I was supposed to post this as a follow up to this last Tuesday.  Sorry for the delay!  I am posting it now, at almost 1am because in a few hours, our restless feet will be going somewhere blog worthy again (hopefully!).  Come to think of it, I haven’t even gotten around to finishing the entries from our July vacation!  But I will…one way or another. 

oOo

Halloween and the day immediately after were filled with treats.  No tricks whatsoever!

October 31st

We originally planned to go trick or treating at the Outlet Mall, but ended up at another mall closer to where we live.  Our group of 12 (5 adults and 7 kids) were at the mall at exactly 6pm.

It’s funny how Abby just automatically raises one arm, as if to fly, when I take pictures.

Here’s another pic with Abby raising her arm.

See what I mean?  But here’s one of Abby in the trademark hands-on-waist Superman stance.

It took us about an hour and a half to complete our rounds of participating stores at the mall.  The kids enjoyed a few of their treats right away!

From the mall, we went around my friend’s neighborhood.  It was a beautiful night and the weather was perfect!  It was our (Hubby, Abby and me) first time to go house to house and we all had so much fun, specially because we had wonderful company.

We are already looking forward to next year.  In our own neighborhood perhaps?  And I mean where our own house will be?  Come on, think positively with me!

November 1st

The day after halloween, we attended our first halloween/costume party.  It was potluck and with six families in attendance, it was a halloween fiesta!

I was able to convince Hubby to at least wear a cape.  I used the cape I had from last year, while Abby wore her Snow Princess costume, which now fits her perfectly (it was still too long for her last year!).

Photo by one of our paparazzi friends, A.S.

I’m glad Abby agreed to wear this costume.  She initially wanted to wear the pink Barbie gown she wore at the mall exactly a week before the party.

The kids were kept busy with game after game after game plus some crafts.  They all brought home tons of treats.  It felt like Christmas!

Abby being mummified by Nicole

The kids sticking eyes, nose and mouth to each of their pumpkins.

Here’s a short slideshow of pics from the party, all of which were taken by A.S.  I’m still waiting for the pics from the rest of our paparazzi friends.

Beautifully taken pics, ‘no?  I feel a camera ache coming.  Hush. Hee hee!

And that was our halloween weekend.  Can you believe it’s the weekend again?  Let’s all have a wonderful one!  Cheers!

We had a spooktacular weekend!  On Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with the Trans and the Umalis at the mall and at the Trans’ neighborhood.  The following day, November 1st, we had a post-Halloween costume party with our “barangay”.  Yesterday, November 2nd,  we attended the 4th birthday party of Milo, youngest son of my dear friend Bet. I am beat.  It is now 12:51 am of November 3rd and I should be getting some much needed beauty rest.  But I can’t just yet because I’m dying to share photos of Abby in her Supergirl costume.

I hope you can handle a dozen photos.  The stories (and even more photos!) I will just have to share tomorrow. *cross fingers*

Without further ado, I present to you, Super Abby.

I won’t ever be able to pick just one favorite photo for posting, as far as Abby’s pics are concerned.  That you know by now.

Abby, you’re my superhero! Mmmwah!

Have a great week ahead, y’all!  Cheers!

Halloween isn’t ’til the 31st but a lot of establishments, malls specially, and bookstores like Borders, already had a head start on the Halloween fun.  We kicked-off the Halloween festivities last Saturday at our second favorite mall (our most favorite being the Outlet Mall).

The mall festivities was from 12nn to 2pm.  There were games, arts and crafts, a bounce house for jumping fun and photo op sponsored by the Picture People.  I was initially afraid to dress Abby up in a costume because she might end up being the only child in costume.  I immediately felt relieved as soon as we got to the activity area and saw little princesses, superheroes, furry animals and the like milling around.

What’s halloween without candy?

I miss my pamangkins (nephew and neices) back home a lot more than I already do during festivities like this.  I know soon, we’ll be trick or treating together again…here. *wink*

We have a full weekend ahead.  Come Friday night, we’ll be trick or treating at the mall, although we have yet to decide which mall.  And Saturday we’ll be attending our first real halloween party with our NFFs (new found friends).  Sunday, we have a birthday party to attend.  Yes, it’s going to be tiring but we don’t really care.  “Fun tired” is always better than “rock bored”.

oOo

I also had a personal halloween kick-off last Saturday evening.  I baked some chocolate cupcakes and had a dress frosting rehearsal of sorts which had Abby practically salivating on the kitchen table so early the next morning.

Photo Title: “Makahulugang Tingin”

Photo Title:  “Maitim na Balak”

I posted more monster cupcake photos here.

Let’s all enjoy the rest of the week! 

Sa pagdiriwang ng kaarawan ng mga bata, hindi na bago ang pagkakaroon ng temang “Farm Party”.  Ngunit noong nakaraang Linggo, isang bago (bago para sa aming mag-anak!) Farm Party ang dinaluhan namin dahil unang-una sa lahat, ito’y literal na farm party na ginawa talaga sa farm.

Simple lang ang pagdiriwang ngunit masaya!  Isa sa mga talaga namang bagong palaro ay ang paghahanap ng mga premyo sa ilalim ng mga damo (hay).  Ayaw ni Abby noong una ang lumuhok at maghukay ng premyo sa damuhan.  Hahaha!  Hanggang sa tinulungan namin siya ng kaniyang ama at ipinakita kung ano ang dapat gawin.

