Homemade Banana Ice Cream

We always skype my in-laws every Sunday, and it is also very common to exchange recipes during our skype sesh. Garry's mom and his brother Jean loves to cook, and they are the ones who would often give me recipes. Whenever a dish fails after I try to make it, I blame it on Garry and his French to English translation of the recipe. Sounds just fair. But there's this one that I totally nailed (at least I think so). The most recent recipe that Mom shared was a Banana Ice Cream. It was the simplest recipe she ever gave me (probably the only simple one, she has a lot of complicated cooking and baking habits). I loved all the ice cream that they had me try when I was in Tahiti: coconut, taro, banana. That's why I was very excited to try this recipe out!

screenshot of Garry's notes when mom was explaining the recipe to him. very unreliable

in other words. . .

Ingredients:

4 Banana

4 tbsp Heavy Cream

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 Lemon (pressed)

1 tbsp Caramel

1. Mash the banana

2. Mix in all the ingredients

3. Freeze overnight

That's it!

I think it tasted really good because we have good bananas here in the Philippines. ;)

will always be a special day - January 1st

We always love new year! We celebrate another year's beginning together with Garry's birthday and our engagement anniversary. Personally, new year is the perfect time for earnest reflections. Every new year I  look back and count all the blessings I received from the previous year and start planning ahead for another year. It's a really good time to be sentimental and be excited at the same time :)

January is supposed to be cold, but it never is for Keahi and Garry. Started the year at the pool, here's our smokin hot baby in his swim wear. soooo sexy!

we also visited the zoo

and then we went to MOA at night

fireworks display

cake for our engagement anniversary, only to give both of us sore throat after a week. haha

and of course my hubby's birthday. we are so happy mom and tito allan came to visit us for the new year. we had more company and food :)

My thoughts on new year always revolve around my favorite scripture verse found in Proverbs 3. Verse 5 tells me what I should do as I plan for the new year ahead of me. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding." It feels good to know that there is a great source of strength and guidance that you can always rely on. It keeps you motivated in pursuing another 365 days of your life with joy and happiness. Verse 6 also tells me what to do as I look back on the year that just passed. "In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path." Gratitude changes everything. You know how special you are if you know how to count your blessings. Life is good! I'm very excited for this new year.

Mou Tham's first Christmas in PH

I've been waiting for this since we arrived here in the Philippines on April. I was away for 3 years, and this year I am glad I finally was able to celebrate Christmas with my family as well as with Garry and Keahi. Here's how the Mou Thams celebrated their simple yet very special first Christmas in the Philippines.

Started it out with the breath taking beauty of the Manila Temple at night with Christmas lights and decorations. It was such a wonderful visit. While waiting for the session to start I was staring at the name of the person I am doing the proxy for. The lady next to me suddenly grabbed my hand and with her teary eyes said, "That's one of the names I submitted. That's one of my ancestors. Thank you for doing this."

And then we attended our Ward Christmas Party which had a Filipino Kapistahan Theme. The primary kids decorated each family's picture with a frame, and they hang it on our Ward Christmas Tree. Here's ours.

Keahi and his friend during the ward Christmas Party.

And yes! I was able to get Garry to dress up in Filipino attire too.

The Sunday before Christmas my boys decided to go purple

And we arrived at Tarlac on the 24th. Here's my mom's Christmas tree. Of all those gifts I found 1 for me, 4 for Garry, and probably half of all of it for Keahi. haha. (Mom's been giving more gifts to Garry than to me since we got married, I don't understand)

Our little family Christmas eve celeb was simple. We had lots of games for the kids and some flashback moments like on these photo mom and grandma are going over the ancient photo albums of the family and showing them to Garry. It was fun until they started showing Garry my childhood pictures, not cool! :)

And of course, FOOD!

On the 25th we had a family reunion together with the whole family on my mom's mom's side.

We've been doing this every year for many years now. We dedicate the party to Lola Puti (my mom's grandma). I call her Lola Puti because she has white hair ever since I was a kid. She is 89 years old, she's the one wearing purple with, guess what? haha. white hair. This picture is of my family alone. There's four others of about the same size from my grandma's siblings.

Keahi enjoyed all his gifts. It was heaven seeing him that way. Every time they call out his name and say, "TO KEAHI." He would clap his hands and say "Wow!"