ROK:BRGR

Last Sunday we headed over to Ft. Lauderdale for lunch.  My friend had bought me a gift certificate to a bar&grill in the Old Fort Lauderdale district which was about to expire and I didn't want it to go to waste.  Unfortunately, they really are more of a bar than anything else and was not open for lunch!  So we decided to have lunch next door at this place called ROK:BRGR which looked really dark inside and hip!

They had such a cool menu that was made of super thick leather.

J bored waiting for our food and hubby having himself a little beer fun.

     

Our food!  We both ordered our burgers well-done and they said it would take up to 20 minutes for it to be fully cooked because their patties are so thick!  Their burgers were HUGE, it wouldnt even fit in my mouth after I had smashed it down as flat as I could get it with my hands.

Look at those onion rings!  They were almost as big as the ginormous burger and sooooo yummy!!!

Byebye, ROK:BRGR, we'll be back for your artery-clogging yummy goodness!! ^__^

I love dumplings

I love dumpling soup.  I Love.... did you hear me?  I LOOOVVVVVE dumpling soup (Mandooguk).  It's always been one of my absolute favorite Korean dishes.  I'm not such a fan of ddukgook, though, the rice ovalettes are not a fave of mine unless cooked to a perfect consistency, so come New Years, per Korean tradition, we have the dduk manduguk but I have mine with as little rice ovalette slices as possible.  Anyway, the above pic is of the rice cake dumpling soup my MIL cooked for us the day after New Year's. 

On New Year's Day we all went to Jaden's great grandparents' for brunch where she served up a very different kind of soup than the clear broth like pictured above... great grandma's soup tasted kind of like yookgaejang- had a bit of a spicy kick to it and she puts in a lot of the beef slices.

We got to great grandma's just in time for lunch and I got to help make the remainder of the dumplings.

Someone else's dumplings:

My dumplings:

I think I kind of rock in dumpling-making! hehe!!

Her Garden

My aunt is one of the most talented home decorators I know and she's not even a professional!  She does this purely as a hobby as she loves beautifying her home.  She invited us over during our LA trip and cooked us a feast which was so yummy, what wowed us even more was her backyard, which she designed and planned herself!  She said she went to buy the rocks herself too and laid them out on her own as well as planting all her greenery herself as well.  Here are a few pics I took.  I regret that I don't own a wide angle lens or even bringing along my zoom lens for that matter because I couldn't take an overview shot of the lot which is just gorgeous.

 

She grows her own veggies!  How awesome is that?!

If I ever move back to socal, I know who to call to landscape my backyard! :)  I'd love to grow my own strawberries!

Milestones

Jaden is hitting so many milestones within such a short period of time, it's so exciting but I'm a little sad at the same time to see him grow up sooo fast!

Up until he was 8 months old he couldn't even crawl. I was actually very concerned because other babies I knew were crawling at 6-7 months! One time my MIL told us over the phone that a friend's grandson who is a month younger than J could crawl and I got really teary-eyed because I felt like I was doing something wrong which was making Jaden not develop at the same level as other babies. He was doing the yoga pose for the longest time, which I guess is something that babies do just before they learn to crawl. We kept thinking, okay he'll crawl by the end of this week, any day now, he's always doing the yoga pose! But he did the yoga pose for over a month before he actually crawled. And his first crawl happened when he had a mean diaper rash and when I tried to wipe him, he flipped over and ran (crawled) away from me crying! lol

Ever since that time he started crawling (it was around 8 months, 2 weeks) he seems to be super mobile and developing so rapidly. About a week after he started crawling, he started to pull himself up  started cruising as well! He's 9.5 months now and today he stood on his own!! I was on the phone with skippee discussing what favors I was thinking of doing for J's party and I started yelling, "omg! J's standing!! he's standing!!!" LOL I was so surprised!! He came over to me because I was holding a toy and he grabbed it out of my hand and just stood there standing in the middle of his playmat for a good 10 seconds just looking at the toy. So exciting!

