My very first WordPress entry was about conversations with Abby.  That was only a good 6 months ago.  It was actually already my third entry on “abbyisms”, the first being Toddler Talk and the 2nd, Conversations.  Abby has become so much more articulate since, so much so that hubby and I are often left staring at each other with both of our eyebrows raised in wonderment, as if to ask, “Where did that come from?”  A lot of times, we can’t help but simply let out a hearty giggle, amused at the words that Abby just uttered.  I know that there’s still a lot more of those funny and amusing conversations, one-liners and at the very least, words to come.  So I thought it only proper to come up with Abby Talk.  It will surely be making regular appearances on this site.

oOo

We’ve been living in Austin for almost 5 months now (almost 8 for hubby), but it’s still safe to say that Abby has not acquired the so-called twang just yet.  It’s inevitable though that she does,  specially since she’s already going to school and interacting with other people on a daily basis.  Abby is starting to pronounce words a little differently than my 32-year old tongue would and does.  And there are even times when my 3-year old corrects me!  Can you believe that?!  Take for example, the name of one of Abby’s classmate:  Taylor.  I say “Tail-or” while Abby says “Tail-err”.  How about Lincoln?  Another one of Abby’s classmates!  My ego got a bit of a beating after I got corrected for saying “Ling-kun” (not to be mispronounced as “Ling-koon”!).  According to Abby, it’s “Ling-ken”.  Here’s two more:  Sammy is “Sehmmy” and bangs is “bengs”.  Hee hee!

For a while, Abby couldn’t say the name of her teachers, Ms. Viola and Ms. Heather (ballet) correctly.  She ends up saying “Ms. Blowla” and “Ms. Feather”.  For the longest time, she’s been saying “seatplate” instead of “seatbelt”.  Nowadays, she has no more problems saying these names/word. 
There are times, of course, when Abby gets scolded, such as when she calls us, “Guys!” as in, “Hey guys!” to get our attention or when she calls either hubby or me (mostly hubby!), “Bubblehead!”  We are not really bothered though, because we know that to her, these words are meaningless and were probably picked up from tv or from her classmates.  That’s not to say we don’t explain what was wrong with what she said.  But you can just do so much explaining to a 3-year old.

oOo

Abby loves to pick on her dad.  Cases in point as follows:

1)  Before heading out to the garage so we could go on our way to drop Abby off in school, I stopped at the dining room to put my shoes on, the very same ones that Abby has on (Remember our identical Nikes?)…

Abby:  Mommy, we have same shoes?

Mommy:  Yes, because we’re cool.

Abby:  We’re cool!

Then she takes a look at her dad’s feet, all comfy in green Old Navy flip-flops (read: tsinelas)…

Abby:  Daddy!  You’re not cool!

2)  Abby’s music cd was playing in the car when hubby started singing along.  That was just Abby’s cue to pounce on her Dad…

Abby:  Daddy!  You, not good singer!  Mommy is good singer.  Me too!

 O ha?  Di  ko inimbento ‘yan!  Nyahahaha!  See, I have a number one fan in the person of my daugher.
 3)  One night during dinner, hubby reprimanded Abby for doing something inappropriate (like dipping her fingers in her cup of water or using her spoon and fork as drum sticks)….

Abby:  Bubblehead. (Abby whispers in retaliation, yet not quite inaudible.)

Hubby:  What did you say?!!  (Smoke now starting to come out of his nose and ears.)

Abby:  Nothing.  (Looking innocently surprised at Daddy’s question.)

Hubby:  I told you not to say bubblehead!!

Abby:  I did not say bubblehead.  I said bubble bath.

Naku, nagpalusot pa!  Hahaha!

That will be all for now.  I’ll save the others for later, when blog moments prove to be scarce.

The lady of the house, Abby, has been dabbling in art lately.  And mind you, it’s not just one form!
First off, the visual arts:

08 September 2007 -  Austin Museum of Art (AMOA)

Families take center stage at the Austin Museum of Art every 2nd Saturday of the month.  Each family can get in the museum for a discounted fee of only $5 for members and $7 for non members.  The nice lady at the reception suggested that we take a look at the main gallery first before proceeding to the Family Room (where all the kiddie fun is!).  Ok!  A shot of culture won’t hurt!  Hee hee!  There’s an on-going exhibition at the main gallery,  “Extra-Ordinary: The Everyday Object in American Art”, organized by the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.  I won’t even attempt to describe the pieces that I saw, except that they were fun and interesting. :D 

