Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Themed Baby Shower

Congratulations to Minh & Anh on the arrival of baby Mia! I'm so excited to watch you both grow as parents and to spend time with Mia. To celebrate the arrival of Parker's newest little cousin, here are some pictures from the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star themed baby shower I hosted along with some of my in-laws in July. 

[Minh & Anh. They have no idea what they are getting themselves into.]

[Savory & sweet Popcorn Bar. Popcorn containers from Oriental Trading. Ready to pop sign handmade by Luynh.]

[Susie and Victrine writing down some Wishes for Baby. All paper goods designed by Stress Less Press.]

[My SIL and I went crazy in the ribbon aisle at JoAnn's. The result is a great mix of ribbons for the Measure the Belly game.]

[The Swaddle Stamping Station. Good idea in theory but our execution wasn't great. We had nowhere to display all the swaddles. Learn from my mistakes!]

[What's a party without food? We had a small buffet of all the traditional Vietnamese party food as well as che for dessert!]

[Landon sporting his rad new flash tattoo from the Tattoo Shop.]

[Baby Kiera and my co-host and SIL Loan.]

[Cheesecake from the Incredible Cheesecake Company with custom topper by Luynh. If you haven't had this cheesecake yet, you are missing out on a San Diego gem.]

[Thank you to all our friends and family who came out to celebrate! Welcome to parenthood, Minh & Anh!]

Guinness Bacon Beer Nuts Game Day Snack Recipe

Football season has officially started and I'm really looking forward to all the get-togethers we will be having with family and friends over the next few months to cheer on our favorite teams. While I'm not the biggest football fan, I am a fan of game day food. Pizza? Yes! Meat on the grill? Yes! Chips? Yes! While all these foods are fun to eat, they are generally not good for your waistline. In an effort to keep everyone slim and sexy this football season, here is a recipe for Guinness Bacon Beer Nuts. These nuts are sure to be a game day hit. They are crunchy, sweet, salty and the Guinness gives them a slight bitter beer finish. You know what else is great? Being able to barrage your husband with inappropriate nut jokes while you make this snack!

Guinness Bacon Beer Nuts
Original recipe from Mantitlement

Ingredients:
- 4 1/2 cups of roasted nuts (about 1 1/2 lbs)
- 6 strips of bacon
- 1 cup of Guinness
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons bacon grease

Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook bacon until crispy. Remove and drain. Save the bacon grease.
- Finely chop bacon once it cools. I chopped mine very fine so it almost looked more like bacon sprinkles.
- Combine Guinness, brown sugar, salt and bacon grease in medium pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to medium and cook down for 15-20 minutes. Stir often to avoid burning your sugar.
- Add bacon to glaze.
- Place nuts in a large bowl and pour glaze on top. Stir gently until all the nuts are lightly coated.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
- Break into pieces and store in air tight container.

That's it! Just 6 ingredients. This snack is easy to whip up and will keep for up to a week. For more healthy snacking ideas, visit Nuts.com. Go Chargers!

Adventuring in Big Sur, California

Tuan and I recently went on our first overnight trip without Parker. It was hard to leave our little man behind but we had such a great time visiting friends and hanging out sans baby. Here are a few pictures from our one night of glamping in Big Sur. 

[This is what it looks like when your husband is annoyed that you keep wanting to stop to take pictures.]

[Buzzard's Roost Trail was a fun hike but the pay off was not worth it. We saw some people struggling through the climb in flip flops which was totally insane.]

[The view from the top of Buzzard's Roost. Whomp whomp.]

[Quite possibly the greatest picture I've ever taken of Tuan. My instructions were to be creepy. He nailed it.]

[After a day of hiking, we started a fire in front of our glamping site and made smores. Glamping under red woods was amazing. I hope we can do it again soon.]

Lego Travel Box Tutorial

Forgive me for this super late post. In preparation for our Cabo trip, I made portable LEGO kits for Parker and Elijah so they would have something fun to play with on the plane. This is an easy project and you can find a full tutorial over on the Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog. Jen's instructions are easy to follow so I'll just share my buy list with you. 

Materials

Metal lunchbox (I found these in the dollar section at target)

LEGO building plate

LEGO Juniors Easy to Build Pirate Treasure Hunt

Mounting tape

Scissors

Instructions

Mama. Papa.Bubba.

These kits were a big hit with the boys on the plane and throughout the trip. I'm so glad I made them!

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico 2015 Family Vacation

Our recent trip to Cabo was 10 years in the making. TEN YEARS. I have known Susan, Liz, Giao and Thuy since high school and though we are all close, we are terrible at planning get-togethers. To make up for lost time, we planned a 5 day, 4 night trip to Cabo San Lucas to celebrate all of our 30th birthdays and had the time of our lives hanging out, eating tacos and spending too much time on boats. Happy 30th birthday to everyone in the gang! Cheers to many more years of friendship.

Quick reviews

Hotel

Club Tesoro - Amazing location, inconsistent service/quality, stop trying to sell me a timeshare.

Recommended Good Eats

Taco Guss - Delicious tacos, this is all I needed to eat.

Soloman's Landing Restaurant - Great breakfast spot if you don't mind looking at pics of Guy Fieri.

Maro's Shrimp House - Total tourist spot but food was good. Dip everything in the butter.

Salvatore's - Great italian food in Mexico. Who would have thought?

[Parker's first time having his very own seat. Tuan and I were dreading having to haul his big carseat around but it was a breeze with the Traveling Toddler Car Seat Travel Accessory. Genius invention! Everyone should have one.]

[The flight to Cabo was about 2 hours from San Diego. Once we got into the city and checked in our room, we were greeted by this amazing view of the marina.]

[Parker literally spent hours hanging out in the swimming pool. He was able to show off his mad swimming skills to all his uncles and aunts.]

[Giao and Phillip.]

[Liz, Elijah and Huy.]

[This pic of Parker splashing in the pool is one of my favorites from the trip. Rash guard from J Crew, board shorts from Cotton On Kids.]

[Matching in our Ray Bans.]

[The hotel's proximity to the marina was a bonus. Many evenings were spent strolling around in the crazy heat looking for crabs, puffers and other marine life swimming in the water.]

[My itty bitty tourist checking out the carved turtles.]

[We ate a lot of delicious food on our trip but the one place we kept going back to was Tacos Guss. I cannot say enough about this place. All of the tacos were on point especially the al pastor and lengua.]

[We roll deep.]

[Steven having the time of his life while Susan helps prepare a Bulldog, Maro's signature drink, for him.]

[One of the highlights of Parker's trip was opening Kinder Surprise Eggs everyday. It's so lame that they are not available (legally) in the U.S.]

And then we decided to get drunk and take couple photos...

[Thuy & David]

[These two crazies. Susan and Steven.]

[Huy, Baby E and Liz]

[Giao & Phillip]

[Us.]

[Love that we are still crazy and silly.]

[Chilaquiles from Soloman's. Bomb.]

[As we were pulling out of the marina for our snorkeling trip, this boat pulled in. Yes!]

[Parker had a ton of fun playing with Uncle Phillip on this trip. Here they are playing with the wooden Lightening McQueen and Towmater I bought for him in the giftshop.] 

[We could not find a paleteria for the life of us so we settled for soft serve at Burger King. Check out Parker's toe in this pic.]

[Swimming with the dolphins did not go well. We lasted about 20 minutes in the water before Parker screamed to get out. Thanks Susan for being a trooper and joining us for this experience. The "professional" pictures are timeless. I hope you make that your Christmas card photo this year.]

We could have been in any city and I would have been a happy camper just for the opportunity to spend time with my BFFs.