Piano for Preschoolers

During vacation, most parents would send their kids to special summer classes like gymnastics, swimming lesson, camping, or join different basket ball league and other sports league. But there are also some parents who want their kids to learn more different stuff like how to playpiano and anything about music.

If you are one among those parents who have no musical background but want your kids to learn about how to play piano then let them get a piano lesson at a very young age. As most studies found out that “learning to play the piano as a preschooler actually boosts intelligence. I know a site that offers Piano Lessons for preschoolers.

For more information visit www.pianoforpreschoolers.com

Back To School Tips

I remember when I was a kid, I would be happy to hear when my teacher announced there will be holiday on certain day which means no school day for that day. I love it when it's about to have a Christmas vacation and Summer vacation. And of course the transitional period from summer vacation to school opening also makes me excited. But I read and article that says "not all kids are excited to go back to school after summer vacation. I understand it because it's hard to change swimsuit to backpack lol. It' also says that "Transitioning from summertime fun and freedom to classroom structure and stress can be a big adjustment". To help your tween handle the change, be positive and supportive.

Here are a few suggestions that parents have shared with us that can make a difference in your child’s outlook:

1. Be positive about school. Talk to your children about the good things that happen at school. Tell them about your positive experiences.
2. Set the expectation that education is important and that your children need school. They should be made aware of your expectation as early as possible.
3. Be understanding when they tell you about their frustrations. Expect your children to feel some stress related to subjects, tests, peers, assignments, and even teachers.
4. Listen to what your kids tell you about school. Sometimes all they want is for you to hear about what their day was like and what’s going on in their lives. Be supportive and attentive.
5. Visit the school. See what happens during the school day. Chat with administrators and teachers.
6. Praise your children’s effort and their accomplishments.

You May Be Married to a Filipina if . . .

her friends are named Chinky, Girlie, Boy and Bimbo and you are not allowed to smirk.

your refrigerator is always full but you cannot find any food that you recognize.

most of the decorations in your house are made of wicker.

all her relatives think your name is Joe.

your house isn't on fire, but there is a very charred fish right on top of the stove burner.

even the ketchup tastes weird . . . very weird.

you throw a party and everyone is fighting to chop the leathery skin off a dead pig.

all your kids have 4-5 middle names.

your in-laws call you "that white guy."

you try to call her up on the phone and someone tells
you "for a while" and you actually understand what they mean.

she says ate her peer is dareful.... and you actually understand what she means.

she sweeps with something that witches usually fly around on.

the rice cooker is on 24 hours a day and uses up 50% of your electric and food budget.

all her pajamas look like they were worn by the Dalai Lama until they got too faded.

she gets really excited by sucking the fat out of pig knees.

your daughter gets her ears pierced when she's 2 minutes old but your sons are not circumcised until they turn 21.

all your postage bills instantly double.

the only "white meat" she likes is You, and that's if you're lucky . . .

her favorite sauce is called patis, Americans call it turpentine.

she can eat and talk at the same time, in fact that's her specialty!

her favorite meal is leftovers

she goes to the movies just for the AC.

all the vegetables she buys at the Filipino store look like they were grown at Chernobyl.

your in-law's first visit lasted 5 years.

she washes her hair with a bucket and her car with a broom.

she uses an umbrella even if its not raining.

her favorite book (she has 3 copies) is "1001 New Recipes for Pig Parts You Were Gonna Throw Out"

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: you are pretty proud of
yourself because you think you snagged up for yourself
some unique, rare, tropical goddess type until you go
to the Philippines and can't tell her apart from
anyone else in the whole country (unless she's taller
than 5'1", then it's a bit easier).

Birthday Dinner

My husband schedule change that make him home later than what he used to. Before he will be home by 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon but now he will be home 7:35 to 8:00 pm depending on the traffic. That's the reason why I just decided to make our own dinner on my birthday rather than dine out. He will be tired by the time he gets home so I don't want him to bring me out just because it's my birthday. I cooked some and prepared it on the table, by the time he got home, everything was almost ready. He said he didn't know I am making dinner... he said he was about to take me out for my birthday. I told him it's ok and that we just do it the next day with her mother...

