Valentine with my sweetie

Today I had a nice day with my sweetie. He had sent flowers in the morning and of course they were beautiful. We went to go see a movie ("The Vow") with Tanning Chatum and Rachel McAdams (chick flick but good), and then afterwards went to have a quick dinner at Mekong, a Vietnamese restaurant. Decided to eat light so we just ordered a bunch of rolls and shared a bun (noodle).



I had been crying so much from the movie (I am such a sob), that when we got to the restaurant, Edwin said that it had looked like we had been in a fight or that he had made me cry on V-day since my face was all puffy and eyes were all red. It took about 30 minutes for my face to get back to normal but by that time, the damage was done. :) But we had a nice time and it was nice to have a date night. The grandparents were watching the kids and had a nice dinner on their own.

Christmas time

December 25th, 2011:
Merry Christmas, everyone!!! The dumplings enjoyed waking up on Christmas morning and opening up all their goodies from Santa and there were plenty of them to go around.




Guo-te got lots of trucks, trains, and cars. He also got a hexa-bug and some transformers as well. He is a happy dumpling.


The highlight for gyoza was receiving an IPOD-touch from Santa. She was very excited and has been glued to it ever since.


Xiao long bao received her very first laptop (a red one). She is going to be using it for educational purposes only!

Some dinner shots in Poughkeepsie later that day:

December 26th, 2011: We took our annual family pictures in Poughkeepsie. They came out pretty good this year, although it was not without some bloopers and funny shots (which I didn't include). But try getting 4 cousins and 7 adults to look at the camera smiling and you will understand how long it took for us to get some good shots.

Later on we had dinner with Uncle, Auntie, Michelle and John at King Chef. Yummy 10 course Chinese meal.

December 29, 2011: We spent the day in the city, having lunch with friends Tommy and Vicky and Robert and Jennie, and then went to the tree afterwards.

We had a great holiday week spending time with our family and friends. New Year's is in just a few short days!

My new toy

American Girl Place Experience

December 18, 2011

For xiao long bao's and gyoza's birthday, decided to treat all the ladies in the family (and invited cousins Caity, mommy Alice, and great-auntie too) to lunch at American Girl Cafe in NYC. They had lots of fun eating and drinking with their dolls and also bought some new accessories/dolls as part of their gift.

With their new doll and pet. Happy Birthday!

Brunch with Santa

December 11th, 2011

Holiday Gatherings with the Wong/Yam Family

The week before Christmas, we got to spend a lot of time with Edwin's family - first in Brooklyn, with the extended family. The dumplings got to spend time with their po-po, gu-gu's Melanie and Amanada, and second cousins Brendan and Jayden. We went to a Chinese restaurant and even had cake to celebrate gyoza's and xiao long bao's birthdays in December. They had a lot of fun.





And then again on Christmas Eve - the immediate family came over to our house and we had huo-guo or Chinese hot pot. That day we went to H-Mart and bought so much beef, pork, fish balls, fish cake, tofu, noodles, vegetables and drinks to celebrate. The dumplings had a lot of fun spending time with their aunties (Sherry was there as well since she had just arrived from SF in the morning) and Uncle and showing them their rooms, toys, and trinkets. The boys watched the football game, while the girls drew and read books, watched ballet on TV and rested. We even showed them our new kitchen and they were impressed :). We ate a lot of food and hope we can do this again soon!


P.S. Poor gyoza - she had fallen asleep by the time we took this picture at 10 pm.

Happy 8th Birthday, Xiao Long Bao!

December 19, 2011


Happy Birthday to my oldest dumpling - I can't believe that you are 8 today. You are now in second grade, and love school - a role model in your class, according to your teacher. You are now playing classical music on the piano, which I love, and are doing hip hop at your dance school. You have graduate from daisy scout to brownie scout. You love to read and write books. You are a good big dumpling, helping the other dumplings and taking care of them. You still love to eat dumplings as well as other foods. You love to play with your friends, are now into feathers and pins and accessories. You lost a few more teeth this year, a total of 5 so far and a 6th loose on the way. You got your first laptop this year, so I hope you are responsible with it. You have been doing a lot of math exercises with a-gong, and hope you will continue to do that. And treasure the experiences you have for this year and the future. I hope you know how special you are to mommy and daddy. We love you!

Lighting the tree

November 27, 2011

It's officially the holiday season!

IPOD fan

November 20th, 2011

This was a cute pic of guo-te, I just had to post it.