Happy Thanksgiving 2022!

Hi Friends! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with your family and friends! Ours was great with my In laws and Hub’s Auntie/Uncle. We had traditional thanksgiving food, lots of appetizers and dips. Hubs made two dips (caramelized onion and cranberry whipped feta dip both recipes from delish.com). We had our usual charcuterie board, love a good charcuterie. I made green bean casserole and smoked gouda mashed potatoes. We ordered mac and cheese for the kids at our fave local bbq place. All of us really enjoyed the food!

DIL taking care of our turkey!
Thanksgiving food

Hubs Plate!
Happy Thanksgiving
Dessert
enjoying dessert

Thanksgiving Eve Hubs baked us Chocolate swirl cake as part of our Thanksgiving dessert but it was so good that we end up eating half of it!HA

I wanted simple Thanksgiving decorations so I just bought a bouquet and center piece from our local florist. It’s cheaper to get flowers from Trader Joes or Costco but this holiday season,I really wanted to support some local businesses.

$25 pretty bouquet
I used paper placemats I got from Hobby Lobby!
$30 for our center piece.

We are just relaxing at home today. Watching K-drama (flower of evil) and got take out from our favorite teriyaki place. Leftovers will be eaten tomorrow!HA. We are thinking of putting our Christmas decorations up this weekend. I plan to simplify our decorations this year. As I continue to declutter, I’m more into minimal decorations.

Happy Thanksgiving week friends! Have a great weekend. Stay safe!

My Birthday week!

Hi Friends! Last Wednesday I celebrated my birthday (Hello 41!). Hubs was going to Maryland for 4 days (for work), so we celebrated my birthday the night before he left. We had dinner at a local restaurant. I think it was the first time that he missed my actual birthday since we’ve been together. For my actual birthday, kids and I went to our favorite local pizza place for lunch and got coffee and cake pops at Starbucks! It was a nice lunch with my kids. My In laws stopped by to bring some cupcakes and their generous gift for me. It was a great surprise!HA. I didn’t really cook anything this week because my Dad In law got us Ribs from our fave BBQ place. I got sushi for my birthday dinner (kids had pizza). We had breakfast for dinner last Thursday (sausage,waffle,strawberries). Matthew was sick on Friday, so we stayed home and rested. My Dad In law (again!) stopped by and bought Pizza and brisket teriyaki for me! It was pizza week for the kids for sure!HA. Thanks so much to my In laws for taking care of us:)

Grilled seafood
Birthday Dinner

Mia helped me bake Banana bread this week, both kids really like this bread.

Snowman cookie from Papa (Dad In Law)
Yummy Ribs!

My actual birthday, we had lunch and stopped at Starbucks for cake pops. I got to talk to my family before my In laws visited us for cupcakes and a birthday song!

Thank You family and friends for all your birthday wishes! Thank You Jesus for the gift of another year:)

After dropping Matthew from school, we stopped by Target and Trader Joes. Mia got some accessories for her American doll. She had too much fun at Target!

Quick shopping at TJs!
Stayed home yesterday (Friday) he had a cough and was just tired. He is doing better today.
Thanks to our Papa for the food.
Pic from daddy yesterday!

Hubs is home now, we are just relaxing at home. Watching Kdramas!HA. I hope you have a great weekend friends!

Fall Cooking and Meal plans

Hi Friends! November is already half over and Thanksgiving will be here next week. Are you all ready for the festivities? We will be hosting but it’s going to be a potluck style gathering so I don’t stress about the food part. Hubs and I are in charge of mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. Anyways, I wanted to share what I’ve been cooking this month, and what I plan to cook the rest of November. November is a birthday month for me and Hubs so I anticipate that we will be eating out a couple of times for the rest of the month!

Pork Tonkatsu! We really enjoyed this dish. I plan to make this again soon.

I made simple spaghetti (RAO’S sauce is the best!)
Korean chicken wings is one of me and hubs fave!
Fry the wings and I use this sauce.
Salisbury steaks with mushroom gravy (paired with rice)
Searing beef short ribs
vegetables for my short ribs

Beef short ribs in red wine sauce.
Chicken tenders! We all enjoyed this with chic-fil-a sauce!
Green beans and pork belly adobo

Pork belly in shrimp paste with mango

Rib eye steak and mushroom

Chicken marsala, disappointing! We didn’t like the recipe I found online! Oh well!

