I'm back!

... oh my! I can't believe how time flies so quickly... I've finally found some free time and checked up my blog and lo and behold, it's been 2 years since I last wrote anything... a lot has happened that has kept me busy as a bee and as part of my new year's resolution, will try to keep blogging every now and then... have a good day everyone!

time to reminisce

... It's been such a long time since I last blogged so having some few spare moments I've decided to start again... today is the last day of school for my older kids (woohoo!), it will be their summer break and won't be back till Feb of next year... what a relief! Am looking forward to a lot of house cleaning, family bonding and of course Christmas... In all my years here, I've never felt the Christmas spirit that I used to feel back home in Manila... I remember when I was a kid that I would get excited with the coming of Christmas and New Year... hayzzz! those were the days! I'd remember that at the start of the "ber" months you'd hear Christmas songs everywhere... people'll start decorating their homes, you'll see the paroles coming out, the children singing Christmas carols every night... ahhh! what I wouldn't give to be back home at this time of the year... but anyway, what to do? I just try my best to make our lives as Christmasy and cheerful as possible, that's all I can do and try to save enough money so we can go back to Manila once in awhile for the kids to experience a different but a truly wonderful and meaningful Christmas with family and relatives... I'll end this blog with my fave pics of my three little angels...

...a very Merry Christmas to all! Stay safe peeps!

Honey Chicken

... ever since I have started baking, hubby has been bugging me to try to cook food! I keep saying that I'm not interested in cooking as I find it too hard! ang weird ko, noh? I'm more into baking because of my sweet tooth! I would rather eat something sweet than something savoury, kaya I'm better off baking hehehe...

... anywho, I was inspired the other day to try cooking an easy chinese dish. I don't know what came over me but I was determined to find an easy dish... one of my kids fave is Honey Chicken, everytime we go out to eat hindi pwedeng hindi bibili ng honey chicken, so yesterday because of my sick kids plus the rainy weather, wasn't able to do any washing so I thought it was time for me to try on my cooking skills hehehe... had already found a really easy recipe on the internet so when my son and I went grocery shopping, bought all the ingredients and voilà!

what was left of the honey chicken, take note that was a kilo of chicken when they cooked it! takaw kasi ng pamilya ko, eh! hehehe


Although, my hubby and daughter would say that they were the ones who cooked it (sila yung nag prito), I was the one who prepared it! So, it is still cooking skills for me hehehe... anyway, the end result was yummmm!!! Didn't realize that it was that easy to make it.... hmmmmm, maybe I will learn to love cooking as I learned to love baking!

Here is the recipe I found...

Honey Chicken recipe
Ingredients
1 kilo Chicken tenderloins (the original recipe called for chicken breasts but my kids don't like that part of the chicken so I just switched it to tenderloins)
1 cup flour
salt and pepper
1 cup water
1 cup honey
sesame seeds for garnish (I roasted the seeds first before I garnished it)

Method
1. Cut chicken into bite size pieces.
2. Cook chicken until brown in a small amount of oil.
3. Sift flour into bowl with salt and pepper. Gradually add water until a batter forms.
4. Roll chicken into batter a few pieces at a time, then add to hot oil and fry until golden brown.
5. In a small saucepan, heat honey on low until runny.
6. Pour over chicken and sprinkle in sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

school holidays

... kids have started school again yesterday and suddenly I've got some spare time to use the computer hehehe... the younger kids are busy playing amongst themselves (which is unusual) so here I am blogging away... can't believe my baby boy is 10 months today! Where has all that time gone? I can still remember giving birth to him and that was 10 months ago... I don't want him to grow up yet! So I am making a big effort to make the most of my time with my younger kids before they start big school...

... anyway, was able to do a bit of baking during the school holidays, got a couple of orders and I am happy to say that they are pretty happy with my cakes... nice to hear that I am able to make other people happy with what I am doing, keeps me motivated... now I am experimenting on cupcakes, it's a bit tedious because you have to bake a lot, not just one but a lot! and my hand shakes so it doesn't help hahaha!

...I was inspired by a cake I saw where it had a lot of swirled roses on top, so this was my first attempt to make a rose swirl with a plastic piping head...

... so on my next attempt, I got me the right piping head and was able to make a better version of a swirled rose...

...I had more extra icing for this cake so I decided to place a border in the bottom, looking pretty professional now, I think!

I have been debating on whether I should start experimenting on fondant icing... good thing I knew someone who was having a birthday soon, so I had an excuse to make my first fondant cake... was so happy I was able to do it coz in the middle of making the cake I was getting disappointed that I wouldn't be able to finish it in time for the party...

one of my little helpers in the kitchen... this is what I love most about having a lot of kids... a lot of helpers and a lot of taste-testers hehehe...

I finally perfected my sansrival cake, customer was very happy with it!

...made a couple of ube-macapuno cupcakes, got a lot of positive feedbacks so will be selling these pretty soon!

