mia (as always) had something she had to talk about. She said, "Mommy, I don't know who I'm going to marry now". My answer: "aren't you going to marry Owen?" She said, "no, I married him already! Okay!?! So what happened to that marriage, I didn't dare ask. She kept going .... "Mommy, who do you want me marry?" Well, maybe I should start taking this seriously. "I would like for you to marry a Godly and wise man when it's time". She said," who's that, how did you know him?". (HUH?) "Could you just give me a name?" "I really don't know who I'm going to marry. I wanna know so I'll just decide now!". My final words, "sweet pea, you don't have to know it now 'cause it's not yet time". AHHH!!! I doubt that meant anything. What does she think marriage is? I will never quite figure that one out.

Thoughtful prayer

Right before dinner time Mia volunteered to pray and did it so "prayerfully". She started by thanking God for our family, our day, our food and went on saying..... "thank you for Jesus who died on the cross for our sins so that when Jesus comes back, all the dead will be UNDEAD. Amen". So, what's for dinner?

"I found it!

I've been looking for our "good" phone, receiver #1 since yesterday. We have 3 receivers but 2 of them would only last 5 minutes. I've searched for receiver #1 everywhere, it is greatly missed.

I finished washing Nathan's clothe diapers after lunch and as I was putting them in the dryer.... I FOUND RECEIVER #1, all clean and wet!!! Nice, who did it this time? Who knows... but I could narrow it down to 2 suspects.

W-W- Woody

We have seen the Toy Story 3 movie and the kids watched some of it. Nathan managed to remember the characters and points them out whenever he sees them. While we were at target yesterday, he spotted a shelf full of Toy Story stuffed toys. Nathan exclaimed with excitement. WOODY! (but with the B sound). Mia bursted out laughing while I tried to stay collected and tried to do some phonics lesson with my son. And so I said... Nathan, it starts with a W, w-w-woody. My poor little guy had a teachable moment and with all seriousness said, W-W-WOODY (with the B sound, still!!!!). I asked them to put Buzz and Woody back on their shelf and say goodbye. I pushed the cart away as fast as I could. But Nathan was determined, he kept chanting his new phonics lesson; W-W-Woody with the B sound! Mia was cracking up and I was blushing ('cause shoppers were giggling too).

KA-CHOW!

It has gotten pretty cold down here, a little too cold for me. And yet, my little boy is so convinced that Florida is the land for flip-flops and he's wearing his all year. Honestly, I'm in that same wishful thinking.

Yesterday, I decided to brave out and do a little Christmas shopping with the kids. I tried to put socks and shoes on Nathan and they they came right off. He "intensely" asked for his CARS (the only one he has) flip-flops. I knew the battle is inevitable. He's going to get cold, not me so I consented. Why not? It's a lost battle. I have to pick my battles wisely ;)

We got to the store and a light bulb came on. Why not buy him a lightning McQueen pair of shoes to replace his Lightning McQueen flip-flops? By now you should notice a pattern here. And Yay! We found some that light up. Oh, I used to get annoyed by those, specially during nap time in the nursery. BUT.... We got a pair and he wouldn't put them on at home. I got creative and succeeded.... my success when a little too far. Now he didn't want to take them off. And so he went to bed in them. Since the shoes light when they hit something.... he tried them on the wall beside his bed several times. Off came the shoes. In short... our little shoe-episode ended just the way it begun.

BIG Interview

To those of you who don't know, Jonathan has been in the process of applying for an Interim Manager position with Chick-fil-a Corporate. He has passed 2 huge interviews already and is now down to the last one, with the HR Regional Director (I think).

To my Filipino family, Chick-fil-a is a Christian-owned and operated chain of restaurants that serve chicken sandwiches and other 'yummy' food in the U.S. My kids love to eat and play there. I worked for a Chick-fil-a store for 2 years in North Carolina and introduced Jonathan to the company ;)

What is an IM? An IM is someone the Corporate office sends to a store that lost an owner/operator until they could find a replacement. The 3-week training will be at the end of February.

