kai's toy are growing exponentially so i was just looking around for cute toy boxes. man, they are super cute but they are expensive $$$. we might need to DIY toy boxes soon here (if we can make it pretty like these...) or get lazy and go to ikea for it ;)

top: Argington Fuji Toy Box

middle: Mod Mom Furniture Sam Toy Box

bottom: Chase Toy Box/Library Bench Combo

after standing in line with kai for the 1.5 hrs for the gap casting call photo shoot at the mall, these are 2 of them that i like out of 4 that they took. i guess i'm a little disappointed on the pictures but i guess that's ok. maybe i'll try to take pictures kinda like this on my own this weekend. but i was gonna ask you guys if i were to pick one, which one would you pick to enter it to the contest?

this was the line when i first got in line...it wrapped around the store.

finally painted + decorated kai's bathroom this week. it's light turquoise/mint kinda color with yellow color pop! this paint is actually called garden gazebo by glidden (really, i would think "tan" when i hear that name of the paint, is that just me? i wonder how they name these things...) i wasn't too sure about the color but after serious thinking, i decided to keep it and think worked out pretty good (especially with that color of shower curtain). i'm thinking about putting a little white shelf above the toilet to put candles and such. well i'll keep you posted on that one ;)

i think he likes it too?

i went to a little grocery trip to costco today and i fell in love with these cookies (yes, it was one of those sample things...totally got me!). i've never heard of this brand before but it's totally yummy and a lot better than oreos in many ways (taste, price, and ingredients). it's organic (no pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or genetic engineering), all natural ingredients, has whole grain, and what do you know, it's vegan (v. i'm sure you had this before??). i highly recommend these cookies, seriously, try it!

he has been very curious about things and started checking out under neath things. he loves to see what's under neath the couch. i think he actually found his own toy before but he can probably find deedee's toy, dust bunny (maybe if i'm lazy about swiffer-ing), or boogie man? lol

my friend vanessa took this picture and sent it to me. who would've thought that kai is already a business man at such a young age! ha ha. we need to go eat at this place and see how good it is (i guess it's in old oakland).

daniel requested me to make some square shaped treats so i decided to make this one. i love oatmeal in cookies and sweets but i can not eat regular oatmeal for breakfast (i guess i just can't do that texture, yes, i know i'm weird...). i somehow think that putting oatmeal in treats will be a lot healthier and more nutritious (i know it's not "that" true when i put tons of butter and sweets...) so that's one of the reason i make treats with oatmel and feel not so guilty eating them. ha ha ha. do you guys like my reasoning? ^ _ ^

p.s. if you want this recipie, go to cont. reading.

++ INGREDIENTS ++

vegetable-oil/cooking spray
48 soft caramel-candy cubes
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

++ HOW TO ++

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-by-9- inch baking pan with cooking spray.

2. put caramels and cream in a small saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until caramels are melted, about 5 minutes. Let cool.

3. stir together oats, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and the salt in a large bowl and blend in butter.

4. bake until just set and starting to color around edges, about 20 minutes. let cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes.

5. sprinkle crust with chocolate chips; drizzle with caramel mixture. top with remaining crumb mixture. bake until pale golden, 20 to 25 minutes. let cool completely in pan before cutting into squares. enjoy!

she is officially 4 years old in dog years but i guess she is about 32 years old in human age (yes, i'm not the oldest one in the household anymore!). i think she's been kinda lazy and sleeps around all day (but she follows me everywhere in the house, is that a cocker thing? or is it just her thing?) but she sure gets super excited and acts like a puppy when i tell her that we gonna go on a walk.

i gave her some yummy treats for her b-day. this was the "anticipation" of that yummy treats ;)

decided to make some soup for dinner. beef cubes with lots of vegetables that were found in my fridge in tomato base soup. i think it came out better than i thought it would so hopefully daniel will like it too.

what a fun calender to have around the house! i like popping the bubble wrap so this is definitely kind of stuff i like to have ;) looks like it comes in both vertical and horizontal orientation. i love the fact that this is type set in helvetica neue, yay! check out more info here on bubble calendar.

walked over to our neighborhood park again so kai can play in the water. he wasn't scared today and did so well. he was just crawling around everywhere (luckily wasn't very many older kids around then) and checking out the water fountains. so glad that he is ok with the water now!

trish and i made the sprinkles red velvet cupcakes today. it was fun and turned out great! soooo yummy and cream cheese frosting we made from scratch was the best! the cake batter was really red (hard to see the red-ness, you can go to cont. reading for another picture) and kinda stained my fingers for a little bit but it did come off ;) i really wanna go to sprinkles store and try other flavors to taste the yummy-ness. so i know what kind to make for the next time. check out their website!

it is seriously blood red!

happy 9 month b-day to kai! it is sure getting so hard to keep him still on the couch. now he doesn't only want to wrestle the snoopy, he wants to drop him off the couch too. since it was on sat., daniel helped me with this photo session but it was hard with two of us. i don't know what i'm gonna do when i have to do it alone in a future.

cont. reading for past pics.

kai went to 9 months check-up appt. yesterday and he was 19.12 lbs (40 percentile) and 28.5 inch (55 percentile). i was surprised to hear that he wasn't one of the "bigger" boy now compare to before. he is slowing down on growing ?!?!

