Valentines at Home!

Hi Friends! Did you do something fun yesterday? We stayed at home and had a nice dinner:) Hubs and I prepared Crabs Benedict ( Dungeness crabs are very cheap right now at our Costco) it was great! I did a little shopping at our local trader joes and got ingredients and flowers too! The kids requested chic-fil-a, so we had that for lunch! Everybody in the family was happy!HA We normally don’t give Vday gifts anymore. Hubs got us Starbucks coffee and velvet cake for me, and cake pop for the kids on Vday morning. No big gifts for us, as I’m still in my low spend year and I don’t need anything right now. For Hubs,the nice dinner was enough!

Vday flowers from Trader Joes!
the making of crabs benedict!
thanks Hubs!
scrumptious
Mia requested Chic Fil A!
Mia has been making me my morning coffee!

With all the valentines treats, we decided to play at the park in the afternoon!

I saw this on IG and I totally agree! Thank You God for the greatest love of all, your son Jesus:)

Have a great Wednesday friends (it’s been a long day here!) Take care:)

A little Family Hike!

Hi friends! I hope you’re having a great Monday:) Mondays are kinda busy for us because we are out of the house half of the day (Co-op Day/homeschool with other families). Anyways, we had a little family hike this weekend, it was a short one. We wanted to get out of the house and get a little exercise for the family, because it’s been so cold lately (it snowed this evening!UGH). So we are mostly staying home for the past few weekends. We really want to explore our state once the weather cooperates!HA

We wanted some treats after the hike! We got some donuts:) I paired mine with my delicious foamy coffee.

Have a great night friends! I’m off to bed now:) Take Care and stay safe!

Rainy February!

Hello Friends! How’s it’s going?! It’s been a rainy week in our area, so we’ve been mostly at home. I do my best to add little things here so we can have a cozy time. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and using my Instant Pot lately. I’m more inclined to make soups, braised meat and hearty dishes this time of year. It helps that I try to meal plan so I get to prepare ingredients ahead of time. I really want to be consistent in regards to this area of my homemaking life.

Flowers to add color to this rainy week!
Braised Pork hock (Patatim). Hubs really like this one:)
Crabs and fish that my kids love!HA. This is their favorite, it’s called Pompano (no idea whats the english name, we get this at the Asian market)
Jalapeno Poppers because Hubs craved this last week!
We had beef tenderloin in the freezer,so we got a little spoiled these past few days!
Spicy Braised Chicken (korean style: Dakdoritang)
Cheese fondue and buffalo chicken wings
Garlic butter pasta my Hubs made last week!
Pork Ribs soup(Filipino sour soup) another fave of my kids!
Beef Bulgogi

I continue to declutter our house and I’m still on my low spend challenge. It really helps that I watch videos and read books about minimalism and simplifying. I get so motivated when I get to see other people doing the same thing, I’m so encouraged! I still have a long way to go, but I can see a big difference already in our space.

I have to get going here, Have a great night and take care!

Weekend Fun!

Hi Friends! How’s it going? We’ve been a little busy with family activities since my last post here. Nothing grand but lots of family fun with the kids. We visited Point Defiance Zoo last week, I think it was Matthew’s first visit. We had fun, but some of the attractions were closed for winter and will be back in the summer! We will be going back for sure in the future.

Couple of days ago we went to the Apple store at the mall and I got a new phone! I wasn’t planning to get a new phone but Hubs convinced me because he’s tired of my phone always running out of storage!HA! I’ve been liking and enjoying my new phone this week. It’s the iPhone 14 Pro max:) The kids behaved at the store so we treated them to their favorite waffle! Happy Lemon!

This week we visited our local library and got the whole family library cards! They have updated their system so we needed to renew ours and Mia got her card for the first time, she was excited. We haven’t been to the library since covid, so she was looking forward to borrowing books. I borrowed some cook books and the kids borrowed some Berenstain Bears book. We had lunch at a new burger place in our neighborhood after the library visit.

