Lumpia

Many times when we get together with Mum's side of the family, for holidays and such, my Aunt J makes divine lumpia. You will notice the crowds gather at a disproportionate amount on whichever side of the table bears the fried goodness.

My parents generously let me take home the tray of frozen lumpia Aunt J made to send home with them. Sorry C & B, they are already almost gone. Delish! 

Dominos

My family really likes to play dominos. Though we tend to play with slightly different rules every single time...I don't know why. G is always quick to suggest a game of Mexican train when there is a free moment.

Christmas Kids

It's a good thing J & Q came along just as G was getting old enough to no longer be the little kid making Christmas exciting. 

Already tired and it is still pretty early.

First toy fight of the morning. 

Sometimes she is so adorable I can hardly stand it.

Q got drum sticks for Christmas - video of the talented G children drummers to come.

Christmas Tree

Not to brag, but mum happens to be very talented. She used to make an assortment of painted Christmas ornaments every year for friends & family. We have quite the collection of them on my parents tree. 

Here is a small sampling.

She didn't make that lovely vintage bell, but the angel behind it. 

It really is lovely to see how personalized the S family Christmas tree is. Ornaments from my first Christmas still grace it's bows. Along with this lovely treat, made in elementary school.

Czech Dumplings - Knedliky and Zeli

A staple of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at the S Grandparent's has been Czech dumplings and sauerkraut or 'Knedliky and Zeli'. While I did not make it down for Christmas eve dinner the folks were kind enough to bring plenty back. The dumplings were quickly devoured...it will take M a while to get through the container of zeli (which we have always pronounced zella).

This is M's plate - I had a mere smidgen of zeli on mine.

Here is a generic recipe if you are feeling brave, or happen to like sauerkraut
http://www.hersutah.com/columnstory/knedliky-and-zeli-czech-dumplings-sauerkraut-and-cabbage

Christmas Cookies

Last week (before Christmas) C, K & A came over for some cookie making fun. There were naturally some recipe mistakes, but overall success. It got late. But we did manage to finish a few cookies. Rather than simply frosting them, we rolled out fondant and cut it into circles which we proceeded to paint on with gel food coloring. It was more difficult than I anticipated. 

K's abstract design - perhaps influenced by the wild west ninja movie he was watching between forays to the kitchen for cookie quality checks.

Painted goodness. 

Stars

Last night C and I went out to visit a friend in Placerville. At the end of the evening we were sitting outside by the fire pit and I happened to look up. My breath caught slightly looking up at the stars. I forget sometimes how much more you can see away from any city lights. I thought of this video.

One of my goals for 2012 is to spend more time outside - not just on my balcony in the tree tops, but outside away from everything.

D's Birthday

Happy 50th Dad!

Poor guy - always having a birthday right before Christmas. Here we are 1982.  

A few weeks ago I found *this* post. Such a brilliant idea! We had do it for my dad for his 50th birthday. Additionally, he officially retired yesterday, so it is the perfect time to collect memories. 

I designed (though I don't love them...but when do I think things match my vision) and printed out postcards (one for each year of his life) and notes explaining what we were asking, that people record a favorite funny memory of my dad and send it to him.

As of yesterday three postcards had arrived...looking forward to more in the days to come. Maybe I'm optimistic but I want every one of them to find it's way to him. 

French

This video made me miss Paris so much. Need to pick up my French books again.

Notes Much?

I'm at work the other day with my hand in my purse trying to find a pen, but I'm just not finding one. I set it on my lap and start digging, "I KNOW I have a pen in here somewhere". It took just a moment to find one. Then I wondered - "How many pens DO I have in here anyways?" It took long enough to find one that I am embarrassed by the final results - 9.

Yes, that's right. I had NINE pens in my bag. And they are all a different pen - those 3 fine point sharpies - green, blue and black. 

Final count:

4 Sharpies (of various sizes and colors - obviously a favorite)

2 Pilots (fine and extra fine point)

1 Fentons Creamery pen 

1 AON pen (from my trip to the AIJA conference in Paris - AON is a risk management firm who were marketing their services to lawyers at the conference)

Why might one need 9 pens? Well obviously to make notes in the THREE notebooks I seem to be carrying around. That would be in addition to the ubiquitous number of notes I have stored in my iPhone.

You'd think I carried all of these around in a large bag - especially since I have such a difficult time locating items in the bag - nope, it's not that big at all. 

B-day Dinner

Not a birthday, a baptism day. My adorable friend C was baptized today. I gave a shaky talk at the baptism, and managed to keep the tears in check for the entire day. We had a pre-B-day dinner last night at Leatherby's and then dinner tonight after the baptism at Petra Greek - tasty stuff. 

C & S

Me & T

And here we are playing with the photo-booth app on my phone. 

It's speedy. There is not much time to change your expression. 

Which makes some of photos, well, interesting. 

Dec A Board

Every Christmas my office has a art competition, individuals are given large sheets of foam-core to take home and decorate. Last year I was not invited to participate...but this year I had, what I thought, was a brilliant idea. I'd make a vintage postage stamp.

Cutting out the foam-core edge.

I printed out a scale image and then used a grid to outline.

Creating quite a mess. 

Here is the finished stamp along with the 8 1/2 x 11 printout. 

On Friday a coworker hung it up on my office wall before I came into work. It will probably be coming home fairly soon.

Finals

This is what my floor looked like at 2:00 AM Thursday morning - my last day of finals this semester. You'd think entering my ELEVENTH year of higher education (I sort of want to puke writing that out) finals week would be a breeze... It's not. It will take some time to recover. But for now I'm glad its over. Now I just have to hope that Graduate Studies feels like being nice and lets me graduate in May. I'd like to think they want to get rid of me as much as I want to be done. In the meantime I continue to be very grateful for free tuition!

Trey B Cakes

Trey B Cakes is a dessert bakery that opened this year in Sacramento. I wouldn't say that it is the best dessert's I have ever had. But their gelato is quite tasty. Okay, pretty much everything is very tasty. But honestly, I go there for Fred. F is Trey's dad. C and I would head to Trey's almost every time we'd get dessert and F would always pull up a chair at our table and chat with us. We'd get enough "samples" to feed a crowd. 

Last week T, C & I stopped by for dessert. The Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcake - heaven!

Christmas Decor

Due to the fact that life this holiday season is surprisingly chaotic, even for me, I decided to forgo a Christmas tree. But last year I hand painted all my ornaments and I love them so much I still had to hang them. Luckily I have many feet of Christmas lights and tinsel garland.

They were surprisingly easy and so much fun to make. I love that each one is different and that each of the balls is still shiny but toned down. I just grabbed some squeeze paints and went to town. It was addictive. Which is why every single one of my glass bulbs is now painted.