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Home and Lifestyle

Our Home for Christmas 2020 Part 2

December 29, 2020

Christmas Eve Dinner

The excitement is brewing up more on Christmas eve dinner with so much anticipation for Christmas day – that’s when we open all the presents from everyone and Santa’s. For the Christmas eve tablescape, I planned to make it less fancy looking but also not too casual. For me, that means omitting the wine glasses since we don’t really drink wine, ditch the napkin holders and also just use my daily utensils. I also didn’t make an elaborate centerpiece but instead, only used my little tabletop decors and have them scattered on the table. The main idea is to have a Family Style dinner, just like we do on a daily and the way we use to growing up. It feels so comforting that way rather than a buffet or plated style the way we used to do it, years ago. In other words, I just want to be comfortable and don’t want a centerpiece that blocks our view across the table. The conversations and movements just flow with ease for everyone.

It was such a fun night. We watched Home Alone and then we wrapped up the night for the kids with cookies and milk for Santa, then said goodbyes to our Christopher the elf. I can’t believe our youngest will be turning eight soon, we are still holding on to that Christmas magic. These kids grow too fast (sigh). I don’t want to get started but such pure bliss seeing them grow up and have all kinds of memories with them.

Christmas Day

The most wonderful time of the year. Santa finally dropped all the presents under the tree! My daughter, our youngest was the one who woke us up so early with so much anticipation to unwrapped all the presents. Watching them unwrapped their gifts is priceless. Things are about to get real here in this blog post and I want to document it. I rarely document unwrapping presents since I want to be in the moment and not missed anything but since my brother is currently living with us, he took over the photography department lol. A lot are candid ones and I LOVE it.

And just like that Christmas is over. What a year 2020 has been. Lots of ups and downs but at the end of the day, what matters most is the health and welfare of your family working together hand and hand. I will leave this quote here because I’m a sucker for quotes lol and this one resonates with me the most especially around the holidays.

It’s true, Christmas can feel like a lot of work, particularly for mothers. But when you look back on all the Christmases in your life, you’ll find you’ve created family traditions and lasting memories. Those memories, good and bad, are really what help to keep a family together over the long haul.
Caroline Kennedy

Thank you so much for reading and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Home and Lifestyle

Our Home for Christmas 2020

December 27, 2020

April Kus

Step inside in our humble home, come on in. This year’s Christmas decor is nature-inspired with a little mixture of vintage and modern elements. I always love a laid back and lived-in look of a home. Although I appreciate and adore an ultra-glam house, I’m always drawn more to a lived-in cozy type. The ones that are decorated but also functional. The ones that have classic and traditional furnishings peppered with vintage and modern accessories. Our home for Christmas is just about that. I stick with neutral colors this year instead of the traditional Christmas colors. It is more soothing for the eyes and a good contrast to my dark wood furnitures.

These past 10 months of the year 2020 feels like an eternity and I know I’m not the only one feeling like this. I know a lot of people are going through so much more. One of the quotes that stuck on me this year that I would like to impart…

Don’t use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe, create, trust, grow, and heal.
@Officialaudreykitching

Whether we celebrate big or small, what matters is we are with our loved ones and are all healthy. Let’s use our energy in good spirits, whether decking our halls, creating crafts and baking Christmas cookies, or just simply adoring our festive coffee mug. Just doing simple things that spark joy and matter to us the most. Allowing ourselves to learn, grow, and heal.

This year’s holiday look feels more cohesive with my home style. I’m not reinventing anything but more of going with the flow of my current home decors and made use of what I already have. Then I enhanced it with greeneries and a pop of gold, white and silver accents. I love the neutral, woodsy, and vintage vibes. As a matter of fact, it’s not that much different from my 2018 Christmas decors. Our Christmas 2019 by the way, we celebrated in Florida. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make a blog post about it. I will get around to it one day. That trip was soooo much fun though, definitely was the most memorable one. I have so much more to say but I will save it for that particular blog post. Lessons learned don’t procrastinate hehehehe.

I wish I could have taken a good photo of the Christmas tree collar that I bought this year. Obviously, it’s covered with gifts in this photo. I took these pictures on the morning of Christmas eve, which explains the gifts are accumulated already and just waiting for the Santa gifts to come. The Christmas tree collar though is my favorite Christmas decor purchase, it ties up the whole theme.

