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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Reunited

We have been reunited with our family for just over a week now and we are loving every minute of it! Keegan is being spoiled rotten by his grandparents and his aunt and uncle. For now I am going to enjoy our time with family and take a break from blogging.  After Christmas you can expect to hear back from me. Merry Christmas to you all!

Monday, December 5, 2011

As seen on

It amazes me how quickly time goes bye. We have just about a week left here in Korea and we have a TON to do. Please forgive the lack of blogging on my part. You can take a peak HERE and HERE on our friends blogs to see what we have been up to the past week.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Basil Chicken Cury

After I had Keegan our church family spoiled us rotten with tons of delicious meals. People brought us food almost every day for two weeks. It was seriously the greatest thing a new Mom could receive. The sweet Greaney family made us Basil Chicken Curry. AMAZING does not even describe how delicious it was, she shared her recipe with me, and I would like to share it with you all.  



Basil Chicken Curry
½ tsp. ground cardamom (can be made w/out this and it still tastes fine)
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. ground coriander
½ tsp. cumin 
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground pepper
¼ tsp. ground turmeric
½ tsp. chile powder
1 lb. chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
1 T. olive oil  (or coconut oil)
1 large red onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 red pepper, sliced
1 large zucchini, sliced
2 small eggplants, sliced 
1 T. arrowroot or cornstarch
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
1 T. peeled and finely chopped ginger
5 T. snipped fresh basil (dried basil tastes just about as good as fresh; just don’t add as much and give it time to soften up in the curry before you eat it)




Mix spices together and toss with chicken in a bowl.  Set aside for about 30 minutes.  Sauté veggies in oil over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes.  Set aside in a small bowl.  Add chicken and sauté until tender and cooked through.  Add more oil if needed.  Add arrowroot to coconut milk and pour into skillet, cooking till bubbly and thickened.  Add veggies, ginger, basil and cook till heated through.  Serve over brown rice.







Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Baby Beard

Being a Florida girl I don't love cold. Its just not something I am used to. I can appreciate it for a little bit but after about two weeks my heart is longing for the beach. Although the cold is not my favorite i do LOVE some parts like this super awesome baby beard!

Because of this beard I have an interest in learning how to crochet.  Do you think I can do it? And where do I start?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Laundry: A Never Ending Battle

Laundry is one of my least favorite chores to do around the house. I feel like all i do these days is laundry. Between cloth diapering, being spit up on, peed on, and drooled on we do a LOT of laundry. 
This handsome little man makes it a lot more fun these days. He is absolutely hysterical with the laundry basket. He army crawls like nobody's business to it every chance he gets. 

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Japchae! Sweet potato noodles


Since our time in Korea is coming to an end i have come to the realization that i will not be able to eat Korean food every other day. I am not ok with that!  We LOVE Korean food! So now that I have realized we will not have access to Korean food i have decided i am going to learn to do it myself. This week the sweet ladies at church offered to teach me how to make Japchae.

Japchae is a sweet potato noodle with mixed vegetables. Its one of the best side dishes in Korea. I think its a safe dish...some are fantastic, some are simply okay, but its never really bad. You can find a recipe here  but I have seen this made multiple times and there has never been any kind of measuring. Just rough measurements and adjusting to taste. 

Do you have a foreign dish that you love to make? If so what is it?

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Real Deal

Keegan has now started eatting "real" food and let me just say he LOVES it. He has been eyeing the food Bill and I eat for a little while now so we gave him a spoon and let him pretend to eat. Now that he actually was given food he devoured it!

Keegan's aunts and uncles were just as excited to celebrate this milestone whit him as we were.


I am SO EXCITED to make him baby food once he turns 6 months, which happens in 9 day. I have been looking forward to this season since before he was born.

Any tips/suggestion/ideas that you have found useful in making baby food?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Trick-or-Treat

Its Keegan's first halloween. We dressed him in his super cute halloween onsie and took him to see his "Aunts" and "Uncles" in Royal plaza.

Im so glad that we have friends that are love our baby so much. Even if they are willing to give our baby candy. Good thing he cant open wrappers yet!

Monday, October 31, 2011

Its Official

This is a bittersweet time for the Walton family. We have purchased our one-way tickets to return to the states, we are officially going back for a while. We have been in Korea for over two years now and it has become home.

