Happy Valentine's Day (Feb 14)

Hmm... this year, I didn't buy a gift for Bobby - although I did get him a card :-)  As for the gift, I actually dug it up from the backyard.  The weirdest coincidence was that I saw a succulent that pretty much matched our family!  Can you see it???

At first I thought that perhaps the big one would be Mommy but then the boys vetoed that and said, the big one is Daddy.  The little one on the side is Mommy. And of course, each of the two "tentacles" represent Charlie and Graham.  PERFECT! :-D

And speaking of PERFECT, nothing screams Valentine's than chocolate covered strawberries.  The boys helped me lick off some leftover chocolate.  Okay, okay,... I licked the spatula too :-P

The only way for the boys to eat their grapes too without complaining is to put them all on a stick together with the chocolate covered strawberries!

Bobby felt guilty for not getting anything for Momma so he stopped by the grocery store on the way home and bought a card and some chocolates.  Yes honey, I am posting this!

Graham's class worked on making a very nice card:

Graham even wrote the poem all by himself, titled "I Love You More Than Nachos".  And trust me, Graham really loves his nachos - so this really means a lot!

I believe he actually ended up crying in class because he was frustrated and struggled in writing this poem.  But in the end, he did it!!!

And oh, I used up the rest of the melted chocolate with some graham crackers.  These were a hit too with everyone.  YUMMY!!!

So maybe the chocolate covered strawberries and graham crackers were considered gifts?  Although, it would have been a lot quicker to just buy something. LOL!

Happy Chinese New Year (Feb 5)

I hope my loyal blog readers have not given up on me! Now that I am checking the date since my last post, it has been almost 2 weeks since I have updated my blog.  So I guess that's about the usual delay :-)

This Chinese New Year is the Year of the Pig. What does that mean??? Well, I haven't really been reading the Chinese horoscopes, so at this point, it really doesn't mean too much. Ha ha!  There has been times when I would buy certain things and put them in certain areas of the room.  Nothing so far this year.  Maybe we need something for the house. It is falling apart! We are just noticing some water stains along the wall by the dining/kitchen area.  We are thinking maybe a leaky pipe behind the boys' shower area??! Guess we will find out in time once we call the plumber :-\

We didn't do too much this Chinese New Year. It had been raining a lot and Charlie also had a birthday party to attend that CNY weekend.  Otherwise, we probably would have gone to a Chinese New Year celebration (hosted by Graham and Charlie's Chinese school) to watch the Lion Dance.  This year, we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant to eat some noodles and dumplings.  But first, we had to dress up for the occasion:

Yummy noodles and dumplings!  This place doesn't disappoint:

And then, just before the end of the Chinese New Year (it last for 15 days), I managed to make our own dumplings.

Charlie helped out, which was so cute.  He still needs to figure out how to wrap them the proper way but definitely "A" for effort!

Graham was not so keen on the ones Charlie made though.  If the dumplings are not sealed properly, water gets into them. So we lost a few clumps of meat during the boiling/cooking process and we were left with just the dumpling skin filled with water.  Ha ha!

I wonder if this tradition will sort of die off when the boys get married.  Unless they marry into a Chinese family??!

Here's to a great Year of the Pig!

Pumpkin cheesecake pie (Dec 27, 2018)

Just wanted to post this so ALL the boys in this family appreciate what I have to get done in order to get that pumpkin cheesecake pie on the table!

1.  First, get a pumpkin.  In your case, it might not have a scary face drawn on it but for us, the pumpkin is almost always from Halloween:

2. Open it up and make sure it is still fresh (that probably only applies to us again since Halloween was about 1 months ago!).  Take all the seeds out and save some if you do intend on growing more pumpkins next season.  Then, cut up your pumpkin into about 1" cubes:

3. Bake the pumpkin cubes in the oven... 375F for... I don't remember now.  Until they are golden brown and soft (able to poke through easily with a fork).  I don't use any oil so it will stick a little on the pan - which can be a pain to clean after!  I need to figure this one out a little bit better for the next batch:

4.  Now comes the pureeing.  I add a little bit of water into the food processor but only enough to get the pumpkin moving in the blender.  Another fun clean-up!  (NOT!)

5. Oh wait... I totally forgot to talk about preparing the crust!  I normally buy ginger snaps from IKEA but since IKEA is a bit of a drive, I opted for some ginger snaps from Trader Joe's instead.  And the crust turned out great!  The crust consist of crushed ginger snaps with some butter and brown sugar.  To crush the cookies, I normally put a couple cups of it in a ziplock bag and use a rolling pin or even a soup can or can of vegetables for crushing.  Graham and Charlie normally likes helping with this task :-)
Now push the mix into a pie dish and don't forget to go up the sides too. You can use a fork for best results.  Pour your pie filling in... oh wait...

Pie filling = pumpkin puree + block of cream cheese + maple syrup + vanilla essence + something like 4 eggs??! +  ... that's all I can think of right now.

So, okay... might be step 6 by now.

6. Pour your pie filling into your crust and put it in the over at 325F for 90 min or until the center is firm.  Let cool and then, refrigerate overnight.  I am glad the pie doesn't go missing overnight.  And then, the next day... TA DA!!!  Yummy in our tummy!!! :-D

Phew! I am tired (and hungry) just writing about this Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie!

Merry Christmas! (Dec 25, 2018)

Almost 2 months later, I am finally posting about our Christmas Day.  Haha!  Oh wait, I forgot to post some photos from our Legoland trip on Christmas Eve.  So here goes, just a handful of them :-)

Looks like there is a train that goes to San Diego??? We need to try that out instead of driving!

