Christmas season never fails to give everyone a festive mood. For me, the celebration this year will definitely be extra special as we share it with the newest addition to our family. We are now a family of four: me, my husband, my toddler and my 8 month old baby. Like in every household, this season is the perfect time to create core memories with one's family. I am sure that moms like me would do anything and everything to ensure that our children will experience a wonderful and memorable Christmas.

Here are some activities that you can do with your little ones during the Christmas season:

1. Play dress up and have your photo taken as a family
Dressing up your babies like a mini Santa or with a red Christmas-themed onesie can result to lots of laughter and cuteness overload. You may also want to dress up as a family with matching clothes and have your photo taken on your first Christmas together. The photo you will get can be used to make the family's Christmas card which can be given to relatives and friends. It can also be framed afterwards for you and your children to look back year after year.


2. Create family traditions with your baby
Having a small family calls for your own family traditions which you and your babies can do on a yearly basis. It may be as simple as setting up the Christmas tree; preparing the belen while telling the story of the nativity of Jesus; or even making Christmas stockings for each member of the family and reminding everyone about the true meaning of Christmas and the spirit of giving. These traditions are those activities that your children as they grow will excitedly look forward to and fondly remember as the year passes by.

3. Prepare Christmas meals together
Eating is inevitable during the Christmas celebrations. Parties will pop up one after the other. With little ones in tow, moms should always be mindful of the food we serve them. The food they eat should still be healthy and should contain all the nutrients they specifically need for their age. One way to make sure that they eat healthy food is to make a meal plan for them during the holidays. It would also be a great bonding activity to involve them in the process of preparing their food. You would be surprised to see them enjoying the preparations and would later on eat what they prepared with all gusto. Naturally, since they prepared it, they would not want to waste it and would appreciate it even more. It is a good teaching and learning opportunity for our children to be more responsible and to give value to food.

Here are some healthy and easy recipes which uses #CerelacPH baby food to make an entirely new snack treat for our little ones. With these recipes, I am sure it would be easy for us to catch our little one's attention when we say #LetsEatBulilit.
 

Apple Banana Cookies with Raisins by Mommy Ishee Valencia



Ingredients
- 2 cups Cerelac Wheat Banana & Milk
- 2 pieces banana
- 1 piece small apple
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 egg
- 1 small pack margarine
- 2 tetra pack raisins

How to prepare

1. Wash, peel and remove the seeds of the apple.
2. Slice the apple into small cubes.
3. Peel and slice the banana.
4. Put the butter and eggs in a mixing bowl then mix it until it is light and fluffy.
5. Put the flour, rolled oats and Cerelac Wheat Banana & Milk in the mixing bowl and mix it well.
6. Add the sliced banana and apple and mix it until the right consistency.
7. Chop the raisins and mix in the bowl.
8. Get 1 tbsp. cookie dough, roll it and put in an ungreased cookie sheet.Make the dough 2 inches apart from each other.
9. Preheat the oven and bake.
10. Cool the cookie before serving.

Cheesy Carrot Potato Balls by Mommy Kathlyn Pearl San Juan-Santos


Ingredients
- 4 pieces potatoes
- 1 piece carrot
- 5 tbsp. Cerelac Mixed Vegetables & Soya
- Breadcrumbs for coating
- Cheese
- 1 egg
- 1-2 stems malunggay leaves
- Salt to taste
- 80 ml distilled water

How to prepare
1. Wash the malunggay, potatoes and carrots. Boil it until tender.
2. Remove it from the boiling water and set aside to cool.
3. Put 5 tbsp. Cerelac Mixed Vegetables & Soya in 8-0 ml distilled water
4. Mash the potatoes and carrots. Combine it with the Cerelac mixture.
5. Get a small amount of the mixture, put a small cube of cheese in the middle and roll it into a ball.
6. Dip the ball in the egg and coat it with breadcrumbs.
7. Deep fry the balls until golden brown.
8. Drain and let it cool.
9. Cut into half, put some Cerelac as sauce and serve.

