Joy of Gardening

For Mother's day, my sweet husband and kiddos made me a planter box with few different herbs and a sprout of eggplant. After two months of nurturing, a little eggplant is coming our way. =) How exciting!!!

I used to think gardening is too much work for me, I told my husband that he would be in charge of gardening, bringing in the harvest then I will cook them. After watching my eggplant grew, I think I'm in for another "hobby". I am looking forward to plant more eggplants, more herbs and some strawberry next year.

A Sudden Interest

I was at the library last week with the kids for story time, and saw a book that caught my eye. I usually don't read books but since Jathan is in school now and we have been encouraging him to read, I thought I should be a good example as well.

I'm sure some of you have read it or at least heard of it. I'm almost half way through now, and amazed with what those FLDS women put up with in that culture. I knew they have been brain wash since they are young, but seriously! who in their right mind would think what they are doing is right, it's god's will.
I just so very grateful to have the true gospel in my life. I know my Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to be happy; he wants me to experience love, and have the freedom to choose what I want. In coming May, Jeff and I will be married for 10 years. I can't tell you everything is fine in our marriage but at least we both have the same goal, and willing to work on our differences. I'm lucky to have a husband who loves and respects me and the children, also try really hard to make us happy.
For the women or girls are still in the cult, I want to say "GET OUT! There are better lives for you!"

Life never go the way we planned!

After a year of student life with two kids, we thought life will get better with a more stable career, who knew that it wasn't what Heavenly Father has in stored for us. Now Jeff is too old for being an air traffic controller, he decided he is going to get his BS in aviation administration at UVU starting this fall.
Not only we are going to we are going to be dirt poor for the next two years, we also have to feed one more little person. =) Yup, we are expecting baby no.3. Even though life is not going the way we planned, we are still very grateful for the blessing that came our way.

ultrasound taken@ week 7

New Favorite Hair Do For ME!!

I love trying new hair do's on my little girl, and she looks cute with everything of course, on the other hand, I have hard time finding hair do's that look good on me. I watched these video few days ago and thought it might look cute on me.
Today, it was 9th wedding anniversary for me and my hubby. I decided to try this DO and LOVE IT!!!

Here is the final product.

Close up on the braid.

 Trying to look HOT! Ha!Ha! 

What do you think?

Christmas Workshop

I was asked to share some Chinese holiday traditions at the Christmas Workshop today, it was quite challenging for me with the limited resource here, I also what to share some recipes that my class will be able to make at home and enjoy. The class went very well, here is one of the food I made and everyone loves it. It is so easy to make, you all should try it.

I can't wait to make these for my father-in-law, he loves cashew nut.

Cashew Cookies (腰果酥)

1½ stick Butter (soften)
¾ cup Sugar
2 cup Flour
250g Cashew Nuts
1 egg and 1 egg yolk

Soak cashew nuts in water for 5 mins, then bake in 350F Oven for 10 mins. Let it cool then grind it.
Mix butter and sugar, add egg, then add flour and cashew grind.
Make cookie dough into a long round stick, wrap it in plastic wrap then place in the fridge for about 2 hours.
Cut cookies into 1/2” thick,  Brush on egg wash, place a little piece of cashew on each cookie.
Bake at 375 for 15 min or until it’s golden.

p.s I almost double the amount of sugar from the original recipe, for those of you like little sweet, you may want to adjust to your own taste.

I also had a chance to make this cute Family Home Evening sign for only $7.50, what a deal! I bet it will cost me close to $30 for a sign like this at a store, and I have tons of fun making it. Nothing better than making crafts with whole bunch of lovely ladies and tons and tons of good food. Seriously, our R.S. is the bomb!!!

In love with Photography

After owning a SLR digital camera for seven years, I finally invest the time to try the manual mode and now I'm hooked. I'm not very good at it but I WILL.

Here is some of my favorites from the our recent trip.

 Niagara Falls

Palmyra Temple

Sacred Grove

Chinese Food Rookies

Last week, I had the privilege to help couple high school kids for their school fair, they asked me to teach them some authentic Chinese dishes. I love teaching people about making Chinese food, especially young people. Being very honestly, I had my doubt when I first met "my apprentices". They didn't know what shallot was, and couple of them are vegetarian who didn't even try most of the dish I made for them. Really, I didn't think they could pull it off.
When I was helping them yesterday, I got to know them a little better, I'm impressed by their dedication and the decision to do the best they can. At that moment, I knew they will be just fine.
After going to the fair today, I'm so proud of my apprentices, they really came a long way.
Here is their final products:

There are: Potato Chicken, Satay chicken, pot stickers, Chow Fun with Veggie. Everything tastes great, even my kids ate some. (That meant a lot!)

