A day with Andrew

This past weekend, Jacob had wanted to stay over with the grandparents but Andrew wanted to come with us. It's rare that they split up but it happens on occasion. Several months ago, they had split up with Jacob sleeping at my parents and Andrew coming home with us and when it was bedtime, Andrew was crying for his brother. "I want Jacob..." It was funny and sad at the same time. So every time Andrew decides to leave his brother, we double triple check to make sure he realizes the consequence of his decision. At home, it's weird to see him play by himself. For his entire life, he's never been alone. He has always had his brother. So I feel guilty and obligated to play with him, not that I don't want to but sometimes there are things around the house that need to be done. But once I hear "con muon papa choi voi con" which translates to "I want to play with you papa", it's hard to say no.

That night we went out to eat. He was very well behaved, ate all by himself and drank like a fiend. He loves to drink. Once he downed all of my KFC soda and then peed three times in a span of an hour. We took him to BN afterward so he can read some car magazines and then we let him run around Town Center. He's got so much energy, always hyper and loud, as if he's on crack. It's tiring to keep with him and Jacob. I try to savor every moment, play with them every time they ask because there will come a time when they will stop asking.

Houston zoo, deals and shopping

The title may seem random but it's all related. We had coupons for the Houston zoo for buy one adult ticket, get one child ticket for free which expires at the end of the month so we had to put it to use. As Dave Chappelle puts it, "who can pass up a sale son?" So Saturday we took the kids (and my mom and brother) to the Houston Zoo. Bad timing. We got there a little before 11 am and the parking lot was filled to capacity. After 20 mins or so we found a spot at the other end of Hermann park. So we get there and wait for my mom and brother since they took a separate car. We waited and waited until about 40 mins later they arrive. They had parked in the medical center and walked 2-3 miles. Yuck. The zoo was fun. We had our wagon and stockpile of snacks and drinks. We gave Jacob the map and he wanted to see specific animals, namely the cheetah (his favorite animal), the other big cats, the aquarium (which they dogged since they've been spoiled by the Houston Aquarium) and the snakes and reptiles. They give me the chills~~.

It was a good day, except for the fact that I broke my eye frames. So in the process of looking for new frames, I get an itch to buy other things. Every so often I get an urge to shop, to splurge, and it's happening right now. So far I bought a couple shirts, two pairs of shoes, an external hard drive and a blood pressure machine (yeah I know, random).

This week I'm hoping to begin my exercise and diet routine so this weekend I've been eating some of my favorite, non-healthy foods before I start... kind of a last meal thing. I had the Burnin' Love burger at Red Robin and a chicken burrito at Chipotle, because I had a coupon for that too.

No TV, no bueno.

I just realized I don't watch much TV, if any, during the week. That's a good thing right? Here's a typical weekday: go to work, come home and get settled (read mail while eating a snack), play with the kids, eat dinner together, veg in front of the computer, get the kids ready to bed, read, then sleep. I could switch computer time for TV but being on the computer feels much more productive, at least I'm getting something done. It's not like I'm just sitting there, watching mindless videos of people embarrassing themselves but I do enjoy watching some Jedi A-holes.

I'm looking forward to this weekend so I can catch up on my shows.
Modern Family
How I Met Your Mother
Mad Love
Perfect Couples
Traffic Light

And I still have Netflix movies to watch.
The Town
The Social Network
Paranormal Activity 2

I'm waiting on someone to watch Paranormal Activity 2 with me since Lynn refuses to. The first one traumatized her for quite a while and there's no way I'm watching it by myself.

Bo luc lac (Vietnamese shaking beef)

I decided to make this after randomly seeing it on salon.com. The picture doesn't do it justice because that was all that was left before I decided to take a picture of it. Click here for the recipe.

There are so many recipes for bo luc lac and it's pretty much the same concept. Add a salty Asian sauce (oyster and/or soy sauce) and some garlic to cubed meat and cook. You really can't get it wrong.

I liked this recipe for several reasons. After I cooked it, it had a sauce to it. Normally this dish is sauce-less, besides whatever juices are coming from the meat. Or maybe I messed up but I like having saucy meat. Additionally it had a slight sweet taste too from the caramelized sugar. The recipe calls to make a lime-pepper-garlic dipping sauce but I disregarded that and just made the typical salt-pepper-lime to dip my meat. I will definitely try this again but add sliced onions.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
(3 out of 5 stars)

Good morning?

