I haven’t blogged since I gave birth so what better way to make a comeback than to make the subject of this blogpost, the newest member of the clan.

He made an appearance three days earlier than expected in the early hours of December 31st. I made sure I hired the services of Oh Happy Day Photography to chronicle his very first meeting with his three older siblings later that same day.

I’m forever grateful to Polly Fong who took these heart warming shots. (Like you, Polly is an alum of both Poveda and Ateneo). She specializes in birth photography and her style is very journalistic. She does the posed shots but mostly, she melts into the background and shoots with barely being noticed. The result is priceless, candid images.

So here it is… a little slideshow of Xabier meeting his siblings (and maternal grandparents and uncle) for the first time. Not to mention the debut of my post partum, manas (swollen) look. But I don’t care. It was a special day and since you’re like NEVER here anymore, I’m happy to share it with you and the oh… five other people who read our blog.

These pictures help me forget the awful, awful post op pain I experienced the next day when they reduced my pain meds (uuughh!) But mostly, they make me incredibly thankful for all the crazy love I have in my life.

But before we even get to that, many people are asking, What IS Kabbalah?

Karen’s son Yehuda wrote a best selling book answering precisely that. It’s called

One of the students from the Manila study group wrote a great review on it and we have full permission to share it below. Hope it answers a lot of your questions.

Have you ever wondered what we’re all doing here?
The book that changed my life and introduced me to Kabbalah has some answers.

This book is a good way to begin acquainting oneself with Kabbalah. But there’s also material for those who already possess some knowledge of Kabbalistic teachings. You may find yourself rereading the book a few more times to really grasp these concepts. The ideas presented in this book are sort of like the fundamentals of living life. As with any endeavor, the basics are of utmost importance. And The Power Of Kabbalah is a potent entry point for one’s spiritual journey towards growth and fulfillment.

If you’d like to attend Reincarnation and the Purpose of Our Lives with Karen Berg on Jan. 16th, 2013 at the SMX Convention Center, please register here ASAP as slots do fill up quickly.

And if you’d like to purchase a copy of The Power Of Kabbalah, please order here.

The special two part conference will consist of two talks:
“Why Kabbalah? Why Now?” with Yehuda Berg and
“Reincarnation and the Purpose of our Lives” with Karen Berg in which Karen will discuss many of the teachings in her new book “To Be Continued”.

Please see more event details at the Kabbalah Philippines website.

In the meantime, for those who know nothing or little about the wisdom of Kabbalah, here’s a quick book review by moi on one of Karen’s earlier works called:

Girl power has been a “trend” for the past decade or so. Television, media, educators have all been trying to play up women’s strengths and roles in society – and rightly so. These shows, websites and programs are usually on the right track. However, I have yet to come across a more powerful vehicle for the message of female empowerment than the book “God Wears Lipstick” by Karen Berg.

Karen points out that while many religious traditions and biblical texts seem to imply that women are less spiritually gifted than men, this is not truly the case. Women in fact, are gifted with more innate spiritual knowledge than their male counterparts. She writes, “…women use more diverse regions of our brains and are capable of grasping non-verbal communication than men. We’ve been given a gift of being more intuitive and some might say, clairvoyant. These tools were given to us to nurture babies as well as to nourish the spiritual component between ourselves and our husbands. Indeed, we were created to be the spiritual leaders in the home”.

According to the Kabbalists, women have a very specific role to play in the world – and it goes well beyond rearing our children and keeping house. Karen gets to the roots of our spiritual responsibilities by taking us on a journey through history and even before time began.

Through God Wears Lipstick we also learn that the challenges we face in our lives are golden opportunities for spiritual growth. With the use of simple (though not always easy!) Kabbalistic tools, we can all access the joy, relationships, children, abundance and more that the Creator has always meant for us to have – if only we reach for it. We are truly blessed to have Karen Berg help us through this adventure called life.

You can order your copy of God Wears Lipstick (P870.00) on http://www.kabbalahphilippines.com

NOTE: Kiki and I have been insanely busy with travel, work, moving house and what not. We promise to post soon on our fun time together – physically together!

Wind is now back to howling, thankfully.  The subways are all down.  Path train is down.   Grand Central, Penn station and Port Authority all closed.  Even Broadway shut their lights.  But as the human spirit is infinitely resilient, the east coast-ers will rise above this.

Panoramic view of the beaches and the beach houses.  As you could see, I was “busy” taking pictures…

…While he waited for me by the shore…still hamming it up.  What’s that in his pocket??!!

…Then he asked, and I said Yes

Mabuhay!

He comes to me with a pack of “Choco-Knots” to be opened.

Mikel: Mom – can you open please?
Lala: OK but can you put that water bottle back in the ref?
Mikel: The referee??

The Arena is rife with ads and billboards and as we were walking from the ladies’ room to the actual arena, we had this conversation.

Rocio: (Points to two celebs on a billboard with numerous artistas telling us to subscribe to a particular cellular network). I don’t like that girl. She thinks she’s so great. But the other girl is OK. I like her.
Lala: Oh really? And you can say this because you know them both personally?
Rocio: Not personally… celebrity.

What I like about this show is that the fictional characters deal with non-fictional news stories.  Of course, Sorkin has the benefit of hindsight enabling his characters to appear smarter but at the very least, this gives us personas to aspire to be like.  With hindsight, Sorkin’s characters have the chance to correct journalistic errors made in real-life.  While some call this cheating, I’d like to call this creative license

Last Sunday’s episode was the best for me so far.  It was set on the day Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona.  I’m not sure if this made it to your news cycle but it was heartbreaking news here.  I really want you to see this clip because I’m hoping this might reinvigorate your passion for the news and consequently, compel you to go back to giving viewers what they deserve: the truth.  This is the last 7 minutes of the show and I really love how this team, fragmented as they are, manages to band together for a greater purpose when unforeseen situations call for it. I also love how Coldplay’s Fix You weaves so smoothly with this last scene.  Check it out.

This probably doesn’t resonate with you emotionally (because you have a heart of stone) but would it surprise you if I told you that I was bawling when I saw this?  Once again, Sorkin rocks!

If you recall, he failed my “travel test” two years ago with his getting frightened by ordinary street noises and tantrums. Thankfully, this time at age four, he passed with flying colors. We can take him just about anywhere! He hardly complained. If he was tired he would give a whiney little, “Can we go back to the holltell??” – and that was it. Amazing! What a difference two years can make.

The cutest thing in Disneyland was when he started to get scared as we boarded the boat for It’s A Small World. He was clinging to me like a little country mouse.
Mikel: Mom… Can you pottect me?
Lala: Protect you? From what? We’re in It’s A Small World!
Mikel: From the cocodile…!

Where did all the “R”s go?

Then this super sweet conversation a few nights later. We had come from dinner and were all tired except my super shopper husband who wanted to roam around Tsim Sha Tsui till the stores closed. So I said I was going to take the kids up to the “holltell” so we could all rest. But of course, Mikel didn’t want to part ways from his dad so Luigi told him, “You need to take a bath and rest. You also need to protect Mommy, OK?”. And somehow after that we were on our way back to our hotel but I soon realized Mikel was still a bit upset and confused.

Mikel: Why Pappy wants to go shopping still?
Lala: Never mind. Let him be OK. Besides, if you stay with him, you’ll just get tired.
Mikel: But… But… Who I pottect you from??

Awww…!

The part of Chicago that I was in was a well planned, clean and pristine city.  A perfect balance of old and new.

In my biased opinion, in all of Chicago’s glory…it’s still not New York City!