Planning Meals In Advance

Cooking often takes time, which most of us have very little of these days. So why not learn how to prepare meals for your family and still have time to enjoy one another? Ok guys here are the tips... Plan ahead...

1. Plan meals at least a week in advance to incorporate the use of leftovers. For example, have baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy for dinner Sunday, and then use the leftover gravy as the base of beef stroganoff Monday.

2. If you know you're not going to have time to cook one evening, prepare two dinners the night before and just reheat one the next night.

3. When preparing a meal using grated cheese, chopped onions, etc., prepare more than the recipe calls for and refrigerate the rest for another meal.

4. Clean your kitchen workspace as you go. When you're done, there will be little left to clean.

5. On grocery shopping day, have your children help individually wrap their cookies, snacks, etc., for their lunches. Makes lunch preparation for the rest of the week a breeze and snacks don't disappear before lunches are made.

6. Don't hide your cookbooks away. Organize them where you can get to them easily, and you will use them a lot more.

7. Keep a notepad on the front of the refrigerator for your shopping list. When you run out of something write it on the list right away. Encourage family members to do the same.

8. Prepare favorite beverages like lemonade, tea or Kool-Aid in gallon-sized pitchers, and you won't have to make them as often.

Pinay American Baby

This is our very dear Baby Girl Jadyn, daughter of Mommy Anne. All her tita's and her mommy were having fun taking pictures of her everything we go out and do things together. Before, it was only the three of us... Anne, Te Rose and I do things together, took pictures of each other, dine out, shopping etc... but now, since Jadyn arrived... things gets more fun as we enjoy taking picture with her, playing with her and talking with her kahit walang sagot heheheeh... she actually response by smiling and making faces with us... isn't that cute? Her cutie and wonderful smile was the best response you could ever get from her, Mommy Anne's Pinay American Baby Jadyn...

Filipino American Marriage

I got this article from http://www.livinginthephilippines.com I got interested on reading it and would like to share this to all my friends.


Written by a foreigner who get married with a FILIPINA

Hi, I had a similar experience with my .....ex........Filipina wife. I call it the "sup to u, sup to me" syndrome. When I met her here in Cebu about 9 years ago she was as sweet as could be. Anyone meeting her would say she would be a great bet for a wife and many people did say that and I thought so also. Everything we did was always my decision. Where shall we go today Hon "sup to you" what would you like to order off the menu "sup to you", what movie would you like to watch? "sup to you" on and on, everything sup to you.

Then I brought her back to Alaska on a fiancée visa and married her and we had a son and then any decision from that point on was "sup to me"! She was, and still is a good girl in most ways, never drank or smoked or used drugs, didn't cheat etc etc but she turned out to be the most hard headed, obdurate, intractable woman I have ever known in my life! She became acquainted with a lot of other Filipina Americans who quickly let her in on the situation in America..."you don't have to listen to him any more, just do what you want." She knew from the start that I wanted to live here in the PI and planned to balikbayan for a few years b4 retiring completely here, but once she got to the states she just stubbornly refused to return to the PI under any circumstances. She was completely beyond persuasion and in fact wouldn't even listen to any of my reasoning, just continually said NO! (SUP TO ME)

So don't anyone count on the sweet loving faithful Filipina wife returning to live here. Some do but many don't. I still have a hard time grasping the change in her attitude. Now we are in a messy argument about my visitation with my son...another topic! I'm re-married here in Cebu and will in no circumstance take my new wife to the states, even though she does hound me about it occasionally.

She knew exactly my thoughts on the subject when we were married. I love life in the Philippines and intend to stay here and keep my wife a sweet Filipina here in this country. I've seen and heard of too many Filipinas who became Americana diretcho when they got off the plane. I could have found a woman like that without leaving the states if that's what I wanted.

Good luck to all, they do make good wives, even in the states as long as you are willing to be submissive to their will and live in the U.S. SUP TO YOU, SUP TO HER.........


How to tell if your Net girlfriend is scamming you. One of the livinginthephilippines3 members said;

One of the List resource people wrote to a List guest the following, a foreigner who was having second thoughts about marrying a Guest Relationship Officer, (GRO) his girlfriend and fiancée he met in a bar/karaoke.

