One BBQ Weekend & Then Some

Sweeps and I invited a few friends to come over since hubby is itching to have some Pinoy BBQ get together. Too bad a couple of our friends were sick so we decided to just move the get together tomorrow - Labor Day.

Anyhoo, since we already worked hard to marinade the perfect Pinoy BBQ, we decided to try a few skewers and see how they would taste for tomorrow's "event" :o)

I also found some Pinoy hotdogs from the Asian store near our place so we decided to grill some hotdogs as well. I don't normally eat American hotdogs since they're too salty for me. Nothing beats our tender juicy hotdog from Pinas talga :o)

The BBQ turned out really good. At least we know when our friends come over tomorrow, hindi kami mapapahiya (we wouldn't be embarassed) since it's our first time to grill Pinoy BBQ :o)

we marinate the pork butt overnight

skewers were soaked in water for 30 minutes before we thread the pork

hubby sporting a bushy hair (needs a haircut badly!). he prefers charcoal grills than gas or electric so he's happy with the cheap $25 bucks grill from walmart, haha :o)

feeling the role of being the cook for the day :o) what's up with guys and bbq's?

pork bbq with pinoy hotdogs on the grill

turned out really good, tender and moist. good job my sweeps!

Before grilling, hubby and I went to look for some bargains at the mall. We found out that Linens and Things are closing their stores countrywide so we thought they might have some sale going on. Good thing we went and checked it out. We finally got some Cephalon cookware we've been wanting to get for the longest time but they're too pricey. We got some omellette pans and a wok since those are the only 2 we're missing from the anonized non-stick set.

We also got some comfy shoes. Yep, finally, I got my hubby to buy some shoes for himself cuz he's the typical guy who's just happy with 4 pairs (3 casuals and 1 formal). Of course, I got a few comfy cutesies as well which are both on sale from Nordstrom Rack :o) See, my feet and legs get sore really fast these days so I really needed some comfy shoes especially that I walk a lot (yeah, yeah, yeah, some more justification, ha!)

So there goes our Sunday, Happy Labor's Day everyone!!!

PS. Dang, it's September already?????

How to Deal with Dogs Having Diarrhea

Our Chewy has the most sensitive stomach there is and ever since we adopted him more than a year ago, he had to go through bouts of diarrhea about 4x already. So as you can imagine, by this time, I already know what I need to do so he could recover a bit faster - without having to bring him to the vet.

This is just some home remedy I want to share with dog owners out there but I want to make it clear that if your pet doesn't get better after 24 hours, you may need to bring him to the vet, pronto!

So here's the step by step process I would normally do the moment I find out that my dogs' stomach are acting funny and their poop's a bit mushy and all.

1) Feed your pet with a combination of cooked white rice (basmati or jasmine), boiled boneless chicken breast (no salt, just plain boiled chicken) and a dollop of yogurt (I know, sounds gross, but yogurt or any probiotics would help ease their stomach).

plain white rice + shredded boiled chicken breast

plain, fat-free yogurt only. other flavors might have too much sugar.

dollop of yogurt

2) Make sure you spread of the amount of food you normally give them at a time. Example, if you feed them with 1 cup of kibble 2x a day, just feed them half a cup of the rice & chicken mixture and spread his 2 cups throughout the day (feed them half a cup 4x instead of 1 cup, 2x a day). Does this make any sense?

3) For every 50lb body weight, give them half a tablet of chewable Pepto Bismol every 6 hours within the next 24 hours. You have to be a bit sneaky so they could eat this tablet. In my case, I had to hide it inside a small piece of bread and put it on Chewy's bowl with his chicken & rice wet poopy diet and it never fails every time.


4) If your dog doesn't get better after 24 hours, please bring him to the vet. Don't give him any more Pepto Bismol after 24 hours.

