Jesse's 4th Birthday.

It took me two weeks in preparing for this angry bird themed party. I researched on the world wide web what are the cool ideas I could possibly do in having an Angry Bird birthday party. I went to Pinterest.com. I'll be posting the links at the end of this post.

Oh the baking DRAINED me. I made his birthday cake, cookies for loot bags, cake pops and cupcakes. I made two cakes: chocolate cake and that fancy strawberries and cream sponge cake (those kind that the royalties in England have at their tea parties). This was after all, an "Angry Bird Tea Party". Shout out to my cousin Edda for helping me out. This woman creates the eye candies of cake I just want to look at her cakes and not eat them (well the fact that she is in England and I am here in Yellowknife---that really is the hard part). The party hats were hand made by my ever genius of a husband Steve Efondo. Ok, I'd go for "talented". But he is. Genius.

Those angry birds cake toppers, that was brutal. And let me tell you, I've never created fondant figures before. This was my first time. I'd say not bad, I was pretty happy with the result being a rookie and all, but boy, that was brutal. Brutal.

But hey, look at my boy's smile. Priceless. Now that makes everything else irrelevant.














For the brutal angry bird cake toppers:
http://bakehappy.blogspot.ca

For the best sugar cookies ever:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com

For the cake pops:
www.bakerella.com/pops-bites/cake-pops/

For the party hats:
http://www.squidoo.com

For the eye candies of cake:
http://www.facebook.com/HomemadeCuppyCakes

The night sky was clear that night I was on the bus waving good bye to my mother. Aboard the bus with me were my father, my cousin, my two younger brothers, Peegee who was 7, Felix who was 6, and my sister April who was only three months old. I was 8.  Looking by the window, I saw her face as she stood still, not smiling nor crying, watching us. My father told me that we were going to my grandmother's house to live there but my mother had to go somewhere first.

That was the night our family had to spend the rest of our ten years separated from her. My mother was leaving us to work abroad.

I did not know then how significant that vivid moment was, but I do know now. That night was a life changing moment for all of us. To grow without a mother was hard, for my father to live his life without his beloved wife was suffering. For my mother to live everyday without being able to hold us, comfort us, feel us --- was sacrificial.


Happy Mother's Day my ever dearest Mama. Know that I love and cherish you ever so dearly. You are my inspiration and role model --- our own "architect of change", strong willed and kind-hearted. Thank you for all your everyday acts of love, from the tiniest to the grandest. There is no other mother best for me than you.

I love you so much.

When I was living in Toronto, and was working full time, the way I dealt with my problems or issues were using the words, "Forget it!" or "I'm too busy to even worry about that" or, "I have no time". When my family moved here to Yellowknife, my issues were a lot different than before, not only that they were so different, I have all the time in the world to think, to worry, and to feel them. So there are times I do feel less thankful, and maybe when you feel the least thankful, maybe these can help you. I practice this everyday. There are times that I forget and that happens, I try not to fret but instead I just continue on with my day thinking of how to make the day much better than yesterday.

