birthdays – Page 3 – thosecoolkims

Palm Springs for Carrie’s Birthday!

Many of you know that Palm Springs is a place dear to our hearts. Iconic mid-century architecture, fun and stylin’ places to hang out and get pampered, and on top of that, it’s just a good place to chill. As such, coming here for Carrie’s birthday has become something of a tradition for us.

And so for Carrie’s birthday this year, where are we? Naturally! This time around, we’re staying at Hope Springs, a place we’ve wanted to check out for many years. Very cool, if slightly bare bones. Carrie’s birthday this year happened to fall on a Friday…the beginning of all the festivities for Modernism Week Palm Springs!

Dipping our feet in the mineral hot springs tub!

THIS is Edfood. Lobster pot pie at Copley's.

We’ve got lots more fun coming tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Handmade and Homemade just for Ruby

This post is sooo tardy, but it’s a week later and we’re still recovering from Ruby’s 1st birthday party! Of course, it was a lot of fun, but a huge reason it was so special was because of all the loving preparation that went into things from both sides of the family! This post is to honor all of the handmade and homemade special details of Ruby’s birthday party!

#1: Go-ims

Go-ims are traditional decorative “towers” that are usually trimmed with hard candies and/or beans for a Korean 1st Birthday Party (dol). Ed, his mom, and dear friend/”grand uncle” Wonil lovingly spent days and hours working on these for Ruby’s party! They used white beans, black beans, kidney beans, red/white/pink chocolate spree, black m&m’s and mentos to decorate all 3 of the go-ims. Ed designed all 3 of them first – he found an awesome tiger template to use in honor of Ruby being born during the year of the tiger, and he then he put together a retro-looking one with Ruby’s name and starbursts. Finally, he mapped out a patterned design with all red, pink & white candies to look more pop-ish and modern.

Halmoni decided she’d like to work on the tiger and Wonil worked on the one with Ruby’s name. Here they are hard at work!

As you can see, each individual candy and/or bean was glued to the paper towel roll (which was covered with poster board to make it smooth) one at a time. Patience and determination prevailed! I wish we had remembered to take a picture of the back of Halmoni’s, because during her quest for perfection – she couldn’t get the mentos to line up evenly in the back! So, she decided to use the beans and m&m’s to put Ruby’s birthdate (11-02-10) on the back to even things out.

This is the only pic we have where you can see part of it – but it looked great!

Proud and happy here on evening #2 as more progress is made:

The go-ims were beautiful, and we’ll always have memories of special bonding time with Ed’s mom and Wonil during the time these were made. I love this one of Ruby with her Halmoni on the day of her party:

#2: Cherry cookies

I wanted Ruby’s party to have a “retro cherry” theme. I saw a birthday party online that was a big inspiration, and it had these perfect cookies with cherries on top that I was dying to re-create (with my own spin on them of course). Since my parents are known for their masterful baking skills (they made 150 bride cookies and 150 groom cookies for favors at our wedding!), I asked if they’d help me out. Mom baked 48 sugar cookies and whipped up a batch of her own buttercream fondant, and Dad set out to cut out leaves and cherries to decorate each cookie.

This was at the beginning when he was using royal icing to “glue” the fondant base to the top of each cookie.

Moving on to adding the duo of cherry pieces …

Then, he took the extra leaves that were left over to cut stems for each cherry (he’s meticulous!). It really made them look all that more polished … and they tasted as good as they looked!

I can’t thank my parents enough for this … there’s no way I could’ve pulled off this impressive array of cherry-themed treats without them!!!
Red Velvet cupcakes with a cherry-on-top:

Mini-Cherry Cheesecakes and Chocolate Cake Balls:

The entire spread in all of its glory!

#3 Favor jars filled with Cherry Sours

I had been saving baby food jars for awhile in hopes of using them somehow and decided to use them for favors at the party. Pretty simple, but made with love nonetheless. What can I say, I’m a stickler for a theme …

#4 Ruby’s Retro Tunes Playlist

Ed & I sorta have a reputation when it comes to mix CDs. However, since the actual process of burning CDs seems so wasteful these days with folks using MP3 players and all, we decided to ditch the actual CD and just post our compilation for download (You can download the playlist here, if you want). The mix is simply songs that make Ruby smile, with a retro slant (of course!).

More party blogging to come – but all the details deserved their own post!

Our Baby is ONE.

How did this happen? Ruby Alice is a one year old. We’ve always loved this girl, but wow – these days, she is just the most entertaining, hilarious, curious (and strong-willed!) kid! She is really the third person in our family now, making her mark and adding her own charisma into the mix.

She’s dancing, high-fiving, eating lots of food and playing peek-a-boo. She cruises around the furniture, shakes maracas and stands up on her own. She’s got 4 teeth up top and two on the bottom. She’s been saying “mama” and points to things when she wants them. She can copy sounds we make and she chugs water out of a sippy cup. She likes beans, Patsy Cline, puppies and balloons. Actually, she LOVES balloons. She’s a bright-eyed, petite, smart little girl … and we can’t believe she belongs to us!

On the morning of her birthday, we brought her into our room and presented her with a few special birthday gifts. Daddy just HAD to get her a car … a stylish, Swedish, pink little car of her very own. It was especially from Daddy. She loves it!

She was also pretty stoked on her new set of blocks.

That afternoon, we headed out to Pretend City in Irvine. Its a pretty cool place for kids, and we know Ruby will only enjoy it even more as she gets older. It really is a pretend city … complete with a grocery store, a post office, gas station, library, doctor office, dentist office and so much more. I’m not sure who had more fun … Ruby & Daddy were equally entertained!

At the store:

Shopping for groceries:

Riding the tractor – this was her favorite!

After our fun at Pretend City, it was time to head home for a little party with the family. As Facey tradition goes, there’s a layer cake for your 1st birthday, and baby gets the top layer all to themselves! My mom always bakes the cake and my dad always decorates. I asked if my dad could replicate the same cake for Ruby that I had when I turned one. My cake had Raggedy Ann & Andy, and was red, white and blue. Since no one knows who Raggedy Ann and Andy are anymore, I had my dad make the cake red, white and pink. He never disappoints!

Ruby got to celebrate with all of her grandparents, her aunt and uncle and all six of her cousins. Here she is with Papaw and her newest cousin, Evan:

We all had a great time, and Ruby scored some amazing loot. But unfortunately, her cake didn’t go over all that well …

After all of the presents, Ruby enjoyed some quality time with her cousin Ella:

It was an amazing birthday and our hearts are still swelling from all the love! Now we’re preparing for the big party this Sunday … stay tuned!

Art in the Streets at MOCA

To celebrate Ed’s birthday, we headed over to MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary Building to see one of the coolest exhibitions ever, Art in the Streets. This show is HUGE and it shows just how far street art has come from back in the day when people just called it “grafitti” (It’s so much more!). If you really wanna get a good look inside the people who’ve helped catapult the Street Art movement, check out the documentary “Exit Through The Gift Shop” – you won’t be disappointed.

Here are a few highlights!
Hard to see, but this is me standing in front of a bunch of teensy pictures of grafitti art on trains.

Ed and Ruby in front of one of the Shepard Fairey walls

(Does something look familiar about his work? You probably know him from this hugely popular poster!)

Banksy

Mister Cartoon’s Low Rider Ice Cream Truck

Day-Glo room

Fun alley

Spray paint retrospective!

God Save the Queen!

And finally … after all that art … over-stimulation!

Its really tough to put into words what an impact that exhibition has, even if you wouldn’t consider yourself a street art enthusiast. You should see it in person, too!

Check the album for more pics:

MOCA – Art in the Streets

Ruby Turns 100 Days Old!

In Korea, babies get a big celebratory party when they turn 100 days old. Back in the old days, it really was a big deal if a baby made it to the first 100 days. Today, of course, most babies here reach that milestone with few problems, but it remains an important custom for Koreans.

Ruby being half-Korean, of course, we wanted to make sure she got her 100 day celebration (called “Chook Baegil”) but with our own unique twist representing both sides of her heritage.

So, we invited all of the grandparents and my uncle and aunt for the big day. Carrie, of course, did plenty to make sure the atmosphere was stylish and inviting.

Dad arrived…Ruby felt a little tentative…

We didn’t manage to get photos, but our meal idea was to offer Korean and American versions of the traditional long life noodles served at this occasion. So, I made jajangmyun, a Chinese-Korean noodle dish with a black bean sauce (trust me, it tastes way better than it sounds) while Carrie made spaghetti using her mom’s renowned sauce recipe. Both turned out awesome.

And then, my mom brought the traditional Korean rice cake! Everyone, including the uninitiated, really enjoyed it! The cake is sweet, almost tasting like a really dense angel food cake.

Afterwards, it was time for presents!

My dad had a silver cup engraved for her – very special!

My mom couldn’t resist more cute clothes!

My aunt and uncle got all kinds of neat things, including Ruby’s first chopsticks.

And though we didn’t get a picture of it, Grandma and Papaw gave Ruby some VERY useful funds that will be put to very good use.

It’s amazing how quickly time has passed; I can’t believe she has been with us for 100 days already. Before I know it, she’ll be turning a year old! My little girl is growing up so fast!