Jonathan's interview with the HR personnel is on Thursday, 11 AM in Tampa. Please pray for continued favor. This HR guy is very new to CFA and no one knows what he's like yet. Jonathan is looking forward to this and very nervous at the same time. He'll find out the result sometime in mid-January. This process has been very long and slow. Chick-fil-a folks like to take their sweet time ;) They are very picky!

Thank you so much for praying with us.

Sing yourself silly!

I am taking the kids to see Veggie Tales live at our church tomorrow. Yay! I have liked Veggie Tales since college and I can't wait to see the show. Out of the three of us, I'd be getting the most of our money's worth ;) Too bad Jonathan has to work, he's going to miss it. We both have enjoyed singing along with Bod, Larry and the gang even before we had kids. We'll see how Mia and Nathan react to large silly performing vegetables. They like them on TV but my kids don't seem to like people in oversized costumes that much. In fact, even though we all love Chick-fil-a, Mia is terrified of the "COW" and her fear has made little brother waver from his friendly relationship with our favorite mascot.

Somewhat funny...

I just can't resist writing this one. It may not be funny to many but it made me smile so I'm sharing it. I was in the bathroom getting some stuff ready for our little trip. Instead of packing large bottles of shampoo and conditioner, I decided to do something I thought was space saving, one of my many smart ideas ;). Recently, I had a good friend send me my favorite brands of shampoo and conditioner from the Philippines. Back home you could buy anything "travel size" (tingi). So I got a bunch of "sachets" (as we call it, literally means little bags), squeezed them into an empty shampoo container and patiently tried to keep them from spilling. The tedious process was just about done when the light bulb turned on.... the little bags of shampoo were packaged for easy travel (and some other economic reasons) and I needed them to stay just the way they are for convenience. Wow, my labor was in vain although beneficial for later use. I wisely cut out a few of them and stuck them in my toiletry bag. What a not-so-smart moment! Oh, how I wish this even made sense.

Choo choo

Nathan was given a train table and was loaned plenty of track pieces and trains to go with it. Jonathan set it up and surprised Nathan. The reaction on his face was priceless and we caught on video. His love for his new toy turned into an obsession. He refuses to get away from it. It got bad enough that I had to put the tracks and the trains away. Out of sight, out of mind. Now that was the choo-choo story. Short and not-so-sweet!

Little news about me

I actually started a little part-time job at the Church nursery this week. One word: exhausting. I would only work a few hours a week but Thursday for Mom's Day Out is 6 hours long. Mia and a few others get escorted over to MDO that day.

At MDO, my daughter did something interesting, to say the least. While they were napping, I had to take someone to go potty and when I came back a little girl called out to me and said "teacher, Mia got up and came up to my bed and prayed for me"! I almost bursted out laughing. Do you go after Mia for getting up and talking? Or do you thank her for taking the time to pray for her friend? Anyway, I just thought that was funny.

Our little guy had a hard time at MDO, gave his teachers noise to listen to quite a lot. He was not happy that I was next door and he can't be with me. How I hope next week will be better for him.

Surprise

This morning, our little boy has asked to go potty. Well, we have had a couple of false alarms (he has asked to go before and so we thought he was ready) and we figured today was no different. To our surprise, he actually did number 1 and did it at least 4 times through out the day. When we picked Mia up from school we told her the news. I was so touched to see the reaction on her face. She was truly happy and proud of Brother. Mia is Nathan's cheer leader cuz she gets a treat as well. At the end of the day, Nathan actually did number 2 (greater surprise). It took Mia at least 7 days to master that part but her brother did it the first day! Yay! Hooray for Nathan!!!... as what we always say after his little victories.

The greater challenge is to stay consistent in putting him on the potty through out the day... Now that's where Mama-determination comes in!!!

First week of pre-k

Monday - Mia: "I asked Faith if she could be my friend". "She'll be my friend forever.

Tuesday - Mia: "Collin is my bestfriend".