After viewing the exhibits in the gallery, we finally proceeded to the Family Room so Abby can start having fun.  Kids were doing projects using vegetables.  The first one: they pick out several vegetables of their choice, lay them on the copier and have them, uhm, photocopied.  The kids then color the the paper where images of the veggies have been copied.  It’s kind of a warm up for bigger, better and messier things to come. :D  Can you identify the veggies on Abby’s project?  I spy with my little eye: a broccoli, green beans, a cabbage, a mushroom, a turnip, and something else that I forgot already. :D 

For Abby’s 2nd project, we went to another room where she got to stamp vegetable and other food imprints on paper.  I was a little horrified with the project at first, because silly me dressed Abby up in white pants.  Oh well!  Hubby and I just kept reminding Abby to keep her hands off her pants.

Daddy was Abby’s designated assistant.  He’s very brave!  He didn’t mind that he was wearing white.  Nyahaha!  I was the designated photographer (as always) and clean-up girl.  ;)  I did help out with the stamping and the dipping in paint part as well.

These are the finished projects.  Abby made 2. :D  Can you guess the different kinds of food that she used to make the imrpints?  I spy with my “beautiful eye” an apple, corn, marshmallows, a cookie, an orange, a mushroom…heck I even see a handprint! 

Not quite satisfied with the amount of art works she has made thus far, Abby tried her hand in sculpting as well! ;) 

22 September 2007 - Fun Fall Festival at Lakeline Mall

Every month, the Lakeline Mall organizes an activity for the members of its Kidgits Club.  That’s where we headed off last Saturday.

Fall was in full swing at the mall and Abby had fun painting her tiny pumpkin and rolling it in glitter.  We came prepared this time.  I brought Abby’s smock so I won’t have to worry about paint gettting on her clothes.  Oo na, OC na!

Abby shows off her beglittered pumpkin.

Next, Abby decorated a picture frame by gluing different kinds and colors of leaves.  I helped her a little with the gluing.

Tada!  Here’s Abby and her picture frame.

That pretty much sums up the visual arts part.  Let’s move on to the performing arts.
21 September 2007 - 1st Day of Dance Class

Last Friday was the first day of Abby’s dance class with Kinderdance.  She’s been bugging me about ballet and ice skating.  The beauty of this is that classes are held once a week at Abby’s pre-school.  The class is an hour long divided into 30 minutes of ballet for the first half and 30 minutes of tap for the 2nd half.  The only disadvantage is that since it’s not held in a regular dance studio, there’s no viewing window.  But as we say in Tagalog, hubby and I are maabilidad. :D  Hubby parked the car right outside the classroom’s big windows and we were able to see much of the class while we waited it out in the car.  We just had to do a lot of squinting because the window reflections didn’t help us one bit.

As always, we took plenty of pics at home before heading off to the school.  Abby’s tights are a little big.  She can wear it until she’s 6.

We took pics in school as well!  Abby had to wait a little because the rest of the class is still being helped into their dance uniforms. 

I hope to be able to post pics and maybe a short video clip of Abby in ballet and tap action. ;) 

That would be all for now.  May I just say in closing that I’m so glad Abby took after me.  Nyahaha!

I was tagged by both Thess and Nell to show a screenshot of my computer’s (laptop) desktop.  For all it’s worth, here it is in all its cluttered glory….

Now allow me to explain a little.  The laptop I’m using is a “hand-me-down” from hubby.  He only used it for a short time because the brand is Dell.  He had been issued a new laptop because he can’t bring the Dell laptop when he goes to meet with HP.  And since the company did not ask for the previous laptop to be returned (at least not just yet!), I’m laptopsitting it for now, until hubby surprises me with a new one I can call my own. 
As you can see, almost half the screen is occupied by icons, mostly hubby’s.  There are also several games for Abby which were downloaded from the internet.  See, that’s one more reason I need my own laptop.  Abby shares this laptop with me!  Hee hee! :D  The screensaver is a collage of Abby’s flowergirl pics taken in March.  Hubby, chose this as well.  I haven’t thought of changing it until now. :D

As per the rules of this meme, I have to tag 5 other people.  Before I do that, here are the instructions:

A.  Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun.

You can do a screen capture by: [1] Going to your desktop and pressing the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key). [2] Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste (CTRL + V). [3] If you wish, you can “edit” the image, before saving it.

B. Post the picture in your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop just below it if you want. You can explain why you preferred such look or why is it full of icons. Things like that.

C. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktop as well.

D. Add your name to this list of Free Viewers with a link pointing directly to your Desktop Free View post to promote it to succeeding participants.

Thesserie; Dom Lawrence; Rebecca; Blue Panjeet; Rose; Beng; Knoizki; Sardonicnell; Weng

I’m tagging the following people: 

Keith, Pinky, JenB, Elapot & Dang.

This is Flan A….

It’s a disaster of a leche flan.  I might as well call it “lecheng flan”.  Excuse the language.  :D 

But wait!  I have a Flan B…

Now that’s redemption. :D  Exactly how a leche flan should be…soft, smooth, melt in your mouth goodness!  I’m calling this “Leh-cheh!  Flan!”  My Nanay (maternal grandma), as well as my Mom and all her siblings can all make leche flan in their sleep.  This oughta make them proud. ;)  Yey me! 

I received another award!  It’s the “Nice Matters Award” and I got two of it from two different people. Yipee!  The first I received from Thess on the 1st of September.  And the next came a good week after, from Nell, on 8th September. ;)  The award is given out to

“Those who are just nice people, good blog friends, and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration! Those who care about others, who are there to lend support, or those who are just a positive influence in our blogging world.”

Here’s what Nell had to say…

“Weng.  Another dashing mommy! Her stories about her cute and pretty munchkin has kept me on top of things, as far as taking care of my own toddler. I learn from her experiences, just by reading her blog. Somehow, (I dont know how) there’s this connection I have with her. Maybe because she’s a Munchkin Mommy and I’m a Daddy Yo!“

O ha?!  To Thess and Nell, thank you so much for the award.  I am really touched.  The fact that it came from two people whom I’ve only met very recently but have definitely made a connection with makes it all the more special.
I’m supposed to pass the award on to 7 people.  That’s just the number of people in my blogroll. Hahaha!  Let me just give a short speech first…

I used to frown at the idea of meeting people over the internet.  I might have even thought or said that it would be something only lonely or desperate people would resort to doing.  I’m the last person who would ever make friends through the internet, or so I thought.  Then, I started blogging.  And suddenly, the world became a tad smaller.  As I am really a shy person, I’m still finding it a bit hard to leave a comment at another person’s blog entry, which can be likened to coming up to someone to introduce myself…but I’m working on it. :D  I’m just glad that there are bloggers who are not as shy. :)  And I have to say, I’ve made friends with a couple of truly nice people.  It may have been different if this were a face to face thing as I am often taken for suplada. ;)  Then, I probably wouldn’t be making as many friends.  Hee hee! 

I would like to honor the following people,  with the Nice Matters Award:

First, the two people who gave it to me…

Thess - It couldn’t be more than two months since Thess found me (through Nell!).  And I’m glad she did!  She currently holds the distinction of being my only blogger friend based in Europe, Holland to be more specific.  Don’t you think that’s cool? :D  She inspires me to take nice pics, to present food nicely and to sing…but my voice can only do so much.  Nyahaha! :)  I appreciate and just love the sincerity in the messages you leave in my comments box, it’s as if we’ve known each other a lot longer.  I’m so glad we became friends, Thess!    

Nell -  If my memory serves me right, he found me through Abby.  :D  I appreciate the fact that he is very candid in his manner of writing.  What you read is what you get!   I love reading his posts, which are often filled with emotions that he very successful conveys to his readers…frustration over co-workers, kilig over past loves, sense of accomplishment for a meal well done, etc. :)  And I have to say, he has very interesting stories to share. ;)  His posts are also always accompanied by great pics!  Kainggit!  I look forward to reading more of your colorful stories, Nell.  Keep ‘em coming! :D 

Second, very nice people whom I’ve met through the wonderful world of blogging and whom I consider as friends…

Abby of Between the Moon and New York City (again!)

Ela of Tales of the Domesticated Husband’s Wife 

Jen of I Came, I Saw, I Blogged….the Return

Dang of My Married Life 

Third, my roster won’t be complete if I don’t include my most favorite blogger…

Meeya of Confessions of a Domesticated Party Girl (again!) - Meeya and I met in high school and for a long time, we lost touch.  Through our blogs, I’d safely say we got to know each other all over again, and better. :D  This is going to be for keeps.  Meeya is just everything the award is for.

Don’t wait to receive it before giving it away.  So go ahead and honor your favorite bloggers with the Nice Matters Award.  ;)