5) If your dog shows some improvement the next day, continue to give him this diet for the next couple of days until you see his poop getting firmer. Then slowly add back his kibble with this diet until you can fully bring him to eat his kibble as is.

mix them all up, gross but good for their upset stomach

6) Here's a short video of my dogs eating this diet. Chewy had firm poop for the past few days already so I gave him the chicken & rice diet plus a bit of his kibble. Tomorrow, I'm going to start giving him 80% kibble and 20% rice until I can fully give him 100% kibble.



You might be wondering how come I'm giving Skye the same diet. I know cuz my husband was asking me the same question. It's because chicken and rice smells better for dogs and I didn't want Skye to think that Chewy is eating better food than she is. So whenever one of them gets sick and I had to feed this diet, I gotta make sure I give them both to avoid jealousy. Am I weird or am I weird? (*wink*)

12 Weeks and Counting!

According to Baby Center, here's our bebe's progress as of his/her 12th week :o)

How your baby's growing:

The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

Mommy Diaries #3

Hi sweetie,

Daddy and I are so relieved seeing you for the 2nd time, growing steadily inside mommy's tummy. Plus we can't contain our excitement as checkup#2 with the Dr is when we were hoping to finally get to hear your heartbeat.

The Dr had to put some gooey and jelly-like substance on mommy's tummy for the doppler. This is the instrument they use that could magnify the sound of your heartbeat so we could all hear it. However, we're guessing it's because you're still too small that's why we didn't hear the swooshing sound of your heart. Both mommy and daddy were worried but good thing the Dr reassured us that you're A-ok. He took the sonogram instead and had an ultrasound so we can see you and check your heartbeat. Imagine the smile on our faces when we saw you sleeping steadily and that teeny heart of yours beating and flickering on the screen. Boy, you've grown bigger sweetie!!! We're sooo happy everything looking good with you at 11 weeks and 2 days!

The only concern the doctor has is that mommy's blood pressure is going up a bit. Maybe because during our vacation last week, we've been eating some less healthier food than normal. The doc said that we have to keep track of it or else they would have to prescribe some blood pressure meds. There's definitely no way mommy's going to take any meds while you're inside her tummy so we just gotta exercise some more and eat healthier food.

Anyhoo, mommy's going to do her best to eat right so you can get the nutrition you need to help you grow stronger and bigger. So no going out for mommy and daddy, everything's going to be home cooked meal from now on, ok?

Know that we love you and we can't wait to meet you. We have longways before that... but for the meantime, let us cherish and enjoy this stage with you.

kisses,
mommy and daddy

Left My Heart In San Francisco

After enjoying 4 days of awesome weather in the Bay Area, hubby and I are back to reality that we do live in Arizona where temperature is just so hot hot hot.

Anyhoo, we were at the Bay Area since Thursday last week and came back last night. We went to San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Napa/Sonoma, Fairfield. We could have drove further south (Monterey & Santa Cruz) but with the itenerary that we have, it's more practical for us to stay up north.

There were a few interesting places I would like to visit in San Francisco but it was just too dang foggy during the day we allotted for it. Maaan... I wonder when would we ever go back there?

Aside from sight-seeing and visiting some dear ones, I could say that eating Filipino food is one of our agenda so lemme post some pics of what Pinoy dishes we tried while we were there. I haven't uploaded the pics in Facebook yet, so nothing to show here until I get it done. So here goes the yummy food I've been craving for the past few days. We ate from Max's and Jollibee. These food were from Max's. We were super hungry when we got to Jollibee, we forgot to take pictures before gorging the palabok and chicken joy, ha!

