Sunshine and Clouds

In the past week we have experienced a lot of rain which almost makes me think the rainy season has arrived when it is supposed to this year. Our first year we saw no change in precipitation during the late spring/early summer, and last year, when the rainy season finally did come, it was a month later than it should have been. 

After a week of almost solid rain, the sky cleared a tiny bit during the weekend so that we could have a barbecue for Rosie's birthday on Saturday, and get all of the laundry that had accumulated during the rainy week washed and dried. Thanks for cooperating so nicely clouds! 

Cake stacked and iced with cupcakes skewered to the top.

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early (seriously Rosie, you need to stop waking up before 5 am!) and got to work on decorating the birthday cake. I decided go with a hydrangea theme because they are one of my favorite flowers and this is the season that they are blooming in Japan. I had made 3 round cakes and a dozen cupcakes earlier in the week and frozen them and also 3 batches of icing the night before. I leveled off two of the three cakes and stacked the layers with icing in between in the brown plastic base of a planter pot. I did not level off the dome shaped top of the uppermost layer to give the cake a bit more roundness and height. I fully iced the cake in chocolate cream cheese icing so that it would look like a plant pot. I then arranged the cupcakes on the top of the cake and secured them in place by sticking 15 cm long skewers through them and into the cake. 

Finished!

To ice the cupcakes, I used the star tipped icing nozzle and an icing bag. I put blobs of purple and blue in the icing bag separately and tried not to mix it up too much so that I would get colour variation as I iced. I then took a few hydrangea leaves and arranged them here and there. As a side note, hydrangea leaves are mildly toxic (they contain cyanide), so I wrapped the cut ends in aluminum foil before decorating the cake with them. It was really easy and took me just over an hour to decorate from start to finish.

The only problem I ran into was that over the course of the morning, the temperature in our kitchen rose to 27˚ C and the humidity to 89%. The icing started to liquify and things started slipping so I had to pop it in the fridge until the party.

close up of the "flowers"

After icing the cake, I had to run off to work for the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon. While I was at work, Mr. Oshima took Theo on a tour of our local water treatment plant, something he has been talking about for months. We got to hear all about poop eating bacteria for the rest of the day. Yaaay! 

When I returned home we had a few close friends over for a barbecue to celebrate Rosie's birthday. 

Totally oblivious to the fact that it was her party

William and the Oshimas

First inspection of her birthday cupcake

Realizing that smashing it is so much more fun than eating it. 

Because the weather remained warm and mostly sunny the next day, I pulled out the little pool and let the kids splash around a bit.

This was Rosie's first time in the pool and she loved it.

Also, thanks to a little inspiration from my cousin over at lately léna, the boys and I spent a few hours on Sunday tie dyeing some old t-shirts and a onesie. 

Now I have a few cups of dye left over and my eyes are roving for anything else that could help me use it up. I've already convinced Dustin to let me have fun with some of his undershirts but who knows what else is going to get some colour around here!

Out With The Old

Goodbye dragon and hello snake!

I know that my sister thinks it is disgraceful, but Dustin and I don't usually do anything special for New Year's Eve. We did before we had young children, and may again when they become old enough to notice or care, but for now we usually have a quiet night and go to bed at a normal time, too tired to even stay awake until midnight.

We did celebrate a bit the next day by having friends over and cooking a delicious nabe for lunch. That's about as interesting as it gets around here on New Year's Day.

On January 3rd, we went over to our Japanese grandparent's house to eat osechi ryori, or traditional Japanese New Year's food.

The children and I enjoyed it and since every food has a lucky symbolic meaning for the new year, I ate at least a piece of everything. This website has some beautiful pictures and also gives the meaning of all the foods eaten.

After our meal we were surprised by a delicious birthday cake that Obaasan had made for Theo and Ojiisan, who turned 70 on January 4th.

William then helped Obaasan whisk up some matcha

Obaasan and Ojiisan continued to thoroughly spoil our children by giving them otoshidama. This is a gift of money that is given to children in pretty envelopes on New Year's. We are so blessed to have this wonderful couple in our lives!

Birthday Boys

Over the holidays, we celebrated Dustin's 33rd birthday on December 30th and Theo's 5th birthday on January 2nd.

I just love these guys!

For Dustin's birthday, we ditched the kids with our neighbours and went out for a relaxing date night. We had intended on going to see the Hobbit, but after finding out that it would take up almost 3 hours in transit just to get to and from the only movie theatre that was showing it subtitled and not dubbed and in 2-d, we decided just to go out for supper instead and save the movie for another time. What we didn't count on is that it would be almost impossible to get a table at any nice-ish restaurant without a reservation so close to New Year's. After being turned away from 4 full restaurants we were beginning to get a bit desperate, not going to KFC or Sukiya desperate, but close.

