Brittany's first driving lesson

On a sunny afternoon in early December, Brittany finally took her first driving lesson. The lady sitting next to her is her instructor, Andrea. When Brittany got back, she told me that something bad had happened.

Before she barely even got out of our little neighborhood, a squirrel ran across the street. She wanted to slow down to give it time to cross but she wasn't allowed to. She had to keep her speed and the squirrel wasn't fast enough. :( She had to kill a squirrel within the first few minutes of her lesson. She was devastated. However, her other lessons were great!

Kristina's chicken kebab & chickpea salad

It was a warm day for the California winter, and Kristina looked up online for a chicken kebab recipe and she wanted to try it out.

This is the chicken pieces slathered in some marinade.

The refreshing chickpea salad with purple onion and parsley.

Here are the result of kebabs. Quite tasty.

Thanks, Kristina!

Kristina's Mini Pie in a Cupcake

Kristina decided to make pumpkin pie inside the cupcake. This is the pumpkin pie mixture.

The mini pumpkin pies are ready for the oven.

She put the baked pumpkin pie inside the cupcake batter.

She decorated the cupcakes with buttercream frosting and mini sugar cookies.

Once you bite into it, it looks like this inside.

Yummy!

Kristina's cinnamon rolls

During Kristina's winter break before her study abroad program in Australia, she wants to do some cooking and baking. She decided to make cinnamon rolls first. She made them before at school and her friends

loved it. This is when she prepared the dough.

She had the dough raised and rolled up with all the goodies.

During the baking, they smelled SO good. But.... they need the sugar glaze.

Voila! They are all ready for me. Thanks, Kristina.

fun with photobooth

My brothers visited SF summer last year. We used to be playful during the childhood. We would think of tricks to trick/torture our house maid or each other. So we thought it would be fun to take some sibling pictures over my apple laptop camera.

At the beginning, we were just warming up. Then....

It seems like that we are getting ready to goof off.

Bob's face got distorted....:]

This one is my favorite one.

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas of 2010!

We didn't buy and decorate the tree until past mid-December. The rainy days were the major reason. Well, we were still able to get it done. I started half the decoration first, then Brittany helped me finished it. She took some photos afterwards.

We hope everyone has a great holiday season.

I can't even count how many ornaments there are on the tree. There are way too many! But I love it.

I haven't made homemade cards for a long time. This year I decided to make 2 kinds and send them only to out-of-country friends. Sorry! I started late and couldn't find much supplies to make more. I hope you enjoyed the cards; I wish everyone a happy holiday season.

Kristina's insects collection

Kristina took a biological class about insects during the fall semester. One of the class projects is to collect 18 (I think) different types, species, or families of insects and then label them. They are very cool to look at. Some are so tiny, you can't see them with your bare eyes; I wondered how she actually caught them and pinned them down.