Posts Tagged ‘cake’

This post makes 300 blog entries here! Not that I was waiting for this magical number or anything, but I did notice it when I went to post. So the cake wasn’t really in celebration of this blog milestone; I was just baking a cake for no reason. But post #300 sounds like a better reason than just because I was hungry!

My past cakes have been pretty ordinary. Chocolate or white cake or mostly just whatever the box mix says to do and slop on some frosting. I saw this recipe at Recipezaar (my favorite recipe site!) after having some cake at the last ladies’ fellowship that sounds like it could be the same thing or close. Matt doesn’t care for coconut and has just started a diet (he thinks he’s too fat. Hah! But it’s good for him to try to eat better…) so I know I’m on my own with this cake, but I still wanted to try it out. Well, I have friends I can share with … I guess.

Rhino likes to “help” me in the kitchen lately, which I appreciate! I can’t wait to cook with him and teach him things in the kitchen. For now, he just likes to play with silverware, the refrigerator, bowls, peek inside the oven, etc. Well, yesterday he discovered the oven mitts while Nicole and I were making tacos. He put both of them on all by himself and came barreling into the living room to show off his mitts! I’m not sure if he thinks they’re puppets (which he has gotten the hang of for the most part and really enjoys!) or if he just likes to copy Mommy, but it’s very cute! So today while I had the cake in the oven, I left the oven mitts on the rug for him to play with. He put them on and walked around for quite a while, peeking in at the cake and turning to show me his hands. I love it!

Usually I pig out on the batter bowls, mixers, and spoons by myself, but there were enough bowls to share this time! I took the batter bowl and gave Rhino the pudding bowl/spatula and then the whipped cream bowl/spatula. What a lucky boy!

The cake is yellow cake, topped with a layer of crushed pineapple, then a layer of vanilla pudding, then a layer of whipped cream, then some toasted coconut. Delicious! Before layering the whipped cream, I let the cake cool for a while in the refrigerator. I guess I didn’t let it cool thoroughly enough, because when I went to take it out of the fridge and cut a piece, I noticed all the whipped cream had melted. So it’s not all tall and fluffy like it should be, but it the whole cake still tastes wonderful! Next time (ohh, there will be a next time!) I will be really patient and wait to do the whipped cream for quite a bit longer.

We have five pregnant ladies (that I know of!) at our church right now, all due within the next couple of months. Friday night we had our first baby shower. Tatjana is having a little girl (Tianna Isabelle) next month. Charren hosted this shower at her home, we had a fabulous turn-out (mostly church ladies) and a wonderful time!

We played a couple of baby shower games, such as finding the safety pins in a bowl full of uncooked rice while blind folded. We also passed around a roll of toilet paper and were told to unroll as much as we use in one day (and with four pregnant ladies present at the shower, the roll went quickly!) After we all had our toilet paper, we were told that we have to say one thing about ourselves for each square of paper we have. Tatjana definitely tore off the most and we got to hear a good deal about her life!

I brought Rhino along because Matt has to work at night and it didn’t really occur to me to leave him with one of the husbands (which pretty much everyone did.) So he was the only little kid there and is kind of distracting (especially at a 3 hour nighttime baby shower!) He was pretty well-behaved, but still very energetic and noisy! When we were all saying things about ourselves during the toilet paper game, he’d often laugh after someone gave a fact. Charren gave a nice devotional about loving your children and Rhino let a nice big burp right in the middle! A lot of the ladies got a kick out of him though, and he definitely enjoyed the attention. Heather was such a sweetheart and spent the most time with him: feeding him (that’s why they’re now best friends,) holding him, wiping jelly off his face, giving him toys, etc. He sang/whined himself down on her and almost fell asleep until he scratched his face on her necklace and came over to me. It was a nice break for me and he is really starting to get friendly with other people, thankfully!

Of course there was cake and presents. Katy made the chocolate cake with fondant and some yellow-cake cupcakes that were both delicious! This is the third cake she’s decorated and it turned out beautifully! I have a bunch of cake decorating supplies and it’s something I’ve wanted to get into, but it’s one of many things on my “to-learn” list that just hasn’t made it to the top yet. We decided we should bake up a bunch of cakes in advance and then have a day together to practice decorating!

Tatjana opened her gifts as we ate the cake. She all ready has a little boy, but this is her first girl and she received so many cute girly things! I got her some wipes, a set of Japanese-style (they tie like kimonos rather than snap) newborn clothes (onesies, sleepers, shirts, socks, etc.), and I crocheted her a little blanket. She also was given a ton of really adorable dresses, a bunch of diapers, and a neat little Japanese activity gym thing. She definitely made out with the adorable girl-loot!

The next three ladies (myself included!!) are all having boys; two of us all ready have boys. I’m told it will be one big shower for all three of us, probably just a diaper shower for the two of us who all ready have plenty of boy things. That’s fine with me (though I don’t really want/need a bunch of disposable diapers because we cloth diaper, but we’ll see!) because I just like getting together with friends (and cake!) Tatjana’s shower was actually the first baby shower I’ve attended other than my own and it was a blast!

On Saturday, Rhino and I went to a 1st birthday party for Carson and Cole, two babies at our church who were born a week apart.

Rhino had a blast playing with all the helium balloons and their strings (so did the other little kids!) We spent about an hour just watching the kids enjoying themselves before we dug in to hamburgers and hot dogs.

Charren (Cole’s mom) and Katy (Carson’s mom) had kiddie music playing: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, etc. and Rhino spent a lot of time just jamming out to the songs and dancing for the guests. His favorite new moves are deep, repetitive squats with his arms straight out or waving around. The boy is going to have awesomely strong thighs!