8 months

7 months

6 months

5 months

4 months

3 months

2 months

1 month

we got the delivery from ups today and look what the ups guy did! he left deedee a little dog biscuit. i thought that was so cute of that particular ups guy. obviously he's been here before and have seen deedee going crazy every time new person comes around the house. guess he knows how to work the dog from his experiences ;)

so what we got in the package is a new external hard drive! since the other one broke already (didn't even last a year, don't buy those!) and became kai's new toy, we needed to buy a new one so we can back up precious pictures of kai! (i guess and some important documents too but i really only care about kai's pictures... ) hopefully this one will last forever, we'll see about that.

kai has found new toys around office lately... one of them is a printer, he likes to constantly "jam" his hands in it. another one is the external hard drive case (it broke so we gave him the empty case, remember when we bought this hard drive, we took a pic with him and he was sooo small and monkey like? i'll put that pic on cont. reading), apparently he wants to fix with his purple toy wrench ;)

can't believe that hard drive is a size of his torso back then...and he looks so different now.

this is a super cool iphone case! i want one!! but i wonder...if you drop it as often as i do, you get lots of dents and scratches in a long run? it's a little pricy tho...and it's in euro so it'll be about twice as much! check it out here.

since daniel requested me for a coffee cake for breakfast, i made it from scratch! this is my first time making a coffee cake and it actually turned out great and pretty tasty :) it took me about 1.5 hrs including the baking time. if you wanna know the recipe, click on cont. reading.

CLASSIC COFFEE CAKE
*makes about 8 servings

+ + TOPPING + +
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp cinnamon

+ + CAKE + +
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cup all purpose-flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup milk

+ + HOW TO + +
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Make topping by combining 1 cup flour with brown sugar, a stick of softened butter and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a medium bowl. Mixture should have the consistency of moist sand.

3. In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup butter, 3/4 cup light brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

4. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add this dry mixture to the moist ingredients a little bit at a time. Add milk and mix well.

5. Spoon the batter into a 9- by 13-inch baking pan that has been buttered and dusted with a light coating of flour. Sprinkle the crumb topping over the batter. Be sure the topping completely covers the batter.

6. Bake cake for 50 minutes, or until the edges just begin to turn light brown. Enjoy!

since kai's been eating cereals for snack time, deedee has learned that it's her snack time too. kai doesn't have the perfect grip on cereals and unintentionally drops them here and there. so deedee just sit right next to kai's high chair, simply stair at the floor, and just quietly wait for that moment. i know it's a bad manner for deedee's part but she is super fast and don't even give me time to go down and get it before her (even i try to stop her with my leg). i guess i can kennel her?

this if what i decided to make for the dinner, meat loaf with cheddar cheese cubes (you can't really see the cheese cubes in the pic...) with fresh garlic butter sugar peas on the side. i was gonna make creamy garlic mashed potatoes, but decided to eat with rice instead...i needed my rice fix for the day ;)

we finally got our counter stools that we ordered back in mid may (i'm not joking!)! i guess it has been backordered by manufacture, particularly this color (graphite on oak) for this long (geez, right?) we did look around everywhere for other alternatives but there were always something we didn't like about them so we ended up waiting for them (yes, we are very very picky people!). i must say it was worth the wait and love the simplicity of these stools :)

"brown rice" birth mark behind his left ear is still there...must love rice, right?

just love the wrist rolls :)

here is my weekly baking item. since i have the mixer, it's amazing how fast i can make cookies from scratch. from measuring, mixing, and baking the first batch of cookies, it was only about 30 min. i guess me not physically mixing the ingredients cuts time in about half. awesome isn't it?

here is the recipe for the oatmeal toffee cookies.
(this recipe makes about 4 dozens so if you don't have a big family like me, i would recommend freezing half of the dough for the next time.)

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup toffee bits

1. heat oven to 375F. lightly grease cookie sheet.

2. beat butter, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; beat until blended. stir in oats, toffee bitt.

3. drop dough by rounded teaspoons about 2" apart onto cookie sheet. bake 8 to 10 min. or until edges are lightly browned.

4. cool 1 min; remove to wire rack. enjoy!