Truly Rich and Blessed

Truly Rich Recommendations: Books that Teach about True People Power

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Last week, we commemorated the anniversary of People Power in the Philippines. I thought it would be a good time to introduce the EDSA revolution and other peaceful movements in other countries to our children through books. I wrote about our book choices on Philstar.com and thought I’d share the post with you guys.

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Just click here to read it. I hope you’ll find it helpful!

P.S. My father-in-law is still sick and confined in the hospital. May I request you to pray/keep praying for his healing? Thanks SO much in advance! God bless, y’all!

A Peek at Our Homeschool Schedule (+ Epiphany Pictures!)

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I was inspired to write this post after reading Mariel’s post about homeschool planning. Admittedly, I am not much of a planner. (I’m hoping that will change this year — pray for me, please?) Even when it comes to homeschooling.

I was actually “forced” to type up a lesson plan of sorts for Tim this week, because he and Rysse are at my parent’s place until the weekend. I’m overloaded with work and will be at a whole-day training for two consecutive days, so Anthony and I decided to seek my parents’ help. (Thank God for grandparents, right?!)

Anyway, I’m sharing that lesson plan here with you all, so that you know what a (more or less) typical homeschool day looks like for us.

Download: Tim’s Lesson Plans for January 8 to 11
(Note: Our book for the week, The Legend of Old Befana, was bought from .)

I chose The Legend of Old Befana as our book for the week because we had just celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany. I’ll let the pictures tell you how we did so. 😉

The kids woke up and went downstairs to move the Three Kings to their “final destination.” 
Hello, Baby Jesus, the King of Kings! 🙂
They also opened their “Epiphany gifts” — books! 🙂 The Legend of Old Befana and Federico and the Magi’s Gift.
We went to Holy Mass and when we got home, we did the Epiphany House Blessing.
We were blessed to be given an Epiphany House Blessing kit as a gift last year.

Tim wanted to help his Papa bless the apartment so we let him. 🙂 But only for a bit.
Anthony used blessed chalk to write “20 + C + M + B + 13” on our front door. 
Of course, Tim wanted to join in too! 🙂
The “20″ is for the first two numbers of the year, the three letters are the first initials of each of the three kings (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar) and the last two numbers are the last half of the year. The “C, M, B” also stand for the Latin blessing Christius Mansionem Benedicat which means “May Christ Bless this House”.  
(Explanation from )
Afterwards, we set about making a simple crown, scepter and “kingly” robe for Baby Jesus.
I plan to get a doll or image of Baby Jesus especially for this activity for this Christmas.
Since we don’t have one yet, we just used one of Rysse’s dolls. 🙂
“Before” photo of Baby Jesus. 🙂
We used red crepe paper for the “kingly robe.”
And this is the result! 🙂 From plain swaddling cloths, Baby Jesus  is now clothed as a king! 🙂 
Crowned as the King of Kings! 🙂
In the evening, before bedtime, we said our family prayers and sang “We Three Kings.”
During the prayers, we told Jesus what we want to give Him this year.
Tim said his gift to Jesus is obedience. (Mine is patience and courage! Ha, ha!)
When I asked Rysse, she said, “Flowers!” 🙂 Tee hee!
After reading Federico and the Magi’s Gift and The Legend of Old Befana,
Tim got all excited and went downstairs to leave his and Rysse’s slippers near our front door, just in case the Magi and Old Befana chose to visit our home. I didn’t want to spoil the fun, so I “recycled” some chocolate packets we had in the refrigerator and wrapped them up as gifts. I included “notes from the Magi” for the kids. 🙂
The Three Magi  / Wise Men / Kings leaving gifts. 🙂
This is what the notes said:
Dear Tim / Rysse,
Jesus is the real treasure — the King of Kings! Love Him more than anything else!
C + M + B

Going back to our homeschool schedule… Truth be told, we don’t get to do all the things I have in mind, so I don’t know if my mom will be able to do everything with Tim! That’s perfectly fine with me, because I choose not to stress too much about our homeschooling. I believe that children will learn what they need to learn, at their own pace.

Please take note that on busy work days, we sometimes don’t get everything done. I try to make up for it by reading aloud more books to the kids. I believe that reading aloud to our kids is one of the BEST things we could ever do to help them become lifelong learners.

If you’re a homeschooler, I’d love to know what your schedules are like! 🙂 Please feel free to leave a comment below!

