My 2011

As looking back this year, I had so much wonderful things happen.

Most significant events are...

I got engaged.
I opened this blog.
I opened my Etsy store.
I got married.
I got pregnant with a baby boy.

Kuro (puppy) became a part of our family.

And I had so much fun hanging out with my family and friends.

Of course I had some stressful problems, but the year of 2011 was one of the amazing year I've ever lived in!

I hope 2012 will be as great as this year or greater than this year :)

Yay, it's a boy!!!!!

Last Monday, my husband and I went to the ultrasound.

They asked me to drink 32 oz of water within 30 minutes half hour before the ultrasound appointment.
I like drinking water, but I'd never drunk that much water in once so I had a hard time drinking it....

Anyway,
The ultrasound result....

It's a boy!!!

You are seeing his butt...
Hahaha.... you can see his little w****...

As the practitioner told us it was a boy, my husband said loudly "YES!!!"
He wanted a boy, not that if we had a girl he would have been disappointed.
And I wanted a boy, because lot of my friends either have boys or are having boys, so it will be fun, they can play together.
I would've been happy, either we have a boy or girl.

He is sucking his finger :)

Now, we need to think about his name.
And I will start creating a baby shower registry for him.... it's too early??

Please let me know if you have any idea on his name :)

Holiday Sale!!

 After thanksgiving sale, I just started "Good bye 2011" sale on my store!!
Coupon code "GOODBYE2011"
You get 15% off :)

Hope to see you soon !!!


Wish you a happy holiday~~~

New addition to our family!!

NOW: Kuro ( 8 and few days old)

I've been away from blogging for a while, because we got a puppy from our friends.
His name is KURO, which means "black" in Japanese.
He is half miniature pinscher and mix of shi-tzu and Chiwawa.

About 3 -4 weeks old with his mom

I've been busy taking him outside for potty every 2 hours, since he is still small that he cannot hold long.
And watching him closely, so that he doesn't do anything undesirable thing for us..

No way I can bring him into my work space since the room is not organized well enough..
So I basically stay at living room to take care of him whole day until my husband comes home from work.

He is so cute, and still trying to adjust into the new world.

Kuro taking a nap with his daddy

I'm still learning to raise a puppy, I already made some mistakes letting him pee in the kitchen instead of taking him outside.
It is hard to take him outside for potty since it's been so cold that he doesn't want to be outside.

Oh well, I hope I can potty train him soon.

Please let me know if you have some advise about raising puppy.
I'm so new and still learning.

My Santa came early!!

Since I've been behaving good or just been lucky, my Santa came way earlier than he is supposed to come this year...lol

Ok, detail...
I'm a housewife that stay home almost all day.
So every packages we get, I'm the one who receive them....

Last month, I went downstairs as I heard the doorbell rang, and received a package for my husband from Amazon.
The package was as big as a regular book.
I thought he ordered a book or something, and didn't think much about it.

I left the package on our bed.
As he came home from work, he rushed into the room, and said "You saw it???"
I was like, "What are you talking about??".....
"Damn, you're not supposed to see this package."
And he noticed the letter on the package said "Kindle".
I did too, but I thought it was just an advertisement.......
"Man, you know what's inside now..."
Well, thank you for pointing out the word on the package, NOW I know what is is...

And you already know what was inside, too...

Yes, it was Kindle!!!
He was going to wrap it up and put it under the tree, so I can open it ON CHRISTMAS!!

Since I already saw it, I told him "Well, I already know what I get for Christmas, can I have it right now???"

From then, I've been using it everyday.
I love it.
I love reading books.
Just like some bookworms who are against electric book readers, I was too.
I've loved the smell of books, and the feelings of the actual books, and still love them too.
But I admit that book readers are convenient.

And I love the e-Ink that kindle use, the letters are like printed letters.
I don't really like reading words on computer, it makes my eye tired.
But I never be tired from reading printed words, since the e-Ink looks exactly printed words, I don't get tired from reading them.








I still read actual books though and will be reading them in the future,
just because I love collecting them, too. Check out my book cases and dream rooms..here
And I love reading books that I love over and over again.

Thank you my Santa!!
This is one of my best Christmas present I've ever gotten :)

My Pregnancy 13~16 weeks

It's been 4 months...
(wait, how do you convert weeks into months in pregnancy?? If I count one month each 4 weeks, I will have 10 months pregnancy, but we only have 9 months, right? where are those 4 extra weeks go?
 or how do you count month??? please let me know.)

