Apples and Dumplings' Facelift!!!

Oh right! Did you notice the new look of my blog?
Yeah, I got bored yesterday so I did a facelift on my blog. Change is good, right?
I'm enjoying the new look, hope you are too!



It messed my disqus but I fixed it already. :)

Y's Birthday Series: Mann Hann, Little Baguio

I started planning Y's party around April, I had a few venues in mind but it's either far, rent is expensive, or the place just doesn't feel right. You can read about one of the venues we went to see here.

When I was finally settled with the venue I wanted, it was booked on the date we wanted! Oh fudge. I kind of panicked because I had to look for another one! And then I stumbled upon Lucky Janie's blog post on her son's birthday party, I showed it to the BOS and we went to check it out the next weekend we were free.

We loved the place! High ceiling, spacious, white chairs, big long tables, big windows, nice and clean! We talked to their manager, Cherrie Tan, she was very nice and accommodating. She showed us a private room on the second floor, it was a bit small, it can fit about forty to fifty people. It was a good thing that it was being set-up for a party so it gave us an idea how it would look like, but I said it was small, and we were expecting around seventy to eighty guests. So we opted to reserve the main dining hall, the thing is, it is only available from 3 to 6PM (their off-peak hours).

2nd Floor Function/Party Room

For the food, they have menu packages that you can choose from. There's Php400, Php500, and Php600, and you can mix and match from the list of menu that they will give to you. Food selection depends on your package.

We got the Php400/pax which includes:
-Yang Chow Fried Rice
-Birthday Noodles
-Lechon Macau
-Fish with Broccoli
-Salt & Pepper Squid
-one glass of Lemon Tea

A day before the event, they re-confirmed our menu and the total headcount (this time I talked to Bernie, another manager, he's also nice!) I asked them to make for 70pax, we had lots of leftovers pa. On the day of the event, Cherrie asked us to give her a signal as to when to start cooking the food, so it won't be cold when the guests starts eating. Cherrie also updates our host so he can continue to entertain our guests while food is not yet ready. Food was good! I personally love the Lechon Macau and the Fish! :) There were lots of servers, they were nice so I had no problems with that. Service was also good. We had a little bit of miscommunication with the decorator and them but other than that, our experience with Mann Hann was great!

 

A really BIG thumbs up for Mann Hann Little Baguio and to Miss Cherrie and Sir Bernie! Notes:

- There's no rental fee for the place.
- They have corkage fee of Php500/outlet for any food cart/photo booth, sound system that would have to use their electricity.
- They didn't charge corkage for my chocolate fountain station, face painting station, and the desserts I brought in.
- They can provide tables and table cloths for your gift/dessert tables.
- They really have a high ceiling so your decorator needs a scaffolding if you want your decors up high like we had. - They allow the decors to be set-up as early as 7AM on the day of your event. Please coordinate with your decorator/party planner and Mann Hann. (This was where we went palpak)
All in all I was happy with Mann Hann's service! They really did a great job!

Mann Hann (Main Branch)
233 J. Abad Santos St.
Brgy. Little Baguio
San Juan City

Tel Nos. 723-2917; 723-2918

Self-Weaning Or Nursing Strike?

A big dilemma right now! Y won't take the bottle/sippy cup or her cup with my expressed BM during the day while I'm at work, which forced me to make her drink formula which she gladly drank! TEARS! :( But she would nurse from me when I'm at home. What's going on? Is she weaning? Will she go back drinking my expressed BM?


Moms? Any tips? Advice?

Y's Spankin' New Ride!

Due to insistent demand of Y's a-thai (great grandma) for me to get her a bike, I gave in! She gave me the money before she left for China to buy her one because Y keeps on insisting riding the neighbor's bike, but the boy who owns the bike won't let her. So, after looking around and searching at 168 Mall, SM, Toys R Us, I finally bought her bike at Rustan's last Sunday!

Here it is! Y's New Pink Ride! (Photo heavy!) I asked our helper to take Y's pictures since I'm not here during the day to see her ride the bike. (Excited mommy lang ako!)

With ahya

She's so cute!!!!
That's all!

Shopping Cart

We went to S&R about a month ago and took Y with us. It's first time to ride a shopping cart. She doesn't want to sit in her stroller so I strapped her to our shopping cart which is pretty safe. It can sit two babies! I put her diaper changing pad on her back as support. She enjoyed her ride very much!

