Another Version of Snow White

I am so bored...where is everybody?

Since there is nobody to play with,
let me bake something yummy...

Someone's knocking the door, let me take a look..

My dear little princess, do you want to
try the most delicious apple in the wood..?


Sure, let me take a bite...


This apple sure taste great and make me dizzy....


OOh..who want to be my black-pig prince?

PS. 1. Do you think I can be a good actress when I grow up?
2. These photos were taken at my sister-in-law's apartment at Beijing.

More Patches!

Jeremia got her eat-healthy patch at this meeting..

The last meeting at Conley in which Jeremia got her brownie certificate..

My daughter was so lucky to resume her Girl Scouts brownie activities this year because her best buddy's (Morgan, who is her classmate and lives only two houses away from us) Mom would be the co-leader of a new troop.What the coincidence was when we lived in Phoenix, I let her join Girl Scout because of the same reason --all of her best friends from her class wanted to..most of all, two of their Moms (Linda and Jenn) would be the leaders for their troop...my daughter had a lot of good times under their leadership. I didn't know anything about girl scout before my daughter join this group. However, after one year's activities, I eventually learned that every brownie can win a patch or more after she attend one activity. The most exciting activity was the cookie sale in which I spent most afternoon accompanied my daughter to sell cookies to my neighbors. Thanked to my generous neighbors in San Marcos, my daughter won a silver tiny doggy trophy for selling more than 50 boxes of girl scout cookies...(FYI, the most popular flavors of cookies are "Thin Mint" and "Trefoil").

The last meeting of Spring'09 at Gwen's backyard..

The Huge Fireworks Tent Sale!!

A week ago, I noticed that a huge tent (the size just like a circus tent) was set up on the corner by my community's main entrance. I asked my husband, "why did these people build up this tent? Is something going to happen under it?" A few days later, the three-colored (red, blue, and white) banners were hanging around it, which gave me a hint --this tent is going to be used for something related to the 4th of July. My intuition was right, two days later, tons of boxed were already opened under the tent....out of my curiosity, I decided to take a look... and it turned out to be the biggest fireworks display (which are not exploded yet) I ever seen in my life, some of them reminded me of those I had played when I was young. I didn't even know it was legal to buy fireworks under the sun in this town..I started to feel sorry for my little friends who live in Phoenix since it's illegal to buy and play fireworks in Arizona.. and that meant I haven't played fireworks for a very long long long time...

A Pet Flooded Neighborhood

I found this gray garden snake on the sideway
in the front yard one day in the morning...

One day after my daughter came back from her buddy's house, she complained to me "No fair! How come I can't have pets like Zoey??? She has four cats, a lizard, and a hamster! Besides, her dad even almost stepped on a baby rabbit and a turtle when he was mowing their yard..." So, can I have a pet, please, Mom.." I patiently explained to her "Honey, we already have bumble bees, wasps, beetles, flies, mosquitoes buzzing and birds singing around our house during the day, opossums, raccoons, squirrels come to chewing at night, and we even have a garden snake slithering along our side way, how many more pets do you want?"

Cardinals and robins come to our back yard almost everyday...

The top two road killed animals in the town..
Next time when you see a possum lying on the road,
they are not "playing dead", they are actually dead!!

My Birthday Cupcake

Today is my 3 years old birthday, let me show you

how to make a yummy birthday cupcake....

Get a non-dairy cake mix, soymilk and vegetable oil (*)...


Keep mixing for 2 minutes...

Pour the batter in the cupcake holder and put it
in the preheated oven (350F) for 18 minutes and....tata.... it's done!!!

(*) Cuz I am allergic to milk and egg, my mom gave me water and vegetable oil to substitute... you can buy this non-dairy and egg-free cake mix in most nature food stores or Pier1Import for cheaper price...

Decorate it with your favorite topping,
such as gummy worms,candy flakes, chocolate chips...
and enjoy!

Please vote for the yummiest cupcake!

An Episode of My Potting Training

It seems an endless job for my Mom to potty train me...
After the wall by my potty had been flooded with my favorite stickers (the reward stickers did work for my big sister though..), my mom decided to adopt aunt Jia-rong's advice --buy a set of underpants which has my favorite character (dinosaurs) on it -- because she thought I may not want to pee on it then I will go potty without wetting my dinosaur underpants...however, when my mom gave one of these underpants to me with excited voice, I did not want to wear it, instead, I held on it right away with one thumb put onto my mouth because I found there was a little tag attached with this cute underpants!! I thought my mom made a big mistake cuz I have tag attachment syndrome since I was a little baby-- the symptom is-- I like to hold on a tag which basically attached to anything (like blanket, clothes, hat, bib, ...) with one finger while I am sucking my thumb....My poor mom ended up to buy another set of underpants for me without a tag on it...

the tag attachment syndrome...

It's Good to Be a Student!

It's hard to imagine that my husband had been a full-time student as his full-time job for ten years....Because of this special title, my family had been invited to many families to enjoy a lot of free delicious meals during major American and Chinese holidays. After my husband lost this title, it's finally our turn to be a host family for Taiwanese students!
Thanks God, there are only few Taiwanese students studying here...So far, one PhD student gave up his studies in January because he thought he couldn't stand this boring place any more...One master student already graduated this May, two exchanged students finished their studies this May as well...Hello! anymore Taiwanese students left here??

The last Christmas we celebrated with Grandma Pat..

These two pretty girls are rare species in U of A...