13 weeks of pregnancy (About the size of a medium shrimp)

Anyway, in 13th weeks, Nov 10, 2011  
My husband and I went to 2nd prenatal visit.
I had an embarrassing experience there....if you wanna know what it is, please click here :)
My weight kept same as before I got pregnant.
Even though I begun to notice a little bump in my lower stomach.

14 weeks, second trimester!!!
I felt so much better. I didn't suffer from fatigue at all, in fact, I didn't feel like I was pregnant at all.
So I kept going for a walk for one hour every other day.
And I started playing volleyball again, not as extensive as I did before though....
I finally gained one pound!!!! Yay
I felt my jeans is a little bit tight in my waist, especially when I sit down.

15 weeks, it was thanksgiving week!!
I had a great time at a thanksgiving dinner, next day though, I didn't even gain any weight....what's wrong with me?? Thanks to my high metabolism... I guess.. : p

16 weeks of pregnancy (About the size of an avocado)

16 weeks.
I started eating more and more!!
YES!! My apatite came back :)
And I gained one more pound!!!
My bulge is getting bigger and bigger but still not the size that people would notice that I'm pregnant.
I look like I have a chubby stomach... lol

My ultra-sound appointment is in Dec 19, 2011!!
We are so excited to finding out the sex of the baby!!!!!

My lunch : Tuna & Corn Cream Pasta and Seaweed Salad

My husband usually comes home for lunch everyday since his work place is in less-than-10-minutes-drive.
But the other day, he went for a lunch with his work team.

So I decided making my favorite dish for myself, which is cream pasta.

Tuna & Corn Cream Pasta

Plus considering nutrient food, I made seaweed, tomato, and onion salad.

The pasta was so easy to make.
*Ingredients for two
  -Spaghetti (your favorite kind, here I used what I had...I forgot the name of this kind.)
  -Salt
  -Canned tuna  1 can
  -Corn 1 cup
  -Onion 1/4 of onion
  -Butter, flour 1 Tablespoon
  -Milk 1 cup
  -Chicken consomme 1/2 Teaspoon 
  -Salt and pepper (for seasoning)
  -Parsley (for garnish)

*1. Cook pasta as usual.
*2. Melt butter in a pan, brown onions. And add flour and cook it until it's not powdery.
*3. Add milk and stir constantly until the sauce thickens in a low heat, and add chicken consomme.
*4. Mix canned tuna and corn into the pan and seasons with salt and pepper.
*5. Turn off the stove, add pasta into the pan and mix them together quickly and garnish with Parsley.

For the salad, Soak dried seaweeds in water for about 10 mins. And squeeze water out of seaweeds.
Cut onion and tomato and mix all together and pour Ponzu sauce (Japanese citrus soy sauce) over it....
   **Tip : Soak sliced onion into cold salted water, it makes onion less spicy and sweeter.
         ( It might loose some nutrients of onion into the water though... )


I ate with Orange Juice for extra folic acid that is great for pregnant women :)

***After thought****
-Since I took some time to take decent pictures, the pasta got cold and sauce got too thick that they stuck together..... I wish I had eaten it right away without trying to take good pictures....
-The salad was great for the creamy pasta, because the dressing is so light, it cut through the creaminess of the pasta dish. Good balance :)

Christmas is coming!!

We put up a Christmas tree BEFORE Thanksgiving.....

I don't really know American culture but in my husband's house, which is Vietnamese culture.. we put up tree before. I had understood that people usually put up trees after Thanksgiving, maybe?

I didn't question before, but this year I asked my husband,
"Aren't people put up Christmas trees after Thanksgiving? Why we put it up before?"
And he said...
"Oh, I don't know....because it looks good, right?"

I guess so....
Now every time I pass through the tree I feel "holiday spirit", and wanna eat hot chocolate...hehehe...

Our tree needs more ornaments but I guess it will do for this year.
We need more next year though, so that our future baby-to-be can enjoy the tree :)

Do you put a Christmas tree up before or after the Thanksgiving?? 

Japanese Dish # 1 : Tempura and Cold Soba

SOBA is Japanese noodle that made from buckwheat flour. 

Soba contains all eight essential amino acids, antioxidants, and other essential nutrients. 