...experimenting on what kind of frosting to put on top of the ube cupcakes

one of my taste-testers, hehehe... she said it was "yum!"

stress

... I made this blog yesterday during a period of rest hehehe but blogger was probably down or something because I couldn't post it... so now I am posting it... am calmed down now but I still have to keep on de-cluttering, I would like to see my house spic-and-span before the school holidays are over because I am sure when school starts I will be unable to maintain it until school is over again, hayz! the work of a mom, it is never ending, not that I am complaining =D

... this is the fourth day of school holiday and I am still rushing around... I was thinking that maybe I could just sleep-in, laze around with the kids, watch a DVD or something and pig-out but I guess that will have to wait... am just so stressed when I see the house a mess! It has been like this for ages and it has finally gotten to me! Everywhere I look, I can't seem to find a spot where everything is in order and it is really bothering me!!!... have been cleaning up since I woke up this morning and I can finally see the light! mabuti na lang hehehe!... so now that I am resting a bit, I just had to blog it or else it will eat me up inside...

now how can I stay mad at these 3 little chikitings??? guess, I'll just have to endure the house being a bomb a little bit longer.. hayzzzzz!

busy, busy, busy

... today (or yesterday, to be exact since its already 2am) has been such a full-on day! Even though school has officially ended the day before... here I am still rushing around. Hay buhay! Raelene and her friends are performing their Maria Clara dance "Habanera de Jovencita" at the Phil Independence Day at Joan Sutherland, they and a lot of other Filos are presenting anything and everything about our motherland, The Philippines... how I would've loved to watch the whole show... makes me reminisce of the place where I grew up... was able to watch a bit of the show (backstage) while the girls and I were waiting for their performance... I heard a choir singing "Ang bayan kong Pilipinas" (not sure if that was the title though hehehe) made me teary-eyed as I suddenly missed Manila! Even though I have lived here for almost half of my life, I still call Manila home... what a funny thing to say! I'm pretty sure most of the Filos who have moved here have forgotten where they have come from but I absolutely cannot forget! I am still proud to call myself Filipino and my kids are proud of their heritage as well! Just thinking about this brings to mind a lot of funny stories of Filos living here (with matching exaggerated aussie accents) but I won't go thru that anymore, a lot would probably feel offended, so I just leave it at that...

Back to the show, the girls did me proud with their beautiful dance... even the audience loved it! They were the very essence of what a Filipina looks like and how graceful they were while dancing... I tried to get a video of their dance but I only had my iphone and having limited capacity, could only video halfway before the iphone told me I didn't have enough space to keep on going... so this will have to stay in my memory till the end of my days (hopefully!)... at the end of their performance, we didn't stay long as we had a party to go to... it was my father-in-law's 60th birthday party, so off we went home to get ready. I had a son who had a basketball game so we had to wait for him before we could go to the party and by then we were an hour and a half late! hahaha! Talk about pilipino time, this was absolutely the latest we've been late to a party... my sister-in-law kept on ringing us to ask what time we were going... in the end we had to take 2 cars... but anyway, it was a good party because my hubby got to meet up with his relatives whom he hasn't seen in like ages... the next big event will be his cousin's wedding in October, I hear it will be the biggest reunion of their clan as people from Canada, US and Phils will be coming here to celebrate the wedding... can't wait!

... So now I come to a close, am starting to feel sleepy now... need to get my beauty sleep as we still have to go to Mass tomorrow and start the big clean-up which has been long overdue...

...it's been awhile since I last blogged, have been so busy it's not funny... a couple of weeks ago the vomiting bug visited our home, all my kids got it... I felt sick as well but really didn't get to the vomiting stage (which is good!), moms aren't allowed to get sick hehehe...

... then there was Harmony Day, an annual event at my daughter's school which allowed us to showcase our heritage... being proud to be Filipino, I helped with organizing the stall and helped my daughter and her friends dance a Maria Clara dance called "Habanera de Jovencita"... that took us weeks of practice and I felt that it still wasn't perfect (being the perfectionist that I am) but what the heck, everyone loved it! So now, they will perform in the Phil Independence Day tomorrow and we have named their group "Ninas de Filipinas"... just love these girls =D

... a week after I was given the chance to spend time with my oldest daughter in her Mother-Daugther camp. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it since it was so cold (who would even think to book a camp in the dead of winter?), but apparently that weekend was the only booking the school could get, so there you go... but strangely enough, I had a blast! It was such a beautiful place, so serene and peaceful and the moms and daughters that came where such a delight to be with! And the activities were definitely much better than the first camp we went on 2 years ago...

... anyway, today is the last day of school and am looking forward to 3 weeks of bonding with my kids, more cake experiments and just sleeping in and lazing around... can't wait!

lazy

... too lazy to write anything today, so I've decided to post pics (again)...


... woke up yesterday morning to a really cold morning, put a beanie on my baby so he wouldn't catch a cold, I hate looking after a sick baby...

... after bringing my daughter to her basketball game (left her with her team mates as she had 2 games to play), went home to get the van ready as Pat and his friends were going to watch Pirates 4 as a birthday celebration (instead of having a party)...

... after Jeff and the boys left, I left as well to pick up my daughter and see if I can still watch a bit of her game...

... Peyton having his first lollipop!

... Peyton and Renae...

... back at home, just left Peyton to crawl around the house... he prefers it that way instead of being carried, he gets to explore!...

... Oh, Peyton! What a mess you've made...

yesterday

... yesterday was really so full-on that I can only post pics of what we've been doing, the day before I was baking an order and yesterday I was still baking away as it was my son's 12th birthday, I promised to bring a frozen brazo cake and cupcakes to his class at recess but didn't realize how quick the time came that it was lunch by the time we were able to bring the cake and cupcakes to school hahaha... talk about time management, anyway, soon after that I was still in the mood to bake so I tried to make a red velvet cake...

... cake order ...

... contact details ...

... Renae wanted a photo with the cake ...

... ube-macapuno cake, ready to go ...

... different faces of Peyton (while waiting in the car)...

... just finished icing the cupcakes... now for the sprinkles...

... this is what the kitchen looked like after all that baking... such a mess tsk! tsk! tsk!

... cupackes ready to bring to school...

... and for dessert, red velvet cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing...