Category: House

Christmas 2012 Highlights

As usual, it was a big year for Christmas in the Kim household. We love Christmas, and now that Ruby’s two years old (!) she is really starting to get into the spirit.

One thing Ruby wasn’t so into? Santa Claus. :(
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(See past Santa visits here)

On the other hand, we’ve got a full-blown Frosty the Snowman obsession going on over here.

This was the last year that Christmas Eve services would be held at the Crystal Cathedral. We’ve been going to Christmas Eve services there since I was three years old, so this was a big deal for my family. I’ve missed the past 7 or so since I’ve been married (instead, we’ve shared lovely Christmas Eves with Ed’s family), and this was the 1st time we got to take Ruby. She was very excited to take it all in, sitting in her very own seat next to her cousins.




Then it was back to our house to host Christmas Eve dinner! No dishwasher this year, so it was paper plates and recyclables for all!

Fun times with Grand Uncle Luke

Ruby got very spoiled by her Halmoni, Grand-aunt Grace, Grand-uncle Luke and “Great Uncle” Wonil. Grace and Luke even got Ruby a special new hanbok made custom for her!

 

After Ruby went to bed, it was time for Santa to get to work …

Santa made it to our house!

Grandma + Papaw came over in the morning to watch Ruby open her presents. She loved her wagon!

Mommy, Daddy — look! Alice got me some Minnie Mouse puzzles! Thanks, Alice. :)

Grandma + Papaw got a special book from Ruby

Mommy got a special present, too!

Time for Christmas Morning Brunch with Harabuji and Grace!

Test drivin’ the new wheels!

After a nap and a little down time, it was off to Grandma and Papaw’s house for Christmas Dinner and time with the Facey cousins!


Dad went all out and made mini 3-tier cakes for EVERYONE! An epic way to end an epic holiday!


Merry Christmas! We hope yours was wonderful, too!

Moving!


Ugh – we’re moving. Sad to leave our neighborhood, sad to leave the place where our family grew from two to three, but at least we’ve got another cute little house (with an extra bedroom!) that we’ll be calling home by the end of this month.

Packing is a bummer, but it’s a chance to clear out the junk and start fresh. We’re excited! But there’s going to be a blogging hiatus in the meantime. See you next month!

Coachella at home



Oh, Coachella – how we miss you. We love being out on the grass, or inside the tent, or as close to the stage as we can get, watching bands play all day and enjoying the sunshine. We love Coachella, and we know we’ll be back one day … but the last few years we have been lucky enough to catch the live webcast footage and watch things from the comfort of our very own couch. Go technology!

We have been doing our best since Ruby’s been with us to expose her to as much music as possible. It’s our hope that one day she decides to pick up the axe … or bang the drums … or even strum a bass, we’re cool with any of those options! However, we don’t wanna push things, so we just hope being excited about music around her evokes enthusiasm to pursue it.

The great thing about the Coachella webcast is that its toddler friendly – coverage starts around 3pm, and that’s plenty of time before Ruby goes to bed to catch a few sets! Actually, we made quite a weekend of it – we spent Friday with our friends and caught sets by Yuck, Madness, Pulp, Mazzy Star, M83 and The Black Keys.

On Sunday, we hung out at home and we were happy to catch Real Estate first. We love their sound and Ed even featured one of their tracks on his Best of 2011 Mix. Ruby liked it, but it may have been a little too emo for her – she was really restless.

Things really picked up when Wild Flag came on! They put on a great show, and I think Ruby just might have inherited the same affinity I have for Grrrl Rock! Wouldn’t it be cool if that love continued and we could send Ruby to Carrie Brownstein’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, OR? We definitely spent most of Wild Flag’s set on our feet.

Then, as the night got later and after Ruby went to bed, it was time for the grown up show: Dr. Dre + Snoop Dogg were back! We kinda got our minds blown as we watched it. It felt good to be watching in the LBC! Hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since they got so popular. How are we really that old?!?

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! :)