Wednesday - at the parking lot, a little boy rolled down his window, called her and waved goodbye. She didn't know his name.

Thursday - Mia: "I wanna see Daddy. Why does Daddy have to work?"

Friday - Mia's note from her teacher says: "Mia had a great week. Her favorite thing to do is color". (That was news to me)

Summary: Mia doesn't like to give us details of her time in school. But I have found that if I ask specific things, it helps her remember. If I ask, "what did you do in school today, she says "nothing". Now I see how it could get worse when they become teenagers.

School is cool...

Our little girl turned 4! On Mia's birthday, we went to church and had lunch with family. She got the Cinderella cake she picked at publix a while back. Having the cake was the high light of Mia's day since she talked about it for months. She was glad Grandma had her place decorated. She asked me the night before if she would have some balloons and decoration. Towards the end she opened lots of presents.

The day after Mia's birthday was her first day of BIG school aka Pre-K. It was an interesting day. We were all anxious for different reasons. As expected, I had to wake Mia up and she wasn't happy to be asked to eat breakfast so early. When she realized where she was heading, she perked up and got ready in no time. All of us went to take her to school. Our little girl seemed so big all of a sudden! She acted so maturely, so independently. It felt bitter-sweet watching how ready she was to be in school.... not too worried about being away from us for a little while. Jonathan was there too... he wasn't doing any better either. We didn't necessarily say it but we probably felt the same.

Typical Sunday Afternoon

It's siesta time!

I'm on the computer or watching TV while the rest of my family takes a nap is normally how Sunday afternoons go. Rewind.... but before we get to this point, some things had to have happened first. We all go to church at 9:00 am, Sunday School at 10:30, gets home around noon and has lunch at 1:00 pm. Today, one of us didn't even make it to lunch. Nathan refused to even take one bite of his lunch and so off to bed he went. The 2 other members of our family followed him to dreamland a little later.

Hmmm... so now what do I do with this moment of peace and quiet? Right! What a perfect time to clean up. I do enjoy putting things away specially when there's nobody there to mess things up right after I have straightened out the place. Although I am aware that as soon as the kids get up, I won't have anything to show for my hard work. Well, I take it as labor for sanity's sake.

While putting things away, I have discovered something. I have seen symptoms of it here and there but the more I investigated, the more my suspicions became clearer. I have a mini hoarder in my house! I have found toys under the couch, the toy chest, "her" bed, inside a plastic jar tucked in somewhere, in a shoe box, in my hat, and in purses. Last night Jonathan found out that she hides 8 books inside her pillow case (and she's happy sleeping on that, ouch). What is up with all this?!?! Before we send her off to therapy (or to the Discover health show, "Hoarder"), we'll take this as a temporary obsession and hope that she'll snap out of it as soon as boredom is remedied (with going school).

Lesson learned: clean your house and you could discover something you can't resist writing about.

"Let's paint" camp

Mia is the middle of a Pre-school camp with the City of Largo. It started Monday and will end on Friday, from 9-12 nn. It is her first time to be in any kind of pre-school and I was anxious that she would not want to stay and would just be unhappy the whole time. I was wrong. She didn't look worried at all and was happy to stay. So I thought maybe she'd look "distressed" by the time I pick her up. Still wrong. Mia did really well for a first-timer (as her teacher reported). But Mama and baby brother didn't do so hot. I was anxious and Nathan was Mia-sick. Nathan cried when we dropped Ate off and called out for Mia too many times to count in 3 hours (he goes into the bedrooms looking for sister). This camp is our dry run for the start of school. When BIG school starts...we will be missing Mia and she would be having a good time and forget about us. Ohhh... Mama is experiencing separation anxiety ;) Honestly, I realized I really haven't had much time being alone with Nathan and I don't know what to do with Mia not around to require most of my attention. This is just the start of a new stage in our lives.

Reasons to smile

While looking at pictures on the computer, Mia asks.. "Mama, is she your cousin or your friend? Mia has 3 cousins on the Villacampa side and has too-many-to-count on my side. Every time I show her pictures, someone in it is a cousin.

