Christmas Week Recap: Cleaning, Shopping, Baking, Birthday Celebrating

Sorry, there was no post last week. I was very busy. I will have TWO posts for this week. SO many things happened for the past week (I called it Christmas Week). There are a lot to share. 


First, I hope you all had a great Christmas. I can't believe 2011 is almost over. This year went WAY TOO fast. I hope you are enjoying this last a few moments of 2011.

Last week was a CRAZY week.

Monday: I cleaned my room. It was a hard work. I also made a BIG mess before it came a neat space. I rearranged my desk, so it became more study friendly. I also found a lot of things from elementary school, middle school and high school.

I found some books my classmates and I made in elementary school and middle school. I also found year book pictures, student IDs, homecoming tickets etc. from high school. They bring back a lot of memories.

On the other hand, I also threw away a lot of things. Isn't it fun to throw away a lot of unnecessary stuff?

Tuesday: I went to Christmas shopping with my mother. Shopping was long and tiring, but it was fun. Both of us got some new clothes.



I brought new jeans, scarf, and sweater. I like the fact that my scarf is red and my sweater is green. They go well together, and they really show the Christmas Spirit.

My mother brought a new red sweater. Both of us wanted something red for Christmas. Also next year will be dragon year, and my mom was born in the year of dragon. It is part of Chinese tradition, people tend to wear a lot red when it is their animal year.

Wednesday: I made the handcrafted Christmas gift for my mother. I am glad that she liked it. She did not let me photograph it.

Thursday: I rearranged my computer. I organized pictures, documents and recipes. I can't believe I have so many pictures I have!! The documents and recipes are more in order now, so I can find things easily. I have not finished cleaning the computer yet, so I have to finish it this week.

Friday: I wrote some Christmas Cards for my friends.

Saturday (Christmas Eve): We celebrated my mother's birthday that day. Before we head out, we took some photos with the tree.

Of course we wore the new clothes we brought.

We went to Tom's Pancake House for lunch. It serves the BEST pancakes ever. It is a cute diner, and everything is made from scratch. After lunch, we went to Washington Park; I am glad that it was a great weather. The temperature was very good for December. We enjoyed the sunshine.  We also watched movie"Descendants" it was a great movie. I hope you will watch it, too. For dinner, we went to Olive Garden my mother's favorite place to eat.

The drinks were great!!

My mom had a free dessert with a cute candle from the restaurant. I forgot the name of the dessert, but it was yummy. It was made from strawberry and white chocolate.

Sunday (Christmas Day): I baked cakes and cookies. It was a LONG baking day. I admit that I was tired, but I enjoyed. I made sugar cookies and my mother's birthday cake.

These are some traditional sugar cookies I have been making them for years.

I got some new cookie cutters this year. I like them because it let me write message on the cookies. However, the cookie cutters are hard to use. It will make my life easier if those letters are easy to put in and get out.

My mother's birthday cake!! I made it from scratch. We used buy cakes from stores, but my mother did not like the cakes because they were either too big or too sweet. If I bake at home, I can control the sweetness and size. I have been making my mother's birthday cakes for several years. I think this year was the BEST.

I am glad that she liked it. The sweetness and size was just what she wanted.

For this week, I have to continue organize my computer, update linked-in and blog, and hang out with some of my friends. I hope this week would not crazy as last week. Remember 12 Days of Christmas? It was a to do list for winter break. Several items from the list are done, and I am still trying to finish them up. I guess most of the fun parts are done now, it is time to get into the not fun parts.

What did you do for Christmas?