We were supposed to go further down in Milpitas area where they have Barrio Fiesta since I want to try their uber tasty kare-kare. However, we ran out of time so we just returned back to Max's (at the 11th hour before our flight back to Phoenix) which is closer to the airport to eat kare-kare. It's still good, but nothing compares to the kare-kare from Barrio Fiesta. Oh well, maybe next time :o)

jollibee along downtown san francisco

max's philippines in south san francisco

fresh lumpia from max's - day 2 dinner

half fried chicken from max's (sarap to the bones!) - day 2 dinner

shrimp fried rice from max's - day 2 dinner

kare kare - day 4 dinner (1.5 hrs before our flight)

alamang for the kare kare - day 4 dinner

The Fat and the Ugly

Presenting... the Fat Bebe (our sweet giant tri-colored Chewy) and the Ugly Bebe (our smart, rambunctious pitch black Skye)!

These kiddos never fail to make us laugh every single day. I dunno how in the world could their ex-owners (we adopted them) give them up just like that.

They're exactly the opposite of each other's characters so imagine how animated our lives are with them. Chewy being the sweet, gentle, please-give-me-a-hug kinda guy and Skye being the oh-i-wanna-play-i-wanna-play-i-wanna-play kinda girl. Ha!

But nevertheless, they're a bunch of sweethearts who we love so dearly :o)

I think they know I was taking their pics so they're posing a bit.

Sorry for the grainy pics, I was playing with my G9's different ISO levels.

Mommy Diaries #2

Hello our Little Bebe!

How did you like the Maroon 5 song yesterday sweetie? I was engrossed into listening and I thought I'd share with you what was making me wanna dance to the groove yesterday :o) I hope the ipod's earphone was good enough for you to hear the songs. Maybe next time I'd use a head phone instead :o)

Daddy didn't seem to be too happy with the choice of songs I'm making you listen to. He said he already found some classical music that I could download to my ipod. These kinda music might make me fall asleep at work though, hahaha. But it's ok, let's see if you're going to like any of them :o) They're good for us cuz there had been some studies before linking classical music with sharper brain functions.

Did you get scared when daddy started tapping mommy's tummy and playing some rhythm kinda like drum sounds? Yeah, I thought so too, but I just want you to know that he has the best intentions for doing that. He said that at this stage, he'd want you to become more familiar with music and what rhythm is like as mommy seemed to miss that aspect so she's not too coordinated with her moves, hahah :o)

You're dad is awesome with music and he's a natural dancer, so I hope you'd get the same talent from him :o)

We can't wait to see you in our next ultrasound scheduled Monday next week!!!

love,
Mommy & Daddy

PS: I'm glad you liked the sinigang and ginisang monggo. Your dad hate those.

Mommy Diaries #1

Ok, so I decided it would be nice to document our journey to parenthood. Just so by the time our Little Bebe grows up and could already read, he/she would have some idea what joys and challenges we have to go through to welcome him/her to our world :o)

It would be neat to have a separate blog for the whole journey but I know I'd just be setting myself up for failure if I do that. Maintaining a single blog is already a manifold of effort from my end let alone bringing up another one.

So to our Little Bebe, hope that this would help a bit to manifest how much of an impact you've had in our lives the moment we found out we're having you :o)

Lemme start off with what had happened yesterday...


08.09.08 - Mommy Diaries #1

1) Mommy realized that Little Bebe didn't like orange juice as much as she does. I had to throw up 3x yesterday before I figured out that it was the mighty OJ that's causing my sudden retaliation with whatever food I used to be able to keep down. Hmmm, what's up with OJ sweetie? It's good for us both, rich in Calcium and Vitamin C. I guess I can't complain as I don't fully own my body now - now that I share it with you. We have to have some good teamwork so both of us would be happy and healthy as we go through all these changes together.

2) Daddy came back home from his DJ gig late last night and had to eat some left-over we had last Friday from that Mongolian place. Remember, we were both enjoying it at the restaurant? What I didn't understand though was your sudden aversion with the fish cod smell when daddy heat up his food? We used to enjoy eating fish together. Now I'm not sure if I could still even try to eat any fish at all. I'm scared that you end up not liking it and I had to purge everything. You see sweetie, mommy doesn't like having to hug the toilet bowl for the amount of food I had to throw up everytime you didn't like any of it.