And if you’re not homeschooling, I hope you still find this post useful somehow. 🙂

Blessings,
Tina

P.S. Would you like to see more homeschooling posts here on the blog? If so, do you have anything specific in mind that you’d like me to write about? Do let me know! Just leave a comment. Or you can email me at tina (at) trulyrichmom (dot) com. 😉

Truly Rich Recommendations {Events}: Baby Carnival Bazaar at the Filipinas Heritage Library and The Learning Basket’s Preschool Homeschool Seminar

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There are two events happening this week that you guys might be interested in attending. Especially if you’re a parent. 🙂

First up is the Baby Carnival Pre-Christmas Bazaar by Online Mommy Sellers organized by Mommy Sellers Events Management. This will be on Friday, November 9, 4 to 10 pm, at the in Makati City.

Tickets will be sold at P100 and will be used to buy gifts to be donated to charity. Items on sale will include both pre-loved and brand new items, including breastfeeding covers, cloth and disposable diapers, feeding bottles, hair accessories and more. There will also be booths by service providers like photo studios for babies and event stylists. My friends from ,  and will be there — please do drop by their booths! 🙂

Kids who will be attending with their parents will also enjoy the activity booths, which include balloon darts, face painting, costume fitting and FREE cotton candy! (Maybe the parents will enjoy it too?! Ha, ha!) You can also buy snacks, meals and drinks from the different food concessionaires that will be there.

The Baby Carnival event is sponsored by , , Ton of Fun, and Make Believe Productions. 🙂

For more information, please go to http://bazaarphilippines.com. You can also “Like” their Facebook page for updates.

The next event I’m recommending this week is The Learning Basket’s seminar titled, “Preschool Homeschool —You Can Do It Too!” This will be on Saturday, November 10, 2-4 pm, at the Studio at Capitol Green Street, Capitol Hills, Quezon City.

Preschool homeschool moms Mariel Uyquiengco (of The Learning Basket), Kim Espartero, Cathy Salvador and yours truly will be speaking and sharing our experiences. 🙂 Slots are limited though, and priority will be given to Kindermusik parents. A fee of P100 will be charged for venue expenses and snacks. 🙂 If you’re interested, please email mariel (at) thelearningbasket (dot) com ASAP! 🙂

I won’t be able to attend the Baby Carnival as I have work on Friday (and Makati is too far for this commuting preggy mama, haha!) but I’ll be at the Homeschool Seminar on Saturday of course! 🙂 Hope to see some of you there! 🙂

Wordless Wednesday: Football Fun with the Azkals Global Football Academy!

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Yipeee! Our Homeschooling Interview Goes LIVE Later! :) PLUS My "Wifely Steps" are finally up! :)

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Happy Monday, everyone! 🙂 

I’m sure all of you are enjoying the long weekend so far. 🙂 (If not, cheer up, friends! There is SO MUCH to be thankful for and rejoice over!)

As for me, although this long weekend isn’t much different from other weekends/weekdays (since I work from home Monday to Wednesday and we homeschool), well, I am still psyched because:

1. Our homeschool interview for ABS-CBN’s News Channel (ANC) is airing later — the first of a series of interviews featuring different homeschool families. 🙂 Praise the LORD! 🙂 Hope you guys can catch it on ANC, 5pm Top Story. (We don’t have cable so we’ll just wait for the reporter to send us the link to the video after the airing, hahaha!) Let me know if I do look like a raccoon during the interview, OK? Hehe!
Photo from
By the way, as of now, the other schedules of the homeschooling stories on ANC are as follows:
  • The Benefits of Homeschooling Preschool: Featuring Mariel Uyquiengco and family + Maricel Cua and family — August 22, Wednesday, 12noon Dateline Philippines
  • Homeschooling High School: Featuring Michelle Padrelanan and family + and her son 🙂 — August 24, Friday, 5pm, Top Story

FYI, the features are very short, though in fairness, the shoot/interviews took SUPERRR looong! Haha! Nevertheless, we pray that God will be glorified through each segment, and that more and more parents will be open to the concept of homeschooling! 🙂
So anyway, another reason to be happy today (at least for me! Haha!) is:

2. My guest post over at Wifely Steps is finally up! 🙂 Yipeeee! 🙂 
Photo from .
Thanks sooo much to Toni for posting it! 🙂 Please do go over and read it if you guys can — I shared a bit about how my husband and I got together after a “whirlwind” romance; the lessons I learned about marriage and motherhood from being on mission; and how H.O.T. my hubby is (and how H.O.T. I’d like to be, too)! 😉 

Click here to read the post. 😉 And check out Toni’s award-winning blog while you’re at it! She’s also on  and if you want to connect with her. 🙂

(By the way, in case you missed it, Toni did an inspiring guest post over here a while ago, on The Gift of Simple Living. Do check it out if you haven’t yet! 🙂

Enjoy the rest of the long weekend, folks! 🙂

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