Happy Early New Year!

So Christmas has come and gone and I'm debating whether to take down my tree or not.  I had my tree up for over a month this year, but somehow I don't feel ready to say goodbye!  Maybe I just love Christmas too much.  ;)
Today and tomorrow we are busy prepping for our trip to LA.  I probably won't be able to post until we get back, so I just want to wish everyone a happy (and safe) new year!! :)

Christmas Morning

My First Real Dinner Party

Since we live so far from our friends and family, when we see them, we have them over to visit and stay for days.  So we've hosted a lot of visitors in the past, but never had a real adult dinner where you invite someone over to the house just for dinner and they bring wine and the whole shebang.  I guess that makes tonight's dinner my first real dinner "party" if you can even call it a party since it was just us and our neighbor couple.  We had invited them for Christmas Eve dinner because they are just so wonderful!  Initially they wanted to swing by real quick to give Jaden his gift, but I was so grateful for all the love they show J and how sweet and wonderful they are to us that I wanted to make dinner for them.  I didn't imagine they would buy him a gift, so super sweet of them!  When I gave birth to J, they even got us a baby gift and I had never even met them before that!  Hubby met them a few times when we were renovating because we found that our shower in the master bath would leak down to their master bath whenever we turned the water on so we had to get it fixed.

Anyhow, I debated a LONG time about what to serve them.  I was so super nervous! LOL!! I decided be a little more realistic about how much time I actually have to make food since J is super mobile now and takes only one afternoon nap, leaving me hardly any time to do stuff. 

The menu:

Fried butterfly shrimp

Miso Soup (instant)

California Rolls (store-bought)

Japchae

Kalbi

Oreo Truffles &Cupcakes for dessert (cupcakes from the market)

The oreo truffles I made! I sprinkled crushed candy canes on top.  They were yummy but soooo sweet! Especially the chocolate shell.  Our guests loved them, though, and took them all home to freeze!

All in all the dinner was a success and have agreed to meet at their place next time for dinner after the holidays.  I was super nervous about this dinner for some reason, probably because most of the people I've cooked for in the past were family and good friends we've known for a really long time that even if my dishes are a flop, we can all laugh and grab some Taco Bell.  My neighbors aren't picky or hard-to-please or difficult or anything like that, they are the best neighbors ever, but I was just nervous because I've never hosted a dinner before. ;)

Now I'm excited about opening all of my gifts tomorrow morning!

Merry Christmas, all!!

Xmas Gift #2

I was hoping hubby would let me open another gift today (LOL I am such a child!) but he did better and brought me an early xmas surprise!  9 gift cards to Forever21!  [There's a reason behind why he got 9 cards instead of putting everything on just one card, but I won't bore you ;)]

Best Christmas Gift EVER!!!!!!

Last night hubby let me open of my gifts... and it turned out to be the BEST GIFT EVER!!



Hubby paid off my credit card!!!! OMG!!! I love him.

Corporate Gifts

Every year around Christmastime, we get a lot of corporate gifts from our vendors.  Most of the stuff we appreciate (like the 10 lb. salami hubby went to town with, no lie, it was his happy day), some things I think it'd have been better for them had they not sent anything at all. 

Here are a few of the things we got this year.

First, the "wtf" gift.  I'm by no means an ungrateful person but this one is really pretty crappy.  Seriously. It looks so bleh and tastes like PEE!! lol!! The label says it's chocolate, but it's NOT chocolate!  It's like some almondy-toffee wannabe sugar candy inside and the outside is supposed to be seashell shapes... which they do not look like.  I wouldn't even buy this for my mailman.. I don't know what they are thinking. Terrible corporate gift.  No, terrible gift. Period.

This next one is super nice!  It's not quite my style, but still, very very nice teacup set.  I feel like I'm part of the royal family drinking from this ;)

They also sent this tea set, which we are clueless about since the only English written on it is "China Tea".  There's no directions, no nothing.  We're enlisting the help of our good Taiwanese and Chinese friends to help us brew this tea.

This is the best one we get every year!  One vendor always sends us goodies from Omaha Steaks for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but this year they outdid themselves.  They just sent over sooo much food I could barely fit it all in my fridge, but I think I may just have a small fridge.

It comes packed so well in this styrofoam icebox with dry ice inside.

The list of what's inside... Tons of food!  There's 22 servings of some meat and seafood main dish alone. I don't know how we're gonna eat all this, we don't eat much meat these days.  But their lasagna is SOOO good!! I was hoping they sent us these caramel apple mini pie thingies (i don't know the real name lol) which were TO DIE FOR, I ended up driving to Omaha Steaks to buy more!  But this year they sent cheesecake instead, which are pretty yummy too, but nothing compared to the apple thingies!! ^^

9-month Checkup

20 lb 5 oz (50%)
29 inches (75%)

Almost Christmas

Christmas is only 5 days away!!!! Yay!!!

Before my parents got divorced, holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas were the best holidays because the whole extended family and family friends without a family of their own nearby would all gather at our house.  It was full of fun, laughter, lots of yummy food, and we'd all stay up until midnight on Christmas Eve (technically Christmas Day) to open all the presents.

Ever since we were dating, hubby and my Christmases and Thanksgivings were quite lonely.  It was always just the two of us, as we had moved out of state and left all our loved ones back in California.   It was always two gifts, one for him, one for me, under the tree.  It was just such a sad sight that we wouldn't even bother putting the gifts under the tree! We'd keep them hidden in our closets and surprise each other on Christmas Eve.  Thinking back on those years, the holidays were so sad, but also cozy at the same time. 

This year, with the newest addition to our family here, we both wanted to make Christmas more of a big deal than it used to be, even though J is too young to understand, or even to open his own presents.  There are gifts for J under the tree and hubby and I have gotten each other many gifts for each other as well!  My in-laws and BIL have also sent gifts for the entire family and while the gifts themselves are not really all that important, we are really happy because just having their gifts under the tree makes us feel like a part of them are going to be with us on Christmas Day as the 3 of us gather around the tree to open up all the goodies. 

I finished my Christmas shopping 2 weeks before Christmas and have mailed off all the Christmas cards today.  Wanna see our Christmas card mockup?

Originally we had planned on taking a family photo to put on the card, but it just didn't happen and J ended up on the card by himself.

The message is different on the actual card we had printed.  They're from Costco and I loved how convenient the ordering process is- order online, pick it up in person in an hour.  How great is that? (Especially so since I TOTALLY and COMPLETELY procrastinated on these photo cards and had less than a day to get them printed, addressed, and stamped!)

Hope you are all finishing up or have finished your shopping and have a holly jolly Christmas weekend!

9-months

I really can't believe my little bugaboo will be 9 months old tomorrow!  Time sure has flown.

With his favorite buddy Yeppi!  J definitely has an interest in both of our dogs, but I could see he is more affectionate with Yeppi.  When Yeppi comes near, he always always pets her back, whereas with Deuce, he bonks him on the head (in a loving way of course!).  I love seeing these two together. 

Bummed about NYX brushes

I seriously used this once. Upon receiving and using my customized set of "professional" NYX brushes, I was disappointed in the quality of the brushes itself... and now the handle comes off.  So bummed~ This picture just reminded me to take off the nail polish that I tried on at Sephora! hehe