So here:
1. When you get up in the morning, notice your feet, your hands, your whole body. Be thankful you are still alive. Smile right away.
2. Acknowledge yourself. Feel the energy. Fuel that energy with love and high spirit that you can give to others, whether at home or at work, or to some random people you may encounter during the day. I give my love and energy to my boys.
3. Say grace before meal. Be grateful of the abundance that is given to you through God's blessing. I love it when after every time we say grace before meal, my youngest Jesse says "Eating time!"
4. Look at your own life. Examine it. Know that everyone makes mistakes, but what makes the difference is learning the lesson and improving from it. You can never feel better comparing your own life to others. They too have problems you are not even aware of and sometimes they do not even know is coming. Same as you.
5. Feed your hunger for excellence even if it just means taking time to read a good book or doing the crossword puzzles. I write. And I do volunteer work.
6. Practice kindness. When you do, people notice and remember and then as you are spreading kindness, you feed from the kindness that comes back. Sometimes it comes back, but sometimes it does not. But when it does come back, it comes back in doubles.
7. Give love. You can give love even through email. I give love through hugs. I mostly give them to my boys. We do a lot of group hugs.
8. Be inspired. I remember how shopping makes me feel excited. And I realized that although shopping helped me to have a good day, it is not my source of inspiration. Rather, it was my addiction. Words of wisdom are truly one of the sources of my inspirations. The words I read, my spirit feeds on them and after writing them down, after I have expressed my thoughts, I feel content. I feel that I am satisfied.
9. Do not be attached or fixated on material things. Remember that their value depreciates, and goes out of style. You, your spirit, your value should never be based on what you have or what you own. Remember that everything can be lost in a blink of an eye especially at this time of economic uncertainty.
10. Shift your mindset. Do something else out of your routine, sometimes even out of your comfort zone. When you find yourself going to the computer and it depresses you, then stop. Watch a funny movie. Or when you feel you are starting to feel down, or lousy, or depressed, take a run, a walk or jog. Sometimes, a distraction helps. One night, I was writing and my husband came into the room I said, "Oh you are a distraction." He said, "I thought I was an inspiration." I said, "No. Not this time. But being a distraction is not bad. Not at all." I stopped and put my journal down. I turned to him as he lay down on my side, and curled right next to him with a smile. On my journal, the last words I had written were, "I am such a sad woman..." and I never got to continue that piece.

And for something extra. Always leave something extra in case of emergencies, right? Or when everything else has been tried and exhausted.

11. Say a prayer. Notice your breath. Give thanks to the Lord, for all His blessings, His undying love, for keeping you healthy and safe, for keeping your loved ones healthy and safe, and for keeping you --- that you are ready to face another day.

I am not going to lie. Being here in Yellowknife and being a stay at home mother drove me mad, unhappy, jealous, envious, depressed --- just plain ugly. Almost everyday, I woke up feeling sluggish, uninterested to what the day would bring because I knew how boring it would be anyway. So, I would go to the computer, open my mailbox, and see what the good people of Oprah.com have sent me to read for the day. The subject reads: 15 Things to be Grateful for Right Now. And so, I thought, "Now this I have got to read."

When I clicked on the email, my eyes were caught on these words: Simple Ways to Practice Gratitude Everyday. So I clicked on that and then my eyes were brought to these words: The Power of Gratitude: It's About What You Have, Not What You're Going to Get. So I read, scrolled down, browse, skimmed through words.

And then my eyes were here. Not only my eyes, but my mind was too. "Gratitude is the single most important ingredient to living a successful and fulfilled life." And so I thought, "It's about what I have, and what I have should make me feel successful and fulfilled in life." But it was hard not to think of the things I want, or of the fun things I used to do, or of the people I used to see. It was hard not to think of the financial freedom I used to have when I was still working. Those things, the life I used to have made me feel that I was successful, that I was fulfilled. And this life I have now, I don't feel it.

But I continued reading. I had to feed my hunger for inspirational words that day. I had to know the simple ways to practice gratitude everyday. And as soon as I read, "Write cards or e-mails expressing your gratitude for others: genuine, specific and personal" I immediately clicked on my outlook icon and sent this email without finishing the whole article.

________________________________________________________________

From: January Go
To: Rania, Rishi, Kathleen
Date: 08/03/2011 1:09 PM
Subject: You are getting this email because...


Hello, hello...

So you are getting this email because I am doing "The Simple Ways To Practice Gratitude Every Day" (and because I am Oprah's disciple) and one way is to send an email: "genuine, specific, and personal" she says.

Yes, I am grateful for you... the three of you and your families and your love ones.

And I am a little smile happier today than yesterday. I hope you are always a bigger smile happier than yesterday.

January ^_^


And within minutes, I received these:

--------------------------------------------------------
From: Rania
Date: August 3, 2011 1:20:24 PM MDT
To: January Go
Subject: Re: You are getting this email because...

You are so cute and you made me smile so I am genuinely grateful that you sent me this email.
________________________________
From: Rishi
Date: August 3, 2011 1:14:05 PM MDT
To: January Go
Subject: Re: You are getting this email because...

I too am grateful for you and your family and your loved ones.

I too am a little smile happier today than yesterday. I hope you are always a bigger smile happier than yesterday.

just to add to that...you can say this and have your kids, loved ones say this too everyday..."Everyday in Every Way, I'm getting better and better."

