life lately

Life has been so sweet lately.

Lots of things have been happening and this has been a really lovely season in our lives. It's crazy to think that summer is coming to an end already and that back-to-school shenanigans are back in order. Being in my 2nd trimester has been amazing. They say that you feel the best during this trimester - and they definitely weren't exaggerating! Eugene has also been a lot more free these days which has been quite a change! He is home by dinner time every night for the first time in 3 years and it is my absolute fave. 

So as you may/may not know, we finally moved out of the ghetto fabulous city of Downey so #tsengsindowney is no more. It was a fun sesason of our lives filled with a lot of good eats (Portos, Dunkin Donuts, Peking Restraunt, and basically everthing in Cerritos) and lots of growing (surviving third year!)- but we are so excited to be out of there and back in Orange County! 

OC is truly the best. We are so happy to be back "home" and to be able to build our life here again - especially with our growing family. It's been so sweet being close to our friends and church family! This was our first meal together in our new hood!

I barely cooked during my 1st trimester because of morning sickness + crazy fatigue.. but now that my energy is back and my nausea is gone - i'm so excited to be back in the kitchen to make healthier and more balanced meals instead of eating fries + hot Cheetos all day.

I've also been traveling a lot. In this last month, I went out of town almost every week (for weddings, to visit friends or just to go on short weekend trips with my family). I hear this is the best/only time I'm technically allow to fly so I've been savoring that up too! I love clouds, it's my fave!

One of the best parts of this month was being able to visit my favorite little kiddos. Please continue to pray for this sweet little fighter Emily as she continues to battle against Stage IV Neuroblastoma. Stay updated on this page here: Updates on Emily

Eugene has been so sweet to me and really spoiling me like crazy these days. His favorite thing to say to me right now is "treat yo'self". He is quite the Parks + Rec fan boy. I love him so much!

I've also been trying to be more mindful of spending more time by myself - rather it be in cafes or even taking random no-purpose trips to Target just to walk around (and hopefully not buy anything). It's been so sweet and I'm trying to savor each moment! 

Being closer to friends has been such a sweet change. It's so much easier to meet up with people throughout the week for lunch. This was an amazing meal that I had at the Anaheim Packing District with a few of my wife friends. My first time at Kettlebar and their pan roast was AMAZING. 

I also took quite an hiatus from anything art related while I was pregnant. Sitting and staring at a piece of paper during my 1st trimester would induce dry heaves and non-stop gags (so weird!) but I'm starting to slowly get back to it and it's been so much fun! 

Random cravings have also finally begun. Some days I just randomly have a craving that will last for approximately 12 hours at a time. This week it was baked ziti with meat sauce and kimchijjigae (김치 찌개)

My belly is also beginning to pop. We have finally passed the food belly point (at around 20 weeks!) I officially cannot button my scrub top at work. so exciting!

Have a good weekend friends xoxo

our gender reveal party for our baby boy!

this past sunday, we hosted a gender reveal party for our little one.

I had never actually attended a gender reveal party before - so I had no idea what to plan or how to get started (thank goodness we live in a generation with Pinterest!) It was so much fun to plan and it was such a great time to celebrate our bundle of joy together with our family and friends.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of baby pink and blue.

Because we didn't want to spend too much money on this party, most of the stuff was simple DIY stuff.  The tassle garland was made with help from this DIY video.

Of course we had to have a tally board. And all of the guests wore either blue or pink clothespins signifying what they believed baby tseng to be. It was a pretty close tie!

-- I was able to repurpose a lot of my old frames and wood blocks to use as chalkboards. (I love all things chalkboard!) It's actually really easy (and cheap!) to make your own chalkboards with chalkboard paint! 

My favorite part to plan was the food. There are so many cute ideas online! I wanted to incorporate both the girl and boy theme so decided to stick with "What little boys and girls are made of!"

Manly grub for the boy's side.

Sugar + spice things for the girl's side.

And then came the big reveal..

Eugene actually did a fist pump at one point. :)

We are so excited and thrilled to meet our little boy. It's been so fun and crazy referring to our baby as "our son". Even though Eugene said he didn't have a preference before our grand reveal, I can tell that he was secretly hoping that our first would be a boy. (apparently, this rings true for all guys!)

We didn't want any of our guests to bring gifts to our party. (That would have been kind of weird!) but we decided to host a diaper raffle. We asked our guests to bring a bag of diapers of any size for any age to enter the raffle. We raffled off gift cards and we were so surprised how many of our guests participated! 

Our nursery is a work in progress, but it is now filled with lots of bags of diapers! (even a bag of cute diapers from Japan - thanks Sata's!)

It was such a joyous day for us - not only because we were able to find out our baby's gender but because we were surrounded by so many of our friends and family. We were reminded that it really does take a village to raise and love a child and we are so incredibly blessed to have our family and friends to go through this next season with.

Thanks for celebrating with us - whether it be in the flesh or in spirit.
We love you all so much and feel so blessed!

xoxo

baby tseng - he or she?

This past week, Eugene and I had an impromptu staycation + babymoon week.

Eugene is currently in his 4th year rotations for pharmacy school, so he actually only has one week off before the baby arrives in January. Although we didn't have the time to plan an actual getaway, we stayed true to ourselves (crazy homebodies) and had a relaxing week to ourselves. We ate good food and enjoyed an amazing week away from work and school just to be together. To close off this wonderful week, we are throwing a small gender reveal party tomorrow!



My life has been all things pink and blue this week.


hello belly.



We did our 2nd trimester anatomy scan on Monday last week and I have been hiding the sealed envelope from Eugene all week like my life depended on it (he's so impatient, haha!) It would be an understatement to say we are thrilled to find out what gender our baby is!

We will be finding out tomorrow with all of our family and friends!

Eugene says "boy". I, however, have absolutely no inkling at all!

So excited that we won't have to keep referring to our poor child as an "it" after tomorrow!
(sorry, baby).

Will keep you posted!

xoxo