The sweet part about this is that we to see our family. Most of whom have not gotten to meet our little Keegan. I am so excited about this part that i want to go all over the US to introduce him to all our loved ones. We are already planning foods to cook with, like asparagus and sweet potatoes.

But the bitter part is leaving our lives here in Korea. Korea is where the Mr. and I had our first home together. It is where we got to first meet our son. Korea is a country full of people we love, food we will miss and adventures we could not have anywhere else. Goodbyes are huge in Korean culture and this one is gonna be huge for us.

Please be praying for us as we head back. We leave Korea on December 13th! And yet we have much to do before we leave.



Photo by Adam Jackson

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Dinner and A Show

The Mr. and I have the pleasure of working with our teenagers at church for the past few years. This week I realized two things. The first being they keep getting younger and younger lets be honest im just getting older  and I  rediscovered just how much I love teenagers.

The teenagers at our church put on a dinner/drama event and we got to help them. I got to sit back stage with them and  keep them quiet. Somehow we have the LOUDEST teens ever ha. It was a nostalgic time for me. A few years back i work with a drama team who ministered to teens all over the states. I loved every minute of it. Now i love that i am able to help these teenagers minister to others through drama.  

Confession: I love all theater, especially when there is music involved. I may or may not have preformed all of Wicked for Keegan twice last week! What is your favorite play/musical? 

Monday, October 24, 2011

Market Day

One if my favorite parts of Korea is the open markets. Not only is the streets full of fresh produce and awesome people. There is always something that catches me off guard. This week at the market we saw honey bees! Maybe this is not unusual for you for this is totally outside my box. So me being the scaredy cat that I am, took off in the other direction as soon as i saw them ha. It does not help my fear that I am also severely allergic to them.



I look forward to market day for all of the great and unusual things of Korea. So did anything crazy catch you off guard this week?

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Hungry Caterpillar Shoes

I made my first pair of shoes! I just love the fabric too. Oh and Keegan loves to stair at them. For some time he has known his feet were there but did not find them very fun. Well these shoes have helped him find a love for playing with his feet. The next pair would look better and would be easier to make now having done it once but overall they were not too hard. I had fell in love with the pattern and needed to make them.



BTW I may or may not have made two left feet... and I may or may not think its hysterical.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Embies!

Recently we hosted the Embies at church for our coworkers and pastoral leadership members. What are the Embies you as?!  Well let me tell you...It was an award ceremony to celebrate each person and all that they do for our church. All of these people put a lot of time and effort into their ministries and we wanted to take the time to say thank you and encourage them. We made awards for everyone and got to publicly thank them for all their hard work.
 Red carpet family Photo!
 Are my guys handsome or what?!
 Getting into the Embie spirit!
 The awards and the "acceptance speeches".

Everyone had a blast and we are so thankful to work with such great people.

Grounded

It was brought to my attention today that I have not blogged in a while... but dont worry I am going to pick back up!

Update: The entire Walton house has been sick and I got the worst of this sickness. Please be praying we don't pass it back and forth! We are all feeling a bit better though.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Play Date

Keegan and I hosted our first play date last week!
Meet Isaac and Emma two of Keegan's adorable friends (BONUS their Moms are a lot of fun). It is cute to watch them play together because none of them crawl yet so they just make cute noises at each other and play with whatever they can grab. We will definitely being having more friends over.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Old/New Friends

This week a dear friend came to visit us for the day. His name is Joo-ho, and we worked together in our Korean church. This gentleman is very near and dear to my husband. Several years ago when Bill interned at his church they became friends. When Bill went home after his internship was finished he thought he would never see him again. Little did he know that God was bringing him back to Korea. Its been fun watching the two of them together as they grow into different seasons of life.
Let me just say Keegan and Joo-ho were best buddies. We had a blast seeing our friend and introducing him to our little one.
Don't you just love seeing old friends?

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Christmas?

Is anyone else thinking about Christmas? Its been on my mind for about a two weeks now. I know, I know its only September. I know its really early to be thinking about it but for us December holds several life altering events (one being our move back to the states, more on that later).So I figured why not start now and make the gifting part of Christmas a bit less stressful! I am making quillows (a blanket/pillow) for the kiddos. Quillows are a family thing... Ill be posting a tutorial in the next few weeks. Hopefully you can add one of our family things into your.
I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas trees. ha I have made mine since Bill and I became a family... i need some new ideas for this years tree. What do you think?
What are you all planning on doing for Christmas?