Luv Ya Jan! : )
________________________________
From: Kathleen
Date: August 3, 2011 1:12:49 PM MDT
To: January Go
Subject: Re: You are getting this email because...

Oh, you and Oprah.
Love you too January
________________________________
And so needless to say, that made me happy. Words can do that to me. And so I gave my boys a group hug and continued on with my day. And yes, with a slightly but a lot bigger smile than before.

I am grateful for a lot of things. I truly am. But there are times that I can't help not to have questions in my mind, yearn for things that I miss or for things that I feel my family deserves; moments that I feel helpless for there is not much I can do but to accept what is here.

And in moments that I feel lost, I hold on to the times that I feel are precious.

It takes great strength of mind and character to be a good mother. And to be a good mother it is helpful to have great faith so that we, the mothers of all the children, may handle our daily lives with grace and love. The best gift of motherhood to me is the gift of knowledge and the opportunity that I can spread love and peace through my children.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

What makes us stressful? What would it take for us to be grateful for what we have? Why do we constantly want to accomplish something when we always beat ourselves along the way anyway?

I have heard a lot of times that we learn to appreciate things or realize the importance of someone or something when it is gone. Why can we not just love and cherish the important things now and stop looking elsewhere? Why is it easier for us to say, "I want more" instead of "Thank you for all of these"? Is it because we think we know more and that we can do more so therefore we deserve more? Or perhaps it is because we unconsciously have it in our head that truly, the grass is greener on the other side, that we as humans just want what we do not have. Or maybe because we are just naturally competitive, if we are not competing with each other, we compete with our selves. We look at the lives of others, those who have done well, and then we look at those who in our own made up individual standards have done poorly. We stand where we are and we find ourselves looking up to those who we think are admirable and say to ourselves we want to be like them, and unconsciously or consciously make our decisions as to what we want to do or who we want to be in life based on what we see from others. We want to be known, we want to be heard, we want to make our mark. We become driven. And when we have that drive, we want to see results, results that we want to be able to measure, in numbers, in money, in material wealth because ultimately though we like it or not, we as society equate material possessions to success and that it is only when we have these material wealth that we can then say to ourselves, "I am accomplished. I am fulfilled. I am successful."

"Ambition is an unusual word, " Donald Trump says, but I say that not only it is unusual it is also tricky for once you lose your sight to what really matters, ambition can lead you to the dark hole and sometimes all alone with no one but yourself in a pedestal.

Do what you do and aim high, do your best at all times but do not lose and drown yourself in isolation and being apart from what matters most in life. Be thankful --- for gratitude can give you the peace of mind, the pleasure of fulfillment, the sense of pride that no material wealth can provide. Gratitude makes you feel joyous, that kind of happiness that builds up in your heart and puts a smile in your lips. Find reasons to be thankful for everyday because there is truly an abundance around you, from the sun that shines, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the warmth of your bed, that piece of old day bread you just ate.

The time I started not thinking about "me" and started thinking about "them"---my children and my husband, I felt better. I'd like to think that my sense of being is about them, that my purpose is they, that they are truly the essence of what life is for me.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us;
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

I think the reason why it is hard for me to relax is because I still hang on the workaholic side of me... the one who is always out and about, juggling, multitasking --- always hectic. And now that I am home with my toddler, I feel that my sense of being has diminished. I feel that doing nothing is in itself laziness and is not good for my brain.

Today is -37C. I just cancelled a doctor's appointment because it is too cold to bring Jesse outside. And it hit me how fortunate I am to be able to stay inside the house and not be obliged to go out in the cold. I remember how dreadful of a battle it was to get up at 5:30 in the morning and get ready for work during winter.

So today I want to make note of how much I appreciate this opportunity of being able to stay home. I will try my best to relax and keep in mind that not everybody is given this chance... a chance to have a break, a really long break from the world of busy, hectic, almost robotic, working people. And that this long break is for me to enjoy because it is only temporary that I will soon be back to my old workaholic me again before this year ends. I will not beat myself up with the mindset that I am less worthy, or that I have little self value just because I am doing nothing. Because today, I am really not doing nothing--- I am relaxing.

