Vasona Park

You gotta love 60+ degree weather in December. It was a perfect day to visit Vasona Park in Los Gatos, near Grandma and Grandpa's house. This park had a train ride, a carousel, a big playground, and a huge lawn to run around. Can't wait to go back!

Fun with Brady

Brady reacts to a few Christmas gifts that he didn't ask for.

First, Prentice's little stocking stuffer, a Santa laser. Yes, they actually sell these in pet stores so you can mess with your pets.

And then, my new Roomba. This drove him crazy. Guess I'll only be able to use this when he's not home.

A Very Merry Christmas

I was thrilled to wake up on Christmas morning and find that Santa had visited! And Mommy caught it all on video. Ahh, the magic of Christmas!

This year I really wanted an Elmo play-doh color mixer. I came across a YouTube video a few months ago of this woman demonstrating her Elmo play-doh color mixer, and since then I've been obsessed, watching the video almost every morning. I was so excited when I opened my gift from Santa and saw what was inside!

After opening presents and playing for a bit, Mommy made us a yummy breakfast of waffles and sausages. Later, we headed to Grandma's house for more Christmas fun and another round of opening presents.

Enjoying a warm Christmas afternoon at the nearby park.

Gifts from Cao-cao

And finally, I received one last gift from Poh-poh the next day! She had been hiding it at the side of the backyard waiting to surprise me, but I accidentally found it when I was outside with Brady. So much for a surprise!

Love my new bicycle!

I'm sad that Christmas is over, but am enjoying all of my new toys!

Christmas Eve

On the day before Christmas I spent most of the day in the kitchen helping Mommy bake cookies. It started out as a quick activity to bake some cookies for Santa Claus, but after the first batch, Mommy got carried away and went into a baking frenzy. She ended up making four different types of cookies, and I insisted on helping with each one. Which of course meant things took twice as long. It was a fun morning/afternoon!

For dinner we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory in Redwood City. You gotta love a family friendly spaghetti dinner on Christmas Eve. Mommy and Daddy joked about this becoming a new Christmas Eve tradition, but I think they might actually be serious.

Nothing says Christmas Eve like an after-dinner trip to Target.

I enjoyed staying up past my bedtime in anticipation of Santa's visit!

I somehow got the idea that reindeer like to eat baby marshmallows, so we left some out for them, along with Santa's milk and cookies.

K Sings Christmas Songs

On Christmas Eve, Kaitlyn performed some of the new Christmas songs she's learned in the past few weeks. Here they are: We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Jingle Brady. Yes, she made the last one up.

Preschool Christmas Sing Along

My preschool invited the parents to visit during class for a Christmas sing along. Only two of the eight songs we performed were actually familiar Christmas tunes. But they all loved watching us laugh and sing together. Here's a clip of a few of the songs we performed. You can definitely tell who the class clowns are.

Christmas Cookie Video

Kaitlyn watched an episode of Caillou where he was making Christmas sugar cookies with his mommy, and for days afterward she was begging me to make "star cookies" with her too. So one Saturday morning, after days of promises and anticipation, she finally got what she asked for. She was so excited, and loved every minute of it.

Prentice took all these video clips throughout the process so I used iMovie for the first time to make a little Christmas video. I think I'll stick to just making cookies from now on.

Visit with Santa

I originally had no intentions of visiting Santa this year. Every time Mommy asked I answered with a quick "no," so she just let it go. Then today, out of the blue, I tell Mommy and Daddy that I want to see Santa. 

     "Are you sure??" they ask. 

     "Yes." 

     "You want to sit on his lap? Really??" 

     "Yes." 

I seem pretty confident. They're not convinced, but decide to take me to the mall so I can see Santa from afar, and then decide if I really want to sit on his lap. So we head to the crowded mall on the last weekend before Christmas where there's over an hour wait in line to see Santa. Mommy does not want to wait in line, so we peek at Santa from outside the line and she asks me about five more times if I'm sure I want to sit on his lap. "Yes." Reluctantly, we get in line and wait and wait. Who knows what I'm going to do when it's finally my turn, but there's no turning back now. Finally my turn comes, and to Mommy and Daddy's surprise, I run up to him and jump on his lap! It was worth the wait after all.

