Aleina's Baptism Preparation - Part 2

After completing the basic requirements for baptism - church, date/time and the reception venue, I am now thinking of which theme is appropriate for my baby. Coz for me, if I prepare at least a theme, I will have the idea of whatelse to plan - with the help of google of course! So, I've chosen white and pink colours with prints and stripes.

So below are the list I think that I need to prepare or engaged with: 

• Guests & Invitations
• Food Catering Services
• Cake
• Give Aways
• Decorations
• DIY Photobooth - my husband is so techy so he told me he want a photobooth for my child so I was fine with this.

Guests

We only invited our family, godparents and closed-friends in our party. As this is only a small celebration, we didn't invite more people.

Invitations

I've sent an invitation to my guests at least 2 weeks before the actual event through Facebook Event. I design Baptismal Invitation using Adobe Photoshop and placed it in my Facebook event page. I also did a print out of this invitation and set out to Aleina's godparent to make it more official ;).

Cake

Now that I've got my theme, I've read lots of forum to where can I get a good cake (in terms of design and taste, of course). For this kind of event, the cake is really not so important, but I'd still want to proceed as this is my very first baptism preparation to my child - it really gets me excited! Browsing around the Cake Avenue's facebook page, I was really amazed of their designs so I made an inquiry with them for my desired cake. Alas, I've managed to order a cake to them at least 3 weeks before the event. I also found out that Natalie is good in customer service and she is prompt to my inquires.

Food Catering

Since all of our guests are Filipinos, I've decided to cater to a Filipino caterer. I've got a contact to Pinoy Catering SG with the use of PinoySG Forum. The main person I contact with is Tintin, seems quite good at first and also, replied my queries promptly though their price is quite expensive compare to the local caterer.

Give Aways

After tons of tons of browsing, sometimes I even find myself browsing at US websites, I have found a good website that offers customization - Do Me A Favor. I've found their candies, lollies and other sweets can be cuztomized according to your theme so I've decided to stick to it.

Decorations

2 weeks before the event, my friend Rio & Marge (together with their bf, TJ & Marvin, respectively) helped me for my diy stuffs. They are also excited of decorating the entire living room for this event. Sadly, Marge & Marvin, wasnt be able to attend to the party as they need to fly back to Philippines to prepare for their wedding for January 2013.

DIY Photobooth

Albert's prepare the necessary equipments needed for his DIY photobooth especially his photobooth software. Since we have a vacant room, we allot this for our photobooth section. My sister helped me to decorate this room as well as the backdrop (background), my niece and nephew are also enjoying helping their mom... :)

I'll share my photos in my next post.

Applying Philippine Passport for NewBorn

Aleina was discharged from KKH Hospital on July 21, 2012, Saturday. All the documents was processed and prepared by my hubby :). The next day, we immediately go to Phil Embassy in Nassim Road (Singapore) for our baby Aleina's passport. Newborn baby is always their priority to process first. Though Aleina got 42 days of stay in Singapore (special pass) we're targetting to have Aleina her passport before September 1 coz there will be a new rule issued by the MOM (Ministry of Manpower) that the salary requirement for an EP holder (Employment Pass Holder) will be increased. So, again this is our goal - to have Aleina a dependent pass, so she can stay in Singapore as much as possible.

Sunday morning, my husband left our house at 6am and proceed in the PH Embassy. Of course, at this hour the embassy is still closed and will only open by 8am. After 2 hours of queuing, he called us and informed us to prepare and go directly to the embassy as soon as possible. We've arrived in the embassy at almost 10am. Since we have a newborn baby (that time Aleina was just 8 days old!), we're allowed to come inside the office. Btw, we dont have an appointment coz we're not sure when is Aleina's schedule discharged from the hospital.

Below are the documents we've prepared for Aleina's passport processing, both original and photocopy:

- Marriage Certificate (with red ribbon or DFA authenticated)

- Aleina's Birth Certificate / Report of Birth

- Passport Application Form

- Parent's Passport (and Singapore IC)

- Cash Payment $102.

Click here, for complete reference. http://www.philippine-embassy.org.sg/consular/report-of-birth/

Pls note that the embassy only accepts marriage certificate with DFA authentication if the parent are married in the Philippines. If the marriage was place outside of PH, then no need for DFA authentication. If you need further information about this, I would strongly advise to call the embassy.

We still queue inside the embassy office coz we are not the only one whose processing the passport of their newborn baby. As I remember, there are at least 8 newborn in the room. There's still a queue for a passport picture taking inside. For the baby, it might take more time than the usual to take her shot coz you need to get baby's attention and should be awake.

In the outside, where lot of people there queuing including my hubby, he prepared the documents and passed to the counter (I forgot which window number hehehe). The documents needs to be validated as well as the application form. After doing this, we've moved to the payment window/counter. We prepared exact amount ($102) to make it quick transaction. We've managed to complete this process at almost 1pm.

We've advised that for newborn it may 5 weeks before our passport arrived. Ang received the info sheet that Aleina's passport will arrived on August 31, which is exactly almost the deadline for our Dependent Pass Application.

Passport collection:

By 29th August, I've managed to collect Aleina's passport in which the date should be 31st of August. Immediately I've send the details to my hubby so that he can forward this information to his HR and help us process for Aleina's DP.