Gingerbread House Project

Ophine bought a gingerbread house kit from Costco yesterday and the kids were ecstatic about it especially Missy. She kept nagging her mom to start doing it right away but usually Sundays are lazy days for us. After church, lunch and doing some errands, we just usually rest for a few hours, watch a DVD or something but Missy was relentless so here are the results.

Elf Yourself

This is so entertaining and so funny.

Click here to see and hear Missy dance and greet you.

Click here to watch David do the same.

Portrait Sessions last weekend

I had two family portrait sessions last weekend, one a location shoot with the Villartas done at Robbins Park in Davie, which is my favorite park to shoot at and a studio session with the Villacastins. Two families with the first five letters of their last name being the same...hmmm? Anyway, I like photographing families especially when everybody is in a good mood especially the kids. It is really difficult to photograph an uncooperative kid. When this happens I try to talk to the kid, give them gifts like unopened Kid's Meal toys and just try to work it out at first but when I realize that it's not going to do any good, I would just re-schedule the shoot. I'm not the type who would force a camera on a kid when I myself know that the child will not look good in the photo unless the intention was to photograph a pouting or crying child. I was fortunate that I had happy people to shoot at (no pun intended!). Thanks to my photo subjects for that and for aggreeing to have your photos posted in my blog.

Here are some photos. The Villartas first with Chris (Wowie) and Pearly, their kids Justrina, Julinna and Julian. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.


































And now with the Villacastins; Alex, Sheila and their toddler Ashton. They also had photos with their graduation gowns since they also just finished their Masters in Nursing. They are now Nurse Practitioners and my congratulations to Alex and Sheila for this milestone in their careers.

Japanese Persimmon Tree in our backyard

Together with David and Missy, we planted our just arrived grafted Japanese Persimmon Tree -Giant Fuyu Variety. It's a non-astringent type meaning it can be harvested when it's not yet ripe and will ripen by itself unattached to the tree. It's still at it's dormant stage and I just have to really make sure it doesn't dry out. As always, I bought this tree through Ebay since I find it easier to find plants or trees from Ebay sellers than calling nurseries and checking if they have the specimen I'm looking for. It's just much more convenient and most of the time cheaper too, even with shipping included.

I first tasted a persimmon fruit when I was in Japan way back in 1993 if I'm not mistaken. I was there for a two-week entrepreneurship training c/o AOTS. It was my 2nd to the last day when I decided to buy the fruit in the cafeteria and I immediately realized I should have bought it much, much sooner. All the while I thought it was just a giant tomato that's why I never decided to try it earlier.

Now, we have this persimmon tree and hopefully in less than 3 years it will bear fruit and we'd be happy.

Another Magno baby for the family

Not ours but my twin brother Gary just became a new Daddy, his wife Tess a new Mommy. Today Dec. 1 before 6pm Manila Time, Paulo Gabriel was born into this world. My brother told me he's a big baby at 21.5 inches and 7 plus pounds.

Congratulations to the two of you. I'm sure all the Uncles and Aunts, Grandpas and Grandmas are super happy right now. I'll wait for the video and photos, okay?