The Two Musketeers

Friday, February 6, 2009

Brandon in the Jumperoo

And, my youngest child, Brandon is ready for the Jumperoo (which used to be his brother's). Brandon loves the Jumperoo and I think he enjoys playing with it more than Ian used to be.

The boys

Here are some of the pics of the boys taken recently. :)

Guess Ian misses his old rocker :D

Brandon in the laundry basket

Brandon with a boo-boo on his face (he scratched himself a little too hard)

Ian wearing his daddy's old Chicago Bears hat

Even though the first day of Chinese New Year was on January 26, I would like to wish everyone a Happy, Health and Prosperous 2009. May everyone has the best of health, great luck & wealth and abundance of joy! CNY in Chicago is boring. I wish I was at Chinatown in NYC. :( Anyways, we had our sorta reunion dinner on the 2nd day of new year. My mom made a Burgundy Pork Tenderloin dish(basically a pork dish soaked in red wine and other flavorings) , shrimp cocktail and stir-fried shrimp with oyster sauce, and a mushroom with chicken dish.

And the only Chinese New Year decoration I have in the house is my homemade Chinese lantern made out of red packets and origami paper for the birds. Isn't that sad? I wish I can get some CNY decorations. Hopefully next year!

And for the first time I made pineapple tarts for CNY. :) Very proud of it even though it needed more filling for the tarts per my mom. :) And I think the tarts might be a little too big. :P

Well, nevertheless we did go out for 'Loh Sang' yesterday, Feb 5 at a Malaysian restaurant called Penang (nearby my mom's place) The Loh Sang was pretty good. We also indulged ourselves on Hokkien Char Mee, Fried Lo Shee Fun and Petai Belacan (btw my mouth is still stink from the beans!) and Coconut drinks. :)

At least we still get to celebrate a little on Chinese New Year. :)

Monday, January 12, 2009

Brandon's First Cereal

Wow! How time flies! My second son, baby Brandon is already 4 months old. He has developed a small personality of his own and is able to track someone from one end to another end. His first cereal was on Friday, 1/9/08. He didn't like it at much at first since this whole eating thing is new to him but then quickly became a semi-pro this morning after he has learned to open his mouth when the spoon touches his lips. He has been taking 2 tablespoonfuls of rice cereal mixed with milk twice a day for the past 2 days. I can't wait to move him to stage 1 food in a week. Maybe I will make vegetables for him. :)

Homemade Bread and the kids

Well, for the first time I made bread from scratch(no bread machine at all). I have made Cinnamon Swirl bread once (sorry no pics), an Amish cinnamon friendship bread (no pics either) and lastly Rye Swirl Bread pics below). I am more excited and proud with my Rye Swirl Bread because it looks more like a loaf of bread compare to others. :D :D It has been so much fun to make the bread but it takes a lot of time especially when you don't have a bread machine to do all the work of kneading for you. Nevertheless it has been a great experience for me and I am definitely going to make more and other kinds of bread. My next bread will be Pumpernickel bread (a German rye bread) when I have the time to make it. Hrmm....

First Loaf (Rye Swirl Bread)

Second Loaf

Ian in his monkey sleeper

Brandon in his holiday-ish clothes

Ian with his Superman outfit

Friday, January 9, 2009

Christmas 2008

OK...I guess I am seriously lagging on my postings. In between the holidays, work and the kids I've been quite busy and pretty tired.
Christmas was pretty good. We went to the Keller's on Christmas Eve and then Jack's parents stayed overnight at our house on Christmas Eve. We open presents on Christmas Eve with my parents and with his parents on Christmas day. Ian was really excited opening the presents (mainly unwrapping the gifts and not the actual gift that much). Lil Brandon just stare at everything and smile and goo-goo & gaa-gaa-ing the whole time. The kids have tons of clothes and toys. :) Awesome!
We hosted the Sackis' Chrismas party on December 27 in our house. All the Sackis families were down here for the party and we had a blast. I made ham, Italian beef(store bought), an eggnog bundt cake and a pumpkin roll cake. The rest of the families brought drinks/liquor/wine/beer and tons of dips and cheese and crackers and buffalo sausage, etc. It was a fun day and we might host it again next year in our house. :)
Here are some of the pics during the holiday season.

Our Christmas tree (actually it's Jack's parent's tree)