christmas-time around here

This Christmas season, around here, we have been...

Decorating our mini-tree (without ornaments that little boys can take and throw)...


Making cards for teachers, uncles, cousins and more...



Baking, just a little bit...


Chocolate-barking...


And a whole lot of jingle-bells singing and ringing...


With our Advent Wall now complete, I do believe we are ready for Christmas!

temporary foodie adventures

The more I've learned to cook and bake over the years, the more I've come to appreciate food - how it's prepared, made, and presented. Although I don't necessarily like going to fancy restaurants just for the sake of going - I do like sitting down and eat a meal that is well thought-out, well-prepared, well-presented, creative. It inspires new ideas for me too! But, nowadays, with two kids in the mix, my chances at fine dining are almost non-existent...well, almost...

These past three months, while I've been on maternity leave, while my mom has been here helping me, and while the older little guy has been at daycare three days a week, my mom and I have taken the opportunity to eat out at some nicer restaurants in the Boston area...as a treat and break for ourselves from the constant cleaning, cooking and child-caring. We take the baby with us, and he has very nicely slept through every single one of our lunches!

And so, more as a log for myself than anything else, here are the places we've enjoyed over the last few months:

EVOO (roast lamb leg and red kuri squash)


B&G Oysters (citrus salad and fried oysters)


Sportello (rabbit and veal tongue pastas - takeout)


Harvest (seafood ceviche)


Blue Ginger (ming tsai's signature butterfish and indonesian-szechuan noodles)


Abe & Louie's (filet mignon and ahi tuna burger)


And with that, I will probably kiss fine-dining good-bye for awhile!

love

love watching him create. :)

my little elves

One of the more fun projects this holiday season has been making pointy elf hats - lots of pointy elf hats! I had made these for the whole family for a photo shoot we took early in November. Who knew it would be so much work to get all four of us in these hats at the same time! We did manage to swipe one picture of all of us in hats (of course, to have all of us also smiling or looking at the camera was too much to ask!). None the less, these hats were fun to make and wear - they are made with 100% peruvian wool, which means they are extra warm and will hopefully serve as good winter hats, at least for the kiddies.


The pattern can be found in More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. My little elves are, of course, really the "anti" elves - instead of helping me get work done, they create lots and lots of extra work for me to do! But they are short and small, so I guess that's close enough. And of course, what fun would elfy hats be without having (girl) friends to wear them with?
:) Happy holiday knitting!

advent begins

At the heals of Thanksgiving weekend this year was the first Sunday of Advent. And so, the Thanksgiving tree came down and up went our Advent page. This year, we are putting up one simple Bible verse for each week of Advent. The hope is that all in the family (except for the baby) will commit a verse a week to memory.

For this first week of Advent, we are focusing on this:
I must say, I am quite proud of Collin for memorizing his first little piece of Scripture. I know, he does not know what it means...but I hope that as we start introducing Scripture to him, some of it will be stored within himself and one day, should he need to bank on the Word, it might just come in handy for him.

But aside from what Collin understand and retains, having a visual reminder of Advent in the dining room is helpful for even the adults in the family to remember the weeks of Advent, and to be more intentional in anticipating Christmas this year.