The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

Hi friends! December is finally here and usually it feels like things will be very hectic and next thing I know it’s the New year! I want to enjoy this season by simplifying our Christmas activities. Hubs and I are intentional in telling the kids the real reason why we are celebrating Christmas. Our Savior’s birth! I’ve simplified our decors and have no plans to buy more decorations. We are happy with our fresh tree and wreath we got at the Christmas tree farm. I will buy poinsettias (it’s a must have holiday flower/plant for me) in the coming days, and that would be it .

We have an advent calendar Bible reading from our church, we plan to do that. I also got the kids cheap advent calendars from Trader Joes, so they get a little treat after we talk about Jesus’s Birth.

Mia will be joining our Church’s kids Christmas presentation, so we are excited to see her perform!HA. We were also invited (by our realtor) to watch the new Wonka movie this month, families were invited. We will also watch the Christmas lights display around our neighborhood/near neighboring cities.

I’ve seen lots of December decluttering challenges all over social media, I think I will join them because it’s really fun for me and inspiring to see other families declutter and simplify their homes/lives. I did one kitchen drawer earlier. That was a good start. Nothing big but little actions like these give me a boost!HA

We will continue to do our family walks this month. Mia is not a big fan already because she complains about the weather.

We had pizza after our walk. We like that we have restaurants within walking distance of our house so we get to do things like this.

Have a great Friday night friends. We will play some Uno and other game cards before we call it a night here. Stay safe and take care:)

Hi Friends! How was your weekend? Ours was a busy one with Hub’s birthday, getting our Christmas tree from the Christmas tree farm, and I got baptized yesterday at our Church! Hectic, but memorable:)

Saturday, we went to the Christmas tree farm with my In laws. It was the coziest place and feels like a Christmas movie filming there!HA. It surely put us in the holiday mood! We had hot cocoa, hay rides, and a tour of the farm. I enjoyed the fire pits and snacking on a Christmas cookie. North Bend bakery was selling goods there!

Sunday, was Hub’s birthday and my baptism! I had an infant baptism in the Philippines but I’ve always wanted to do it now in my adult years. I remember accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior around maybe 10 or 11 years old. So this weekend I got a chance to publicly declare that again. All Glory to God! My Hubs was just there for support!HA He’s been baptized already years ago.

We didn’t have any plans for Hub’s birthday because we will do a family dinner this weekend. It’s just been so busy with Thanksgiving week, that we decided to celebrate later. Hubs wanted brunch at his favorite breakfast place near the church. We had breakfast after the church service.

I ordered Eggs Benedict and I really enjoyed it. Kids had the usual bacon/french toast (Hubs ordered the same).

After all the treats this weekend, we did our little family walk to compensate for the indulgence since thanksgiving!HA. It’s been a very cold Monday here! It’s back to the usual routine this week.

I hope you have a great start of your week friends! Take Care and stay safe!Talk later:)

Happy Thanksgiving Friends! Today is the day after Thanksgiving or Black Friday if you ask retailers. We had a great Thanksgiving dinner yesterday and of course the spread was AMAZING! Thank you Lord that we can afford to have this kind of feast:) I hope yours was wonderful and you get to spend quality time with loved ones and friends.

Hubs Auntie made Pumpkin Tiramisu and it was so flavorful!

We played a game that Hubs wanted to try.

Happy Thanksgiving from my little turkeys!HA

Today, we are just having a slow Friday and relaxing, but later this afternoon we will go walk around the neighborhood and meet my In laws. Have a great Friday friends. Take care and stay safe:)

Hi Friends! Happy Thanksgiving! I pray you will have a wonderful time with family and friends and eating delicious food. We had a relaxing day today watching Korean Drama (My Mister), ordered Chicken Tikka Masala and Biryani Chicken from our favorite Pakistani Restaurant. We were just talking about how lucky we are to have such a diverse community and the restaurants are pretty great.

Hubs went to the grocery because he wanted to try new appetizers for tomorrow. OH BOY! It will be potluck style tomorrow so we didn’t have to do a lot of cooking. Just two sides and appetizers, that’s all! Our Thanksgiving table is done too because I had the same flowers from our Friendsgiving!HA .

I did laundry and vacuumed the house just to get a little ahead with the housework so I can relax and be lazy this thanksgiving weekend! I also read this minimalist book I borrowed from the library (online).

I’ll be done reading this book by tomorrow. It’s been an interesting one, reading about minimalism, simplifying books really encourage me to continue with my decluttering and low spend journey. Lot’s of sales are happening now, I do have a list of what I will be getting like new PJs for the family and shoes for Mia. I will be intentional (so far so good!).

Have a nice Thanksgiving Eve friends! Take Care and Stay Safe:) Talk Later!

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving week (holiday here in the US). We hosted our first Friendsgiving yesterday and we had fun! Thank God it was a success!HA. Lots of food and everyone had a great time especially the kids! Mia is such a great host to her little friends:) It is a lot of work but it’s so worth it! Hubs prepared the turkey and I’m not a fan of turkey so I wanted to make another dish that I like so I made roast pork belly (lechon belly).

This week, I had my birthday too! My Dad In law stopped by to bring us Chic Fil A! It’s mine and the kids favorite fast food:) so it was great! We wanted to try a new Vietnamese restaurant for my Bday dinner but it was too cold, raining and Matthew was still recovering from a cold so we decided to just do take out.