Churros by Mommy Calhaii Yabut


Ingredients
- 1/2 cup margarine/butter
- 1 piece egg
- 3/4 cups Cerelac Wheat Banana & Milk
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- Pinch of salt
- Oil for frying
- Sugar for dusting

How to prepare
1. In a nonstick pan, put the margarine/butter, water, sugar and salt. Cook over medium to high heat and bring to a boil.
2. Add the sifter flour and Cerelac Wheat Banana & Milk. Adjust the flame to low heat. Mix thoroughly.
3. Put the batter in a bowl and add the egg. Mix it well.
4. Put the batter in a piping bag or a ziplock bag (cut a small hole at the end)
5. Put oil in a pan. Holding the ziplock bag a few inches above, squeeze the batter. Make each churros 4 inches long.
6. Fry for about 4 minutes until the churros is golden brown.
7. Transfer the churros to a paper towel to drain. Roll churros in sugar and serve. 

*All recipes mentioned here were lifted from this book:

Since the time I became a mom, I became more mindful of the list of ingredients of the products I let my children use and even more so with the stuff that they ingest. So when I learned that Scarlet Snow Belo, daughter of Dra. Vicky Belo and Dr. Hayden Kho, went to the Nestle Headquarters in Switzerland and learned about everything related to Nestle NANKID, I got so excited and very eager to know what they discovered about it since NANKID is the milk my 3 year old takes.

Scarlet Snow was lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet the brilliant science experts and big bosses who work in the headquarters like Alex Keller, the Global Category Head of Nestle Infant and Growing Up Milks, and Marco Turini, Global Head for Scientific Affairs for Nestle. The experts, in turn, were happy to meet their little visitor, as they patiently explained their latest innovations to her, including how they engineered Scarlet Snow’s milk, Nestle NANKID.

Milk Formulation for Kids
They began by explaining why Nestle NANKID milk formulation is adapted for kids. They showed how all the essential vitamins, minerals and DHA are present in the milk.

They highlighted that NANKID:
1. Has no added sucrose (table sugar) to make sure it is a healthy choice for kids.
2. Has high amounts of optimized protein which is important for a child’s growth and development, contributing to the building of brain, muscles, and body.
3. Has probiotics that keeps the digestive system strong and healthy as it fights the bad bacteria in the stomach.

Future-Ready Kids
Scarlet Snow also discovered that all good things she gets from her favorite milk helps her grow up to be future ready. We all know that childhood is all about learning, growing, and experiencing new things. Every experience contributes to a child’s mental, emotional and over-all development. Along with proper nutrition, especially one that has optimized protein such as Nestle NANKID, growing children can achieve their fullest potential. This is the message behind Scarlet Snow’s webisodes, which also emphasizes the role that parents play in reshaping the future of their growing children.

As parents, we have the power to #ReShapetheFuture of our children. The choices we make for them is crucial and would affect them in the future. I am glad I chose NANKID for my eldest daughter. We can watch the webisodes to see how Scarlet Snow, with the support of her parents and with NANKID, is well positioned to become the best that she can become in the future. We too can do this for our own kids as well.

Discover Scarlet Snow’s Switzerland journey and catch all the episodes on Nankid’s Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/NANKIDOPTIPRO/.

Powdered milk drinks suited for healthy children above 3 years of age, NANKID® OPTIPRO® FOUR and NANKID® OPTIPRO® HW FOUR are formulated with optimized protein to ensure optimal weight advantage and optimal development advantage. NANKID® OPTIPRO® HW FOUR also contains partially hydrolyzed whey, clinically proven to reduce the risk of allergies.

Rustan’s Supermarket is celebrating its 48th Anniversary and would like to offer exciting deals to everyone until November 4, 2018. Enjoy amazing discounts, buy-one-take-one promos and other promo deals as you shop for Rustan’s Supermarket’s premium meats and produce, international wines, breakfast favorites and snacks, pantry staples, home and beauty essentials, and more.


