Lily & Leo

Thankful for our family!

We just celebrated our first Thanksgiving holiday as a new family!  I wanted to make sure this thanksgiving was extra special this year since last year we were in New York and couldn’t be with the family, and that made me miss spending the holidays with everyone.

So this year, we stayed home and were able to spend it with lots of family! We spent Thanksgiving day at Di A’nh’s house where Khoa’s uncle, Cau Dung made the best, super moist, flavorful turkey we’ve ever had!  The table was filled with lot of delicious home cooked foods like mashed potatoes, fried wontons, cream corn, stuffing, candied yams, and plenty of dessert made by Mo Thien (pumpkin flan, pumpkin log cake, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!!).

Saying a prayer before the feast!

All the amazing food!

Lily was really hungry!

The next day, we had dinner at Lanta Thai Restaurant with Khoa’s immediate family!  They had really good food there and we brought Lily’s booster seat for the first time.  She loved it at first, and she was playing with the toys that came with it, but then she wanted to be held, so the 2nd half of dinner, she sat on all our laps haha.  She wanted to join the party, that or eat our food…haha.

Saturday we had a friend’s gathering at our house with a small group of our closest friends!  It was a potluck so everyone brought all their yummy foods, and we bought 2 roasted duck from Lien Hoa BBQ Deli in Westminster!  It was really good!  I also made deviled eggs an my newest baking adventure, Apple Pie Pops!  There were a BIG hit!  Click here to read more about the pie pops!  Cynthia brought mashed potatos and roasted almonds, Aarin brought hawaiian sweet buns, fancy cinnamon butter and pumpkin scones, Steve brought spicy sausage bites, Alvina made green bean caserole, Bi-ying made salad and brought vanilla ice cream, Kristin brought cream corn, An and Linda brought veggie and fruit platters, and Roger brought a cheese and meats platters!  After a very satisfying meal, we then played Munchkin (a super fun, but also really nerdy board/card game) that lasted till past midnight haha.  It was great to see all our friends and play games, hang out, and eat good food!

On Sunday, we had lunch with my parents, and we ate at King Lobster and had dim sum, with some house special lobster and shrimp fried rice!  It was nice to spend all this time with all our family.  For more pictures of all of our Thanksgiving festivities, click HERE!  As we live our day to day lives, it’s really easy to forget what’s really important.  So I love the holidays because it’s a reminder, and good way to force us all to remember the simple joys in life and be with one another.  I have so many things in my life to be thankful for this year; my loving family, relatives, and friends.  I’m thankful for having a nice home, a cute doggie, and food at the table everyday.  I’m thankful for a loving husband who loves and cares about me, and puts up with all my shenanigans.  Most of all, I’m thankful for our bundle of joy, our Lily pad.

So thankful for our Lily pad!

For her Thanksgiving day photo, I wanted to have a large cornucopia with her surrounded by bountiful fruits and flowers.  I didn’t know that cornucopia baskets sell out really quickly, so it was a big challenge to find one.  Once we did find one (thanks to Khoa’s searching skills), it was still too small.  So I bought a basket from Michaels and cut it up, wrapped it around the small cornucopia, and wrapped some twine vines around it, to make it bigger.  I bought a bouquet of flowers, some fruit, and reused the leave garland from her pumpkin photo session, and laid a small towel in the middle for her to sit on and she was ready for her photo!  A cornucopia (horn of plenty) symbolizes and abundance, and nourishment so usually whatever you put inside of it always overflows to portray that.  So Lily in this case, is our abundance of joy and love.  She overfills our hearts with happiness, she is our biggest joy in our life, and I cannot express in words much I love her and  how happy she makes me.  She makes all my days days good, and my good days even better.  Thank you my baby Lily!  I love you SOOOOO much!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Lily at 23 weeks & 6 days old!