After smiling for the photo, Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas. "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer" was my answer. Then, he told me some secrets. Mommy and Daddy have no idea what he told me, but I was listening very intently. Then, I got a reindeer hat and high-fived Santa goodbye.

It was a successful visit after all. On the way home I kept declaring "I like Santa! I want to see him again!"

Family Picture Day

We took our annual family photos this year at the Stanford University campus. Despite having grown up twenty minutes from the university, I had never actually been on the campus before. Our photographer shoots there often, and suggested the location since it was dog friendly and there were lots of options. It's a beautiful place to walk around, and we had a lot of fun on this shoot. Even Kaitlyn enjoyed herself this time and warmed up quickly to the camera. It helped a lot that Brady was with us. She loves showing off her dog to people.

All photos by Kent Hwang Photography.

Love this pic just because the photographer captured Prentice doing what he does best...checking his phone.

This was my absolute favorite picture from the shoot. Totally deserving to be on the front of our Christmas card this year.

The Best Fruit Salad Ever

I recently offered to bring a fruit salad for a get-together. But I didn't want to bring just any fruit salad. Cut up pieces of melon and strawberries are boring. So I looked for ways to jazz it up and found this recipe on Pioneer Woman. Seriously, this is the best fruit salad I've ever eaten and I am totally addicted. It may not be the healthiest fruit salad but it is dee-licious. It's all about the syrup - a simple sugar water infused with orange zest and vanilla bean. It is soooo addictive! Fresh mint leaves also kick it up a notch (Note: I liked chopping up the mint leaves but Kaitlyn didn't. With kids it's probably better to use whole mint leaves to get the flavor and then pick them out if you need to). Finally, the halved grapes. Maybe it's the extra juices and softer textures but halved grapes taste so much better than whole grapes.

I may have cooked the sugar water for too long because I ended up with a super thick syrup, almost like honey. I think it was supposed to be more watery. Anyway, I had way more than I needed and ended up only drizzling about two spoonfuls of the syrup over the fruit, but that was enough to provide plenty of coverage and a nice glaze.

Like the recipe calls for, I used grapes, strawberries, and blueberries. But this can be made with any fruit - in fact I had a ton of leftover syrup so all week I've been cutting up random pieces of fruit and tossing them together. It always tastes good and I've never had so much fruit salad in my life!

Gingerbread House Fun

Thanks to Trader Joe's kit for a fun afternoon activity. I enjoyed decorating (and eating) my own gingerbread house! That was $7.99 well spent, Mommy.

Christmas Tree Shopping

We got our Christmas tree this weekend! We went to the Christmas tree patch by our house and I helped pick it out. At first I wanted a baby tree, but Mommy and Daddy said that Brady would eat it, so they convinced me to get a bigger one. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Totally fascinated that the tree was on top of our car.

Ta-da! I decorated it all by myself! Could you tell?

Daddy's Birthday Celebration

I was so excited about Daddy's birthday this year. Since he had a client dinner on his actual birthday, we had a belated celebration for him the following day. Here's how it all went down.

Mommy comes home from work, and I run screaming towards the door.

"Mommy's home! Yay!! Open your card Daddy!!"

Daddy opens the card and reads it. It's decorated with stickers and a drawing of him that I did all by myself.  "That's so nice! Thank you Kaitlyn!"

"Mommy, where's his birthday present?"

"Umm...I have a present for him, but it's not wrapped yet. Do you want to give it to him for his birthday or for Christmas?"

"Birthday!"

"Okay, come and help me wrap it."

We disappear for a few minutes. Then I come running out and shove a present in Daddy's hands.

"Daddy open your present! It's an iPhone!"

I help Daddy unwrap his new iPad Mini!  I'm so proud.

"I bought you an iPhone Daddy! I went to the store by myself and bought it! I drove!"

Then, the best part...a Baskin Robbins chocolate chip ice cream cake!

I love birthday celebrations! Happy Birthday Daddy!