just us.

headed to the Bay.

It's been a while so I figured an update is in order.

I was on vacation last week so Keira and I flew up to Northern California to spend some time with my parents and brother.  We didn't see much of Ryan since he was in the middle of finals, and more or less spent his time in the school library.  My parents, on the other hand, alternated days off so that they could hang out with Keira and I.

Breakfast at Tina's Place in Pinole.  pretty good food and good value too.

a little playground time.

picking snow peas with grandpa.  I still remember harvesting my dad's garden as a kid, so it's nice to see Keira doing it as well.  We ended up eating the snow peas for dinner that night.

my dad thought it would be fun for Keira to ride BART.  We hopped on in El Cerrito and rode all the way down to Fremont and back.  It was just under an hour each way, and probably just a tad too long for Keira.  We headed to Costco afterwards for some hot dogs and then home for a nap.

Mike was on his way up to the Bay Area (he drove) and got to my parents' house in time to head out to San Francisco to pick up my mom from work.  We headed back into the East Bay to take Keira to her first baseball game!

The Oakland Athletics played the Detroit Tigers, and it was over pretty early on.  I think the Tigers scored 8 runs in one inning, which took about 45 minutes to play.  I originally wanted to go to a Giants game at ATT Park, but they were out of town for the week.  The novelty of being at a baseball game wore off pretty quick, so we left around the 5th or 6th inning.

Friday was another leisurely day.  Ryan had his last final of the week, and my mom had the day off.

breakfast at Meal Ticket in Berkeley.  Mike and I saw it featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.

 

Ryan's birthday present.  He is a whopping 32.  a much needed nap for the both of them right after.

Mike and I made reservations at Fleur de Lys in San Francisco, to celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary.  We are both fans of Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, and have always wanted to eat at one of the restaurants.  Since we were already in the Bay Area and it was our anniversary..AND we had willing babysitters, we figured...why not?!

we headed into SF early and walked around Downtown SF to kill some time.  the weather started to turn cold and we didn't know where else to go, so we headed back to the car and watched a little Harry Potter on Mike's dashboard.  We thought the 3 block walk to Fleur de Lys would take us a while but we ended up getting there 50 minutes before our 830pm reservation.  Apparently, it didn't matter because they seated us right away and our fancy foo foo dinner began!!

I didn't take a single picture of anything we ate.  I felt a little awkward amongst all the fanciness of the place.  Most of the men were in suits and ties, and the women in fancy dresses.  Mike and I were afraid we were underdressed, although some people came in later wearing jeans.  We each ordered the 4 course menu selection, getting different things so that we had more to try.  I think our favorites of the night, were the artisan foie gras and smoked duck breast (the foie was so smooth!), the trio of lamb loin, shank and merguez meat ball, and the bacon crusted sea scallops. We also ordered the dungeness crab salad, the kobe beef cheeks (we had our first taste of sweetbreads..and Mike nearly lost his dinner), hawaiian swordfish, plum souffle and apple tart for dessert.

Overall, we liked the dinner but were not completely blown away.  I am glad that I can now say I've eaten at Fleur de Lys, but wouldn't necessarily go back.  Mike and I are going to try to do a dinner out, just the two of us, every so often.  I am on the look out for the next "Top Chef" restaurant to try.

Saturday morning, I took Mike back to Tina's Place for breakfast.  My parents were in Alameda picking up a bicycle, so the three of us had the morning to ourselves (my brother was at work).  After my parents came back, we headed up to Sacramento to spend time with my extended family there for the afternoon.

Keira wasted no time getting into my uncle's swimming pool.  My cousin Renita's two boys came not too long after us and the three of them had a good time.

we barbecued salmon, tri tip and hot dogs, along with potato salad, fruit and dessert.  My cousins and I had a good laugh watching the younger generation play waiter with the "old people", complete with a senior menu of oatmeal, prunes, and Ensure. good times with family, good times.

Sunday, we had dim sum with my parents and Ryan before heading home to So Cal.

 

The drive home took us a little bit longer than usual to get home.  Between potty breaks, gas fill-ups and food runs, it took us 8 hours total to get back to So Cal. I learned how to eat pumpkin seeds without crushing the whole thing and Mike did a majority of the driving.  We managed to watch almost 2 full Harry Potter movies on the way home and saw just one CHP too.

Thanks for the good times family Ko!

it's a spring dress kind of day

I decided today was going to be a spring dress kind of day.

for both me and the girl.

while my dress is old and not exciting, hers is new and was found on clearance at Target yesterday:

add on a $1 spot headband that was rediscovered plus a hairclip and a banana for breakfast and you have a happy girl!