I've also started brushing J's 4 teeth, yes, all four of them keke. He hated it the first time I brushed him, but now he'll open his mouth just enough to let me slide the toothbrush in his mouth and scrub scrub scrub his tiny little teeth to my heart's content :)

He also gets super excited when he sees food. REALLY REALLY super duper excited.

.....................
Pics from today:

My brother bought J 2 sets of baby jail!! A true life saver! I could get so much more done now!

laundry fun!!

My baby sleep routine sucks.

I can't believe it took me over 2 and half months (since Crying It Out sleep training) to realize that how I put the baby down for naps and nightsleeps was probably a nightmare for J. Whenver I put him down to sleep, he'd scream at the top of his lungs and cry for a while before falling asleep. I never understood why he does this, because I don't put him down unless he shows definite signs of sleepiness (like rubbing his eyes, yawning, eyeballs rolling back, eyelids looking heavy). I would always think, 'you are so sleepy, I don't know why you won't sleep right away'. On the nights I am busy doing dishes or something and baby is sleepy, I'd ask hubby to put J in his crib. He'd always yell from the baby's room as he puts him down, asking me what he should do because J keeps crying and that he looks so sad/pissed/scared. I would always tell him "nothing! just come out of the room!" because I figured that the crying was just a part of how J falls asleep. I figured it's okay since J never cries for more than 5 or 10 minutes at night. He does cry longer for naps though because he wants to play. But that was the routine. I thought it was okay.

I was SO WRONG!

I never read to J before he goes to sleep because he was just too young and the few times I tried, he didn't seem to care at all, which discouraged me. I decided to put off reading until he turns one. Then for the past 2 nights, I sang to J holding him in my arms before putting him down in his crib and he doesn't cry and scream anymore! This just tells me I've been a horrible mother to him whenever bedtime rolled around, he probably cried, whined, and screamed because he felt neglected or something. I feel so bad!! But life goes on and I've learned my lesson.

New bedtime routine:
Hold, sing, sleep.

omg! so funny!!

Jaden and I were sitting on the living room floor when hubby comes out from our room and takes his shirt off because he says there's something on his back that he wants me to take a look at. I get up and sit on the couch and hubby sits below me on the floor so I can take a look at his back and Jaden crawls over to hubby, stares at hubby's nipples for quite a while as if to study them or to think to himself "hmmm I've seen those somewhere before... I wonder if they do what mommy's does.. hm...", like he seriously stares and studies them and out of nowhere J dove straight onto them, mouth open wide, to have himself a little snack! LOL Hubby freaked out and we were all laughing cuz it was so funny! I'll never forget the look on J's face studying them. It was like a lightbulb went off in his head, like, "let's see!!" before diving straight for them ha ha!! okay, u just had to be there!

I must be getting old...

Today was day 4 since we've been back home from our trip and I'm still lifeless. It's taking me so long to bounce back, I think it's cuz I'm getting old! LOL I spent the whole day napping with J... we woke up at 7pm! O.o

As for J, I could clearly see that he's grown so much mentally since the trip. He's doing a lot of things that he's never done prior to the trip like digging through everything, going to his toy basket to pick out what he wants to play with, keeping himself entertained for hours, being more verbal of his needs and wants, showing lots of excitement when he sees food, etc. The best part is that he naps anywhere now, which he didn't do before. He only napped in his crib, he couldn't even fall asleep in my arms no matter how tired he was. It used to be crib or nothing. But during our stay in LA, we were seriously driving from point a to b all day long to meet people that he had no choice but to sleep wherever- in another baby's pack n play (he never napped in his own pack n play before), on the floor of great-grandma's house, in mommy's arms, in daddy's arms, in the car, etc. He used to sleep all the time in his carseat even prior to the trip but when I would park the car, he'd wake up (and drive me crazy for the next 3 hours!) but now he doesn't wake up when I try to get him out of the carseat, he'll just lay his head on my shoulder and continue his naps. I'm totally loving it!

Yesterday he even napped in the Costco cart!