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Bill's Super Birthday

Let me just throw it out there... The Mr. and I are a bit nerdy. Not only are we a bit nerdy... we have nerdy friends! That being said for Bills birthday we decided to have a "Super Friends Celebratory Meeting" a.k.a. create your own superhero party! Here are some photos of the event. I'm mad at myself for not remembering what everyone was!


 Although he doesn't look thrilled Keegan had a blast and he looked Super cute 

I am certain the guys at the party had so much fun figuring out in great detail  what they would be.  They also put  a lot of thought into their costumes.  My husband actually created all of our masks and did all of Keegans costume. I didnt know i had such a crafty husband.

Happy Birthday Bill!

So if you were a super hero what would be?

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Obnoxiously Excited

Have you ever gotten so excited to do a craft that you had to do it at.that.exact.moment? Well I have and I tend to get to excited and not think clearly. I recently had this happen i didnt take the time to realize that a "scrap" of fabric really wasnt a scrap at all. It was actually a piece I had cut out to finish another project. That hot air balloon shape that you see above on the left is not supposed to be there. ha ha The Mr. made fun of me when I realized what i had done. Thankfully I am laughing at my stupidity along with my hubby poking fun at me.  I clearly need to organize better.

Alright friends fess up, have you ever done anything like this? I would love some reassurance that I am not the only one who gets a head of themselves.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Chusok Carnival Celebration

Monday we celebrated Chusok which is a Korean holiday like Thanksgiving. All of our Royal Plaza family had the day off so instead of eating Korean food we celebrated with a little piece of home.  And let's be honest we always love a themed party ha ha.

We made a carnival type day. We played games ate all carnival food and just enjoyed the day together! 

Four Months

Our little man is four months old today. We took him to the Doctor and he weighs 6.5 kg/14.3 pounds and is 24 1/2 inches long!  My baby has doubled in size and I am thrilled about that however im shocked that is has gone by so fast.
He was such a champ this morning when he got his shots too he didn't even cry while getting them! He actually smiled at the Doctor after the first shot. Let me just say i was not expecting that from him this morning since he was ready for his nap right when we left. We got home and he took a three hour nap. Oh i love this little man



Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sewing Milestone

Do you see this?!?  This is my very FIRST empty spool of thread!

I am thrilled to be in a stage of life that I am able to sew enough to go through an entire spool of thread. Its never happened before and if you notice the natural thread on the right  is getting pretty low as well!

Monday, September 12, 2011

A month of Sundays

So I know I said I would be back to blogging tomorrow, well tomorrow turned into several days! Ooooppss seriously this week flew by for me sorry about that. I'll just do a little recap of all the things that went on in the past week.

We went to a water park with the teenagers from our church.  It was such a good time. It reminded me why I loved youth ministry so much. Our Keegan was practically a celebrity there! Everyone wanted to stop and take a look at him, you can actually see some of them in the photo below. He HATED the cold water in the wave pool but loved the warm bath like water in the hot tub.

I did some serious hair this week and I loved it! I had the privilege of doing a first haircut on Charollett. I also did a highlight and every time I look at this gal it reminds me of all the good times I had working with the Wright ladies in the salon. I am not sure why it reminds me of them its probably because i miss them terribly  but I love the constant reminder.

We also had a MOPS planning meeting for our upcoming meeting. I am so excited to see everyone once again. For the local mamas if you plan on coming it's this Wednesday. Make sure you register!

Last but not least the Mr. is having a birthday next week and we are having a super get together. It will involve these masks but I don't want to give away any secrete identities yet.

For Bills birthday shindig I need some dessert ideas. What do you all love?

Monday, September 5, 2011

Catch up

The past for days have been ridiculously busy! Forgive me for the lack of blogs, right now I have to cath up on the must do's in life before I can do the want to's. On top of being busy i left my camera at a friends house and ill get it back in the morning...So I'll be back to blogging tomorrow (: I hope you all had an amazing weekend!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

New Baby!

This little guy is  my nephew Benjamin....and Benjamin is going to be a big brother! My brother James and his fiance Beky are having another baby!  I am supper excited and we found out yesterday that they are having a little girl. I have already started crafting for this little one! ha I  LOVE being an Aunt its my favorite.