Filipino style chicken curry

Baked salmon

We shopped at Trader Joe’s for this weeks grocery. We didn’t get any meat there. We still have a lot from Costco and we also stopped at our local meat market. We paid $111 at Trader joes. We got our milk this week from our local dairy farm.

The junk chips will last us for a while.

We have simple breakfasts like eggs/toasts/cereals/hash browns. Nothing complicated. Our lunches are usually left overs, sandwiches, cheese and crackers!

I plan to cook simple meals in the coming days because I really want to eat a lot of our freezer meals before Thanksgiving week and it’s our birthday month. We will probably have breakfast for dinner kind of nights and snacky food like sandwiches, charcuterie,etc.

Have a great Monday evening friends and Take care!

Decluttering and Holiday Planning

We spent our day inside because the kids are having coughs. The weather is getting cold (there was a possibility of snow, but nope). We did a little homeschool, watched a movie and read books (currently reading about Thanksgiving, Pilgrims). I’ve been doing a little holiday planning since this weekend. We host both Thanksgiving and Christmas but everybody shares responsibilities, and brings food to share! I want to enjoy my time with family, so a little planning goes a long way.

Hubs decluttered his clothes yesterday! I told him to just start with clothes that he knew he will never wear again. Our closet feels so light now!HA! I’ve decluttered the kids clothes and toys (I think 60% of the toys are gone now). I’m so glad that Hubs and Mia are on board when it comes to simplifying our home. It makes the process a little easier when everybody understands why we are doing this and wants to remove the excess.

Mia taking pic while we are decluttering! We focused on their toys that day!
Mia is involve when it comes to her toys. She understands why we are doing this.

We call this house Vans/Daga room!HA..Pre-kids this is where I “hangout” drink my coffee, read, etc. It looks like a mini playroom now for the kids! Mia and her little friends play here when they visits.

We will be donating her doll house (hopefully before the month ends).

Hot cocoa kind of day! She looks so cozy and happy here:) HA

Have a good Monday night friends and stay warm!

Shopping and a little Costco trip!

Good Afternoon Friends! It’s going to be a lazy day for us here. It’s been a gloomy Saturday morning (Mia just got back from her gymnastics class). Flu, Covid, RSV is on the rise in our region so we are avoiding crowds as much as we can. Hubs and I are enjoying a Korean show (Love in Contract). So far it’s slow for me, but Hubs seems to be giggling (HA!). I did some housekeeping this morning like vacuum and laundry. I like my weekends to be both relaxing and productive:)

We had lunch yesterday with my DIL in a Mexican restaurant (it wasn’t crowded at all) and stopped at REI to get Hubs a new jacket. For the 17 years that we’ve been together, I’ve only seen him in two jackets!LOL. My In laws have been looking for a jacket that he likes for many years now and finally yesterday he found one that fits him! HALLELUJAH!

Carne Asada!
waiting for Daddy and Grandpa,while they pay!

We wanted to avoid shopping this weekend, so we stopped at Costco to get some things for this month(after our Mexican lunch). They have things on sale for the holidays that we need, may as well get them now. We paid $364.

I also got stamps and crispy onions for green bean casserole (I forgot to include in the pic).

We will eat the salmon this weekend,and freeze the rest!
This is good for a while (maybe not the bread!)

Have a good rest of your day friends! Take Care and stay warm:)

Great Wolf Lodge!

Couple of weeks ago, my little family visited Great Wolf Lodge water park here in our state (it’s only an hour and a half drive) together with Mia and her BFF (with her family). Hubs and I have been there before pre kids and we had fun. The kids enjoyed it so much and I’m amazed at their energy, especially Mia! They had Halloween events, so we did join their festivities. It was a nice little weekend getaway and bonus points that it is not very far from our house!

Hubs enjoying a drink!
Their brisket nachos were good!
chocolate cake and ice cream! From their restaurant
loving dessert time
playing at the arcade

Time to go home! We saw a rainbow on our drive, thank you God for keeping us safe on our little getaway and quick travel!