I got a blue cheese burger and truffle fries!YUM
Mia loving her chocolate milkshake

We visited Sis in Law last week and Mia had a little tea party with her American dolls and SILs doll. It was so cute!

My sis finally went back to the East coast a couple of weeks ago. We had a yummy sushi and steak dinner for her. We miss her but we’ll see her soon.

It’s been a cold week for us here, but we try to get the kids outside and enjoy the park. So it’s been a little busy January for us with lots of family time. Thank You God for a slow and safe January:)

I hope you’re having a great weekend friends. Hubs and I are about to watch Kdrama(Interest of Love on Netflix) and relax. Take care!

A little road trip!

Hi friends! Last week, we had a little road trip going to Bellingham,WA! It’s just an hour and half drive from our place (so it’s a quick one). I’ve never been there, so it was nice to see a different city. This year I really want to explore more and see other parts of WA. Another reason for the trip was to “test drive” our new car! Hubs and I got a new car for Christmas (it’s a HYUNDAI Tucson #kdramainlfuenced) HA! I cannot count the numbers of korean drama/shows I’ve watched and a lot of them drive hyundai cars. I’ve seen a lot of Hyundai cars around our neighborhood too! My DIL drives one too and he has lots of positive things to say about his car. It’s been great so far ( we’ve only had it for 2 weeks).

We enjoyed lunch at Keenan’s at the pier! Food was great and worth the travel alone:) Lovely view from the restaurant too.

Duck Rillettes!
Crab cakes
I had their short rib sandwich! Super tender:)
Mia enjoyed the fish and chips

Pic of the new car! My hubs just had to get a bow from amazon.

Thank God for a safe and fun road trip! Have a great night friends:) Take care!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Friends! I pray that we will have a blessed, healthy, and peaceful 2023. We had a quite a celebration at home with my In laws. We played card games like Uno and Go fish, watched the Times Square Ball drop celebrations and went to bed at 11 pm. Nothing grand but there’s no other way I want to celebrate NY Eve but at home with my family and safe from the craziness of the night!

We had a yummy dinner though! King Crab legs, steaks from Snake River farm (expensive but so good!). We had sparkling cider and wine. Hubs made cheese fondue for our appetizers. Dinner was great!

Hubs and DIL working hard in the kitchen!
Go Fish!

We had left overs for lunch today! It was a relaxing day hanging out and we decided to go out to enjoy the sun. We ended up going to Alki Beach (West Seattle). It was a little cold, but it was nice to get out and enjoy the lack of rain with a nice view.

I’m excited for the new year friends! I don’t do resolutions but I do have goals I want to achieve. My sis got me a new planner so I plan to use that a lot! Personally,it helps that I write my goals/to do lists/ideas on paper so I focus on what I want to happen. Anyways, hope your new year is full of amazing things and God will grant your hearts desires! Stay safe friends and take care:)

Our Christmas 2022!

Hello friends! I hope you had a great Christmas time with your family and friends! My family had a wonderful time celebrating Jesus’s birthday (a little stressful here and there too!HA) but all in all it was fun. We attended our church’s candle light/christmas eve service and Hubs baked a swiss roll cake (two of my must haves for Christmas) so I’m thankful we got to do that. Although there are things we didn’t get to do like watch the Christmas parade at Bellevue and see Santa (due to the weather and we don’t want to risk the kids getting sick (we are still recovering from colds).

Christmas Eve, we went to church, and ordered Chinese food. I also made Roast pork belly and Pork Humba, my sis made Filipino style spaghetti and fruit salad. We ended the night reading about Jesus’s Birth and The night before Christmas.

Christmas Eve Dinner
Swiss Roll Cake my Hubs baked!
The Night before Christmas book!