Good Job David, Katie and Andrea!!! A++++ for you all!

Frist Attempt

When we were living in Utah, Jeff always went to his parents house when we needed strawberry jam. My mother-in-law always has homemade strawberry jam in stock. Now we are 1800 miles away, I have to do things myself.

I never thought Jam making is such a easy task. From now on, I don't think I can buy jam from the store anymore. I tried a recipe from a blog called our best bites, it turned out pretty good, I just thought it was a little too sweet for me, I'm going to go easy on the sugar next time.

Everyone should try to make their jam, unless you have a mother or mother-in-law who does it for you. "Homemade is much better!" as my husband always says.

Cherry Blossom 2010

We have been out there in Pennsylvania for about three months, we have already be to Washington D.C. 3 times already. Jeff and I were debating if we should go to cherry blossom since my sister wasn't in town, but we figured that we most likely won't be this close to D.C., we should just take an advantage of it. So we did, it was great!

For Girls Only!

When I was a little girl, my mom always kept my hair short and I envied all the girl with long pretty braided hair, I wished I could look like them. Now I have a little girl of mine, I'm trying to learn all different ways to do her hair. Recently I came across a blog about how fun it is doing little girl's hair, I found a few hair-dos that I love, here is one of them.

Isn't she adorable? I love it. It's not hard to do at all, as long as your little girl would sit good for you and leave her hair alone after you make it all pretty.

Long Time No Blog!

I can't believe my last entry was in July 2009! Well, we had a lot of thing going on around that time with the Trip to HK, selling the house, Jeff's school schedule...etc. Now, we are in PA for about two months, things are starting to settle. Let's hope that I will have more time for crafting and blogging.

Even though I don't have much time for crafts but I can still use my creativity on dinner every night. I made crab cakes and mushroom risotto for my daughter's birthday, she didn't care for it too much (well, she is 2), but everyone else liked it. It was definitely a recipe to keep, it was very good. Here is my latest creation:

New Project

Just found a pattern for this dress, and kinda like it. Should I do it?? Too many things to do and too little time, I don't know if I can handle a new project.

No Time for craft

We have been so busy getting the house for sale, there is no time for me to do any craft project. Hopefully we will put the house on the market this weekend, so we will have our lives back.

Here is a little project i did while I was cleaning mybedroom. Doesn't it look great? I love it!

New Stroller

I have been wanting to get a sit N' stand stroller for awhile, I even went to Baby"R"us to test drive couple weeks ago. It was on sale for $130 there, but I found a better deal online for $119. Yes, it was only $11 cheaper, but I also saved on sale tax and got free shipping, and got the color Jathan wanted.





Jathan and Brianne love it so much, they wouldn't get off the stroller.

International Art Competition Exhibit

Couple days ago, we went to the 8th LDS international art competition exhibit, I was amazed by so many master pieces. People are SO talented! Everyone who lives in Utah should make time to go check it out.

Here are some of my favorites:


It's my friend, Kisslan's art piece. I really like it.


This is my very favorite from this competition.


It's amazed me how real this printing is, you can't really see from this photo.

To my beloved little girl

Finally I finished this dress! Just in time for Brianne's 1st Birthday. She is going to look so cute on her Birthday!

I have been tagged!

My friend Jennifer tagged me for this fun little thing a week ago, life has been so crazy that I just barely knew I have been tagged, so here I go.

8 Favorite TV Shows:

1. Ghost Whisperer
2. Sex and the City
3. Law and Order: SVU
4. John and Kate Plus 8
5. Iron Chef America
6. Desperate Housewives
7. Any show on HDTV
8. My Chinese shows from TVB

8 Things I did Yesterday:

1. Gave Jathan and Brianne baths
2. Took a shower
3. Wrote 25 random thing about me and posted on Facebook.
4. Cleaned up the basement and get ready for carpet.
5. Watched Jeff doing all the touch-ups in the basement.
6. Picked out decorations for the basement.
7. Put my kids to bed.
8. Found out our new TV is not working.