Thank goodness you still like the smell of raspberry scented candle. Made mommy sleep soundly through the night as it overpowered the pungent aroma of daddy's dinner.

So there sweetie, daddy and I are going to update this every so often so you have some memories of what the 3 of us had to go through as you become bigger inside mommy's tummy. We love you sweetie, be nice ok?

We're Downsizing!

I heard from my newly-parents friends that their lives had completely changed since they've had kids. Apparently, most parents & parents-to-be began to live their lives completely revolving around their little ones. I really find this disheartening though. I thought when our turn comes, we'd be different. We'd still make sure we'd balance our roles so parenthood wouldn't get too overwhelming.

Right.

However, it's just been a few weeks since we've found out about our "Little Bebe" but it looks to me that most of our weekends were already occupied preparing for the coming of the little squirt. We re-arranged our bedroom, got rid of our huge boob tube so we can have space for the baby's crib. We also started cleaning up the other bedroom so we can start working on the nursery. So the latest thing we decided to pursue these days is to sell our 3-year old suede sofa set to make room for a smaller set.

Our house is pretty small and the furniture we currently have were purchased back when we were still renting a house - a much much bigger house. So we knew that eventually, we'd have to let go of our old ones and get a new set of furniture that would fit into our smaller house. Now is the right time to sell them.

Good thing through the years, I've learned to detach myself from any material things, hence I don't have that much emotional attachments to any "stuff" I know I wouldn't keep forever. Hubby is the one having a hard time letting go for some reason, hahaha :o) He's a pack rat kinda guy which irritates me to my guts these days.

Anyways, as we say bye-bye to our old living room set, we would like to welcome the new one - smaller, easier to clean, kids and pet friendly :o) I'm one happy camper!

How I Told My Hubby We're Expecting

A few of my friends had been asking me how I told hubby when I found out we're pregnant. Hmmm, I thought it's time to blog about it and satisfy their curiosity :o)

For the past week or so, I've been having a very bad PMS. I don't usually get bothered by cramps before my period but this time it felt a bit different. But still, I'm expecting it anytime. I was a bit bummed because I kept on cancelling my skating trails class since I was waiting for my period to come. My friend Emily, at the same time, was bugging me to continue our usual stair climbing during lunch but I kept on telling her I just can't because I was having this weird PMS. She told me I should check at home cuz I might be pregnant. I laughed. No way!!!!

The next morning, I was up at 4am. I thought, oh well, let me just pee on the stick to just get it over with. I was sooo sure I'd get a negative reading anyways. Afterall, I was having PMS, so I know I'd be getting my period soon.

So I was happily waiting for the result while hubby was totally zonked. Then the moment of truth came - PREGNANT. I was like "no way, no way no way!!!" Too bad I only had 1 stick left so I have no other way to test again until I buy another box. Dang.

I remembered a friend of mine told me before that once it says "PREGNANT", it's 100% sure you are.

So I was thinking what would be the best way to tell hubby??? I mean, it's just a bit after 4am and I couldn't wait any longer to keep this to myself, haller???!!

So I quickly found an old gift box (still with a bow stuck on it) and wrote a note and put it inside the box along with the home pregnancy stick I used (hey, I made sure it was totally clean and I put the cap back on, ha!). Then I woke hubby up. He's like "What's going on?". I told him I have a surprise for him and that I couldn't wait. Then quickly I gave him his glasses and the "box".


He opened it and the first thing that came out of his mouth was "NO WAY!!!!" I was like "YES WAY!" Then he hugged and kissed me and we talked a bit on when to tell our family and such. For some reason we started addressing the kiddo, "Little Bebe". Well, partly because we addressed Chewy & Skye as "Fat Bebe" & "Ugly Bebe", respectively so naturally, our terms of endearment to the new addition to our family has got to have the word "Bebe" and some adjective before that. Hahaha! Then we both went back to bed :o)

So there, that's the story of how hubby got to know :o)