2015 Holiday Card

Lately

We've been pretty busy around here lately. My cousin came to visit us for the week of Thanksgiving, so we were out everyday doing all kinds of touristy things around the city that we don't usually do. It was fun and made me a little more open to random outings in the city with a toddler! For Thanksgiving, we had a dinner here at our place with all the traditional side dishes and pies :) Now that Thanksgiving is over, we put up the tree and are counting down the days until Christmas. These are some pictures we took for our holiday cards this year. These ones didn't make the cut :(

Halloween 2015

Mars dressed up as his favorite character, Thomas the Tank Engine, and J and I went as BoJack Horseman and Diane Nguyen. We went over to a friend's house and took all the little babies trick-or-treating for the first time. They had so much fun knocking on doors and getting candy :) Although they'd probably enjoy it more if they knew what was in those candy wrappers! I had so many costume ideas for Halloween this year and was sad I could only pick one since we didn't have any more plans. Some ideas included Wedding Day Solange, Kim K with Champagne Glass on Butt, Cookie Lyon, and of course, Elsa... Maybe next year! 

Happy Halloween!

Mars had a runny nose on Friday, so we just stayed home in pajamas and carved a pumpkin :)

9 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days and Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

 

Mars is 9 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days.

On the morning of baby's first Thanksgiving, we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and put up the Christmas tree. He loves the tree, but at first, was afraid to touch it. After we showed him that it was ok, he couldn't keep his hands off! We had to put some baby friendly ornaments made of felt towards the bottom just so he has something to tug at and pull off. At night, we went over to the in-laws for a turkey dinner and Mars got to spend some time with his cousin before they move to Denmark. 

Lately, Mars has been playing little games with us. He likes to repeat behaviors to get expected reactions out of us, and it's so cute. One game that we play, is that he'll bite my finger and I'll say, "Ouch!". He thinks it's so funny and it's really cute, but probably not the best game for teaching about biting! 

Yesterday, we went to his cousin's first birthday party. I can't believe she's already one! Pretty soon, it'll be Mars' turn! At the party, Mars had a blast chasing around balloons and socializing with everyone. Who knew he would be such a party animal! 

Baby's First Halloween

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone had a happy and safe one! As planned, we met up with two of Mars' baby friends at the mall. I think that was a rookie mommy mistake. The mall was crazy and jam-packed! There were long lines for trick-or-treating, and most stores had already run out of candy within five minutes. We ended up having an impromptu baby party inside of Target where the aisles were big enough for stroller parking. After about an hour or so, the baby friends were done and wanted to go home so we stopped by a Vietnamese restaurant for take-out. That's where Mars got his first trick-or-treat Halloween candy. And boy does this baby love candy! As you can see in the pictures, he loves crinkling the wrappers and chewing on the packaging... little does he know what the packages actually contain! 

On our way home from tonight's Halloween excursion, I let Mars chew on my finger for a bit and I felt his first tooth just barely sticking out of his bottom gum! Pretty soon, his adorable toothless smile will no longer be toothless. Kind of bittersweet, but also makes me wonder what he's gonna look like with teeth! 

38 weeks, 6 days

Happy Chinese New Year!

In about a week or two (hopefully!), our horse baby will be born.

According to some sources, babies born in the year of the wooden horse will be "strong-willed" and "unbridled"... However, being that it is a wooden year, he will be less impatient and more reasonable than the other types of horses. I guess we'll just have to see if any of that is true!

Last night, I prepared a traditional Chinese New Year dinner for two. I wanted to continue the tradition of eating all the symbolic foods, as well as burning incense to offer it to the kitchen god. Now that we're our own little family, it's pretty much up to me to keep up these traditions alive. I remember going over to my relatives' houses for CNY in Taipei, having a table covered with food, and eating it nonstop from morning to noon to night. It was nice to spend time with family and to do nothing much but eat. I hope that in the years to come, our son will have the same memories. 

Being almost nine months pregnant, I obviously did not cook all this food. Instead, I ordered from different restaurants and made the easy-to-prepare stuff that was pre-cooked.