Y's Birthday Series: The Cake and Cupcakes

I first learned about Les Sucreries thru a friend's friend who was also planning her daughter's first birthday. I checked her Multiply site for the work she's done and I was impressed. When I emailed Veronica around April, she replied and said to email her back on June since it was still early. I emailed her on June, I indicated how many layers I want, sent her our sample invitation to give her a peg, and the colors I wanted. (She only makes buttercream cakes, no fondant.) She asked if I wanted to see a sample layout on how the cake would look like, she requires a Php400 fee that will be deducted from your total bill, I said YES!

Here's what she sent me:

And here's the final layout (which is the combination of the two layouts):

I also ordered fifty cupcakes, 25 with orange frosting, and the other 25 with blue frosting. I asked her to deliver the cake and cupcakes to our venue. She charges delivery fee depending on your location. It was a bit pricey but I don't want to worry about the cake. She only delivers when your total bill is Php4,000 and up.

I only got to see the cake on the day itself. When I saw the cake, I was shocked on how orange it was! Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with the appearance. I had a high expectation based on her work and photos in her site. It wasn't cute. But lots of people complimented the cake (or maybe they were just being nice haha!) Her work is pulido naman but of course first thing you would see is the appearance of the cake. But what can I do? I can't return the cake, it's already paid for. I just hoped the cake tastes good. And it is good, kulang lang sa moist! She only makes chocolate cake, by the way. For the cupcakes, I ordered for the ones with plain frosting only, no toppers. The cupcake was so-so, it tasted more like mocha/coffee rather than chocolate.

All of these, we communicated thru emails and text. She's very nice and accommodating, she may not reply to your texts right away, try emailing her. For me it was faster since I'm on the computer almost the whole day. Her price for the cakes are reasonable, as well for the cupcakes. Would I order from them again? I might but only just the cake.
Les Sucreries  
Veronica Ngo
vtn_mkc@yahoo.com

Y's Birthday Series: The Chubster

We initially had a different host but we had a conflict with the time so we had cancel that to look for another one. And we ended up booking The Chubster! (Booked thru the recommendation of Polkadot Events). You can also check his website.

I really had no idea how Chubster is as a host because I've tried researching and reading forums but no reviews about him. I just had Jhoanne (of Polkadot Events) assured me that he's good and doesn't make fun of kids with green jokes or other pranks that would scare them. His website has reviews about him, you can check that out too!

He arrived early at Mann Hann, we got to talk before the party started. His wife was with him and she served as his assistant for that day. I gave the game prizes to his wife and they were the ones who arranged and placed the prizes on the prize table. Before the party started, he gave me and the BOS a rundown of the program. Since there were only eight kids (a lot cancelled that day!), I told him to involve the teens and adults in the games.

The Chubster is great entertainer! He's lively and engaging, he involves the kids and they were all eyes and ears, the adults were laughing. The first part of the program was games, I forgot what games they played, sorry! I was all over the place, making sure everything is okay. The second part was balloon twisting, he describes and makes the kids guess what he was making. Then there was a magic show where he asked one or two kids to be his assistant, and the kids gets a "Magician's Assistant" pin and an inflated magic wand! It was cute! And last was his ventriloquist act, which the kids enjoyed also!

All Photos by Chai Mungcal

The verdict? I love Chubster! Though his fee is a bit higher than other hosts/entertainers, he's sulit. He's very good with kids! The adults were also entertained. As long as the guests are happy, I'm happy too.

The Chubster
http://www.thechubstershow.com/

Backlog

Just got our internet back. I have lots of backlog, still on Y's Birthday Series! I still haven't got the pictures from our photographers. I hope I get them soon so I can post more about Y's birthday! :) I'm making a page for all my birthday preps.. I hope I find the time to do that this weekend.


Baby G is here with us again, that means busy days! I have my peer lactation counselor interview tomorrow. Excited for that! I've been busy making business and market plans for this business prospect. It's like writing for a business subject again like in college except this one is REAL! Haha! It's nice doing something not I.T. related!


Please check back again in a few days for more of Y's birthday series!

Y's Birthday Series: The DIYs

One of the things I want to be able to do for Y's party was to DIY something! Anything I can DIY to add a personal touch.


After checking out blogs after blogs on dessert buffets, I was inspired to do one. You can check out awesome dessert buffets here, here, and here. I only did a simple one.

