Homemaker – Page 3 – The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

Anniversary Weekend!

Hi Family and Friends! The Hubs and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary this weekend! We had a simple celebration (movie and sushi), but we plan to do something nice this summer. After our Philippine trip just 3 weeks ago, I personally have no desire to be on a plane somewhere this week. I need time to recover!HA!

We had a little lunch celebration with Mia at one of the local restaurants near our place:

Happy Anniversary Ga! He’s giving his eyes a break from contact lens, thus the glasses!

Saturday night My In laws offered to babysit Mia while we watched the movie “I can only Imagine”, such a good movie! If you have the chance to watch it, you should. Great story about forgiveness and redemption, even if you’re a non-believer, I think you can appreciate the story! We had sushi after the movie! Looks like we ordered too much!

The hubs and I decided not to give “BIG” gifts this anniversary because we are getting a new refrigerator that will arrive this coming Tuesday. I’m so excited to have a new fridge! Our current one is acting up,and we think it’s worth it to get a new one! But my Hubs was nice enough to still give me some of my “wish list” on the Lenox site!HA..Thanks Hubs!

Got these angel figurines! I have them in the kitchen.

I plan to get something that will elevate them!

I got this Lenox Anniversary Plate! With our names and wedding date!

Roses too! I plan to put the plate in our bedroom but for now its staying in the kitchen!

Some throwback pics before the wedding:

This is Us 10 years after:

Thank God for blessing me with my Hubs whose so good to me! So grateful for the gift of marriage and family! Thanks to our family and friends who share this beautiful journey with us. To God be the Glory!

Easter 2018!

Hello Family and Friends! Happy Easter! He is Risen! Hallelujah!! Thank You Jesus for what you’ve done on the Cross! I hope that you had a meaningful Easter celebration with your loved ones! We had a fun Easter weekend here. Mia had her first Egg hunt at a local church near our place. We didn’t stay for a long time because she wasn’t really participating and overwhelmed with all the festivities surrounding her. She was still so cute though!

After the egg hunt, we had lunch at Chic fil-A! We also had to stop at our Asian market to get some crabs for our Easter brunch (Hubby made Crabs eggs Benedict).

Saturday evening I prepared Mia’s easter basket! She got a spring dress and a stuffed cow toy from us. Grandma/Grandpa got her an Easter dress and candies/crayons!

With Auntie Juju!

Daddy took some Easter pics of Mia and Riley!

Easter Brunch! Crabs benedict, bacon/sausages,fruits! It was busy in the kitchen, but the food was delicious! Thanks Ga for all the cooking!

With Grandma!

After all the festivities I need sometime to recover! HA!

I’ve been MIA for the month of March because Mia and I just got back from the Philippines (we stayed for 12 days), I’ll share more of our mini vacation in the coming days! Have a good start of the week Friends! Blessings!

Chicken Adobo!

Hello Friends! I’ve made the world famous Filipino Chicken Adobo. A Filipino comfort food for sure! I love this dish because it’s so simple and quick (max 45 minutes). The original recipe (Panlasang Pinoy blog) calls for marinading the chicken for 1-3 hours. I skipped that part! The result was still good!* I also added more pepper because I love pepper. I used chicken wings and legs,because wings are my fave part! Mia loved it too based on the sounds she was making when we had dinner the other night!

This is the recipe I used (Panlasang Pinoy):

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken, cut into serving pieces
3 pieces dried bay leaves
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp vinegar
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 to 2 cups water
¼ cup cooking oil
½ tablespoon white sugar
Salt and whole peppercorn
Cooking Process:
1. In a large container, combine the soy sauce and garlic then marinade the chicken for at least 1 to 3 hours
2. Place the cooking oil in a pan and apply heat
3. When the oil is hot enough, put-in the marinated chicken. Cook all the sides for about 5 minutes.
4. Pour-in the remaining marinade and add water. Bring to a boil
5. Add the dried bay leaves and whole peppercorn. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender
6. Add vinegar. Stir and cook for 10 minutes.
7. Put-in the sugar, and salt. Stir and turn the heat off.
8. Serve hot. Share and Enjoy!

Life Lately!

Hello Friends! Where did January Go?! It’s been a little busy here with us. Hubs is just recovering from the flu. Been miserable for him the last couple of days. Makes me realize how sometimes we take our health for granted! Health is Wealth! I’ve been monitoring Mia also because she threw up twice during the last week. So far she’s her usual self (climbing all over the place), drinking and eating well but I’m still keeping my eyes on her. Before all of these viruses got to us we had to do something in Seattle and we stopped at our favorite sandwich place, Salumi! It’s always a treat!

Hubs attempted to make a Filipino Brioche bread! TOTAL FAIL! Haha! He will try again sometime..

I’m looking forward to February! Lots of exciting things I plan to do:) I hope you are all doing great friends!

Roast Duck!