After almost an hour of biking around, we happened on a hidden little nabe restaurant that was just what we were looking for. It was in a turn of the century traditional Japanese house with gorgeous carved furniture all inlaid with mother of pearl. There was only one other couple their for a brief time and then we had the place to ourselves. We had a very relaxing and nice time and I hope that Dustin felt loved and appreciated.

I apologize for how grainy these photos are. We took them with Dustin's phone when we realized we forgot the camera.

Meanwhile, Theo has become more and more interested in Star Wars lately and requested a lightsaber cake for his birthday. I found some pairs of lightsaber chopsticks at a novelty shop and whipped up this cake for him.

We decided to plan a little shindig for his friends and him at the mall nearby our house. In the basement of the mall they have a children's activity area in which Theo has always wanted play. Either because of lack of time, money, or the play area being closed, we had never been able to grant his wish. It worked out for the best though because this meant that it was extra special for his birthday.

First, Theo and his friends played, ran, and shouted like lunatics for an hour.

After some of their energy was burned off, everyone gathered for cake and presents. Theo was so excited about his Star Wars cake and is showing his smarmiest smile to prove it. 

He was also overjoyed about the lightsaber that he was given.

Opening presents with his friends looking on.

This is the first time that I have celebrated one of the children's birthdays outside of my home and I must say it was wonderful. It was so much less stressful and at the end I didn't have the feeling of relief that it was finally over and I survived another kid's birthday party. I also didn't have a whole house to clean up and a million dishes to wash. I am certainly going to do something like this again in the future! 

The Beat Goes On

Last week we had two more reasons to celebrate: New Year's and Theo's Birthday. On the 31st, we were invited by a friend to a mochi pounding party. Traditionally, mochi is made by pounding special glutinous rice using a large wooden hammer. There are actually two people involved, one to pound the rice with the hammer, and one to wet the rice, making sure it doesn't stick to the bowl while turning and flipping it. The timing of these two people has to be pretty precise or the rice would cool too quickly, or someone could get their hand smashed by a massive hammer. It forms a smooth, soft, stretchy ball after a while which is then shaped into smaller balls for eating. This is a popular New Year's event, and we really enjoyed getting into the festivities.

The mochi that day was made in a more modern way with the rice first being steamed in tiered wooden stacks, then put into a pounding machine, placed in another machine for cutting the newly formed mochi into smaller pieces, and finally being rolled in a little rice flour and lined up to cool. Some of it was filled with sweet red bean, which is Theo and my absolute favorite. Truthfully, Theo loves all mochi to excess and was in his glory when he was allowed to eat all he wanted.

First, the rice was steamed in this large wooden contraption.

It was then placed in this machine to be pounded into a soft, stretchy mass. A few weeks ago, Theo had told me all about a mochi pounding robot that he wanted to build so that he could have mochi whenever he wanted. He had no idea that something like that already existed, and was speechless and amazed when he saw the pounding machine.

 The soft and warm mass is then put into the top funnel of another machine that pushes it out while snipping off balls.

The newly formed balls are lightly coated in rice flour to keep them from sticking. Here, Theo is sporting a fresh mochi that he is about to devour.

After eating his fill, he helped roll more balls in flour and place them in neat rows. The white, half circle forms that look a bit like two mortars joined together are molds for making kagami mochi, a two tiered mochi that is a New Year tradition and decoration. 

I have no idea how much mochi they ended up making that day, since we only stayed for a couple of hours. It is their family's tradition every year to make mochi and give it to all of their friends, family, and neighbours for New Year.

The family owns a small factory that builds machines for making senbei. Theo had lots of fun poking around the factory, checking out all of the cool tools and machine parts.

They also roasted some delicious black soy beans for us to munch on.

Theo's Mario birthday cake

On January 2nd, Theo turned four years old. We had a relaxed celebration at home with pizza, balloons, and a cake decorated with his current favourite character: Mario. He absolutely loves the Mario Brothers and has been pretending that he is Mario and William is Luigi for months. His interest crossed the boundary into obsession a few weeks ago and now the first thing that leaves his mouth in the morning and the last thing that escapes his mouth at night usually has something to do with Mario. At one point, I asked him who I was, and he told me I was Princess Peach because I am so pretty. Awww...

This past Thursday was Theo's first day back at kindergarten after a two week break. Dustin is also back to work, so hopefully everything will settle back into our pre-holiday routine and I will be able to blog a little bit more about what is happening in our lives.