Lately I've been in the mood to put Keira in dresses and send her off to school, and with the nicer, warmer weather we have been getting (daytime temps in the 70s!!), she is happy to oblige.  The dress she wore to school yesterday (another Target clearance find) got a little wet after her naptime pull-up leaked (the girl loves her milk), but she refused to change her dress (she normally has a breakdown if anything she wears gets the slightest bit wet)!!

I made the girl stand in our doorstep for a few spring dress pictures and happened to capture this lovely snapshot.  Makes me crinkle up my nose and smile :)

a shot from yesterday.  In her Target clearance dress, playing hopscotch with her princess rubber dolls.  Mini hopscotch, that is.  and also sporting a hair clip AND a headband.  it's her new thing this week. she is quite the fashionista :)

what's growing in our garden

Mike got busy this weekend, planting our vegetables:

the larger bushes are cherry tomatoes, which are already coming in!  And it's not a new plant that we went out and bought, it sprouted from the dirt on its own and has been growing ever since!  There are some garlic (or onions, I can't remember) bulbs sprouting to the left of it too.  I think Mike is planning on making a potted herb garden with the herbs sitting to the right of the cherry tomatoes.

 
I'm not exactly sure what one would do with daikon leaves, but my dad gave the seeds to us.  We have daikon growing too, so I'll have to learn to make the chinese-style daikon cakes.  Bok choy is something we enjoy, especially with mushrooms and oyster sauce.

 
Cauliflower and bacon is a family recipe, something my mom's mom made when she was a kid.  Broccoli beef made by Mike? yum!!

the strawberries are starting to flower.  Can't wait until we actually have some to eat!  Need to figure out how to keep the critters away from them though.

and last but not least, we have peas.  I still remember as a kid, picking peas from the vine in my parents' backyard.  My dad was always the green thumb when it came to the vegetable garden, and I'm so glad that he is sharing his knowledge with Mike so he can grow his own.  Our hope is that Keira will show some interest in helping us pick what we grow.  Her school has an on-site garden, and I know the kids get to help take care of it.

here is a random thought....how do people gather carrot seeds?  Carrots don't flower or have seeds in them to harvest like peas or tomatoes do, so where do carrot seeds come from??

my dad also gave us some squash plants, and I think we are giving eggplants and carrots another go.  The weather is getting nicer, so I'm  looking forward to spending more time outside!

I got a little baking done on Sunday, and used some strawberries that Mike's coworker gave us.  I was going to use a vanilla cake recipe I got from my brother's pastry chef friend but I almost lost my marbles when I saw it asked for 3 sticks of butter.  THREE!!  Lucky for me, the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens came in the mail and I used the vanilla cake recipe from there.

Eunice (my brother's friend) said that I could add the strawberries into any standard vanilla cake recipe.  If I wanted the strawberries to simply be in the cake, to add it once the batter was made.  If I wanted the cake to be a strawberry cake, then the strawberries need to be macerated and mixed with sugar so that the juices come out and flavor the cake batter.  I opted to have the fruit in the cake.  

Boy, was it good.  Lightly sweet and not too heavy.  Eunice gave me a simple cream cheese frosting recipe to try, but I think I'll save that for another time.

Easter Festival

Keira's school held an Easter Festival yesterday.  Thanks to work, I had to miss it but luckily Mike was able to go.  To put it short, he said it was a zoo.  No parking, and a ton of people in a small area.  No bueno.

But like a good husband, he took a few pictures for me so that I wouldn't be completely left out (and he emailed them to me ASAP too!)

 

Keira's teacher, Ms. Amalia, set up an egg hunt in the playground outside her classroom.  But instead of plastic eggs filled with treats, she used paper eggs with numbers 1-5 on them.  Each kid got a paper basket with numbers 1-5 on it and the kids had to find eggs with the corresponding numbers and glue it on their basket.  Totally smart!  I love how she incorporated learning with fun!

Mike said Keira did pretty good matching numbers and I had no glue she knew how to use a gluestick. She decorated her pink bunny ears and is sporting the new skirt I made her earlier in the week.  She got to dye a few Easter eggs too.