We eat soba either hot or cold. 

Today, I made cold soba that dip into sauce with Shrimp Tempra and Veggie Tempra. 

First, you need to cool noodle.
It's basically same as cooking pasta, but NO SALT in the water.
And you need to wash noodle after cooking, so that extra flour can be washed out, and you get clean taste :)
As noodles cool down, I made Tempura.

TEMPURA is some of you know, if you go to Japanese restaurant, battered and deep fried food.
You can get this kind of batter at Asian stores or maybe any grocery stores near by.

You get direction on the back of the box or bag, so I don't really need to go into detail.
But the key to make crispy tempura is to keep batter COLD!!
Some restaurant in Japan, put some ice cubes to keep it cold.

Just mix powder and water (don't mix too well otherwise you get thick fritter like tempura...)


Then just deep fry them.

Don't put too many veggies and seafood at a same time, the temperature of the oil get lowered.






Today I just julienne some veggies, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, and mushroom, and mix them into the batter.

This is more like veggie cakes.

And of course deep fry them.










Ta-Da!!

Easy!!

Oh, and I use store-bought sauce for dipping sauce, like this.

I think you can get this at any grocery stores... yea I've seen this before.
Sometime you need to water down a bit, and sometime you just use straight, I think you get directions on the back of the bottle.







The veggie cakes are great with just salt.
My hubby loved them.
He said it's better than chips :)

I hope you will try this dish!!

Turkey leftover meal : Mario Batali's Turkey Tortellini

Since it started, I've been watching the ABC show "The Chew" religiously.
And before Thanksgiving day, they introduced Mario Batali's Turkey Tortellini using leftover turkey.

Of course we had a ton of leftover from Thanksgiving dinner...

So for next lunch which was on Friday and my hubby were off, we made "Turkey Tortellini" that Mario Batali introduced.
   FYI, I love Mario Matali!!

First we made pasta dough with flour, egg, and little bit of water.

***After having made the dough, he decided we need pasta roller that goes to the KitchenAid mixer. And we are planning to get one Dec :)

Anyway, then I cut leftover turkey and stuffing into small pieces and mixed with mush potatoes.
Mario mixed with some hams and something, but we didn't have those fancy stuff, so I just mixed whatever leftover we had...

 Well..it worked :)

Spread bit of water onto the pasta.
Then put just a teaspoon of stuffing onto the pasta, and fold it shaping triangle.
And fold two sides toward the center and stick them together.
.......well I'm not good at explaining thing at all, so you might just want to check the video... here  hahaha....




Use turkey dripping or gravy to make soup... just water down till it tastes your liking.
And cook the pasta until tender.

Well... we handrolled the pasta dough and couldn't rolled it thin enough, the pasta was too thick for my liking.... but tasted excellent!!

Maybe we will be able to make better one next year with pasta roller accessory for KitchenAid.

Handmade knit scarf

I'm currently knitting a infinity scarf for my hubby.

I've thought about what I should get him as a Christmas present, and I couldn't come up anything at all.....
Since he has pretty much everything he wants, except expensive ones that I cannot buy without getting his approval.

And as a house wife whose jobs are just cooking and doing laundry, I am free pretty much always except doing those chores and working on my store...which if you don't know already Hee103 Jewelry

In addition to those reasons, we are going to Japan in the coldest time of the year, so I thought he needs scarf to warm him up.

This Simply Soft yarn is so soft!!
I was going to buy some yarn online but I couldn't buy any because I had to feel them.
So I went to Micheal's and got softest yarn I could get.
These are those!
So soft!!

I hope he loves it!!!

Please let me know if you know any other yarns that soft, I wanna make something for my friends and me, too :)

Holiday 15%OFF!!!

Hi, everyone!

I'm having holiday deal on my Hee103 Jewelry store!!!
Enter coupon code HOLIDAY15 and get 15% off!!!!!!!
Expires December 18, 2011

I'm behind on updating my new creations in my store.
And I've been working on adding them in my store.
So please keep checking on my store as I add new products every night.

There will be more Holiday theme Jewelry coming!!!

Check here ==> Hee103 Jewelry


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Eco Emi Box: November

Overall, I love what I got for this month Eco Emi Box!!

This is a Holiday box that came with a reusable makeup bag.

