Kulay's POV: Davao Bloggers Acquaintance Party 2013 !

Hi I am Kulay and I am 2 years and 5 months old. I am not a blogger but Mom and Dad made me attend the Davao Bloggers Acquaintance Party 2013.  They were really excited about it and I don’t know why. They just told me that we will be going to SM Lanang Premier and that there will be donuts and games. Well I got excited too because SM Lanang Premier means waterworks show and I love watching the lights and water dance and ran around the fountain court.

When we got there, I saw lots of familiar faces from previous blogger events. You see, Mom and Dad let me tag along every now then when Lola and Lolo can’t babysit me. Mom and Dad got busy chatting with old friends and meeting the faces behind the blogs. I was busy kissing some pretty ladies.

I was happy to spot my friend Miel, I attended her first birthday last March. Mom knew her Mommy Miah through blogging. Mom said that the greatest thing about blogging is you meet a lot of people and  you develop real friendships on and offline.

I also saw Dear Daniel (Hello Kitty's friend) at the atrium I thought he was a blogger too!

Miel wasn't in the mood to have our photos taken but Dear Daniel is so game

Kulay's 2nd Beeday!

For months I've been planning to have a pool party for my son for his 2nd birthday because he loves the water so much but we didn't find a pool that is accessible and kid friendly. We decided to just dine out with our family. A week before my son's birthday, we had some monetary gifts (thanks Tito Gene!) so we decided to have a kids party at Jollibee. My son loves Jollibee the mascot and their Jolly Spaghetti and french fries. Good thing there's not much to organize or plan for a Jollibee party, you just reserve the date, order food and they'll take care of the party. So in less than a week, we still cooked up a partey!

Because I'm "OA" I can't have a kids party without a theme so I  decided on a Bee Themed Party because Jollibee is a BEE and Kulay also loves bumble bees. 

Party Details
Invitation
I invited guest through FB event page and SMS :)

Outfit
I asked my husband to handpaint us matching shirts . I also asked my friend Ailyn to make a Bee beanie and 

Cake
..Amigurumi bees for cake toppers. We just bought the cake from Red Ribbon since it's the only brand that Jollibee allows.

Loot Bags which I made from paper bag, yarn and printed tags. It contains the usual candies and toys.

  The Party
We only invited relatives and a couple of friends. Our son was very happy with the appearance of Jollibee and playing games with the other kids. 

The After Party, which is our favorite part! Unwrapping of presents! Weeee! 

I am really thankful to God for the gift of life and to our family and friends for their love and support to Kulay and our family. I wish my son good health and a good life ahead of him. We love you so much Kulay! You are indeed the greatest blessing we have received.

Staycation

It's been a while since Mike and I traveled. The last adventure we had was our Surigao del Sur Escapade which seemed ages ago. We do have family outings with Kulay at local pools and beaches but Mike and I wanted to have a family trip ideally outside of the city. Some place close to nature where we can conveniently bring our son and some place where he would enjoy at his young age of 1 year and 3 months. We were thinking of Nature Parks like Eden, Malagos Garden or Philippine Eagle Center but we're still waiting for our car to get fixed. In the meantime we thought of an activity to bond as a family. We have an inflatable swimming pool we use as Kulay's play pen and we filled it with water and invited a couple of kids over and we had an instant pool parteeey right in our own backyard! Street Smart! We actually enjoyed it and took turns bathing in the pool because it has limited space. 
I realized that for those like us who are budget conscious, one need not go far to bond and have a good time as a family. One can always be creative in finding ways to spend quality time with people they love.

P.S. After the pool partey...Mike and I recycled the pool party and used it for our laundry :)

Kulay's 1st Birthday Party Details Part 1

As a mother, my son's 1st birthday was my second biggest production the first being his Baptism. I was really excited to make this event special for him and my family. We had limited budget so I started early scouting for the best location and party suppliers. 

Venue and Food

We estimated around 80 adult guest and 20 children so we searched for a venue that can accommodate that number. We chose Harana Native Restaurant at Torres St. because the venue and food is nice and it fits our budget. Their minimum amount is P15,000 worth of food orders to make the venue exclusive and the good thing is that they won't be counting per head or per plate. Their corkage is very reasonable; lechon is only P400, fruits for P100 and they have no corkage for cake/cupcakes. 

Cake

I am very excited about the cake because this will be Kulay's first blowing of candles. As early as September I have chosen my cake design and emailed various suppliers for quotes. I chose Tsokolate by Linfood. The owner Ma'am Rose is very accommodating and they really make good cakes, design and taste wise. I am very happy with the result :)

A little back story, when i gave Ma'am Rose the design, she didn't have the baking pan shaped as the giant cupcake yet but about a month later, a friend from abroad gave her the exact baking pan she needs to make the cupcake shaped cake. She told me "Malakas ka talaga kay Lord". BTW, the cake and cupcakes cost me P2,300 and Kulay's Ninang Ronna gave it as a gift. Thank you so much! :)

Party Host
We have a contact for a freelance party host but she was not available on the date so she recommended another host, Helen. They were able to entertain the guests and their rate is only P1,200 inclusive of host in costume with assistant, music and 10 balloon twisting.  Since the party theme is Little monster, they wore witch costume without the gory make up :D


Harana Native Restaurant
Torres St. Davao City
Contact No. (082) 2273937

Tsokolate Cakes by Linfood
Ponciano St. Davao City
Contact No. (082)3051940


Helen Party Clown/Hosting
Davao City
Contact No. 09282284131 (Rizza)

DIY Birthday Invitation

Another DIY I did for Kulay's Birthday was the party invitation. The mini buntings I made first because I thought the theme would be COLORS but then I changed my mind but still used the buntings because I already made around 50. I just used board papers and printed the monsters then cut it out and pasted it. I also cut the lower right corner with ordinary scissors to make it look like it was bitten by a monster. Luckily I found matching envelopes for the paper. I forgot to take pictures of what's inside but it was just details of the party using the "smiley monster" font in black color. If isn't obvious yet, my theme colors are blue, green and orange :)

DIY Party Loot Bag

The theme we chose for Kulay's first birthday is Little Monster because he is our little monster. He is indeed a monster at times when he cries (and screams) and he also makes this cute monster growls. Anyways I know that choosing this theme would be a bit challenging because most party supplies available are in popular cartoon characters such as Cars, Mickey Mouse and etc. So I know that I would do a lot of DIY stuff starting with the loot bags. I don't know who started this fad but loot bags or goodie bags just became a necessity in every kid's party. I scoured the net for ideas on my chosen theme and really found a lot of interesting stuffs. There are a lot of printable materials but we don't have a printer at home so I chose a simple design for the loot bag.

1. Conceptualize your design and prepare your materials. I used the ff.

• Paper Bag (the ones used for food take outs)
• Art Paper
• Scissors
• Glue

2. Cut out monster parts.

3. Paste.

My good friend Rhea helping me out

4. Voila you're done! You have your own personalized Li'l Monster Loot bag. Just stuff it with candies and toys and will surely put a grin on a Li'l Monster's face :)