Keira came home with a few goodie bags from her teachers, complete with plastic eggs, a mask and foam glasses, a few pieces of candy and her favorite...princess stickers.  These teachers know their kids well :)

Linda and Oli are coming over today to dye Easter eggs and I'm hoping to get another sewing project done while Keira naps.  I'm working this weekend and thought I was going to miss Easter with Mike and Keira, but they shortened our hours on Sunday so I'll get to do an egg hunt when I get home.

and a random, post-shower photo:

happy Easter!

getting my domestic on

so I've been keeping busy the last two days.  Having that extra day off during the week to myself is always nice.  Keira is at school, and it gives me a chance to get things done.  Whether it be laundry or getting dinner ready, it's nice to have some "me" time.

so yesterday, I got a bunch of laundry done and started on a sewing project.  The sewing project fell apart at the end, so I decided to just work on it the next day since I had to get dinner started.

I ended up making turkey meatballs over rice, and cream of mushroom sauce.  (I got the recipe from here.) I was curious to see if Keira would eat the meatballs or not, because she is a bit of a finicky eater.  But let's just say it was love at first bite.  I think I'll add some diced onions next time because they were a bit dry, but I'm wondering if using ground turkey had something to do with it too.

next up, I made some banana bread.  We had some bananas that were pretty close to being overripe, and I didn't want to waste them and throw them away.  Another google search came up with this recipe, courtesy of Food Network.  the house smelled so good as it was baking.  The next time I make it, I'll probably add walnuts for some crunch.

This morning, I finished up my sewing project from yesterday...a layered skirt for Keira!  Making and keeping the ruffle gathered was my issue yesterday, and I had to redo it today.

the ruffled layers need to be a tiny bit longer to cover the connector pieces, and I need to make the the waistband wider to accomodate the elastic inside (I always mess this part up).  But overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I hope Keira likes it!

I have a few more crafty things in mind to do, and I'm hoping to get some cupcakes made with the strawberries I have that are starting to overripen.

hooray for days off!!

Family Fun Day - Disneyland

this past weekend was a three-day one for me, and as usual we always struggle with what we were going to do.  we ended up at Disneyland again on Friday.

Breakfast at the Jazz Kitchen, Downtown Disney.  we found it a bit odd that they would suggest alcoholic drinks at 1030 in the morning.  Keira's meal of corn flake crusted chicken breast and macaroni and cheese sustained us for the rest of our visit.

we started off at California Adventure, where we got Keira excited about taking Mike on the bumper cars.  I think Mike will definitely be the one to teach her how to drive.

family photo on the spinning ladybug ride.  it's kind of like the spinning teacups, but on a smaller scale.  smaller or not, I still didn't like it.

we headed over to Disneyland soon after, hoping that somewhere along the way Keira would fall asleep and nap. The parade was starting in about 2 hours too, so it would give her a nice chunk of time to sleep before it started.

Mike and I.  We scored a bench under an umbrella in case it started raining and parked Keira underneath it too.  Mike was hoping that Star Tours had a single rider line so he could go on, but there wasn't.  I snacked on Keira's leftovers from breakfast, browsed a few stores and went on a search for caramel popcorn.  no luck, but Mike got some buttered popcorn instead.

then came the parade.

I LOVE the drum line.  seriously takes me back to my marching band days.  don't hate.  I rocked it back then.

one of Keira's favorite parts....Ariel.  she just loves her princesses.

see?

her other favorite part, all the other princesses, I didn't take any pictures of.  I took a video instead.  I know she would appreciate that even more.  and ask to watch it over and over again.

this hand waved and waved and waved.

Keira saw a few kids throughout the day with their faces painted and somewhat surprisingly, asked to have hers done too.  She usually shies away from stuff like this, but all of a sudden is all for it.  so we let her have her wish.

she chose her design and sat oh-so-still while it was being done.  I was waiting for her to get scared and want to be held, but nope!  she hopped right up on the stool, shut her eyes, and sat there while the artist did her thing.

I think she kept her eyes shut the whole time.

almost done.  just a few more swirls, a sprinkle of glitter and...

a happy girl!

Family Fun Day - Santa Monica

so I realize I haven't been so great at keeping up with the blog lately.  call it pure laziness really.  and lack of motivation.  the desire is there, albeit a small desire, but I figured I might as well change that.

I am making a second attempt this year to do Project Life, and one idea I had was to have a family fun day at least once a month.  Most of the time it coincides with my long weekends off so that we can do something one day or all weekend long.  a lot of the time, FFD involves going to Disneyland since we are passholders, but I really wanted to do something different, something we hadn't done before.

so earlier this month, we headed to Santa Monica!

we started off with breakfast at Barney's Beanery, and I totally loved the color on their booths. lucky for us, the weather was really nice that day so it was just asking us to sit outside.

we walked around 3rd Street Promenade for a bit and the second we made mention of the beach, that was all Keira wanted to do.  but not before a stop at the Santa Monica Pier.