Mayroon ding maliit na bouncer kung saan nagtatalon ang mga bata.  At siyempre, hindi kumpleto ang farm kung walang mga manok.  Ika nga ni Abby sa mga manok, “bok bok, bo-bo-bok!”

Mayroon ding stamp at tattoo section…

Opisyal nang tungkulin ng aking asawa ang paglalagay ng tattoo kay Abby.

Nagenjoy din ang mga bata ssa paglalagay ng mga tatak/stamps sa mga blangkong papel.

At ang pinakanagpasaya sa mga bata. ang pony rides!

May tatlong ponies sa farm na siyang salit-salit na sinakyan ng mga bata.

Makatlong ulit yatang sumakay ng pony si Abby.  Una niyang sinakyan ang kulay itim.

Mabuti at may mga nakatatandang humihila sa mga ponies. 

Sumunod namang sinakyan ni Abby ang puting pony.

May kapilyahan ang pony na ito.  At lagi ring gutom!

Ikinatakot ko na baka matapos ang party ay magpabili ng pony ang anak ko!  Hindi bale, maraming “My Little Pony” sa tindahan.

Matapos ang pagsakay-sakay sa kabayo, nauhaw ang alaga ko…hindi na bago ‘yun.  Hahaha!

Mahigit isang taon na kami sa Texas at patuloy pa rin ang pagdating ng mga bago at masasayang karanasan. :)  At natitiyak kong marami pang darating!

Isa pang bago DITO.

Mabuhay!

Where FB stands for Facebook, EB for eye ball and Weebee, well, that needs no explanation. :)  Having said that, let me announce to the whole world that we just found ourselves some new friends *insert “Weebee!” here*  Filipino friends at that!  It all started with a message I left on cousin Millie’s Facebook wall last Thursday:  “

Belated happy birthday to Alyssa! Hugs and kisses from all of us here in Austin! Mmmwah!

A few minutes later, I got a message in my FB inbox from Lori, a friend of wonder twin sisters Millie (wife of Hubby’s first cousin, Monty) and Carrie, who happen to be living in Austin as well.  Lori was just telling me how glad she was that her former classmates Millie and Carrie “know” someone in Austin.  I was surprised, too, to find out that Millie and Carrie know someone other than our family of three here in Austin.  The next day, I sent Lori an email, too, telling her where I am exactly.  And guess what, we live in the same community!  Just a stone’s throw away from each other!  The emails led to live chats and then to an actual phone call, an impromptu invitation to Lica’s (Lori’s daughter) 7th birthday party scheduled the following day, and finally, an eyeball after I picked up Abby from school last Friday.  All these happened in a matter of three hours or so last Friday.  As I told Carrie, ang bilis ng mga pangyayari!  Not that I’m complaining!  Hee hee.  We, of course, accepted the invitation to Lica’s party.

For the first time in the more than one year that we’ve been living in Texas, we attended a kiddie party exactly the way we know kiddie parties to be…fun-filled and food-filled, too (think pancit, dinuguan, fried chicken, at marami pang iba!)  Hee hee.  With Lica’s guests numbering over 70, it was the most number of Filipinos we’ve seen gathered in one place here in the US since we moved here!  If you’ve read the book The Host, I tell you, I felt what Wanderer/Melanie must have felt when she discovered a cave-full of humans!  Hahaha!

The best part is meeting and being welcomed by a warm and friendly bunch of people.  It would have been nice if we had the chance to meet and mingle with everybody but that would be stretching our luck far too much.  Hubby and I met about 4 or 5 other couples who also live in our community.  We didn’t realize there were so many Filipinos practically next door to us.  Gosh, we really don’t get out much…well, we do, but… :D  Abby made some new friends, too, friends whom, hopefully, she will see again and again and again.

Hubby and I went home with silly smiles on her face.  We teased each other about having new friends, “Uuuy, may friends ka na!”.  :P  Hubby may have friends from work but it is I who actually has friends (Bet and Ate Aileen) that we hang out with.  So the joke’s more on Hubby than me!

What a difference several days make!  I’ve made more friends since my last blog entry!  When you’re living thousands of miles away from everything familiar, you just can’t not welcome anything or anyone that brings you a tad closer to home.  Thank you, God, for a most wonderful weekend miracle!

To Lori and Chris, Alet and Edwin, Weng and Andre, Michelle and Andrew and Camille and Art, we say thank you, for a very warm welcome.  It was such great pleasure meeting all of you and we had a truly wonderful time.

Unfortunately, blogging moment as it was, I didn’t get to take pictures.  Just believe when I say that I didn’t make any of these up. *wink*

oOo

Moving on to other things…

To the five people who subscribe to my feeds, you may have noticed that my feeds are now  the full text of my entries, unlike before when you get but a few sentences of a blog entry.  Truth be told, I had self serving motives for having summarized feeds.  I thought a summarized feed will lure subscribers to visit my site, which is tantamount to hits.  Hee hee.  I apologize for that.  I guess I’ve matured after a little over three years of blogging.  I have finally seen the light!

I only realized the beauty of full feeds these past few weeks when I’ve been very busy.  I like being able to read the entries of blogs I subscribe to without having to leave my feed reader (Bloglines).  Between you and me, I have a tendency to skip blogs with summarized feeds and visit them at a later time.  I’m sorry about that, too. :D  It’s the classic case of having so many things to do with so little time.

oOo

I’ve got more stories for you tomorrow.  For now, I wish you all a great new week ahead!  Cheers!