2009: a year full of blessings

year 2009 started with a bang for us when jude was formally hired by his present company january of last year. it was indeed a blessing for us because the move was a lateral promotion for him, which means his income also increased. :)

february came and the reason why God gave jude a better salary was revealead. it's this month that we learned that we were expecting another child! it was really in our plans for 2009 to give iñigo a sibling but we were a bit apprehensive as our budget then--with our old disposable income--was still tight. nevertheless, we planned and i was even wishing that the baby will arrive on the month of june but it's only after four months of trying that i was able to conceive and that was when financial blessings were already pouring in. can i say that God really works wonderfully? amen! :)

we moved to this condo unit, which is just 3 buildings away from jude's office, middle of march. i consider this as a blessing because our life before then was really... uhm... quite miserable as we're not used of waiting for jude until 2 or 3 am because of his new work schedule. i also worried about him driving late at night while he was already exhausted from work.

it was also this month that we had a cebu getaway with an overnight stay in shangri-la mactan, something we rarely do. hehe.

months of april and may went well for us. just the fact that no one in the family got sick, and that we're able to pay our bills and financial obligations brought by jude's sudden separation from P&G are enough to count as blessings.

my parents (lolo joe and lola yolly) celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in june and though we had a simple celebration it was still meaningful, at least, for me. i should also count as a blessing that at their old age my papa and mama are still healthy and fit.

july is iñigo's birth month and we made his 3rd birthday memorable for him by having it in jollibee with his favorite character, i.e. thomas the tank engine, as the theme. the little boy was really so happy and even until now, whenever we pass by that jollibee branch, he'd never fail to remind us that it's where he celebrated his birthday. :that's enough for jude (the financer) and me (the organizer) happy. D

august is daddy''s month and he really had a blast on his birthday as he celebrated it separately with his family and loved ones, and friends. and what a better gift to receive for his birthday but his regularization in the company as his 6-month probationary period already ended...

and this also came with an increase in his salary. :P

aside from it's my birth month, it was september last year when some of the worst hurricanes hit the country and/or the metro. and just by being left unscathed and unaffected by these hurricanes was already something for us as we're already waiting for the coming of our second-born. in fact, we were even in the comforts of a private room in st. lukes hospital as we thought i'd already be popping out the day ondoy wreaked havoc in metro manila.

october came and so was our dear theo! i gave birth to our second born, who's weighing 7 lbs. and 7 oz., via lamaze procedure. he's the biggest blessing we received for 2009 and one of the two special gifts jude and i ever received in our marriage.

it was on october 8th, four days after we received our wonderful advanced anniversary gift, when jude and i celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. :)

november was a very busy month for us. nothing extraordinary happened except for iñigo who we enrolled in a regular preschool and has now a teacher (a real one, haha) and classmates.

we had theo's christening last december 5th and after a week we made our second and last major travel for 2009, which was in ilocos region (la union, vigan, laoag, pagudpud). it was a vacation well-spent and all of us... i guess theo also did as he seldom cried, hehe... enjoyed it!

last year was indeed a blessed year for us. yes, we had problems and challenges we also dealt with stress--a lot actually. but we chose to look at the glass half-filled. it was on the last week of august when our house in cabuyao was ransacked and i thought i was going to give birth pre-term because it was really stressful for both me and jude. just dealing with the local police and dswd was already a headache. but now, after all the calamities that made thousands of filipinos homeless, we still realized that we are still more blessed and fortunate... we just have to appreciate more on what were given to us  than to grieve on what was taken.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!