DIY # 1 Tokens for Godparents
I'm not sure but tokens but godparents are optional? But still I want to give something to the godparents for agreeing to be ninongs and ninangs to my little Y. I wanted to give something they can use and also not break the budget for the party, so Human Heart Nature was perfect!

I bought shaving oil for the ninongs, hair mask and lotion for the ninangs then I wrapped them in a Kraft Box I bought from National Bookstore complete with ribbon, stuffed the box with Japanese paper, and stuck a thank you card. Easy peasy!

DIY # 2 Cupcake Toppers

I told BOS that I wanted to make our own cupcake toppers like the ones I saw at the blogs mentioned above. He liked the idea so he asked his designer friend Karin to make cupcake toppers for us (seen here). When we got the printed toppers, we made a prototype using a popsicle but we didn't liked how it looked plus if we're gonna stick it in the cupcake, we have to make sure it's clean! It's hassle to wash and dry the popsicle sticks so we opted to use a lollipop sticks instead.

I bought the lollipop sticks at Chocolate Lovers. I've searched Bakers Depot and Cooks Exchange to no avail. Bakers Depot was offering drinking straws to be used as sticks. I went back thrice pa! Sabi ko lollipop sticks, hindi straw! I initially don't want to go all the way to Chocolate Lovers because it's really not convenient to go to from where I live but we went back twice! Both times naman we were around the area so pwede na din! Ok, back to lollipop sticks. One pack (100pcs) was around Php35.

I don't know how the BOS found out about scallop punchers but one night while browsing Amazon, he saw one and asked if we could buy one to use for Y's cupcake toppers. Yes, we bought one just for Y's party, had it send thru Johnny Air all the way from US of A! We got it for free by the way, they had shipping and stocks issue and canceled our order then a few days after that the item was shipped! So it was sort of free, we just paid for the shipping. The diameter of the punched scallop is three inches, we bought two cartolinas from National Bookstore to make fifty toppers.



So here's how it turned out:

DIY # 3 Party Favors
Also inspired by the blogs I've read, we bought spice jars at Divisoria as containers for our party favors. We bought it for Php30 each. Finding the spice jar was a bit of a challenge. Finding candies in specific colors (orange, blue, brown) is more challenging! I went to a lot of groceries to look for candies, I looked in sulit.ph, forums, checked Candy Corner's website. None. Nada. It's either that or it was not approved by the BOS. We ended up getting candies from our decorator and bought more at Chocolate Lovers.

We bought ninety jars, filling the jars one by one with candies wasn't the hard part. Washing ALL NINETY jars was the challenge, and I washed AND sterilized all of them! I want to make sure it's clean since we're putting candies in it and giving it away. Mahirap na! After the jars have dried, we filled them with candies (the fun part!) and stick on the label! Et voila!

DIY # 4 Dessert Buffet 
We had around seventy guests, I prepared three kinds of desserts for the buffet (since there was also a chocolate fountain station and dirty ice cream which I'll also blog about later on) plus the cupcakes from Les Sucreries (which I'll also blog about).

Let's dissect the dessert buffet! Shall we?

Cupcakes - from Les Sucreries Cakes & Pastries, platters were borrowed from Mann Hann.
Popcorn -  from Chef Tony's Gourmet Popcorn, jar was bought in Robinsons Department Store for Php199.75.
Macarons - from The Cookie Jar. Flavor was buttercream with cream cheese I think... I had the colors customized. Ordered two weeks in advance.
Gigi's Custaroons - this was the hubby's request. Ordered it a week advance and picked it up at their Sta. Mesa pick up point. Platters were borrowed from Hi-5 Parties Event Planning and Design.
Two-Layer Cake - from Les Sucreries Cakes & Pastries also.
Single-Layer Cake - from Sugar Bliss. This was a very special cake as it was hand carried all the way from Tuguegarao and made with love by my friend. Check out her FB!
Party Favors - well those were made by me!

I had fun doing all these DIYs, despite the stress, panic and the whole hullabaloo looking for candies and checking if the puncher will arrive on time, and buying things on the last minute. I hope I get to do more DIYs soon or maybe a DIY party for Y next year.

I won't be able to do all these DIY stuff without the help of the BOS, and so *cue dramatic music* THANK YOU BOS for helping out on everything! From assembling the kraft boxes, sticking the toppers to the sticks, filling the jars with candies, and so many many more! Bow! *applause!!!*