Simpsons in Seattle

We have had a wonderful time this holiday season even though we've been stuck at home because of all the stay-at-home orders going on. We've made the best of the situation by still celebrating - I know lots of people who stayed in PJs all holiday but we did the opposite and went big with celebrating small! First, I got in on the advent action when Way sent me this delightful advent calendar from Palais de Thes. It was super fun to wake up each morning and open a little treat, and then text with Way and Samantha to compare tasting notes. There were some intriguing flavors and I have to say that I was surprised to find out how much I liked the green earl grey. Thanks for the lovely treat, Way! I loved all the inspirational quotes each day. Beautiful packaging. Then, my mom got us a shipment of Portos goodies. YUMMMMMMM! No potato balls but we got chicken empanadas, chocolate twists, guava and cheese strudels and cream cheese tarts. Thanks, mom, for the yummy treats! The girls eve

Nora has watched me take pictures of some of our meals and has taken to wanting to also take her own pictures and then text them to friends and family. Her styling is not always on point but I do love that she's excited about her food and wants to share. Whatever it takes to get her to eat, right?  Fondue night. She did not want to dip in cheese, wanted everything plain. She was super happy about this breakfast. Falafel night. She likes deconstructed food. :P Her "berroculi soop with bekon" shot. Air fried chicken. I helped focus this for her. Stead fish, rice and greens. Simpson girls favorite chicken (aka TJ's orange chicken). Homemade lunchable. Strawberry and chocolate sundae Appetizer plate  

Winter solstice came and went and now it's only going to get brighter from here on out. YAY! To celebrate, I finally made savory tong yuan soup by myself! Well, actually, Kathy helped, but this was the first time without any uncle or auntie making this for me. Surprisingly, the kids devoured the mochi and drank most of the soup too. And then, to top the night off, we got our first snow of the season in the city! The girls of course had to run outside to play around in it. So, all in all, a mighty fine winter solstice.  Too much movement to get a good pic of them playing. Yum! Nice and warming. Next time, I'll add fish cakes and chinese sausages.  

It's officially winter here in Seattle! Today actually wasn't that bad in terms of temperature, but we had been getting down into the 30s at night and waking up to frost on the ground and frozen windshield wipers.  Of course, this means then that it's time to get to the snow! We are determined to get the girls to learn skiing while they are young, and we've brought them for lessons in years past .  This year, we are trying out mini-mountain, an indoor ski place where the selling point is since you don't have to worry about it being cold inside, you can just concentrate on perfecting your form. The girls took their first lesson Saturday and it went pretty well. It felt very safe inside (they took our temps, the set up is basically a gigantic warehouse so lots of room for social distancing), especially because you wait outside in the col until its your lesson time, and there's only one kid per instructor per ski hill (there were only 2 in operations while we were

I got a bag of Seattle Chocolates from work and of course we had to count out how many of each flavor we have! Nora was very excited to do this and then get first dibs on which flavor to try.  So far, my favorites are Espresso and Mexican Hot Chocolate. Evie likes Pink Bubbly (it's got pop rocks!) and Nora likes Milk Chocolate or Blackberry Creme.  She insisted I take this picture and post it.  

Snowflake Lane in Bellevue is a tradition we've gone to almost every year since the girls have been born. They shut down the main street in Bellevue and usually do a nightly parade and have dancers performing to music while fake snow rains down. It can get crazy crowded, especially on a weekend, but the girls enjoy it especially now that they are older and recognize the songs and get candy thrown at them by the folks in the parade. We don't always post about it, but we did in 2015 here and then again in 2016 here.  I was super happy to hear they were modifying it this year so that there's no parade, but still music and snow and lights. Our friends, the Wongs, live right next to downtown so we were able to walk over the other night when it was clear (ie: not raining!). It was not crowded at all! Most everyone had masks on too, which was good. There was a big group that did not and we tried to steer clear of them as quickly as possible - they were obviously not from around to