The baby after the day shower.... oops. The day after the baby shower, I mean, was Aaron's birthday! So last Sunday, we had another party, smaller, with lots o'food. Seriously lots o'food. Aaron wanted breakfasts for dinner, so my roomate Amy cooked more than complete breakfast and I prepared dessert for an army, which we didn't have any room for after the breakfast. This party involved a fair amount of groaning over how full we were and also lots of shuffling. and Nertz. This is basically a card game equivalent of Blitz for American people who don't have real Blitz cards. This is what I've decided.
So, the day after Aaron's Birthday Breakfast Bash, which I unfortunately don't have any good photos of, we had Cakesgiving! Because we didn't eat birthday cake or any of the Amazing Dessert I had prepared due to our breakfast fullness, we decided to just celebrate again the next evening. So we had German Chocolate Cake, lots o'ice cream, Oreas, Cookie dough, Reese's, M&M's, chocolate sauce, and brownies to put in the ice cream, just like Coldstone. And A&W root beer, which I'd special ordered through a burger place here because they don't sell it anywhere else. And we created a new holiday: Cakesgiving. The 21st of November every year to come.
A few days later was Real Thanksgiving Day, and we had a late dinner with a few friends at our house. We had all the Real Thanksgiving Foods, including a turkey breast that we got from Costco. I was rather proud of my little self for cooking most of the foods while everyone else was at work. I even made a green bean casserole with fresh green beans and onions I fried myself.
Costco was out of pumkin pie on Real Thanksgiving Day, but we got an apple. This was also acceptable.
This is my slow cooker stuffing I made from scratch. Pooh to stove top! I tore up three different kinds of breads and it was the best. It doesn't look the Best in the photo, but I guarantee it was. If you want to try, the recipe was the top rated Slow Cooker Stuffing recipe on allrecipes.com.
A few days later was Day to Decorate the House for Christmas Day!! This is what the house looked like after we dug out all the boxed Christmas happiness.
Aaron is waiting for all the Decorating to begin, and also for the cookies to be done. He's reading 'Christmas around the World', a kids book about international Christmas traditions that features Alaska with a tradition I'd never heard of in the five years I lived there. Hm...
Our table exploded with Christmas Happiness. Look at the roses Aaron left on my scooter after church yesterday. Isn't he the best?
Also, aren't my cookies the best?
I promise I don't have a need for approval.
We decorated stockings, thanks to my roomate Jaime who is a very artsy craftsy-ish sort of person.
This was a new decorating trick we tried this year and I like it a lot.
Samson also has one. I will give him hairball prevention chewy treats. He will love me more, I'm sure, after he gets those for Christmas.
I took this photo in mid-day, which probably wasn't the best time to take a warm and fuzzy Christmas tree photo. Oh well. It's better than no photo...
And Samson really enjoys the Christmas Tree Table Stand, as it has ample room for him to "hide" under and it gets quite warm in there from the sun.
He's probably under there right now.
Well, this afternoon I walked downstairs to the 7-11 to get a coffee, about 4:00, and the sun was shining warmly in the sky, a slight breeze was blowing, it was nice and warm but not insanely hot. There were grandmas and toddlers playing in the courtyard, and people having nice looking conversations in the coffee shop across the street. 7-11's here all have a nice coffee corner called City Cafe, which makes pretty decent and well-priced coffee. I like the French Brulee Caramel Latte.
And so as I was walking back with my Latte, I was just so content with where I lived and what was going on in my life. I have such a great place to live here, a homey community, enough Chinese to feel fairly competent at most daily exchanges, I love my job, I have a boyfriend who adores me, friends who are fun and supportive, a comfortable church family, and lots of opportunities for adventure and exploration. This week in church pastor preached about the importance of giving thanks, (as I'm sure all churches in the world did this week... ), anyway, it occured to me that I really have a billion things to be grateful for. God's given me far more than I asked for, or deserved, and I'm thankful beyond words to be where I am right now.
This week in small group I led the Bible Study part, and I gave everyone a homework to think about a person they are extremely grateful for and express it to them somehow. So I want to thank my mom, as I know she checks my blog every day! for being my biggest fan and for her
daily prayers for me. I attribute my safety on the roads and many of my blessings to God's answering of her prayers. Also I know she did a great job of raising me to walk on God's right path, and even though I might have given her a hard time about things in worse points of my life (like high school), I'm glad she stuck to her guns and I think I turned out pretty good because of her. So thanks mom! You're the best! :D
daily prayers for me. I attribute my safety on the roads and many of my blessings to God's answering of her prayers. Also I know she did a great job of raising me to walk on God's right path, and even though I might have given her a hard time about things in worse points of my life (like high school), I'm glad she stuck to her guns and I think I turned out pretty good because of her. So thanks mom! You're the best! :D
Well, it's time for dinner so I'm going to walk down to Dumpling Guy and get some fried curry potstickers.
What a great food week!
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