PS.
1. Tiffany, congratulation! It's great to hear you lost 10lb less a month after you came back to Taiwan...can you tell me what kind of diet you are eating now? I can recommend it to my friend!
2. Pat, thank you for being my host Mom over the past few years and your yummy meatball will be remembered 4ever!!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

I didn't expect that there are going to rain so much here in the south during the monsoon season. Unlike Phoenix (a desert city before my family moved here and thanked to my dear husband, he finally installed the sprinkler in the house where we lived in chandler just before we decided to move to Arkansas, could you imagine that I had watered my garden and yard with my hands under Phoenix Devil Sun for almost six years!!!! ), I really appreciated that I do need to go outside to water every plant in my yard everyday right now. By the way, my kids seem like to walk in the rain and jump on the puddles after the rain was gone. The only trouble caused by the heavy rain was that made my husband need to go out and spend more than an hour to mow the lawn (the lawn in my yard is more than 9,000 square feet) every week which had ruined most of his rest time (however, it became the fun time for my kids because they could ride the mower with my husband)!! Therefore, I should sing this song to my husband next time when he is mowing....

Rain, rain, go away!
Come again another day,
My husband wants to rest,
Rain, rain, go away!

our backyard without mowing for only 10 days...

Play Date

When my daughter is in school, the only big toy for my son is ME. After I getting to know my neighbor, Alli, who live next to me, I was so glad to know she has a grandson (Luke) who is just as the same age as my son. Therefore, when it's the time for Alli taking care of Luke, it becomes their play date!! Since my son cannot speak English well, (he cannot speak Chinese very well neither) instead of playing with each other, they just play by each other!

It's Time to Jump in

When the temperature heated to 80F before the Memorial Day weekend, the girls (my daughter and her best buddy, Morgan) already couldn't wait to jump in the pool. Even my neighbor told me this is a heated pool, I still did not have much confidence of what she said. After I checked the temperature of the water, I knew I was right...it's still icy cold!!!

Who said the water is cold?

Is Everything Need To Be So Fresh?

Since Arkansas' nickname is "Nature State", you can eat a lot of things pretty fresh. Such as... buy fresh local grown vegetables from Farmer Market in Downtown Square, cook fresh bass and trout just caught from nearby lakes after spring's gushy rain, eat fresh baked bread from my kitchen oven...etc. However, I never imagined that I have a chance to eat fresh eggs which have poop on them (thanks to brother Wang who is kind enough to give me these eggs for free).

PS. You can only buy these cage free eggs from the plaza which located on the intersection of highway 265 and 6th street on Sunday morning.

We are real cage free eggs ....

The Legend of My Vegetable Garden

I never ever imagined that I would be able to build a vegetable garden by myself!! After having enjoyed a lot of fresh vegetables (like chives, tomatoes, and winter melons) from my church friends for the first few months since my family moved here, I thought that might be a good idea to have my own garden when the first spring rain came in...., then a month of hard work and suffering started...
Since my husband showed no interest in gardening and never had any time, I started this project from digging, removing sod (most grass has root reaches to 8 inches deep), pulling up weeds, installing edges, tilling soil, and moving top soil and manure which weigh more than 40 lbs per bag from the garage to the backyard, to sowing. My back and right arm already complained me with sore and pain..
After the garden was completed, the only thing I knew was that I was stupid enough to do this all by myself!!! One month later, I found out somebody or some animals ate or stole my sweet potatoes leaves and one of the sweet potatoes' root was missing. This reminded me that my husband once told me he ever spotted possum and raccoons in our backyard at midnight. Maybe I need to put a monitor in my backyard to solve this mystery...

Thanks to Jiarong for donating her sprouted sweet potatoes to my garden....

one month later....

Kids Enjoying the Snow

Since school was canceled due to the severe weather, kids were able to enjoy the snow which had covered everything!!! The first game my daughter came up with was throwing a snow ball to her dad....

Making mini snowman....

My icicle teeth...

I don't know what I suppose to do with the snow??

The Icy Storm

The birch in my yard split up due to the weight of icicles...

The first two times when it snowed didn't make my family get too excited and impressive because it just melted right away. My daughter even didn't have chance to play with it after she came back from school. However, the third one turned out to be the most powerful icy storm the city had ever experienced....Thanks God, my house only had one night black out which made my husband have a chance to camp by the fireplace with a sleeping bag that we had not used for a decade. It took the city almost three months to clean up all the branches falling down from the trees!!

The crystal icicles hanging on the branches...

The clear blue sky after the storm..

The Powerful Dough Key in the Bread Machine

When my friend left me an old bread machine when she moved back to Taiwan after finishing her studies at ASU, I thought myself is a junk receiver---always take over stuff whose owner was unable to keep it (so far, I had collected a pasta maker, an ice cream maker, an air purifier, a food processor ,etc.). However, things turn out to be another blessing way ten years later....the following delicious food are some product that I made with the powerful dough key in this bread machine...

Green onion bread with fried shred fish floss

My son was enjoying bread stick in the morning

PS. Please go to Ino desert's blog to find out more delicious receipts!

Chestnut Hunt

Chestnut from Wilson Park

I didn't know that my mother-in-law is craving for chestnuts so much (just like Chip and Dale) until my dearest neighbor (Jiarong) told me there are few chestnut trees in Wilson Park. The most important thing is: they are free to pick. Therefore, we started our chestnut hunt for the whole month (September is the most productive season for chestnut trees in Fayetteville). Tell you a secret, there are two chestnut trees in Veterans Memorial Park as well. My mouth starts drooling when I am thinking about chestnut cake, roasted chestnut with brown sugar, chestnut cheesecake, chestnut biscuit....