I used lots of oranges to decorate the table since oranges look like balls of gold, and the word for orange in Chinese sounds a lot like "luck" or "wealth".

J is gluten intolerant, so instead of long noodles to symbolize longevity, we had rice noodles that weren't that long, but noodles nonetheless. (I didn't make this)

I actually prepared this 年糕 (nian gao) by dipping it in egg and sugar, then pan frying it. Eating this is supposed to raise ourselves higher in the coming year.

This turnip cake, or 蘿蔔糕 (luo bo gao) was also cut and pan fried by me. It is supposed to symbolize a good omen.

Again, because of the gluten free diet, I only made five of these frozen dumplings. Dumplings look like little gold ingots, so they are eaten to bring wealth into the new year.

Buddha's Delight is a vegetarian dish that is usually served on the first day of the new year to cleanse out the body. This dish, along with the rest, were all ordered.

A whole fish is a symbol of prosperity, and the word "fish" in Chinese sounds a lot like abundance.

I think string beans also symbolize longevity, but mostly, I just got it cause all the other food was brown, beige, and yellow. 

And lastly, crispy roasted pork just because it's yummy. 

This was a lot of food for two people, so we're going to be eating this for days...Happy new year!

34 weeks, 2 days

New Year's Eve 2013

Looking around here tonight, you wouldn't even be able to tell that it's New Year's Eve. We're keeping it casual and low-key. J is watching The Hobbit and I'm browsing the internet. I'm glad we both think that staying out past midnight sounds really unappealing right now.

Instead, I'd like to recap the wonderful year we've had. 2013 has been so, so good to us! Here are some highlights via iPhone photos.

One year ago today, we went out to a fancy dinner with friends and counted down to 2013 at the Palace Hotel for some crappy, but expensive, NYE party:

In February, we got married!

In March, we went on a wine tasting tour, got really drunk, and broke things at the Ferry Building:

In April, and pretty much all before I got pregnant, we ate tons of delicious oysters and seafood. I would stay home from work and Tiff and I would go to Swan Oyster Depot for white wine, bloody beers, and oysters:

In May, J and I had a nice evening in. We ordered Thai take-out, opened up a bottle of white wine, and watched Place Beyond the Pines...

a month later, we found out that we also made a baby that night!

All throughout the summer, we went to a total of four weddings. This is us at the first one. I remember feeling very nauseous here: 

In July, J and I canceled our honeymoon and had many mini moons instead. We took road trips and saw old buildings and roadside attractions, one of my favorite pastimes:

In August, I visited family in Southern California, and took a small vacation in Palm Springs with my favorite girlfriends:

In September, we found that that we're having a baby boy!

In October, we bought our dream house! Here is J right before we got the call about them accepting our offer:

In November, we moved into our dream house and took many trips to Home Depot, Ikea, and many other furniture stores. In just a few weeks, we made our house into a home:

And right now, on the last night of December, after looking through old photos and writing this post, we are sitting next to each other on our laptops and laughing at funny gifs on Reddit. The one that had us laughing hysterically was this guitar one.

Goodbye 2013! Thanks for being so good to us, and making us feel like the luckiest people alive!

Cheers (or dry cheers) to the new year!

34 weeks

Christmas 2013

On Christmas Eve, we hosted a very last minute dinner for J's family. Our sister-in-law's family from Denmark joined us, as well as the newest addition to the family, 11-day-old Lily! She was born on December 13th, and she is just the most precious thing ever. We are all so in love with her already!

As for table decor, I pretty much just reused the things we made for the baby shower. 

I also made this flourless cholocate cake in a cast iron pan. It turned out pretty well! Chewy on top, but moist and cakey on the inside.

And of course, dinner was served in green spring blossom Pyrex.

As for Christmas Day, we pretty much just hung around the house and tried to get house-things done. Nothing was open, of course, so J was getting antsy and kept saying, "Christmas is boring!" haha.

So we took a walk and found a historic site very close to our new house. It is the site of the last known duel in American history: the Broderick Terry Duel. It was ok.

And here I am, looking pregnant and tired.