John wrote:

So you have fallen into the trap by meeting a gorgeous, shy little GRO, and you feel at this moment that you want to marry her. OK, but first let me tell you a little story.

I ran a girlie bar in Manila for just over 5 years. I soon found out the ground rules, and although I didn't approve of them, they were the rules.

Girls were bought from their parents in the provinces for as little as P2000.00, we went on regular shopping trips and I found the whole thing distasteful but that was how it was done.

They traveled back to Manila on the bus, while we came back in a chauffeur driven limo. As soon as they arrived, the teaching process began. Most of the teaching was done by the senior GRO's or more experienced girls at the bar.


The No. 1 Rule is that you are no longer free, you have been purchased by the boss and your parents have been rewarded, do not let your parents down! You are not allowed to go out without written permission from your boss or when you are bar-fined, but then you must arrange this with the Head Geisha.

You belong to the Boss as if you are married to him. You are not allowed to have a personal boyfriend. Every male is your boyfriend, but only if they pay your bar-fine. If you are bar-fined, you must be back on these premises by Noon the following day. If you are late you will be fined and the money will be taken from your salary.

After these ground rules were learnt, the girls settled in and were taught how to please a male by dancing, flirting, massage, and sex. At first I thought I was in paradise with a line of 18 year olds queuing up out side my bedroom door.

But the novelty soon wore off, believe me. The quiet girls were taught that shyness was a tool they could use,
because loads of guys are turned on by the sexy little shy one. She acts like the virgin and the little girl lost.

Do not let this fool you. She, like all the others, are in this business to make money for the bar, the object of the exercise is to get the guy to buy loads of ladies drinks and then Bar-fine as many girls as he can handle. All the tricks in the book are used to get the cash out of your pocket and into the till.

Girls under the age of 21 are not allowed to drink alcohol, so if you ply her with drink and take her out, you could get into trouble with the Police, that's if somebody reports you. Big heavy fine, and money all around for the corrupt police and their informers.

Another thing is that if you are dating your girlfriend without paying a bar-fine, she will get into serious trouble with her boss, and you will probably be taught a little lesson by a few heavies that creep up on you from nowhere. I know. I have woken up a few times in the rat infested gutter, with my nose out of joint, all because of a shy little GRO.

OK you think you love her and want to marry her. You say you are 45. By the time she is 25 and at her sexual peak, you will be in your 50's. She will go back to the bar, she will want to show off to her old friends that she is now all grown up, and she has her old husband paying for everything she wants in life. Plus he is paying for everything her parents want....and the sisters and brothers... and the 500 or so cousins that are waiting in line for their share.

She will see the girls in her old place of work, having a good time with the punters, while all she has to look forward to that day is a pile of washing and ironing. She will be very tempted to have just one drink with an old flame and listen to his drunken promises. She will probably take him to a short time hotel and earn some extra
housekeeping by just laying on her back for an hour or so. Eventually you will get suspicious, the rows will start, She will go back to work in the bar. The end!


Sorry mate, there are hundreds of thousands of gorgeous decent Filipino girls in this world, all looking for the man of their dreams, and all wanting to settle down, start a family and live Happily Ever After. You are a little bit like myself. I too fell in love with a GRO, but a good friend warned me of the dangers, I lived
with her for a couple of years and we had some great times, but she would always go back to the bar to see her friends once a week, then twice a week, making excuses, coming home at 4 in the morning, drunk
and clothes torn. Then into Shabu [methamphetamine, speed, crank.] Bye bye little shy GRO. Now probably dead.

It will be hard to make the break, but you must. Remain good friends but please don't marry her. Because she is already married...TO THE BAR

By JOHN HARMAN. 3-21-05 by permission

There is a saying, "You can take the girl out of the bar, but you can't take the bar out of the girl." I believe this is true most of the time, certainly from what I have seen in the past 15 years. There are exceptions, but rare. The bar is exciting. Provincial girls become idols of customers, stars in their own eyes, make tight friendships in the bars. But some girls find a boyfriend before they get hung up with the life. But that is rare. There is usually always some problem that brought them to this, in addition to poverty, they can't shake.