At this moment of my life I realize that my life is not mine in a sense that it belongs to my sons. There are times that I think to myself and wonder if I was not a mother. I think of the things that I could do, the freedom I could have, the fullest potential I could achieve with no one to worry about but me. Being a mother is not always peachy... and not at all times rewarding. It is not a story that is only filled with happy moments but a story that is also a picture of sacrifice, chaos, tears and screams. Motherhood is not always neat because it is also messy. It is a story of things always somewhere in between.

Today is a good day than yesterday. Today, Jesse slept at 3:30 in the morning and slept without scratching and bleeding. Yesterday, he slept at 8:00 in the morning because of his eczema. Both of us were already too tired but he just would not sleep. So today, compared to yesterday, is much much better.

To help him sleep, I play a CD of lullaby songs. And this one is one of my favorites. It was actually a poem. I thought that this poem perfectly tells my thought of how I feel about my life now as a mother. I do not want to think of the things I could have done if I was not a mother and be on the top having reached my full potential as a career woman. I know of few women who were driven by power where their roles as a mother were affected. But I also do not want to just sit down and no longer dream and drive myself to be much more than who I am now. So at this point, I shall be in the middle... it isn't really anywhere, it is somewhere else instead.

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair where I sit:
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top:
So this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up, and isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town:
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!"

What does Christmas mean to you? Christmas to me is always a special time spent with family, exchanging gifts, giving cheer to friends, and it also meant sharing a special day with Jesus. Just like HIM, I was born on Christmas day too. When I was a little girl, I would listen to the Christmas songs played in the wee hours in the morning playing on the radio, lie down on the wooden couch and dream that these Christmas songs are birthday songs that I sing to HIM and to myself. I will be filled with joy in my heart as I keep thoughts of HIM as a little baby on the manger that I will feel tears rolling down my cheeks.

Last night my family went to hear the Christmas midnight mass. This was our first Christmas here in Yellowknife. The priest said that he really like this line, "Those who walk in darkness have found the light," that night. That light is hope, he said. He said that we often hear people say, "Don't keep your hopes high," and then he said,"No, today I say, to always keep your hopes high!" Hope is the message this Christmas. He mentioned that people are praised when they do the things that they love and that those who are not able to do the things that they love but still continue to do so because of love deserve the praises as well. He said that his father was one of those people.

As I reflect on what the priest said, I could not help but to think of my own father, my mother, and those who may be in the same situation who are doing what they do because they love their children. And is this not the essence of Christmas---Love? I think of God as a loving parent who loves us so dearly that He gave Jesus to us as HIS gift. And in Jesus, our loving Father, no matter how He knew that His life is going to be difficult, full of hardships, sacrifices and ridicule, still accepted His destiny and lived His life because He loves us his children. As a mother, this is a reminder that touched my heart so deeply.

I can still remember last year's Christmas when my husband came home from Yellowknife and that first Sunday mass of the year 2010 when I prayed so hard for my confusions and fears to go away... when I prayed for courage to take the leap of faith.

Christmas from now on in has a deeper meaning to me. As Jesus was born today and I am celebrating my birthday, I shall keep in mind that He was born for us HIS children and that He lived HIS life because HE loves us so... and I am given this life and will live this life for my children... no matter how difficult, how much hardships or sacrifices I will have to endure as a mother, I will be accepting of all these because of my love for them. Christmas is a gift to give. Jesus's life is the GIFT. Let us all give a part of our lives to each other for there is no other special gift than that.

God bless us, everyone!

My sister is this extra special person that God sent to be my very personal favorite angel doll who just knows how to bring sunshine to my days. She is one of the many inspirations in my life. She and I were totally different back then. Yeah, I was the goody-good girl whom she found so boring and tacky, and I just found her too risky and immature. But those days are now long gone. We somehow managed to meet in the middle where we both tolerate each others whining, complaining, venting, and worries. Motherhood gave us the chance to really understand each other, celebrate our differences, share precious moments about our children, and discover a lot more similarities between us. When she got married in July 2009, my heart was permanently marked with a happy memory. I was her Matron of Honor and this was my speech.