Our precious little miracle from heaven, Baby Tuz, has just turned one. He was born on Nov. 17, 2015 at 11:47 PM after a whole day of a painfully induced labor which still ended in an emergency C-section. Still, Mahal and I are just so overwhelmed right now with so many emotions we couldn’t help but become teary-eyed with happiness… overjoy… disbelief… amazement… plus over fatigue from a full year of being full-time, hands-on, work-from-home parents with no yaya nor helper, just us three all this time. We couldn’t help but wonder how we were able to raise Tuz — a happy, fussy, gimmicky little boy who wears us out every day, every dawn and every single night to the point of insanity but whom we love so, so much!!!

Having said that, my next several posts for this month will be about our little big boy Tuz plus how we celebrated a year of sleepless nights, tremendous joy, mood swings, unexpected blessings and so much more!

Let me start by sharing with you the cake story…

I love cakes! I’ve only had 6 birthday cakes before I became a self-supporting adult (one each when I was 1, 2, 3, 4, 16 and 18 years old) so when it comes to our son, we want to give him every celebration cake possible for as long as we can.

 

TOUs LES JOURS BEAR CAKE

Baby Tuz’s first cake was a bear cake by Tous Les Jours during my baby shower. This cake looked so fun and cartoony that we were surprised that it didn’t taste that good inside. I like my chocolate cakes sweet and moist. The bear cake was just a bit like that but lacking something I couldn’t figure out. So the cake lasted for a long while inside our fridge because we just didn’t like the taste so much. Nevertheless, it looked good on pictures so for posterity’s sake, it served its purpose and it was enough. That cake was around P600 if I remember it right.

 

PH BAKEHOUSE BAPTISM CAKE

Baby Tuz’s second cake was a two-layer chocolate cake covered with fondant icing with a baby and a cross topper packaged with other desserts by PH Bakehouse for his Christening. I had a taste test prior to booking with them my order and the cupcake I tasted was alright, not too sweet with a bit of bitter aftertaste, at least for me. I wanted something that at least tastes like the chocolate moist cake of Red Ribbon and PH Bakehouse said they can do that too. So the day of the Christening, everything looked great, even the set up they graciously made with the dessert table looked spectacular. But sad to say, the cake didn’t taste like what I wanted so it took a while for us to eat it little by little and again ended up for a long time inside the fridge until I finally, we just gave it away to our neighborhood all-around utility guy who has a lot of kids. I hope they liked the cake. The whole cake + desserts package cost us P5,500 and on the night of the christening party, the owner of PH Bakehouse (who is also a blogger acquaintance of mine) generously gave me a P500 discount. I was so appreciative that I hugged her. She’s really so nice…. such a sweet person. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as happy with the cake. But the kids loved all the other candies and cookies in the desserts table which they also made.

 

MERRY BERRY CAKE BY ‘CAKES BY MIRIAM’

Baby Tuz’s third cake is his first birthday cake — the bestseller 9-inch Merry Berry cake by Cakes by Miriam. I just actually saw an image of a cake topped with various berries on Carmina Villaroel’s Instagram recently. I immediately fell in love with it! Since I’m into healthier food these days, and I’d like Tuz to have a healthy diet as well (no fastfood nor junkfood), having a cake that is not too sweet, not too rich, and full of super fruits like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes and kiwi would be so perfect for the occasion! Baby Tuz can definitely eat the fruits and a bit of cake too because the Merry Berry cake has a vanilla butter cake base with fresh fruit filling, frosted with slightly sweetened whipped cream. It cost us P2,670 and it was worth every penny. Here’s the breakdown:

• 9″ merry berry 1950
• Cake topper 100
• Delivery charge 600
• Lucis 20

I will definitely try their other cakes next time, most likely the one with the ferrero rocher chocolates: KAHLUA MOCHA CAKE – Coffee flavored chiffon cake with Kahlua mocha flavored frosting, topped with strawberry halves, ferrero, and chopped walnuts. 9″ round costs P1,800. So excited! Soon…

 

ACUAVERDE COMPLIMENTARY CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE

Then Baby Tuz had an unexpected fourth cake — a moist chocolate cake coupled with a birthday balloon compliments of Acuaverde Beach resort here in Laiya Batangas where we are currently celebrating baby Tuz’s first birthday. We were surprised! The staff of Acuaverde Beach Resort are really so accommodating and nice!

Upon checking in, we had with us the 9-inch Merry Berry cake which we asked the reception to please refrigerate for us.

Then in the evening, after a scrumptious buffet dinner at La Cocina, when baby Tuz suddenly woke up from a long nap (we thought he was already sleeping until the next day) we told one of the staff that they can now take out from the fridge the cake we brought early that morning.

To our delight, the male staff said that they also prepared a cake for Baby Tuz! As they were getting the cake, the male staff gave Baby Tuz a blue birthday balloon first and our little angel was suddenly all smiles! (He is usually stoic or irritable whenever he wakes up unexpectedly.)

When the complimentary cake was handed to baby Tuz, we taught him how to blow, but of course he couldn’t yet so it was Mahal and I who made a wish and blew the little candle.

Then after that, the staff brought out our Merry Berry cake! It looked gorgeous with all the fruit toppings!

It took a while to get it out of the box and the packaging and to set up the lucis (sparkler) and candles so baby Tuz was already getting fussy. Sigh… babies! One minute they’re chuckling and laughing, the next minute they’re irritable and crying. Lol!

Well, that’s our life. We are just so happy the cake tastes so good that we might not have enough leftover for my parents, brother and nephews when we plan to visit them after our beach trip.

Originally, we just planned to stay here in Batangas for one night. But because we sacrificed sleep when we went here (instead of sleeping on the night of our trip here, we packed, had baby Tuz ready and traveled at dawn instead to avoid traffic), we needed more time to enjoy the beach unzombified, get our body clock regularized again (including baby Tuz’s), and enjoy other activities if any. So we will be transferring to another beach resort (La Luz Beach Resort ) later on for our second night to extend baby Tuz’s first birthday celebration. Since we won’t be spending for a big first birthday bash anyway like normal human beings do — haha! (we’re both introverts if you’ve read about it on my previous post, hence, we only have few friends and they live so far away) we just decided to do what’s naturally happy for us to do — go to a beach and celebrate!

So that’s the story about cakes on baby Tuz’s first birthday and this is how we’re celebrating this big milestone in our lives so far.

Til my next baby post! Thanks for reading! (^_^)