The line going into Legoland was soooooo long, but we eventually did make it:

Charlie's friend from school actually joined us during this trip.  Boys are trying to figure out where to go first:

We hit some of the fun that we missed the last time:

We always seem to gravitate back towards this section - perhaps it's because this is where the pulled pork and ribs are sold :-D

Yummy crepe!!!  Funny how the kids all gathered around the window to see watch the crepes being made:

Hmmm... very tempting perhaps for Graham??!

We also spotted something in the Mini-world that we didn't see the last time.  Actually Bobby spotted it - a couple of Lego's with their hands on each other's bums.  Ha ha!

Another successful trip to Lego!  We drove home the next day and celebrated Christmas the next morning.  Actually, wait... we did let Graham and Charlie open up one present at night on Christmas eve:

Graham picked out the Captain America nerf gun for Charlie and Graham opened up a present from Grandma and Pop-pop.  Too cute!

Some milk and cookies and not forgetting the carrots for Santa and his reindeers!

The next morning... Merry Christmas everyone!

Actually, rewind just a little... and Bobby is trying to get me out of bed on Christmas morning. LOL!

Okay, now that I am up (barely), we can start with the Christmas stockings.  The boys are obviously eager!

Seems so tricky somehow to figure out what to fill up their stocking up with.  I wonder how Santa actually does it??!

The boys have been BEGGING for these Bey Blade (spin tops) for soooooo long!  And I found this AWESOME double-sided dishwasher magnet that says His Side/Her Side :-D

Rams t-shirt!

Boys are spoiled with so many pressies this year!

New socks for Daddy:

New socks for Mommy.  Yay!!!

Charlie picked out these fighting bots for Graham and I thought it was so clever of Charlie to pick the box that had 2 robots.  In the back of his mind, I am sure Charlie was thinking one of them would be his!  Cheeky little fella!

 

And Charlie was right!  Graham is such a nice big brother.  I just wish Charlie would appreciate that more!!!

More Rams stuff for Mommy!  I should have known what I was getting when the boys went to a sports store the night before:

Although maybe next time I want an adult version of the boys' new Ninjago onesie PJ.  Too cool!

 

And there's this little cute thing called Cozmo.  He gets connected to the phone for playtime:

A pair of strap-on skates from my sister and her family but so far, after one or two falls, it has been in the toy bin since Christmas.  Maybe I need to buy some elbow and knee pads for this one:

I will spare the details of EVERY gift, so let's move on to dinner.  Woah... wait,... what??!  Bobby is in the kitchen??!

Mommy was in charge of the steak and Bobby was in charge of the mac-n-cheese :-)

No pumpkin pie this Christmas.  The apple pie was a lot easier, quicker, and less tedious!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Our first Christmas at our new home... and here's to many more!

Recent happenings

Here are just a handful of photos and videos that I haven't had a chance to post yet.

Just as Graham is getting better at treading water in water polo, we haven't signed him back up after the Christmas holidays.  In the video below, Graham is to the right:

Here is Graham's artwork that was posted along the corridor of his school.  Not too shabby! I believe it was called "Sun and Moon":

Graham had his "Peter Pan" play with his class before the holidays as well.  He was one of the pirates and also a Lost Child (vs Lost Boys since there are girls are well playing this role).  Some parents volunteered to make the shirts for the kids, so yes - I was there in his classroom helping out. Brownie points for me :-)

Graham actually looks really good in black leggings!  Here is his pirate look on set.  Arrrrrr....!!!

The boys had a day off a couple of weeks ago so it was a good day to go practice our golf.  I actually have a charity pro-am this coming Monday in Woodland Hills (about 1hr away - depending on traffic??!).  

Check out Charlie's new golf bag!  Well, technically it's used but nonetheless, he was so excited to have his own carry bag! I had completely forgotten to pick up some used junior golf clubs for the boys at this golf club before the holidays.  But the guy did have this junior golf bag and I also picked up a new (used) 3-wood for Graham.  The 3-wood was too long for Graham so at the end of the round we brought it back in to get it cut and the guy did it for us for free! How sweeeet!!!

Charlie's swing is shorter now than he first started a couple of years ago but still pretty efficient!

By the way, did we mentioned we have signed up for Little League this year???  Charlie is stylin' his catch and his new helmet!

In the meantime, I am trying to fix this huge hole that the boys have put through on the trampoline netting in the backyard.  Grrrr.... more on my to-do list!

We went to the Little League baseball field and I thought this sign was pretty funny:

There was a try-out going on last weekend but since the boys are just starting out in T-ball (for Charlie) and Rookie League (for Graham), we are just practicing today.  I think this is going to be a common view/frequent for Spring!

The baseball field is right next to the harbor and you can see the vivid green-colored Vincent Thomas Bridge in the distance, to the right:

Although, maybe I like this view better?  I actually went to practice last week to get ready for my pro-am :-P

This past week I tried out a couple new restaurants.  One of them is a Hawaiian chicken place.  This dish almost tasted like Teriyaki Chicken.  Not too bad although would have liked more chicken with the rice:

Now this other place - a Japanese ramen (noodle) place - is a hit!  There were so many items on the menu I couldn't figure out which one to eat!!!  I ended up ordering the ramen with Mapo Tofu with ground pork.  Mapo Tofu is a traditional Chinese dish although I am not sure I liked it soupy with noodles. Still pretty yummy though. 

I see more noodles/ramen in my future :-D