Merry Christmas!!!

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6)

“Perhaps we stray from the path which leads to peace and find it necessary to pause, to ponder, and to reflect on the teachings of the Prince of Peace and determine to incorporate them in our thoughts and actions and to live a higher law, walk a more elevated road, and be a better disciple of Christ.” (President Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Peace,” Liahona and Ensign, Mar. 2004, 3.)

We are grateful to be surrounded by good friends in the absence of our families here in NY.

Pre-Christmas dinner...

We laughed… feasted… chatted… karaoke'd… and most of all showed our love with one another.

Oh… and went crazy taking pictures! :)

Christmas Eve…

Breakfast @ Mocha Lisa

Lunch @ Cheesecake Factory

Dinner @ home (our favorite part of the day) …and had my hair cut too :)

Christmas day…

watched two movies! At different theatre location! :) They’re equally good!

Productive! :)

Yes, another project this year and it took us six months to complete! I know, that long?! Well, we’re amateurs’ hehehe and we only are able to work on it mostly on Saturdays and on weekdays after office when it’s not raining and the sun is still out and we’re not yet tired… not to mention it was manual labor to the max! :( But it was truly a feel good project when all things planned came together… sore… but definitely worth it!

The retaining wall… our back yard is hilly and since the top part doesn’t really have any grass on it (well, there was but they keep dying on us hahaha!) but trees, when it rains the soil runs down the hill and it fills out the already little space we have at the back… so we thought a retaining wall would be prefect and it sure is!

Then, the patio… since we’re out there digging dirt already might as well finish the whole thing so we dig some more to flatten the surface of our very uneven backyard and laid out step stones to cover the area to create a mini patio for playing and sitting or what have you :) We didn’t think we’ll be able to finish it before the snow comes… but we did! And again… the time spent and body aches… totally worth it!

Curved it! :)

After years of living here there are still things that we have yet to try and one of them is curving a pumpkin. So many times we thought about doing it… but never really get to for some reason. And so last Saturday, finally! We did it! :) We thought it’s going to be complicated and messy but the complete opposite… it was very easy and fun and not messy at all, we really enjoyed it! As you can see… we probably took more time taking pictures than curving the pumpkin hahaha! We’re thinking of making this a tradition now :) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Now, what to do with the pumpkin seeds?

Found this really simple recipe online:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons butter, melted
1 pinch salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
2. Toss seeds in a bowl with the melted butter and salt.
Spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 45
minutes or until golden brown; stir occasionally.

Unfortunately, I burned it! Got distracted from watching TV plus the recipe called for a cup and a half of pumpkin seeds and we only have a hand full (well of course Warren saved some too for his garden next year! ) and I still baked it for 45 minutes! so go figure hahaha! :( Oh well, I’m just gonna have to try this again.

Produce :)

Why of course we have our little produce garden again this year... and of course i'll say "we" again even though it's mostly my hubby who did the work hehe... i helped! promised! :) Looks like this is becoming to be a tradition now for us... which is good... really good, actually! Especially when we try to grow new fruits and veggies. So to start of... here are what's new in our garden this year:

raspberries, green beans, and cherries : )

Pretty cool huh? But like from last time... little creatures around got to harvest the fruits before we did :( now we don't mind sharing... but apparently those little thing do! Silly little rabbits... or maybe it's the chipmunks... it's got to be the squirrels! Oh well, we're still happy! We get to enjoy weeks of not buying tomatoes! :p