Happy Birthday, Iki-chan!!

My boy is finally turned 5 today. Yesterday we had party with families, and Iki was very happy to have his grandparents and cousins coming. I didn't take pictures at all :(, as a host I was really really busy preparing the food and making sure everything run smoothly.

We had roasted chicken and cheese fondue as the main food, with octopus tomato salad and christmas tree ham as side dish.

And this is the birthday/christmas cake.

Today we just had a quiet day. Ate sekihan, Japanese red bean rice for breakfast to celebrate birthday and buckwheat noodle (soba) for dinner. Soba is usually eaten on New Year eve in Japan as a symbol of longevity meanwhile eating noodle during birthday for Indonesian has the same meaning too!

He is showered with presents this month. Both for Christmas and birthday. Looking at his room, I don't think I will buy him anymore toys until next December!

He loves mini lego now and can build things following the instruction book already. And this is him making Newton Telescope (with papa-chan's help!), his birthday present from papa.

Happy 5th birthday my boy (^___^)

Ah...

Iki was down with stomach bug, high fever and never ending coughing
for two days. He is good and busy studying Japanese now but I started
to feel very sleepy and tired!

Oh god no, pls, I have to be good until new year. Will host whole in
laws family Christmas and iki's birthday party here tomorrow, and
prepare the Japanese new year food the next day.

Please oh please, I really don't want to get sick now �

Christmas Ski

We went to Zao, an onsen area in northern Japan last weekend. Ski season just started last week, so Hiro thought it would be a great way to spend Christmas skiing instead of camping!

At first Iki was excited and followed papa-chan instruction

Well then again, the drama began. Papa-chan got angry and Iki-chan started to cry

Papa-chan walked away.... and everyone felt bad.

So at last we just put him into the ski school. He loved it, wanted to learn ski more, but not from papa-chan. He wants to learn only from the ski school now (>.<).

Anyway both papa-chan and Iki-chan had a good time skiing. And me....just waiting while watching the snowfall and eating a lot of high calorie snacks (@_@).

At least I had fun playing with Iki

while papa-chan had to clean the car from the snow LOL

It was a beautiful day afterall. A beautiful white Christmas (^_^)

Merry Christmas, hope yours' are as beautiful as ours

Christmas special

I held Christmas special lesson for my students today. It was tiring,
I had to prepare everything myself, but we had so much fun. My
students enjoyed it and it matters the most!!

Tanjoubi-kai

Or birthday party :)

Winter holiday will start next week, so we held birthday party for Iki last Tuesday. As he gets older, it is impossible to have party for him right on his birthday. No friends would come for a birthday party on December 31st!!

Iki requested Transformer Bumblebee birthday cake, which I thought was impossible to make at first!

Lazy me then just brought ready made sponge cake, made a round hole on the surface and filled it in with chocolate whipped cream and chopped mixed nuts.

Then worked on the robot's shapes using marsmallow fondant. It was fun actually, I felt like playing with edible playdough

Even Papa-chan also helped to draw the red trasnformer mark. Because according to Iki, that tiny complicated mark was so important (@_@)

And here it is. Transformer Bumblebee cake..

He loved it, everyone loved it

My boy will be five by the end of this year (^___^).

F I V E!!!

Yakiniku Party

I like having friends coming to my place. We do it a lot now. Either just waiting for the kids to play, for doing some crafts together, for a beer, or some parties.

We had Yakiniku party last week. Had a very good time, but sadly two of them are moving out pretty soon.....

But well....again I have to remind myself. That life is about Hello and Goodbye...

Wintery nails

Its getting colder and colder out there. I prefer sipping hot amaretto coffee instead of shopping around now. And doing my favorite relaxing activity: manicuring.

So here are my wintery nails, for welcoming winter (^____^)

Wednesday Bento: Merry Christmas!!

So here is the last Bento this year. Winter holiday is coming, and I will be free from bento making hassle until next year ;-)

My kitchen would like to wish you "Merry Christmas" too (^___^)

Inside:

Snowman: two umeboshi rice balls, nori, carrots, and crab

Steamed carrots

Gyoza

Oranges

Weekend date

We sent Iki to his grandparents' house for a night and had a date last Saturday. These few months we haven't really spent quality time only for the two of us, so it was just at a right time. Hiro brought me to watch classical orchestra live, and I was really impressed. Well, I actually was not allowed to take picture hehe :p

We walked a long Omotesando street and enjoyed how the luxurious street welcoming Christmas. Too bad there were thousands other people wanted to enjoy too that we could hardly walk. Oh well...this is the consequences of living in one of world's most populated city (@_@)

It was a relaxing night. Except that I fell of the stairs in the Subway station and Hiro yelled: "What the hell are you doing?! KAKKOWARUI (malu maluin!)!" - instead of worrying and asking if I was alright! Ah...that guy!

But still it was a good night afterall (^__^)

Flower arrangement

I joined flower arrangement class last week. I always think that I
don't have good sense in arranging flowers and I did have a hard time
putting all those fragile flowers together!