If you are a Fresh, Marketplace, or Sapphire cardholder, you are in for a treat too. 500 loyal cardholders will also get to bring home their groceries for free with the Your Groceries On Us promo. All you have to do is purchase least P500 worth of products from Dove, Nestlé, World o’ Noodle, CDO Funtastyk, VitaPet, Veneto, Papa Alfredo, Cadbury, Selecta, Lucky Me!, Magnolia, Top Cafe for a chance to be one of the lucky winners.

Mechanics

Aside from those promos and treats for Rustan's customers, Rustan’s Supermarket is also donating 48 wheelchairs to 48 children with serious illnesses in partnership with Make a Wish Philippines, the first and only non-profit wish granting foundation in the country.

Promos and deals are until November 4, so don’t miss the chance to celebrate and avail of the great deals and steals from Rustan’s Supermarket’s Anniversary Sale.

For more info, visit www.rustansfresh.com, follow and like rustansfresh on Facebook, and @rustansfresh on Instagram and Twitter.

Rustan’s Supermarkets are located at Makati Area: Glorietta, Greenbelt 1, Paseo de Magallanes, Alphaland Makati Place, Paseo Center, Century City Mall.  North Area: Gateway Mall, Katipunan, Tomas Morato, P. Guevarra, Corinthian Hills, Village Center Antipolo, The Grove by Rockwell, Ayala Malls The 30th. South Area: Ayala Alabang Village, Evia Lifestyle Center, Uptown Mall BGC. Cebu: Oakridge Business Park, Ayala Center, Arcenas Estate CDO: Ayala Centrio Mall. Also, visit The Marketplace at San Antonio Plaza, Rockwell Power Plant Mall and Central Square Bonifacio High Street, Connecticut San Juan, Eastwood City, Shangri-La Plaza, Paseo de Roces, Santolan Town Plaza, Three Central, Westborough, Leonard Woods and Festive Walk Mall.

The first time my eldest daughter got confined was due to gastroenteritis, a stomach infection caused by viruses and bacteria. To prevent this from happening again, our pediatrician advised us to offer our daughter probiotics everyday.

No matter how careful we are in terms of the food we serve or offer our children, we cannot be 100% sure that their stomach will no longer be infected. This is especially true whenever we eat out in restaurants or in fast food chains. It is a known fact that our favorite fast food items are loaded with fat, carbohydrates and has little to no fiber which both kids and adults need for good stomach health.

We would often hear that all of us need to have good stomach bacteria to protect us against different diseases or conditions like constipation, diarrhea and flatulence. Even when we were still kids, we would hear our moms (or even from television) that we need probiotics - the live, good bacteria to maintain a healthy tummy. Probiotics are those live microorganisms that help maintain the balance of good and bad bacteria in the digestive tract. The good bacteria aids in digestion and helps the body defend itself against illness.


I recently discovered that there is an easy way to keep our kid's tummy healthy everyday- by simply giving them one Erceflora ProbiBear a day. An Erceflora Probibear is a 2 in 1 probiotic supplement that comes in a cute, white, chewable bear that tastes like milk. It is a good tummy supplement as it contains 2 probio-boosters: Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis – both good bacteria that help prevent gut problems. Lactobacillus is an effective treatment against infant colic and even helps improve immunity while Bifidobacterium eases digestive issues such as bloating and flatulence. It is recommended to be given to kids 3 years old and up.


Do you want to give this a try? Erceflora ProbiBear is available at select Mercury Drug and South Star Drug branches for only Php540 SRP per box of 20s.

My husband and I are both working so come hump day, we are both too excited to fast forward to the weekend! It’s time away from work and the perfect time to have some fun with my two kids. To make the most out of the weekend, we usually make a game plan on the activities that we will do. Since my children are still small, our game plan consists of interactive play like singing, dancing and playing catch, simple board games, and the classic hide and seek. Then we make sure that we have a good snack so as not to make the kids #hangry (hungry and angry at the same time!).



But did you know that there's actually a wealth of benefits that come from spending quality time through play during weekends with the kids.
I would often see my child pick-up and imitate how I talk and act so playtime is the best time to actually be a good role model. That is how to behave when losing; the practice of patience and perseverance when you cannot get it right; the introduction of healthy competition and the cheerfulness when someone else wins.