Category: Family

Kim Family Christmas Eve 2010


Ask us a year ago if we would’ve thought that we’d be celebrating Christmas Eve in a new house with a new baby, and we probably wouldn’t have believed it! This has been quite a year, and that made this year’s Christmas Eve dinner even more special.
As usual, we were hosting Ed’s mom, dad, aunt and uncle for dinner. We even have a dining room now! We set our modern table in our signature red and white stripes, and for this year’s place settings I decided to do sugar cookie stars in red and green.


Also new for this year, I made a roast …


I loaded up an oven bag with potatoes, carrots and onions and cooked it for about 2.5 hours.


I did it!


The candles were lit and we waited for our guests to arrive.


Even Ruby got dressed up in her special Christmas Eve dress from Halmoni!

Tonight’s dinner consisted of Ed’s mom’s amazing spinach salad with pomegranate, cranberry, blueberry and almonds … My roast with potatoes and carrots, wild rice, roasted brussel sprouts and mushrooms, and Ed’s aunt brought the cake for dessert!


Even though we didn’t exchange gifts this year, the grandparents couldn’t resist buying a little something for Ruby. Harabuji bought Ruby two sets of pajamas, and Halmoni bought Ruby a special animal print dress since she was born in the year of the Tiger!


After everyone left, it was time for Ed to read Ruby ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Grandma & Papaw Facey bought us our own copy of the book so we could start the tradition of reading it to her before bedtime each Christmas Eve like my dad did for me!


This Christmas Eve was a wonderful night spent with our family in our new home. It just can’t get any better than that! Stay tuned for part two tomorrow! :)

The Facey Kids Go to the Symphony!

This past Christmas, our present to the Facey kids was a trip to the wonderful Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry, to see Beethoven in the House, one in a series of concerts for kids put on by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As Kendall, the oldest, is now a clarinet player in her school orchestra, we thought it would be really cool for the kids to see a renowned symphony orchestra in one of the coolest concert halls in the world. We think it’s awesome that the LA Phil has a kid-friendly concert series that exposes kids to classical music and the arts, so we were only too excited to take the kids here.

Not surprisingly, all of the kids knew the iconic opening of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, but none of them knew that it was Beethoven that had composed it. So, they were in for a treat as we piled in the Land Rover I was testing for the weekend and headed off for Downtown LA.

One cool aspect of the Symphony for Youth series is that during the hour before the concert begins, kids can participate in all kinds of creative activities to learn about music, theater, and art. We decided to make masquerade masks for an imaginary ball. Here we are making them, and wearing them:

The concert itself was great, and the kids thought it was really sad that Beethoven couldn’t even hear his final 9th symphony (which contains the famous Ode to Joy) because he had gone deaf at the early age of 32.

After the concert, it was time to leave the concert hall for the next destination!

It was recently Chinese New Year, and this is the year of the Tiger. To celebrate, the Chinese American Museum held its Lantern Festival near Chinatown. The event had live performances as well as tons of arts and crafts projects for kids.

The kids made awesome paper lanterns, fans, embossed metal plates with their own drawings, and even abacuses!

No trip to LA is complete without a stop at Sprinkles for some gourmet cupcakes. Kendall and Jordan had been here before, but this was the first time for Mikayla and Ethan.

Despite the hour-long cross-town drive to Beverly Hills to get these cupcakes, the kids declared the trip worth it. Ethan summed it up best when he bit into his Peanut Butter Chocolate cupcake and exclaimed, “This is the best cupcake ever!!!” No argument from us; look at them!

Another awesome weekend with the Facey kids. We miss them already! Click below to see the album.

Facey Kids Weekend Feb 2010

Happy Christmas!

I can’t think of anything but “happy” when I think of Christmas this year! I can honestly say I enjoyed every second of the holiday season – it seems like I got to do almost everything I wanted to do! I got to bake with my mom, decorate our house, make some handmade gifts and even drink loads of Starbucks holiday beverages. :) Plus, Ed and I also got to hit a few holiday parties, go to Charles Phoenix’s Retro Holiday Slideshow and check out a Cosmic Christmas at the Glendale Planetarium. But the high point was definitely our family combining efforts to adopt a family this Christmas! There was no stress, and at risk of sounding incredibly sappy – now that we’ve spent both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with both of our families, my heart is so full of love and blessings! It was truly a happy Christmas in every sense of the word.


As usual, we hosted Ed’s family at our house on Christmas Eve … and of course, we had an epic meal with Ed’s culinary masterpiece, the Chile-Brined Ham (make sure you check out the whole story on Day One and Day Two!)! Also on the menu was a balsamic roasted vegetable medley with zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, cauliflower & peppers along with wild rice. But this salad made by Ed’s mom was the tastiest salad I have ever eaten-and it was gorgeous, too!

I found a special bunch of flowers at Fresh & Easy (my favorite!) and I was inspired to clip a few to use for place cards at the table  …


Ed’s mom loved her placecard …

Uncle loved hanging out with Ricki …

and Ed served the jus accompanying his ham like a pro!

And then today, we were off to The Facey’s! So much of my love for Christmas comes from my parents, and their house is the best at the holidays!!! They liked the picture frame we got for them:

Then the kids arrived, and it was on! Santa brought them Beatles Rock Band this year, so they were representin’ in their Beatles T-shirts:

We are really excited about our gift to them this year – we’re taking them to the Walt Disney Concert Hall for one of the Toyota Symphonies for Youth. Its a really cool thing where the kids can do arts and crafts beforehand, and then they get to see a kid-friendly orchestral performance about Beethoven. Ed and I haven’t ever seen anything there at the concert hall either, so we are totally looking forward to it!

They were so sweet and each of them picked out their own gifts for both Ed & I this year. We loved each and every one. They are so big now!

All in all – it was a beautiful holiday! We love our family and friends dearly and wish you all a very, very Happy New Year!

The Kims’ Christmas Ham…Part 2

Ok, so about a day and a half later, it was time to get back to the ham. During its long and salty bath, the leg had certainly changed color somewhat.

One thing for sure…it didn’t quite look appetizing yet!


Yup, still just a big hunk of leg.


Into the roasting pan it goes! See you in six and a half hours.


It had to keep roasting until the thickest part of the leg was 150 degrees inside, so after about four hours I had to periodically check the temp inside.

And drumroll…..


It’s finished and it’s coming out!


Yes, it looks a lot more appetizing now, wouldn’t you say?


It definitely looked the part.

So how was it? It was delicious. It actually didn’t taste like ham in the traditional sense; its consistency was almost like turkey, but way more juicy and flavorful than any turkey. Much softer too. In addition, I’d made a jus using the drippings in the pan, and that truly brought it to life. Mmm, salty goodness!

So I think it was a success. Everyone seemed to enjoy it – especially Dad and Uncle! As it was 22 pounds, it also looks like I’ll be eating ham sandwiches for the next month.