Holy Week – Mahal na Araw – was impossible to miss back home.
A Crown for Lent
kids
Pinoy Camp – Tinikling fun
On yet another sweltering day with occasional thunderstorms, we had some indoor fun by practicing tinikling, the Philippine national folk dance. (Rather, it is widely thought to be, though the national dance is actually the cariñosa.)
Pinoy Camp 2015 is in session!
Our 5th annual at-home Pinoy Camp started on Monday! Yehey! 😉
A small world after all
The other day, we attended a picnic for Young Filipino-American families at a park, organized by Venessa of the Filipino School of New York and New Jersey.
As if on cue, the weather obliged us with a near-Philippine high of 94 degrees. And yet, unfazed by the sweltering heat, we all stayed for at least a couple of hours, sharing Pinoy food, games, and pagsasamahan (fellowship) – perhaps just a tiny bit envious of the kids who donned swimsuits to cool off in the park’s water splash area.
Kids will be Kids (or Teaching Kids How to Behave in Public)
Our kids rarely step inside crying rooms – mostly because the little chapel we go to on Sundays doesn’t have one. Everyone there knows our kids and I’m sure would tolerate practically any mischief on their part, but this only impels us even more to help our kids stay quiet (for the most part, anyway).
Foodie Quest: Week 2
Because Pinoys are foodies – and we hope our kids will be, too! 😉
Our Discoveries of the Week:
1) Bacon grease – I’ve been cooking bacon in the microwave for convenience – quicker and didn’t leave a panful of grease to dispose of. But cooking in the pan precisely left us quite a bit of yummy bacon grease for Paleo cooking of eggs, etc. Yum!
2) Almond milk – Our kids don’t like almond milk – yet – but drank it up in their favorite berry shake. Yey!
3) No-mix pork sinigang – Using lemon for the first time instead of the usual sinigang mix resulted in the same yummy comfort food – our kids didn’t even notice!
4) The perfect Pavlova – finally! 🙂
A touch of home – Pinoy 3D art
What a gorgeous past couple of days! Yesterday, the kids spent most of the time playing outside, save for meals, Mass and a trip to the nearby monastery for the Divine Mercy chaplet. The beautiful weather made concentrating on indoor activities quite a challenge – made more so by all the would-be home projects awaiting our attention. Spring is definitely here!
To commemorate the arrival of spring, I thought I would share some Pinoy decorating ideas with you – ways of incorporating the Filipino touch to your home, including some that are not seemingly Pinoy at first glance.
How to Raise a Foodie (or Ten Tips for Raising Foodies)
As mentioned in my previous post, this book changed my life forever in the kitchen: French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy EatersTrue, reading it taught me some tricks to help our kids be more adventurous eaters. But more than that, it helped me understand how my parents were able to get us as children to eat a wide variety of unusual foods back home – almost painlessly. And this understanding gave me the confidence to do the same for ours.
Pinoys are foodies
Last week, my husband bought me some of my favorite food for lunch, yummy sushi – no California rolls, just the usual slices of raw fish and cooked eel on rice. Half of it disappeared into our kids’ tummies, with our 2-yr old especially loving the salmon. Needless to say, I was still hungry after that meal. But I was happy. It was the first time we had witnessed all of our kids not only eat sushi, but ask for seconds and thirds as well.
Growing up bilingual – Part 2 (or Ten tips for teaching your kids Tagalog)
[This is a continuation of Growing up Bilingual Part 1. Another related post is Ugat Pinoy (Pinoy Roots)].
It was smooth sailing until our kids started school. Then suddenly, speaking Tagalog went out of favor. Everyone else spoke English ALL the time, why not us too?
Pinoy Roots 