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Benihana
2. Ho Ho Gourmet (1300 state st. in Salt Lake, not the one in Bountiful)
3. L & L Hawaiian BBQ
4. Olive Garden
5. Noodles & Co.
6. Famous Daves
7. Ruby River
8. Blue Iguana

8 Things on my Wish List:

1. Get a big FAT check from selling our house.
2. Go back to Hong Kong with my family this year.
3. A new job for Jeff being a air traffic controller.
4. Move by the Ocean.
5. Go to College.
6. A new middle finger for Jeff.
7. Vacation to Hawaii, or italy.
8. Sewing Lesson

You are tagged, if you have read mine and haven't done yours. Just do it, it's kinda fun!

New Purchase.

We have been wanting a dinning set for a very long time. We went to the store for carpet but came out with a brand new dinning set. (it happened everytime we went in RC Willey) We were just looking around at the dinner set area to see if we could agree on the same style, then we walked by this one and notice the price was marked down from $1399 to $399. We just couldn't past the deal.



We love it! What do you think?

Love myself!

I just got done with watching Oprah, and very inspired. It was the first show of the oprah's best life series, I'm planning on watching the rest of the shows this whole week, I think you should too. If you have seen the show today, they were just talking about how Oprah 's weight struggles, yes ,I can relate to that, (not a lot of women are happy with their weight anyway, espeically after two kids!) but that wasn't what drew my attention. After hearing Oprah said, "When you love yourself enough, you take care of yourself." " we give ourselves as much love and support as we give to others." It really got me thinking, "Yes! I should take care of myself better."

As a mother, I feel that it is my responsibility to care for my children's needs before my needs. As a wife, I feel that I should also take care of my husband's need as much as I could before giving myself a break. I often found myself having the first bite of food around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I don't remember when was the last time I have a break from the children or having my "alone" time, and I noticed that I have been very short of patience with my family. Believe or not, I threatened my three year old son I was going to kick him out of my house because he bit his little sister! With all the stress in our lives right now (remodeling, job changing, dealing with my green card status), I feel like I'm going to lose it!

After the show, I asked myself "what do I really want for myself?" Happiness was the first thing came to my mind. I want to be a better mom, a loving mom who doesn't yell at her kids; I want to learn a better way to deal with stress. Yes! Those are the main things I want for myself, and now I really need to think hard to come up with a game plan, any suggestions??

New Start.....

I don't know what happened to my old blog on blogspot, it disappeared! So here we are, I'm going to try it one more time, I hope it will work out for me this time. Unlike my family blog on Xanga, this is my blog, it is a place for me to post MY stuffs: my crafts, bargains I find, and whatever I feel like posting, so you should go to my other blog www.xanga.com/kamancarlson if you want to see pictures of my kids or update on the family, and you can be my friend on facebook, I usually upload my photos on facebook before I have a change to update my blog.


Falling in love with Amazon


If you love shopping as much as I do, you must agree that online shopping is just not as exciting as real shopping, and I don't like pay shipping. I usually don't do online shopping unless it's free shipping.

I did a lot of online shoppings for this Christmas, because taking my two kids to stores and malls and keep them entertained is not an easy task. Shopping while they are sleeping worked a lot better for me. Few months ago, I came across a bargain hunting website called dealigg.com, I found tons of good deals and coupons on the site , and most of the deals were posted were from Azamon.com. For Example: I got some new released Blu-ray DVDs for $15 each, although I had to pay shipping on that order, it's still a great bargain and there is no slae tax which I love.

My dear husband bought me a kitchenaid mixer (KSN 150 Artisan stand mixer) for Christmas, I was so surprised and excited. (Isn't he nice?) Jeff told me that he got a great deal on the mixer and I should be pround of him and blah, blah, blah....., because of what he said, I was determined to find a better deal. (well...... I'm the bargain hunter of this family, I can't let him steal my glory) After I did some research, I decided that I want the Professional 600 series one, I guess the word porfessional got me attention and I gotta have it.


Okay, here is how I did on this Bargain:


Jeff paid $270 plus tax, but he got a $20 mail-in-rebate for the Artisan. (normal listing pirce $360)

Carmen piad $270 with no tax, free shipping, and a $50 mail-in-rebate for the Profressional 600 series. (normal listing price $500)


Yes! I know, I'm amazing!