Shop for Christmas tree collar :

Shop for greeneries and ornaments:

When it comes to a neutral palette, I like to play with textures. The textures of the fabric draw me in, it makes the subtleness of the color combination interesting. Whether your style leans more toward more colors and prints, consider it your personal style and reflect it with your decorating style, and don’t be guided too much with trends.

Design is coming to grips with one’s real lifestyle, one’s real place in the world. Rooms should not be put together for show but to nourish one’s well being.
Albert Hadley

Shop for holiday decors and accessories:

Thank you so much for reading. May you had a wonderful Christmas and a happy holidays.

Home and Lifestyle

Christmas Card 2020 with Shutterfly

December 21, 2020

April Kus

Wow, 2020 is about to come to an end and we have a few days until Christmas day! If you are asking me if I’m ready for Christmas. Totally not. I feel like I’m doing so much on a daily, but I still have more to do! There is always something. After over a decade of being a mom and a wife, I’ve already accepted the fact that there are times things don’t go as planned. So I just have to learn how to adapt and swing with the current happenings. So pretty much that’s what 2020 is about right? Who would have thought after over a hundred years and with advanced medical technology, we will experience this global pandemic. Even the most positive person has been tested in this big phenomenon. Overall, it’s not a great year for at least most of us. But we humans are survivors, we try our best to rise above whatever we are going through. It’s tough, but we did it and we do it again and again and again. We are fighters.

In this post, I would like to feature our Christmas card from Shutterfly. We’ve been doing Shutterfly for three years now, they always have great designs, and it comes out amazing every time. For the concept idea of our Christmas card photo shoot, I chose a dressed-up look. I was actually thinking of a laid-back theme of us wearing loungewear but I figured, we are stuck at home pretty much the whole year. I thought we need to step up a little bit in the outfit department even if we have nowhere to go. So I requested everyone to dress up for a change of vibes. So here’s our Christmas card 2020!

Thank you Shutterfly for this post.

Home and Lifestyle, Kids

Creating a Fruit Tower

December 15, 2016

April Kus

19 Comments

Last weekend, me and the kids made a fun project to share to all of you. We made a healthy and fun looking dessert, that is perfect to share for parties and also as a centerpiece for your dinner table or buffet table. This fruit tower is so easy to make. Just follow the picture collage I made below and also a detail step by step instructions.

Recipes

The Classic Walnut Snowball Cookies Recipe

December 9, 2016

April Kus

6 Comments

One of the most common tradition of every American families during the Holiday season, is making cookies ! I am a Filipino, we don’t have snow in the Philippines that’s why we don’t make snowball cookies there. Alright, kidding aside. I was introduce to this tradition when I got married to my husband Steve.

On our first holiday together as husband and wife, my mom-in-law, me and Steve made all kinds of cookies that day. One of my favorite is the snowball cookies. Aside that it’s delicious, it is also easy to make. Before we had kids, I don’t care about it so much. For me at that time, it is just cookies. I didn’t realize that it is more than just having cookies in the house, it is more like a bonding that you do with your family during the holidays. It didn’t sink in to me yet until I have kids myself and I want to continue that tradition to them. I think it’s really cool.

We really enjoyed this bonding together as a family. Especially, when Steve is the one leading the team on this. He doesn’t really cook or bake cakes, but he can bake good cookies.

So today, we are sharing one of our holiday favorites. Snowball cookies with walnuts! If you are allergic to nuts, just omit it and it still tasted good. But, If you want me to be honest with you, I personally prefer with walnuts. Some people used all kinds of nuts, one of the most popular ones are pecans. You can use that one too.

I hope you will enjoy this simple recipe as much we do. It is so easy to make and it is such a fun activity to do with the family most especially during the holiday season!

5 from 1 vote

Classic Walnut Snowball Cookies Recipe

A traditional classic holiday cookie that is loved by everyone all over the world. Our family holiday tradition won't be complete without Snowball cookies !

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Ingredients

1 cup butter 1/2 lb or 2 sticks
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degree F.
2. Cream the butter and mix it with 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar and vanilla.
3. Mix in the sifted flour,walnuts and salt.
4. Mix all the ingredients until it forms into a dough like consistency.
5. Roll about 1 tbs. of dough into a ball and place it on ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 15 minutes until bottoms are golden brown. Do not allow these cookies to get too brown. It's better to undercook them rather than overcook them.
7. While cookies are still hot, roll them in confectioners sugar.
8. Once they have cooled, roll them in confectioner sugar again.

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