Hi friends! I wanted to share this very simple roast duck recipe I found. I’ve read a lot of duck recipes but most of them called for a sweet style kind of glaze that I have to constantly brush on the duck. Not a big fan of that myself, because I like mine to be less complicated. I decided to just have it roast at 350F for 3 hours but I have to flip it every hour. It turned out great! We got the duck from Whole Foods market, it was pricey to be honest ($32), but worth it because this would have been triple the price of what we paid if we ordered it from a restaurant. My hubs made an amazing gravy (it’s red wine gravy), he couldn’t stop talking about it! In fairness, it was delicious:) I love this kind of recipe, so simple (although took 3 hours) but so tender and flavorful. I cannot wait to make this again!

Weekend Fun!

Hi Friends! How’s your weekend going?! We did the usual things here, like errands (grocery shopping at Costco), Church, laundry,and naps galore! We finally put our Christmas decorations away this week too! Thanks to my Hubs who did most of the work (our Tree is too tall for me,so he mostly took care of things!). I’ve finally caught up with the show that I’ve been watching on Netflix “When Calls the Heart”. I’m so enjoying it, and looking forward to many more episodes.

My Rileypuss, the best furbaby ever! He’s the sweetest and most loyal to me!

We also went to Jollibee, a Filipino fast food chain here in WA!

Have a great week friends! About to have dinner here and watch some Netflix with the family! We are currently watching Planet Earth! God is so amazing watching all this animals He created! What an awesome God:)

Snowy Day!

Hi Friends! It’s the day after Christmas and we still have a decent amount of snow so Hubs wanted to go out and play in the snow with Mia and Riley (he’s such a big kid at heart!). I really didn’t want to do it because I hate being cold, but the park is just in front of the house, so I had to suck it up! HA! Mia wasn’t into it at first but eventually she did give us a lot of smiles and seemed to be enjoying her snow day! I’m glad we did it because it’s a great memory for Mia and us!

We enjoyed hot cocoa after our playtime at the park! Hubs baked both the sugar cookie Christmas tree and pistachio macarons! Both were delicious! Thanks Ga for baking all of our holiday goodies:)

Memorial Day!

Hello Friends! We had a couple of nice sunny days last week (this week is gloomy!) and we walked around our little neighborhood! I can’t wait for summer to be here, so over these rainy spring days!

It’s that time of year again, time to do some Spring Cleaning!

We had BBQ on memorial day weekend with family! The Hubs did most of the work. He smoked some ribs, made home made BBQ sauce, baked beans and corn bread! He did it all! Crazy guy:)

Family time can be tiring! thanks Grandpa for putting me to sleep:) -Mia

Weekend Fun!

Hi Friends! How did your weekend go? We did a lot of errands, when I say errands, I mean shopping! We went to an Asian market in Seattle (traffic was so bad!) and got some Filipino products that I wanted. The main reason we went there was to get Ox tail meat because I wanted to make Kare-Kare for our Sunday dinner with my In-laws. Kare-kare is a filipino dish made of oxtail stew in thick peanut sauce and vegetables (served with shrimp paste). My In-laws liked it, especially my DIL (he’s such a foodie and a food “adventurer”, he will try anything!). We also celebrated Mia’s 7 months, and her daddy baked cupcakes for her! We love you Mia Boo (her new thing lately is giving us kissy ducky face! such a funny little girl:)

our local farmers officially opened this weekend! I got these pink and yellow tulips!

Kare-Kare, the Hubs prefers to have the veggies not mixed with the meat!

Thanks for stopping by friends! Have a great week:)

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! Happy May 1st (can’t believe it’s already May). Hope you had a great weekend, ours was quiet! We enjoyed a nice spring day last Friday evening and got out of the house to have a yummy dinner at Cheesecake Factory! The Hubs and I started a Netflix series called “The Night Shift” and so far we’ve been enjoying the medical drama!

Saturday, my SIS visited and spent time with Mia! Thanks Juju for loving on Mimi, she’s blessed to have an auntie that loves on her:)

I plan to clean and declutter this week! Hello Spring Cleaning! Wish me luck, I need all the motivation in the world!

I plan to stick to my meal planning this week! It saves us money and time. Lord help me on this because I’m not very good at consistency, and I always find my self giving in to my unhealthy cravings like RICE (unlimited!) HA! Tonight we had shrimps and mashed potato!

Here’s my meal plan for the week:

M: Shrimps and Mashed potato

T: Chicken curry,rice

W: My In laws usually take care of the food, they come visit us and bring food (I know we’re so blessed). We had salmon, crab cakes,mashed potato and green beans last Wednesday! YUM..

Th: Beef Stroganoff, salad

Friday: Chicken Wings, salad or take out

Saturday: left overs or sandwiches (something simple)

Sunday: Not sure yet (we’ll have my In laws for dinner!)

I only plan for dinner because our breakfast and lunch are the usual stuff like cereals,yogurt,toast,eggs. Lunches are left overs,sandwiches, or junky fast food.

Thanks for stopping by friends!