You have not lived until you’ve tried above cookies. If I had the means and resources, I’d track down all ya’lls and make like Oprah and yell “Surprise!” and lo and behold, you’d find a box of Joe-Joes hidden underneath the very chair you are sitting on.

Go get them. They are so good. We can start a support group for those of us that eat a box a day.

They also come chocolate-covered. Dangerous!

Cute, cheap, and unbreakable Christmas ornaments? Umm, yes! From Martha Stewart.

We had a very nice and mellow Thanksgiving, just the four of us. Words cannot adequately describe how I feel right now, but I am so happy and feel so blessed. I love my family. I love them. I love spending time with them and being a mother. I love where we live. I love having the gospel in my life and the peace it offers.

My life is truly, truly full and I am grateful.

I really get into giftwrapping, so I thought I’d share my secrets to a wildly successful packaging-of-a-product-to-be-given-to-another.

- I like to attach the greeting card itself (no envelope) onto the wrapped gift.
- Fabric and paper are different and interesting substitutes for ribbon. (I used a strip of fabric on the package above.)
- Monograms are always cute. I go about this by hunting down some decorative font on dafont.com, download it, print out the initial onto colored paper, cut (use a craft knife), and affix.
- Kraft wrapping paper is cheap and versatile. You can go all sorts of crazy by layering different textures and colors on plain kraft.

If you don’t want to wrap your gifts this Christmas, I will do it for you in exchange for chocolate.

And another lovely birthday party we attended on Saturday. My friend Andi said she didn’t have a definitive theme as she was putting it together, but to me, it felt very whimsical and fairy-in-the-woods-like.

{Make your own fairy wands}

The gourmand she is, Andi baked not only a Swedish princess cake…

…but a banana-cream cake. Along with dozens of cupcakes for…

…a design-your-own cupcake bar. This was a hit!

{He does frosting and toppings. Only.}

of course.

Family photos done! Thank you, Rileigh and Katelyn for shooting us today. You two are R-A-D.

I’ve been tagged twice already (thank you, miss Krista, miss Dana), so let’s get this done and over with.

Seven things. About me. New to you.
1. Born in Chicago. Grew up in San Jose. I like living where it’s busy and I miss it.
2. To me, dinner is merely a means to dessert.
3. And since we’re on the topic of food, I like to make as if I eat all healthy and stuff to my mom-hippie home-birthing granola friends. But in reality, the perfect meal to me is: Fries. Burger. Chocolate shake. It’s like, the food pyramid of perfection.
4. I won the spelling bee in elementary school.
5. I swear in my thoughts. Bad habit I’m trying to break, but I’m working against some hot Filipino blood running through my veins.
6. I was once a computer science major.
7. Camping scares me. Too dark. Too quiet. Ick.

And now, the part you’ve been dreading.
I tag you local, lucky gals: Aubrie, Kristen, Becky, Miyo, Kaleene, Monique, Susanna, and Stacie. It’s good day to be my friend, isn’t it?!

My child has yet to see snow. But in the meantime, toilet-paper lint will do okay.

Kai camps in his room Saturday night, because daddy is cool like that and sets up the camping tent. (Lantern, too.)

These pics have a very womb-like quality to them, don’t they?

The other day, I caught the boys messing with the toilet, Dax’s hand mere inches from having a splash-tastic time in the water. I imagine the conversation between the two to have gone something like,

Kai: “I’ll lift up the cover for you Dax, so you can stick your hand in!”

The teamwork is cute and very sweet, but gross. My boys keep me on my feet and I like to think it helps keep my mind sharp.

Super-cute and way easy to make: pretzel sticks + melted chocolate + sprinkles.

I ate too many this morning. And all the delicious food the gals brought to today’s Friday picnic didn’t help any, either. But that’s okay — I’ll just eat steamed veggies for the rest of day. (Yeah right, as if that’s going to happen!)

Tonight, at Baskin Robbins, Ryan decided last minute to go with a scoop of peanut-butter chocolate ice cream, instead of the Reese’s he had initially ordered. “CANCEL!…CANCEL!” he called out to the girl who was scooping his ice cream at the other end of the room.

Cancel?! Is this how we navigate through life — in computer speak?

Oh, how I love my husband and his ways.

Raya from the PaperPony did a neat little post about downtown Ventura on SF Girl By Bay a couple of weeks ago.

Thinking of downtown makes me anxious to go on another date night with the huz.
See more Ventura here and here.

{Images by Raya via sfgirlbybay}

OH! To fall in love a dress that just isn’t modest enough. All I ask is for designers to use just a 1/2 yard more fabric. Right? Word.

From here on out, it’s birthdays galore! It’s funny how all the children in our group of friends were born within weeks of each other.

Today, we went to a princess party for Dylann. Miyo did a spec-tacular job.

And, get this;

Miyo sewed costumes for all the kids. That’s right. She hand-made little knight outfits and uber-girly tutus. Love it.

Thanks for the pics, Anna. :)

(The way Kai asked to see these photos on the computer today.)

Last night, I put together the bare bones of our outgoing Christmas card for 08. My goal is to integrate a variety of modern, non-frilly (per Ryan’s request) textures. Hand-drawn elements, grosgrain and satin ribbons, and Eames paper — paper so delicious…I can almost eat it.

And totally, completely unrelated, but why, oh why did I not register for an absentee ballot? During the primary election, I was gung-ho about bringing the boys to the polls so they could “witness democracy in action.” At the voting place, things went awry very quickly, and the poll workers ended up witnessing stupidity in action (and why those voting booths are rickety enough to be brought down by a toddler is beyond me). Ah well. At least we’ll get ‘I Voted’ stickers again and look cute.