Now here's one from Nathan. He likes to "read" ABC books and we try to teach him the alphabet and the letter sounds. While having his meal, he lifts the spoon and says, "p, p, poon". If you understand phonics this could make you laugh for a while. My kids can't say the "S" sound and it's probably because they have a Filipino mother. In Filipino, we have "sa", not "sss". Oh well...

Summer buzz!!!!

Summer time is busy around here. The kids and I are seen at the pool just about everyday. We're so dark that Jonathan stands out in our midst. Mia likes to point out how dark we are and brags that she's "chocolate".

Mia is in the middle of a 4-week swim class. She is very eager to be able to swim without her floaty and it's motivating her to be brave to learn. Her 2nd class will end by early July and she'll do 2 Pre-school camps with South West Rec after that, 1 week in July and 1 week in August. She'll be tired as soon as the summer ends and school begins. Yes, Mia starts Pre-K in the fall. I'm not sure how she feels about that yet. She brags about going to "The Big School" but that doesn't say much of what she really feels about it. But I'll tell you how I feel about it, OLD. Honestly, I'm not ready her to leave us for 3 hours everyday, every week. Nathan can't survive without her either. He asks for Mia when she's not around. I know she'll have fun and would learn a lot.

Nathan continues to grow, hasn't really gained weight lately but our little guy is little no more. He is only 5 inches shorter than Ate Mia. Many have asked me if my kids are twins. I'm not sure how to respond to that sometimes. He now sleeps in his Big boy bed and stays in it. He is down to only getting 14 hours of sleep total instead of maybe 18 hours a fews months ago ;) He doesn't hesitate using his rather powerful vocal cords. To him everything flies and has sound effects... zoommm or vrrrmmmm.

Jonathan will be one year older this weekend. Nathan will be 2 a couple of weeks later and we'll have our anniversary the next day. Did I say summer is busy around here for us? My June calendar is packed, very crowded and confusing.

So, what would I be doing? I just told you... I'd be doing what everyone else is doing, just copy/paste all that :)

Kindergarten

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First day of Kindergarten
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Mia and Ate Shekinah
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Busch Gardens - fall
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First field trip - at Great Explorations
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Date with Alaina
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Jamboree 2011
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Jamboree 2011
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Nathan's 3rd Birthday 2011

Wooden Train from Mr. Phil
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Staying cool
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Nathan's guests
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Nathan's guests
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Snack time
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Cake
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Blow!
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Cake time
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His piece
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Yummy!
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Presents
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Nathan's 2010 yearbook
Present from Dada and Mama

January, February, March

Church picnic
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30-minute wait
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Totally worth the wait!
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Fearless.....
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Ready to pack some rice
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Volunteers - packed 100,000 meals
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Quick-start tennis
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Swing, then finish!
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Rachel's birthday at Gator Fred's
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Rachel's birthday at Gator Fred's
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Rachel's birthday at Gator Fred's
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Rachel's birthday at Gator Fred's
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Little monkeys
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Christmas 2010

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Thanksgiving

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Sept-Oct, 2010

Choo choo
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Wild driving
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Learning time
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Beach boy
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Body art
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Seriously.....
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Chocolate-covered pretzels.. yum
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Gymnastics (stretching)
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Gymnastics
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Gymnastics
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Tennis (warm up)
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"swing, then finish"
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Swing
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Slide
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Sweet boy
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Little monkey
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With Faith
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"lambarena" girls
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center
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Kennedy Space Center - launch pad
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Kennedy Space Center
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Getting ready for "Dance"
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Practicing some Dance steps
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Just around the house

Recycle Bowling
Nathan is playing bowling with some empty bottles.

Mia's mitten drawing
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Faces, faces!
This is her version of our family portrait!

A is for Apron!
Mia comes home with a home work every Friday. They do a letter a week. We take pictures of things beginning with the letter of the week and paste them on a piece of paper. This project will eventually become an Alphabet book.