Christmas Day! Thank You to our families for all the gifts the kids received this year. Hubs and I decided to go minimal when it comes to gifts this year because we are going to go somewhere this year (with my sisters), I also will get a new dining set) nothing grand, from Amazon!HA

After breakfast, we opened gifts and lounged most of the day. I made another pork belly roast for dinner. My Dad In law made lasagna (it was very tasty),we had crabs ( I cracked the day before),salads,garlic bread. Hubs Auntie and uncle stopped by to deliver more presents!

Christmas morning!
Popovers!
Christmas breakfast; almond cake,sausages,bacon,popovers
Mia got American girl doll!
Charcuterie board
Another pork belly roast!
crabs
Lasagna
Treats made by Hub’s Auntie!

We watched Jack Ryan on Prime and some Kdrama (Reborn Rich) and relaxed the rest of the night.

Talk later friends! Have a restful week (Hubs is off this week). We are going to tackle our garage (it’s a mess) so YAY for us! Take care:)

Freezing Rain!

Hi Friends! It’s very cold outside right now and we had freezing rain this morning so we are all staying inside and watching movies. I’m so glad that we went out yesterday to get some last minute Christmas shopping finished. We went to an Asian market/Filipino store to get some Pork belly (I think this Asian market has the best deals when it comes to Pork belly). I’m going to make Lechon Belly(Roast pork Belly) for Christmas Eve and Humba (Braised pork belly). We have everything I need to make these dishes. We stopped at Jollibee to get their filipino style spaghetti and famous chicken Joy!

Riley being cozy and using our old dock-a-tot! LOL

I still have some gifts to wrap and put under the tree. It’s hard to hide from the kids today, hopefully later tonight I’ll get this done!

She loves the snow!

I plan to do a little decluttering around the house too. I brought out some of my Christmas candles that I plan to finish this month so I can get rid of them.

I made Nilagang Pork (boiled pork ribs ) for lunch today and it was just perfect for the weather.

We’ve been enjoying lots of holiday treats too! We had Ensaymada (filipino sweet pastry dough we got from Red Ribbon Bakeshop) perfect with coffee this morning:)

Stay warm and take care friends!

Christmas Parties!

Hello friends, can you believe we are just a week away from Christmas? We’ve had lots of activities these past couple of days and it was so much fun! We attended Hub’s work party (sis and I tagged along with him). Lots of fun and yummy food! Pretty Christmas decorations and lights around Bellevue where it was held. Traffic was horrible though!

Hyatt Hotel Lobby
Party food!
unlimited drinks
Hello!

We had a little party for Mia and her friends this weekend too. We had cookie and ornament decorating and lots of treats! We ordered pizza from our local favorite! Donuts and candies were flowing!LOL. It was such a fun afternoon and I’m so grateful that Mia has her special group of friends and that everybody had such a great time. Makes my heart happy. Hubs did a lot of baking (the sugar cookies) and it turned our perfect! The kids loved it:)

Adults had fun too!

After eating too many treats, we had a little family walk!

We had Korean food for dinner! Rose Tteokbokki was YUM! We are loving Korean food lately, thanks to Korean drama shows for influencing us!HA.

I hope you had a great weekend friends and stay safe!

Weekend Fun!

Hi Friends, How’s your weekend? I had a dental appointment last Friday and got to have a little me time after my visit. I had lunch at Panera bread, got to finish the book I’m reading, and shopped at Trader Joes and Target after. It was a great afternoon.

Mia was so excited her wiggly tooth was finally gone!HA. She got money from the tooth fairy this weekend.

We continue to declutter, off we go to the donation center this weekend too!

A little playdate with her BFF this weekend too!

Some of the meals we enjoyed these past couple of days! Filipino lumpia (spring rolls) veggies, kimchi fried rice and grilled pork belly, Tomahawk steak with beet salad, smashed potatoes.YUM!

A little coziness around the tree! Christmas is just two weeks away and I’m enjoying the season by being intentional with my time.

Have a great night friends! Take care:)