Monday, August 29, 2011

100 Days

Keegan's 100 day birthday was this past week and yesterday we got to celebrate with our church family! Why Celebrate his 100 day birthday you ask? It's a very old Korean tradition and Keegan's practically Korean so we have to haha! Our Korean families were so thrilled to celebrate it with us.

We had a tradition dessert called Dok. It's a cake made out of rice flour.

Then we went to have lunch with everyone at the obvious 100 day birthday spot... Mexican food! Hahhahaha so random but we had a blast! 


I'm so thankful to have experienced this tradition with these people. God has been so good to us, placing them in our lives to love on our sweet little one while we are away from our family.









Saturday, August 27, 2011

Spectacles

I have never had trouble with my eyes.... Until now. Yesterday I went to the eye doctor and got my first pair of glasses.


Thankfully I do not have to wear them all the time. 


What do you think?


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Family Tradition

In my family growing up we had a lot of traditions and lately I have seen a lot of family tradition. It got me thinking of what traditions our family will have. If you know my hubby you know hes not the keep the tradition kinda guy he's the break the tradition just to break it kind of guy.
Since we have been dating we have had one silly tradition that I absolutely LOVE.  We scare each other randomly.  It first started in college and we have kept it up since. It always ends up with me laughing like a fool. If you have heard my laugh you know it's contagious so bill ends up laughing at me. When I got pregnant we put a time out on our tradition because we did not want to scare the baby out. Now that Keegan is here and I am heathy and at a new normal we aka I started it again. Some may think it is a silly tradition, but we enjoy it.

What family traditions do you have? What traditions did you hate as a kid and now love?

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

It makes for a good story

     Being a new Mama I have tried to just go with the flow and let God take care of us. Specifically in cross cultural situations. Lets be honest He is in control anyway. (: That being said Koreans love babies! This makes them want to help whether their help is welcome or not.  They love them so much that it tends to make Americans feel uncomfortable. 
     For instance the other night we went out to dinner and two seconds after we walked in the owner grabbed Keegan out of Bills hands and praded him around like he was hers. There was a party of 30 Korean people that saw Keegan with this lady and went goo goo over him. She was so busy running around with him it made all my photos blurry. 


      I love the Korean mentality of rasing kids together. Like how this lady wanted to help us by taking our baby off our hands while we could get our things set down and order our food. This is an extreme example of an older woman loving on our baby and reminiscing of the days when her kids were tiny in her arms. Although everywhere we go we have people stop whatever they are doing (working, driving, playing with their own kids) to get a peak at our little baby with his "big eyes" or his "Curved nose". 


I love when things like this happen. Do you have any experiences like this? I would love to hear them!

Friday, August 19, 2011

One of a Kind Onesies

Keegan is growing so ridiculously fast these days, i am almost certain that he woke up at least an inch taller today. Anyway, since Bill and I chose not to find out the sex of our little one when we were pregnant we got a lot of green, yellow and white onesies. Since my sewing machine is fixed and Keegan took an extra long nap this morning i decided to turn some of his plain white onesies into one of a kind onesies.

I got the idea from Karen over at Celebrate Life. She made some of the best one of a kind onesies I have ever seen for my baby shower! Cute isn't it?!

This project is awesome for baby show gifts, or for sewing Mommies who choose not to find out the sex of the baby until they arrive. This project can be as simple or as complex as you want. For the first one I went the simple route and just appliqued the little car on. Then i got a little bit outside my box and made one with a hot-air balloon on it for a gal who had a girl around the time Keegan was born. It is my favorite! It turned out so cute but i wont post a photo until she receives it.  (:

By the way Keegan has found his feet and is mesmerized with them! 

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

You'd Be Surprised

My life has dramatically changed since I became a Mama. Today it hit me just how much my life has changed and how much I have changed. See today Keegan spit up and my instant reaction was to catch it so it wouldn't mess up the clothes papa was wearing. That is NOT my normal  reaction... I no longer react to things like I used too. 90% of the time my house is a mess. My night stand is filled with parenting books and we celebrate poo! I knew that things world be different having a child but I never expected this ha!



This kiddo and this smile makes it all worth it! 


