This was taken over a year ago in March. It marked our first outing as a family after I turned in my first completed book draft. We all had to sacrifice a little to make the book happen. We gave up most of our Saturdays, so I could spend all day working since Ben was home and could run the show. Looking back at these pictures remind me of that special season of our lives and the relief we all felt after that March 1st deadline. I’m glad my friend Kimberly Genevieve (and Andre!) met us out in the dessert to capture this special time.

Anyway, I’m totally late in sharing these (I just kept forgetting to), but I thought since today marks the birthday of our family (it’s our wedding anniversary), it was about time to share these photos in today’s post. To celebrate today, I’m just making Ben one of his favorite dishes for dinner and we will have a quiet dinner in our room, after the girls go to bed, and watch 24 (season 8, since we want to refresher before we watch this newest season). We both agreed Singapore was a fantastic way to commemorate it, so low-key at home, on the actual day, works perfectly fine for us.

We were telling the girls how special today is because it’s our family’s birthday, and they were like, “No, you weren’t a family because we weren’t there yet.” Ben explained that we became a family the day we got married and our family just kept growing as each of them joined. The big girls get it now, but Soul is still insistent that July 9th won’t be a birthday unless there’s cake involved, so we just might need to find time to make cake today too.

We went from two to six in just a matter of nine years… had just a taste of the wonderful (and sometimes bad) and unexpected craziness of life, but lots of grace and forgiveness given daily. Cheers to 9!

Photos by Kimberly Genevieve and you can see more here on 100 Layer Cakelet.

Accordion-Fold Paper Flowers

Supplies:
Colored paper (card stock would work too)
Scissors
Yarn
Clear tape
Glue
12″ Wooden skewers

Directions:
Cut your sheet of paper lengthwise into two separate strips. It doesn’t matter if the width of the strips are equal or not, the smaller the width of the strip, the smaller the flower. Start at one end of the strip and accordion fold the entire length of the sheet. If you get to the end and have excess, just trim it off. Fold the accordion folded strip in half, wrap a 8-10″ piece of yarn around the center and knot to secure. Open up the folds so that the ends can be taped (or glued) together to form the circle. Tape the two edges together at the back (I used masking tape so you could clearly see where I taped it, but clear tape would work best. If you’re using colored construction paper (we used card stock), glueing the open ends together to form the circle would work as well. Insert the pointed end of the skewer into the center fold at the back of the flower, use a dab of glue to set the wooden stem in place. Cut out your leaves and glue onto the the wooden stem. Repeat for the remaining strip of paper, and make many more! Play with the different width of the strips, and you can also make some strips with wider accordion folds, and others with narrower ones.

You can get even fancier with accordion paper flowers, but this way is quite simple and my girls had fun making it! After a two week break from projects, they are glad to be doing projects again.

There’s so much to share about my trip to Singapore that I don’t even know where to start. I’ll try to break it up so you don’t get too much at once, but there were so many good memories made, friendships formed, delicious food devoured, and many places explored that I honestly don’t know where to start, so I’m starting with the airport… ha!

Ben and I haven’t flown out of the country since our honeymoon to Fiji (though we but did go on a cruise to Mexico a few years ago), so we were kind of anxious about the long flight and what to expect. My idea of being comfortable is a long loose dress, so that’s what I chose to wear (there and back), I had my denim shirt for when it got cool in the plane, wore glasses (switched out contact for glasses right before boarding), and went minimal make-up (just eyebrows filled and lipgloss). Also, pretty much the whole trip I tried to adapt the #messyhairdontcare attitude because my hair just didn’t know what to do in the humidity! My best hair day was the day we left.

Leaving the girls was kind of hard (Soul had such a sad face!) since this was our longest trip away from them (previous to this would be this SF trip for four days), but we are so thankful that my parents were able to get the week off to be with them, and the bookend weekends were spent with Uncle John and Auntie Linda. Once there, I didn’t really get homesick nor did I get separation anxiety from the girls, but towards the end of our week, I found myself looking at pictures of the girls on my phone more and more. We did manage to FaceTime once, but I was always texting with the BFF to see how they were doing.

