Family Tanjoubi

Which means, "birthday" in Japanese. (pronounced: TAHN-JOE-BEE)

Anyway...

On the 12th of February we had a small family celebration for Miki's 4th birthday. I can't believe 4 years have passed already. However, like my mom noted during one recent Skype call, 4 sounds incredibly young for a little girl who has enriched our families' lives so much already.

Ericka found princess-shaped pasta for the special dinner that night and the girls loved it; especially the "glass" slipper. Miki even claimed she could tell which ones were Belle and which ones were Jasmine!

And then of course we had a small, but delicious cake (thank you, Kumika!), complete with 4 candles.

After dinner Miki opened her 2 packages from the Grandparents. The princess book was extremely well-received (big surprise) and Sam loves her little princess shirt, because, I'm assuming, her big sister has one just like it and now they can be twins.

Thank you Nana, Pop, Grammy & Gramps for the generous gifts.

Happy Birthday, Miki!

We celebrated Miki's 4th birthday last weekend with a party for 10 of the students from her pre-school class. Ericka organized the whole thing, I made invites on the computer and, as per our suggestion, her friends brought gifts of flowers. Our apartment is now an assortment of white and pink roses and tulips. Miki absolutely loves the flowers and has begun to collect the various petals as they fall off.

It should note that we did not hold the party in our apartment, but rather rented a large, common (tatami) area on the 1st floor. As for decorations, the tables were covered in newsprint paper and crayons and stickers were provided for artistic impulses. Ericka said that she couldn't have decorated better; the kids made it look very festive indeed!

As for the cakes, there were 4 Milky Cake cream rolls, courtesy of a local pastry shop. We added blueberries, strawberries, a few raspberries and 1 chocolate swirl per child. Of course Miki loved it and wanted more.

We sang happy birthday in English and then Ericka broke into a spontaneous "head, shoulders, knees and toes" song and then read from a new book called, "My Heart Is Like A Zoo". Even after the aforementioned sugar injection, the kids were very keen on the book and listened intently to every word.

As our 2 hour party was winding down it began to snow. The kids and moms left in very high spirits and by 6pm that evening Ericka and I were exhausted. Needless to say, Miki was excited long into the evening but slept happily.

I have a feeling that she will remember this birthday bash for a very long time.

The Anpanman Museum

Earlier this year we took a day-trip to the city of Yokohama (you can read that particular posting below somewhere...) and the famed Anpanman Museum.

Anpanman is a legendary character here in Japan. He's actually one character (a sweet, red bean-filled pastry personified) but the whole animated series is referred to as Anpanman. Anyway, the animated stories began in 1968 and it's been going strong ever since. In fact, I think Anpanman made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the sheer number of different characters in a single animated franchise. Something like 1,700 characters have appeared over the years.

Anyway, the Anpanman Museum is in Yokohama and Ericka took Miki to check it out while I strolled around in the vicinity with a sleeping Sam.

M & S

Sam & her mug shot, Miki, her flowers & the much coveted Cheerios from the Grandparents.

Zzzzz...

Sleeping on the train.

Temaki Sushi

Hungry? Make it yourself.

Hence the title, "hand-made" sushi.

Last Thursday was a national holiday in Japan (National Foundation Day) and our good friends Nobu & Mihoko invited us and another lovely friend over for a do-it-yourself sushi party..

In addition to Miki's 4th birthday, the event also happened to coincide (early by a week, but close enough!) with Kumika's. Happy Birthday, Kumika-chan! Plenty of reason to celebrate with sushi, sake & cake.

Of course Sam & Haruka had fun playing together and Miki tried to play big sister to both of them.

Nobu and I polished off (no pun intended) 2 bottles of sake (really, they weren't that big, but they were tasty!) which made for our evening train-ride home in the pouring rain quite interesting.

Thank you once again, Nobu & Mihoko for having us over and for all the wonderful food. Let's do it again soon!

Gochisosamadeshita...

Yuki daruma

That's how they say "snowman" in Japanese.

Late yesterday afternoon the sky turned a cold grey and then it started to rain. However, towards evening it turned to snow and by 10pm it was really coming down.

By morning there was about 4 inches on the ground. A bit before 9am I headed out with both girls to bring Miki to school. Pushing the stroller thru the melting slush was no easy task since the city probably doesn't even own a snowplow, let alone something to clear the sidewalks with!

Of course Miki loved it. Here are a few photos from our walk home from school.