*Ooh La La organic Lip Shimmer by. Keeki Pure and Simple (0.15oz $6.99)

       Full size
"It can provide so much moisture and just the right amount of color and shimmer creating an ideal balm to grab anytime for any occasion. This organic shimmer stick is infused with natural minerals and a hint of vanilla and mint."

***I love it!! This is great for the occasions, like when I just go grocery shopping, go on some errands, or I just don't wanna wear lipstick.

*ECOEMI* for 20% ff your order (expires 12/15/2011)

*Sunlight Eye Shadow by. Earth's Beauty (0.75oz $9.95)

     
         Sample size: 0.10oz
"Earth's Beauty line is the purest of makeup you will find. All products are carefully made using clean ingredients from the earth!"

*eco10* to save 10%off your order (expires 12/31/11)




*Candy Mint Foot Cream by. Deep Steep & Royal Labs Inc. (6oz $9.95)

     Sample size: 0.25oz
"This amazing foot cream is soothing for tired feet. Peppermint reduces redness, cools the skin, and reduces irritation and promotes circulation while shea butter softens and moisturizes. Breathe it in deep to stimulate your mind, improve mental ability and focus."





*Refine face mask by. Blissoma (2oz $26.75)

 
       Sample size: N/A
"Refine face mask is a simply amazing creamy clay formula that perfects, smooths, detoxifies, and evens any skin tone. Soft and calming and delicate enough for even the most sensitive skin this is a must have addition to your weekly regimen."




*Dark Chocolate by. Sweetriot (12(1.34oz) bars per case. $9.99)

   
        Sample size: 1 bar
"Yum Bar Flavor 70 filled with cacao nibs and raisins. It is delectable, healthy, dark chocolate, all natural, kosher, VEGAN and do not contain gluten or dairy ingredients. These bars are low in sugar and are only 45-50 calories per 'mega peace'!"

***I love dark chocolate, so I am happy!!



*Wild Mint Shampoo&Conditioner by. Organic Excellence (16oz bottle $15.95)

   
        Sample size: 1oz bottle
"The Wild Mint shampoo is specially formulated to moisturize, maintain a healthy pH balance, prevent hair loss, stimulate growth, and protect against ultra-violet rays and air pollution."
"The Wild Mint Conditioner moisturizes without coating your hair, building up or creating a heavy feeling. It prevents split ends and hair loss, promotes growth, and calms frizz and static electricity."

***Smells minty!!




*Vanilla & Sweet Orange Essential Mist by. Hugo (8oz. $12.99)

   Sample size: 2oz
"Spray linens or clothes to scent them lightly. Give your skin a re-hydrating mid-day treat. Mist your hair lightly to revive and freshen your style. Wear it a a soft, easy fragrance on those days when perfume is just too much. Use it as an exceptionally lovely and subtle room freshener. Just one spray can instantly lift up your mood and re-charge your day! Handcrafted with a blend of purified water and essential oils to revive and refresh"


***Oooh, I love this scent!!
     Sweet, slightly citrusy, and vanilla-y  :)




*Shea Butter Cream by Planet Botanicals (2oz $10.00, 4oz $16.00)

 
    Sample size: N/A
"Made with 20% Ugandan shea butter, a rare light shea butter made by women's co-ops in Uganda, this hand cream deeply conditions and readily absorbs to hydrate dry skin, leaving hands soft and velvety smooth. Especially effective for dry or chapped hands.Lightly scented with pure organic essential oils from South Africa"

***I'm not really fond of this scent...


*Buttons from Soul Flower

 "Soul Flower is an eco friendly retailer that focuses on offering funky boho styles and accessories made from organic cotton, hemp, and recycled fabrics.

http://soul-flower.com/ 
*ECOEMI* for 20% off your order (expires 12/24/11)

THE peanut butter!!

My husband once tried peanut butter that his co-worker brought at work.
As soon as he came home from work, he told me about the peanut butter.
He was so excited telling about it.

We had three jars of normal peanut butter in stock then, so we decided when we use them up, we will get the peanut butter.

Now we used up all the stock, and he got IT!!

This is it!!

Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds/TRADER JOE'S

I don't really like peanut butter, to be honest.
So I usually spread it with nutella on a slice of bread.
But this is soooo good!!
It is crunchy, salty, and nutty.
The roasted flexseeds make it wonderful!!!

This is what I ate for breakfast this morning.

Oh, I love this peanut butter!!!!
Try it :)