Keira had fallen asleep on our walk over there, and it was when we were trying to recline her stroller that she woke up.  it was probably a 15 minute nap, tops.  we checked out the fishing scene (that was all Mike), strolled through the rides and arcade and then to the beach it was.

K: mama, what's that smell?  J: it's the ocean.  K: it's stinky!

you gotta love Southern California :)

Keira started off a bit timid of the water, but it only takes one splash to wash that away.  Mike, on the other hand, went right to digging for sand crabs and saying how they would be good bait for fishing.  I know he was kicking himself for not having his fishing gear with him.

hunting for seashells and sandcrabs.

such concentration. and her little pile of shells.

and my favorite (and current desktop) picture from the day:

we left Santa Monica around 230pm, which is not the most ideal time to leave considering its the start of commute traffic AND we were in LA.  after almost 2 hours on the road, we had only gotten as far as Torrance and still had at least another 1.5 hours before we would be home.  We decided to stop and have dinner and ended up at King's Hawaiian.  I had always wanted to go there, but it's a bit far from where we live.  But since we were already in the area, it was almost a no-brainer.

The food, overall, wasn't bad but it wasn't worth driving back from Irvine for either.  I had really high hopes for their pastries too (I love their hawaiian rolls) and they were okay too.  Again, nothing worth making the drive for.

We made it home by 830 or so, a lot later than we had intended, but all in all it was a really relaxing and low-key day.  we had no set plans, no agenda, just good old quality time spent together.

our little author

Last Friday at Keira's school, they had a literacy festival to celebrate reading and books.  The 3 of us went for a little family fun.

And we were surprised with this:

Mike remembers Keira mentioning that she made a book for us sometime last month, and as with a lot of things she says, he let it slide.

I guess this is one time we should've listened.

We must've just gone to Disneyland because that's what Keira's book was about.  This page has some of her favorite rides: Toy Story, "Horse Ride" (the horses on Main Street), Mickey Mouse Ride (not sure what that is), and "Thomas Train Ride" (the tram).

Obviously we have a princess and Minnie Mouse fan in the house.  I was really impressed with her ability to draw fairly straight lines.  I've never seen her do it before, so this was really amazing to me.

more princess love.  and pink, her favorite color.  awesome parade huh?

the fireworks show.  I love her interpretation of what a firework is.  a big explosive scribble, in bold blue and pink.  I just LOVE the way a kid's mind works.

I really enjoy being able to see the ways Keira has grown since she has started school.  She still has her moments, which we are constantly working on.  Just this morning (and every morning this week) she had a meltdown when I dropped her off.  Every day is a different day with this kid.  Playing and sharing with other kids is still a struggle and she definitely exerts her independence at times with the teacher.  She is still doing well with going pee-pee on the potty, but pooping is still a work in progress.  If given the opportunity to pick her own clothes, it ends up being patterns and colors galore.

frustration aside, I love her :)

02.29.12

Happy Leap Day! Today only happens once every for years. Had to throw a post on the blog about it. For the record books :)

stay awake!!

Keira and I spent a bit of time visiting a friend in the hospital and when we left, I knew it was her naptime.  The whole way home (from Newport Beach) I could tell she was starting to fade, and watched as her eyes kept opening and closing...but more emphasis on the closing.

I kept talking to her, pointing out all the American flags I was seeing (it's a new hobby of ours, thanks to Keira), asking her if she wanted to sleep in her bed or mine, telling her to stay awake, telling her not to sleep in the car but to wait until we got home.

As we got off the freeway, exhaustion was hitting her hard.  It was getting to the point where my voice wasn't helping anymore.  I had the windows open, hoping the wind would keep her up, but even that was failing (she is normally very self-conscious about her hair blowing crazy in the wind).

as I pulled into the driveway, it was almost a hopeless cause:

but I pulled her out of her seat (taking the straps off first, of course) and told her that we had to put a pull-up on before she went to bed.

I swear that 5 second nap she had was about to have the opposite effect and make her wired and ready to go.  As she climbed into my bed, her eyes were wide open and she looked like she was ready to play.

oh no, not what I wanted.

just went to check on her...and she is still awake!  looks like Mommy needs to lay down with her...and take a nap too :)