We had a layover in Tokyo going to and from Singapore, so we grabbed sushi both times. Now, I don’t know how great their sushi is compared to actually being in Tokyo, but hey, it’s as close as we were going to get for now, so why not?! The first time was just a ready made take away pack of sashimi, but on the way home we had a longer layover, so we actually sat at the sushi bar and had fun ordering things we’ve never tried. I’m sure the airport sushi prices are hiked up, but we figured this was going to our anniversary dinner “out,” so we splurged a little. Our anniversary isn’t until this Wednesday, but we kind of made the trip our way to celebrate it, just like we did with our New Mexico hike last year.

Well, the flights didn’t end up being too bad, I slept all the way to Tokyo (11 hours) and most of the leg to Singapore (7 hours), and felt well rested when I got there. On the way home was a bit more challenging to sleep from Tokyo to LAX, but we were energized knowing we were going to see the girls really soon. We also took sleeping pills to help manage sleep times (to get our bodies adjusted to the time in Singapore), so that helped a bit, at least for me, I definitely got more sleep than Ben. He still can’t believe how much I slept.

Normally, I’ve been sharing a “Camp Home” project on Mondays, but last week I didn’t want to do any projects, so that will have to wait until another day this week. The girls were asking me all week, “When can we do projects again?” so that’s what today is for.

Coconut Curry Noodles. I was really craving laksa from Singapore, so I attempted to make something that had the similar flavors. I was totally off, but thankfully it was edible. It tasted good, but was definitely not laksa.

Cous Cous with Broccoli, Almonds, and Feta. I make some version of this weekly because the girls love it and it’s quick and healthy.

Chipotle Turkey Burgers with Guacamole and Sweet Potato Fries. This one is just adobo chipotle peppers minced and mixed into ground turkey. Next, I formed them into patties and cooked them on a skillet. I made a side of guacamole to serve in the burgers, and it made the perfect July 4th burger for us! Of course, you can’t have a burger without a side of sweet potato fries. I like to season ours with taco seasoning.

Week of 7/7 – 7/11
Monday: Chicken Rice
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Spicy Tuna Tacos
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Sushi/pizza night

After a week away, we spent a lazy week at home getting adjusted back, but we will be leaving again soon (this time with the whole family) for the east coast.

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

We are so thankful to be back home with the girls.

I started reading Divergent on our way to Singapore. I like futuristic sci-fi stuff; it’s been interesting so far.

Ben and I have been craving certain dishes we ate in Singapore, so I’m excited to start trying out some new recipes to recreate those delicious dishes here, but maybe with a much healthier slant.

I want to make this peanut ball soup.

Soul learned bangs aren’t for her.

Jessica emailed me to share her shop, Oh Miroir Miroir, and I can totally imagine my children having so much fun pretending in front of these mirrors. Adorable!

Love this cute dress and it seems to be reasonably priced too.

We’re so excited and thankful to be invited by Colonial Williamsburg to check out that wonderful historic city, and since we will be there, we planned to spend a couple days touring Washington D.C. too. I get super geeky about historical things, so the girls and I are gearing up by reading lots of books to learn as much as we can before we go. Ben lived there for a few years before moving to California, so he’s still somewhat familiar with certain things, but it’s been over a decade since he lived there. I’ve been a couple times, one of the times was with Ben while we were dating. We will be staying downtown near the National Mall, so if any of you have any suggestions of places to eat, we’d love to hear them! I have a list from my research on yelp, but I find you guys always have wonderful suggestions.

We picked up some flags from the dollar section at Target and the girls have been proudly waving them around. We will make burgers and spend all day relaxing and watching movies. Happy Fourth of July friends!