If you haven't had children you'd be surprised at what changes when you do I know i certainly have been.


If you have children tell me what's changed in your life and if you don't have children tell me what you think will change.

It's A Sad Sad day

It's a sad day when my sewing machine doesn't work... For the past two weeks my sewing machine has been giving me some troubles and I have felt defeated! Which is why I just stopped sewing for a bit.


Fortunately Mr Fix it lives in my house and looked at it. He has fixed the problem and told me my machine (which was made in 1974) cannot handle supper thick material like canvas. which is what I have been trying to use for the last two weeks ha! So for now i will put that project on hold and get back at it! I am super excited to finish up some other projects.... like I said here i always have multiple projects going on.

What is everyone else crafting these days? I need some inspiration! 

Monday, August 15, 2011

Fun Fact: Reading

 Fun Fact: I tend to read multiple books at any given time.  I really have no idea why I do it, actually I didn't even realize I did it until I looked down and saw something like this...




When I pointed it out to my Mr. he laughed hysterically and made fun of me for just now realizing it. (:

The list:
-On Becoming Baby Wise: and Bucknam
-Super Baby Food: Ruth Yaron
-Baby Signs: Acredolo and Goodwyn
- So That's what there're for!: Tamaro
-The new mom's guide To life with baby: Wallace
-What to expect the first year: Murkoff, Eisenburg, and Hathaway



Honestly It's a bit ridiculous. Come to think of it I craft the same way... Multiple projects going on at any given time!


What are you reading these days? I need some suggestions that don't have do do with parenting ha 


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Mango Lassi Popsicle

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with my dear friend Karen and her sweet sweet daughter Charlotte. (If you dont know them you should read her blog here and see the amazing things God is doing in their lives. Plus she is amazingly talented in her photography and crafting). This particular day I got to enjoy snack time with them which was such a treat. We had a mango lassie, lets be honest it was something I had never heard about. It's basically a mango smoothie. Karen posted the recipe here. Ever since I had this treat I have been on a mango kick! Seriously its ridiculous i have had mango at least once a day for the past few weeks. I have also been on a make your own popsicle kick as well. So I decided to combine my two kicks together to make a Mango Lassie Popsicle. Let me just say YUM! I didn't think the mango lassie could get any better!  Thank you Karen for sharing this yumminess with me




Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Crockpot yogurt

I love yogurt. It's one of my favorite breakfast foods. I have been making my own for a little whole now and I have tried several different recipes to make it in the crockpot.  I have had some serious fails and some just ok. This recipe is a combination of recipes that has worked perfectly for me.






Ingredients
1/2 gallon 1% milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt with live cultures
1/2 cup powdered milk

1 Turn crockpot on low and pour  in 1/2 gallon of milk. Cook 2 1/2

2 after the 2 1/2 hours have passed turn the crockpot off and do not lift the lid for 3 hours.

3 after 3 hours have passed take two cups of the warm milk and transfer it into a large bowl. Add the yogurt and milk powder.  Make sure to mix it well. Pour the mixture back into the crockpot and stir.

4. Place the lid back on the crockpot and cover the entire thing with a heavy towel. Let it sit for 8 hours.

5.  After 8 hours have passed place the yogurt in an storage container and refrigerate.

This yogurt is a little bit thinner then most. It is so simple to make you just have to plan to be around the house to get it started.

We love to add a bit of vanilla extract,  fresh fruit, make smoothies, and eat it with cereal. Since it makes a good amount of yogurt we get creative to make sure it doesn't go to waist!

Do you cook with yogurt? What do you use it for?

A Walk In The Park

Today Papa stayed home from work with Keegan and I! It was needed by everyone. I wanted to do something special to celebrate Papa's day off.  So we I decided we should to go to the park and have a picnic. It's something Bill and I did before we had Keegan, today was our first picnic since Keegan was born.
It was a success. He seemed to enjoy it and Bill and I loved getting to introduce him to our little park.


A Walk In The Park

Today Papa stayed home from work with Keegan and I! It was needed by everyone. I wanted to do something special to celebrate Papa's day off.  So we I decided we should to go to the park and have a picnic. It's something Bill and I did before we had Keegan, today was our first picnic since Keegan was born.





It was a success. He seemed to enjoy it and Bill and I loved getting to introduce him to our little park.