With our Friendsgiving hosting, we shopped at Costco to get some things. Hubs and I had their sushi and poke (we almost always get costco sushi now because it’s good value).

Hubs has been putting our new window blinds up. He did such a good job! We saved so much on labor costs!HA Thanks Hubs:)

Thanks Dad In law for the bday lunch! Thank you God for another year. I’m so grateful for all the blessings for the past year. Thank you Jesus!

Birthday Dinner at home!Kids had pasta:)

We still tried to get our walking done this week!

Somebody lost a tooth this week!HA

Early this week, we shopped at the Asian market and ate at Jollibee! My kids are big fan of the chicken joy and spaghetti! I’m so proud!HA

Have a good night friends! May your week be safe, productive, and healthy. Happy Thanksgiving week America! We are hosting this Thursday, I’m excited to see family!

Hi Friends! Happy Friday:) Hubs and I are sick this week (colds, congestion) Tis the season of colds! It’s not that bad but it’s still miserable though. We took things slow this week and both kids are home too because our local school district is having their teachers/work conference so no school for the younger kids. It’s been a rainy, wet week here too so we mostly stayed home (we did walk around the neighborhood 3 times this week when the sun showed up).

It got so windy a few nights ago that our neighbor’s tree fell!

Mia and I started watching Christmas movies already! I don’t watch the Hallmark Channel anymore, they’ve gone woke.

Homeschooling this week:)

Another walk!

Pizza treat after playing at the park!

Perfect fall day and Mia loves riding her bike!

Read a loud while having breakfast. We’re reading fall/thanksgiving theme this month! We borrow books from the library (online) and youtube read a loud channels.

Mia wanted to try this turkey cookie from the grocery store! Kids like them.

Hubs and I treated ourselves with sushi tonight. Kids had fried chicken:)

Have a healthy and fun weekend friends! Stay safe and Take care:) We have no plans but to have a restful weekend! Talk later:)

Hi friends! It’s a rainy Friday night here. It’s getting dark so early now. Anyways, how’s its going?! I can’t believe it’s November already. The weather sure feels like we just want to stay inside. My walk challenge finally ends last October (30 Day walk challenge) and I think we (including Hubs/kids) did well. Out of 30 days I think we missed like 5 days, so not bad! We plan to continue this month but I don’t think I will be “documenting” our walks!HA

Family walk earlier this week.

Bumblebee and spider woman!

We had dinner at Five guys after trick r’ treating!

Our walk earlier, still so pretty outside!

This month, I plan to continue my decluttering/simplifying the house. I have lots of things to donate this weekend, after Mia’s birthday and halloween things around the house were overwhelming me. Holidays are here so I’m determined to keep things simple. I’m tempted to have our Christmas tree out though!HA. We’ll see!

I hope you’re having a great evening friends! Have a wonderful and safe weekend. Take care:)

Hi Friends! Happy Sunday:) Yesterday, we had a late Birthday party with Mia and her friends. She wanted to have it in a bouncy play center but it was fully booked during her birthday weekend, thus we had a late celebration yesterday. The Kids had fun and Mia really enjoyed her party. Thanks to all her friends and family for spending time with us.

After we got home and settled, I did my walk around the neighborhood. It was such a nice fall day!

This was our family walk last Friday evening. Spiderman was having fun with us.HA!

I hope you’re having a restful weekend friends. Stay safe and Take Care!

Hi Friends! It’s been raining most of the day here (Hailed too!) so we’ve been hanging out at home. We did a quick little family walk but it was really cold too and the kids started whining to make it short!

View this morning from one of the bedroom. SO pretty:)

With all the rain we’ve been having these past couple of days. Mia is working on her legos that she got for her birthday! She finished this boat/yacht one.

We still tried to go to the park despite the cold….

A little cake pop treat this week!

I got pretty pink roses this weekend too. I have no fall decorations inside the house, with my decluttering lately I have no desire to add more decorations . I’m pretty happy with my fall candles and fresh flowers!

Last weekend, our neighborhood had a halloween event for the kids. We participated and the kids had a blast! The line was so long and we waited for an hour to get inside.

Going strong with our walk challenge, this was last week’s and loving the view!

Tonight I made pasta/shrimp, something quick and easy!

Have a great Wednesday night friends. Stay safe and take care!

Hi friends! Happy Wednesday:) Yesterday, Mia and I had our walk challenge and we had fun looking for different mushrooms around the neighborhood. We were pleasantly surprised at the different varieties. I don’t think they’re edible!

The landscape teams have started to clean our streets so it was kinda sad to see some dead looking trees and Mia said winter will be here soon! We really enjoyed all the fall trees around us.

Last night, I made this Baked potato with tuna sriracha mayo. I saw this from a BBC magazine I borrowed from the library (online). Very affordable and Hubs approved! He likes tuna sandwiches so I thought he might like this.

We went to Costco today! Prices are still up,what else is new!Boooo…

Hubs and I shared Costco sushi, while the kids had pizza! We had leftover sushi and oxtail stew for dinner tonight.

Kids enjoyed the sunshine today at the park while I did my walk challenge (I did the park loop a couple of times). What a beautiful fall day:)

I hope you have a great Wednesday friends. Stay safe and take care! Lots of craziness going on out there.