Update

Alright, time for a long overdue update.

The biggest news in baby world is that BB is walking!  Crazy.  Around 14 months, he finally decided to take a few steps on his own without holding onto anything.  Slowly but surely, he grew more confident and ventured further.  Now, he's happily wobbling about.  Monkey made a very observant comment that having a toddler around the house is like having a little zombie.  Lots of lurching, grunting, screeching, and lunging at objects.

In other news, Badge got a new job!  He just signed an offer letter to become Director of Men's Department Stores for Puma in their Lifestyle division.  Pretty amazing opportunity for him.  Very proud.  My work is super busy as usual.  I'm going to a conference next week in Vegas.  Nothing else terribly exciting to report.

Since my memory only extends to the last couple days, here's what we've been doing over the holiday break.  Monkey and I have been obsessively watching Once Upon a Time episodes.  It's a TV show about story book characters stuck in the real world.  Pretty entertaining.  We've watched a few Netflix movies at home (Prometheus, Contagion, The Amazing Spider Man).  Yesterday, Badge took me out to Q'ero for my birthday.  Very tasty upscale Peruvian food.  Other than that, we've just been doing a whole lot of cook and relaxing.  A more noteworthy accomplishment is the fact that I finally finished Max's first year photobook (Shutterfly makes it so easy to put one together).  Can't wait to see it when it arrives!

In another couple of weeks, Ah Ma, BB, and I will be off to Taiwan.  Quite nervous about having BB on our laps for a 12 hour flight but hopefully it'll go alright.  Fingers crossed!

Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving come and gone.  This year, Monkey and I signed up for turkey, stuffing, and corn casserole.  Easy peasy compared to years past.  Kris took up the mac n cheese helm and Lala even made a sweet potato casserole (Badge's request)!  There were lots of other goodies, all of which tied together for a delicious incredibly filling meal.

Wrangling the family together for a group photo was rather challenging, especially with four kids.  I couldn't figure out how to use the timer on my camera so I took the first picture while Monkey took the second.  

Attempting to get a picture of just the four kids in their respective chairs was flat out impossible.  The girls were angels while BB was trying to escape every chance he could.

He eventually squirmed out of Frog's arms and escaped.

Fresh Fruit Tart

Alright, I know I've fallen off the blogging wagon, but I'm back!  And I come bearing gifts, namely in the form of this delicious fruit tart.

This was my first time making a tart.  There were several steps, but none of them were terribly troublesome.  First, you make and bake the crust, then make the pastry cream, then assemble.  Tada!  In the cream, I used a vanilla bean instead of extract since I love the flavor it adds.  I was supposed to use an apply jelly on top but I couldn't find any at Whole Foods, so substituted plum jelly instead.

Verdict?  So good.  Despite knowing the amount of cream and butter that went into this sucker, it tastes surprisingly light and refreshing.  The filling did tend to ooze once you cut into it (perhaps I added too much?).  Will definitely make this again now that I finally have a tart pan.