Wendy's Birthday

At the beginning of the month, we celebrated Wendy's birthday. And well, I'll let the photos show you what went down. Currently workin' on them... comin' up soon!

Owen @ 1 Year And 4 Months

Quinoa Salad

Remember this post about the couscous salad that I kept on making over the holidays?

I made something similiar this time but only with quinoa instead of couscous. And there was corn and chickpeas instead of nuts. Oh-so-delicious.

New Year... New Food

I started off 2013 with a bang ... in the kitchen. I had a sudden surge of energy in wanting to try new recipes or new eats. I've never tried kale chips but have heard about all its rage, so I decided to make some one night.

Douse pieces of kale in olive oil and salt.

Bake them in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 350C. The key is to get them just turning golden brown before they get burnt. If you take them out too early, they aren't quite crispy yet and you'll be eating just plain kale.

Sit back with a bowl of these and they'll be gone in no time. If I had to describe them, they're kinda like those crunchy seaweed snacks. One nutritious experiment down!

The Last Post About 2012

New Year's Eve. This year, I got the best of both worlds. I got a quiet, low key board game night with family and friends, and got to chow down once more on Auntie Irene's amazing homecooked dinner, and then party-hopped to my rowdy group of friends for the countdown. Over the years, we've gone through numerous board games. We finished every edition of Cranium and played it so much that we all have the cards memorized. This year, we whipped out a spunked up version of Taboo. It comes with a purple puppet namely Bendy Bob.

There are several game categories on the board, but one of them is charades using only Bendy Bob as your tool. Wendy reads the word off her card, and then proceeds to use Bendy Bob to act out the word or phrase.

So apparently, when you're flinging your arms open as if you're flashing someone, it's suppose to mean or represent the phrase, "winning the lottery". And for the rest of the night, we ragged on Wendy... "that was winning the lottery!?". 

Bryan, a new addition to our family fun nights (our cousin's bf/bff), fit right in. We had an interesting conversation about food (he's a chef), and what constitutes as good or not-so-great food. He claims quite often, food can be wrongly classified as "not good", when people are expecting something innovative and "different", but fail to realize that the food is actually quite good, simply because it was prepared well. I agree.

Ray puts in his own facial expressions into Bendy Bob charades. And Joanne gets serious with pictionary.

When games were done, everyone chillaxed around the Christmas tree, playing with their phones. 

And when Wendy realized I was taking photos of them, she gave me a stinky foot in my face. Classy, Wendy. Classy.

Right before midnight, I drove out into the thick fog and made it to Kat's where I did my countdown with my awesome group of highschool/dragonboat/friends/friends of friends of friends/friend's babies. I got to party it up with MacMac. She's such a trooper - letting her parents party till midnight. The house was a gongshow. Brings me back to good ol' dragonboat days. It all lasted till the wee mornin' hours and with a hysterical laughing fit between the girls that apparently had everyone still talking about it for the next few days. 

Anyway, a perfect New Years Eve to start off a perfect New Year!

Christmas 2012

Okay, I lied. This is really the second last post about 2012. Maybe.

Christmas Day was spent exactly how I like it - low key. Just some good quality time at home with mom, pops, grandma, and bro. We spent a good couple of hours opening up our presents one by one. Dad is always the one making a big, yummy feast every year. We popped a bottle of sparkley's (juice, that is), and for a day in a year at least... we spent it peacefully.

Anyway, I could post every single happy photo and go down the list of amazing presents we all received, and how very spoiled (and lucky) we all are, but I decided to just go with the highlight.

My bro being the one who's home most with my mom  is the one who gets to hear it all. So, apparently, mom has been talking about getting her 30+ year old sewing machine fixed. I've heard it before too but I never thought she was serious about it. Until one day, bro tells me she made calls to see how much fixing this sewing machine would cost. Now, knowing my mom... she wouldn't bother actually doing something about it if she wasn't serious. So, I made the suggestion that well, that's it. That's our Christmas present to her. We'll get it fixed.

Bro says mom thought it was too pricey. To spend over $100 to fix a 30+ year old sewing machine when that money could go towards a brand new one that would have many more functions than this one. So, we decided, that's even a better idea that we'd spend that money for it rather than her.

The thing is, why get this one fixed and not buy a new one?

This was apparently the first gift my dad bought my mom. 30+ years ago. Before I existed. It's old. It's ancient. And it's sentimental.

For Christmas Day, we didn't want to wrap the machine itself because it would just give it away right away. So, I took a photo of it - this photo, and stuck it inside a box and wrapped it up. Bro and I had our worries... what if she sees it and gets upset? Can she even sew anymore? Would it make her sad that she may not be able to sew? Then we thought... it's not about whether or not she'd ever even use it again, but just the fact that she wants it fixed. Badly.

So, come Christmas Day... most gifts were opened, with this one we saved till the end. (We got her other gifts that she absolutely loved too.) When we handed her this box, she said, "There's more?". We made her guess what it may be. Bro said "If you can guess what this is, I'll treat you out to dinner too." My mom throws her head back and laughs.

When she opened it, at first she didn't know what to make out of it. A photo? Of something that looks very familiar. Is that my sewing machine? She finally said something. "It isn't... is it?".

"Yup."

"It's fixed?".

"Yup."

"It's FIXED??".

"Yup."

"It's FIXED!!!".

"Yup."

You can see her choking back her tears. And then she goes and re-tells her story about how it was the first present ever from my dad. Before they got married. Before anything. Before the rest of their lives.

My dad said to my bro and I, "That's a pretty good gift."

I think that alone made my mom's Christmas this year. And being able to make her Christmas... made mine.
One of the best $100's spent.

Christmas Eve 2012

Posting about Christmas Eve in January may seem a little odd, but since the holidays didn't leave much time for blogging, here it is now. (2nd last post about 2012!).

Christmas Eve is probably one of my most favorite days of the year. And I've probably talked about it many times in this blog before. It has evolved from playing with my cousins and singing Christmas carols around the piano with my relatives when I was a kid, to now gathering my friends (that I've met throughout life so far) under my aunt's roof, and doing nothing too crazy special at all. Every year, we'd have an enormous secret santa gift exchange. We'd gobble on my aunt's delicious cooking. And we'd end the night off chatting away while we all fall into a food coma, and my highschool friends and I still to this day, exchange and open gifts after midnight. 

Without fail, by the time the clock strikes midnight, and we all yell, "Merry Christmas!" across the house, I'm just filled with immense warmth and contentment. This is what it's all about. It is what anything is about. The festivities. The cheerfulness. The laughs and smiles. And most of all, the togetherness. 

 

This Christmas was extra special. Last Christmas, there were three expecting moms at the party. This year, there were three new babies. The above photo is Timmy. Such a good boy, he is.

Of course, Sarah dropped by. She was so intrigued with everything Uncle Pete had to say. And was even more interested why there was another person her size sittin' infront of her. 

I've said that this baby is full of expressions. Here is one of them. Sarah shows Timmy one of her many talents : blowing raspberries.

She is such a cutie pie. I can't get enough of her.

Okay... just a tad obsessed with baby Sarah.  But I'm not the only one... 

 

Anyways, the party goes on. We dove right into our 3-hour long secret santa gift exchange.

It's hard to find the best $10 gift after years and years of gift exchanging with the same friends and families, but every year, it always ends up in crazy laughter.

Yvonne tries to strategically choose the right gift. Hmm, which one should she go for?

Pete goes, "How about baby?".

Karen ends up with the "best" gift - a lava lamp!

Wendy and her antlers candle holder.

And the rest was history.