Not quite a good morning, just a morning. An all too typical one at that. This was the scene when I woke up this morning. Looks like they were trying to form letters to create a message for a passing plane as if they were on a deserted island. But if I were that pilot, I'd be a little confused. TI? Are they telling me they like the rapper TI? But I digress, we rarely have a peaceful night's sleep. The typical routine would be the boys sleep in their room at night, by 10 pm. Then around midnight or so, Andrew would come walking in, whimpering. Then at odd hours in the night, my guess is around 2-4 am, Jacob would climb into our bed on his own. Usually I'm such a deep sleeper that I don't notice any of this until morning but if I get hit or worse kicked in the testicles, (which hurts like hell -- to go from a deep sleep to intense pain, it's a feeling you can't describe and have to go through it to know what I'm talking about) I usually walk over to the boys' room to sleep. I'm so lucky to have my parents take them to sleep over during the weekends because sleeping like this for 365 nights a year, I would die.

Oh boy...

It's going to be a boy, once again. The pencil test has failed for the first time in recorded history. Well maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but I've never seen the pencil test fail before. This was God's message saying don't believe in a damn pencil.

This changes everything. For sure I thought this was going to be a girl. Lynn's pregnancy was totally different this time around and the pencil supposedly confirmed it. Do we go for a fourth and try for a girl? Could we handle that? What if the fourth is another boy? Damn my sperm and the fast swimming Y chromosome ones! The toughest question at the moment is what to name this boy who's currently the size of a key lime. There are no good boy names out there. If all else fails, I'm naming him Jimmy Junior.

Happy Valentine's Day

Lost in translation

Friday I craved those raisin cupcakes that my late grandma used to make so I asked my mom for the recipe. I got the ingredients (bột = flour, đường = sugar), all but one. That last mysterious ingredient was something nổi, something that rises. I asked is it baking powder or yeast? She didn't know. She just told me it comes in a packet and it's made in France. Geez thanks. So I made it using yeast since it came in a packet (should have know it's baking powder, since I am baking... duh). Needless to say, it didn't turn out correctly.

Saturday we took the kids to see the Imagination Movers show at Verizon Wireless Theater, which was our birthday gift to Jacob. Our luck we sat behind some obese dad who had the worst B.O. ever! At first I was thinking what's that smell? Is someone eating some nasty food? It smelled like funky corn chips. The way he was sitting didn't help the situation either, with his left arm over the chair, airing out his funky arm pits. Fritos will never been the same for me ever again. Luckily, there were empty seats next to me so we just moved over. If there weren't any empty seats, what's a person to do? Ask him to put his arm down? Ask the attendants if we can move because this guy stinks? It was bad!

Afterward we went to CoCo's crepes for some savory crepes and gelato. We sat outside in the awesome weather, if only the weather could be like that everyday. Good quality time with family.

My little chocolate Hitler. -->

Happy birthday to my big boy

Today Jacob turned five years old. Five. It didn't hit me until tonight but he's really grown up now. He's smart, picks things up really fast, and can catch you in a lie if your story is inconsistent. Nothing gets by him. He's naturally curious and asks a million questions. I think he's going to be the most successful in school of the three kids, not to say that Andrew is a dummy. Andrew is more cunning, more "street smart".

Tonight we went to Chucky Cheese (his choice) with his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Even though it was freezing temps outside, nothing was going to stop us. He got the usual toys and books but also got his first watch. A Transformer watch. He loves to wear it and is excited to show his friends at school. He's so big now, it's kind of sad.

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Happy Lunar New Year

A new year and new blog. This is the year of the rabbit or if you're Vietnamese, the cat. Eh. I'll stick with the rabbit since I don't want our third child to be a cat. I'm not a cat person.

Last Saturday we had a family get-together on my side of the family. It started out with our third family football game of the season. Sad to say that my team lost once again. We lack organization. "Just get open" and "cover someone" doesn't cut it. It was still fun though. Afterward it was time for some gambling. Some stacks, LCR dice game, and a newly created tournament style, rotating dealing game which the dealer can choose whatever game he wants. It kept it interesting and you had to be versatile in all the games. I miss family gambling.


an intense game of LCR.

Most memorable moment was when the pencil test was done... on everyone! At that point, everyone who already had kids, the pencil correctly told the pregnancy history. To really test its accuracy, it was tried on my aunt who has nine kids. The pencil predicted each child, by gender, all in order. Now that was a goosebumps moment.




the pencil predicts the third child to be a girl. we'll find out soon enough.