Every year (except last year because I just had a baby), we celebrate my sister, Kimbie’s, birthday on Labor Day weekend at the Saratoga Race Track. Since it is her birthday, she gets to choose how we celebrate it. Most people do not know this, but Kimbie is a closet low budget gambler and that’s why she likes to go to the track. We packed a picnic, cooler and chairs to setup camp for a day of racing. This year I let Mimi pick all of the bets. I would read her all of the names of the horses that were racing and she would pick the winner.
After we placed our bet, we would watch the race. Mimi loved to watch the horses race.
We didn’t win any of the races but Mimi had a blast choosing the horses and watching the race and that’s all that counts. I hope she doesn’t become a closet low budget gambler like her Ee-ee…haha.
At the entrance of the track, there was a horse statue that Mimi wanted to take a picture with. She hung on its tail.
Then hung on his nose. Good thing it was a statue!
Around dinner time, we licked our wounds from losing and headed to dinner. In the past we have gone to Fortunes at the Saratoga Harness Track (so that Kimbie can gamble more at the casino downstairs), but the food has been more and more disappointing each year, we decided to change it up and have dinner at Hattie’s, a New Orleans fried chicken restaurant.
I ordered the fried chicken, red beans and rice, and the cucumber salad. And even though I am on a gluten and dairy free diet because of my eczema and had to take off the fried parts of the chicken, the food was delicious!
Ben & Jerry’s is just around the corner from Hattie’s and even though we didn’t stop for ice cream because we had birthday cake at home waiting for us, I had to get this photo of the girls.
We came home to eat Kimbie’s Price Chopper birthday cake. The girls helped her blow out the candles.
Happy Birthday Kimbie! We had a great time celebrating your 32nd (yes, I wrote it) birthday!
Love your sister, Chrissy
We celebrated Isabella’s (or Moysee as we call her) first birthday last weekend. As I was putting together the guest list, I realized that Moysee doesn’t have any friends. I don’t have any friends with kids her age and we haven’t participated in any activities yet to meet friends…something I need to work on before her next birthday. So we decided to have a family party, which turned out to be over 40 people! The party was a BBQ and thankfully the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful day.
My parents stayed with me at the house a week before the party to get everything ready. My goal was to do very little cooking the day of the party besides BBQ’ing so that we could hang out with our guests. That meant all meat needed to be marinated, dumplings wrapped and frozen, corn husked, salad washed, fruit cut, decorations hung…there was a lot to do. And even with all of this preparation, I was up till 3am the day before the party, and my mom was up till 5am! I found this DIY birthday sign on Pinterest, made some modification to jazz it up a little bit, and had Jeff make the letters and numbers with his sticker machine. It took me three days to make but it looked great and I was so proud to make it myself. Because it was so much work, I decided to make it for ages 1 to 99 so we can use it for all our birthdays every year!
One of my Dad’s projects for the party was to paint the dining room. Boy, was this a big project…especially when you have a baby crawling into everything. As much work as parties are, it’s a great way to get you motivated to clean the house from top to bottom and take care of all home improvements on your list.
It rained in the morning but by the time the party started it was a beautiful day. We blew up the water slide jumping castle for the kids to play in. It was a huge hit!
We also had water balloons for the kids to play and throw. It’s amazing how 100 water balloons could be gone in less then 15 minutes. The kids had a blast!
Moysee played in the water for a little bit. It was a little hard with all of the big kids splashing around but she was happy to just be around them.
Then she went to her swing to hang out.
We had so much to BBQ my dad brought his charcoal BBQ from the house upstate. After dinner, we let the kids roast these gigantic marshmallows I found in the store. I found out later Mimi had two of them! No wonder she had a belly ache the next day.
Isabella’s birthday cake was an ice cream cake from Carvel. Two weeks before her birthday I started to replace her formula with cow’s milk to make sure she wouldn’t be allergic to her birthday cake. And of course we had the hello kitty candle we use for all our birthdays on top. Our cousin Zui took this photo. I love that he caught us all blowing out her candle.
Moysee loved her ice cream cake.
After I fed her a few times, she wanted to use the spoon to feed herself.
She was doing a great job with the spoon.
But she couldn’t scoop up a lot of ice cream so she started to use her hand.
Using the spoon and her hand was the best (and messiest) way to get the ice cream into her mouth. She had to take a bath right after finishing her cake.
The next morning Moysee opened her gifts after Mimi gave her a morning kiss.
She loved ripping the paper.
Mimi helped her open the gifts.
Oo-Oo Melissa (Chinese for paternal aunt in kiddy speak) always knows the fun toys to buy. Moysee played in the car all day.
Ee-ee (Chinese for maternal aunt in kiddy speak) really wanted to open a gift also so we finally let her.
Mimi, my oldest daughter turned 4 a couple of weeks ago. This year instead of having a big party, we took a family vacation to Boston (look out for pictures in the next blog post). On birthday day, it was all about the birthday girl. The Hello Kitty candle on her Carvel ice cream cake is the same candle we have been using since her first birthday.
After a birthday pancake breakfast, it was all about opening presents.
Moysee (Isabella’s nick name) helped her big sister open presents.
Family picture with the birthday girl in front of her birthday cake.
She might be 4, but I remember her this big like it was yesterday.
Happy 4th Birthday Baby! I love you always. Love, Mama
We had a family dinner at home and a Carvel birthday cake. Like I said, a very low-key day…we are all in our pajamas in this picture.
Dinner with my sister, Kimbie, and brother, Matt, at 
One of my favorite things to do is go horseback riding. Kimbie and my cousin, Cheryl, graciously joined me on a trail ride up north. Have you ever seen the movie 
I have this equestrian helmet that I purchased many years ago and I just love it. I think wearing it is most of the reason I love horseback riding so much.
After horseback riding, we headed home for Matt’s famous fried chicken and wine.
We celebrated with a dinner at Delight 28 in Chinatown. This is Po’s favorite restaurant.
Everyone was in good spirits for the birthday celebrations. This is a great family photo, everyone is smiling…even Gung!
Dinner was of course too much delicious food. There isn’t much chatting when the food arrives at the table, everyone is too busy eating. We ate lobster, Ging Do Pi Gwut (peking pork chop), fish, chicken, mayonnaise shrimp, and long life noodles.
The fish was especially tasty that evening.
Mimi is one of the only people who can put a smile on Jeff’s face on his birthday.
She loves to get kisses from her daddy.