After all the food, the boys opened their presents. I gave each of them a hand-stitched felt ball, embroidered with their name and the year. After everything was unwrapped, the kids tossed it around a lot, so I think it was a hit! I still have to finish knitting up some little bear finger puppets as a belated gift. I just couldn’t get it all finished in time!

After presents we had cake! The party was baseball-themed and the cakes were very cute (and delicious!) baseball cakes with a trophy for each boy. Carson and Cole each were given a chocolate cupcake. Cole was pretty unsure about the cupcake, would cautiously take a little nibble from his dad’s finger, and sort of complain or avoid the cupcake for the rest of the time! Carson, on the other hand, immediately picked up his cupcake by its bottom, and shoved nearly the whole thing in his mouth!

It was a great time chatting with other moms, watching the kids play (Rhino loves being around other kids now!), and getting some yummy food! Happy First Birthday, Carson and Cole!

Last Friday was my 26th birthday. We had just gotten home from our Tokyo trip on Thursday evening, so I was really in the mood for a quiet, relaxing day. There wasn’t really anything excited to speak of! Matt was on “Rhino Duty” all day which means that I didn’t change any diapers or get feed him. If I wanted to knit and he was “bugging” me (he always wants to play with what I’m playing with!) then Matt would make sure he’s distracted and entertained. Of course, I didn’t want a Rhino-free day, so I got to play with him and do all the fun things! I got to read, knit, browse the web, and just veg — it was very nice!

Nicole called me up that afternoon to say that she and Mike were taking us out to dinner, my choice! That was super-nice so we didn’t worry about cooking dinner or anything. One of my favorite places to go in town is The Global Kitchen. It’s a cute little place that has a little bit of everything: some Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, “American”, etc. It’s not all amazing, but it’s a nice selection and we like to go on Sunday afternoons because you order all-you-can-eat of about 20 different little plates. They have a whole big room devoted to families with children, which is really nice for Rhino. They have high chairs and a fenced-in play area with a small slide, lots of books, stuffed animals, blocks, etc. Rhino used to not care so much about all the toys, but now whenever we go it is such a blast for him! Mike and Nicole hadn’t been in a long time, so it was nice to bring them back there too. We had never been for dinner, which isn’t all-you-can-eat but they offer larger portions and a much wider variety. I had cheese rolls (they make the best cheese rolls I’ve found and I crave them pretty much every day now!), a big bowl of corn soup (Nicole and I love finding places with corn soup!), and some spicy pineapple pork curry. Delicious! There’s always something for Rhino, too. He loves the little panko-breaded chicken pieces, cheese rolls, some of Matt’s yakisoba, and some of my Thai coconut curry (he eats my cute little mushrooms and eggplant pieces, but mostly loves the bamboo!) It was very nice to go out with Mike and Nicole and was quite a scrumptious dinner!

On Saturday we had Mike & Nicole and Liz + kids over for dinner. We did a strawberry and kiwi appetizer (which Josh and Aime inhaled!) then meatloaf, potatoes and green beans. I can’t find my favorite meat loaf recipe, so I sort of winged it this time. It was very tasty, but really fell apart. The whole thing was finished off, at least! And Rhino probably ate twice as much as I did — he kept demanding more meat loaf! It may be one of his favorite foods (the only other thing we’ve seen him act like this towards is lasagna.) Matt wanted to bake me a birthday cake on Friday (he says he’s never baked a cake before!) but because we went out, I suggested he wait until Saturday. He made my favorite boxed cake: strawberry with white whip frosting. And he added cute little flower sprinkles! It turned out very well and was so sweet of him! When the Armstrongs and the Kisers come over we usually entertain with a Mystery Science Theater 3000. This time we watched Space Mutiny, one of our favorites! Josh and Aime kept Rhino amused most of the night. It’s so much fun having kids over and seeing how he reacts these days. He likes to chase them around and do whatever they’re doing. It was a nice night hanging out with friends and a very pleasant birthday!

We had Rhino's first birthday party at the Weasels' Den, which is such a great place for the kids! We rented a little barn-kind-of-place for 2 hours and Rhino was so ecstatic the whole time we were there! He had a blast crawling and cruising around the baby area, which is full of padded mats and castle pieces, mirrors, and giant building blocks. The Armstrongs (kids: Josh (5) and Aime (3) ) and the Kisers showed up for the festivities. We had pizza and pasta, chatted a bunch, and did presents and cupcakes.

Rhino received a gift certificate and cute card from the Kisers, a bunch of wonderful books in a pretty bag (Rhino loved the bag, hahah!) and an animal memory game from us. He was a little more interested in tearing the wrapping paper than he was for his little birthday celebration, but he was mostly interested in the ribbons and bag!

I wanted to make cupcakes again because it just seemed to make sense for Rhino to have his own little cupcake rather than a piece of cake or a mini cake just for him. I wanted everything to be colorful for him, so I wanted to make the cupcakes as colorful as possible, too. A few months ago I found a tutorial online for making pretty swirled cupcakes and had been waiting for an occasion to try it out. Thankfully the BX had a great assortment of paste food coloring! The technique is really very easy and turned out wonderfully! Our home just gets so warm that often the frosting would be too runny when it came out of the bag to make pretty, firm stars. Most of them looked pretty good, though! Rhino didn't care either way, he just gobbled his little cake up!

It was a nice, small first birthday party and Rhino seemed to really enjoy himself the whole time. He didn't get crabby at all and really likes being around Josh and Aime. The Armstrongs and Kisers are our best friends here at Misawa right now, so of course it's always nice for us to spend time with them, too!

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

You’ve made it through the first year — hooray! I have known that “time flies”, but I really can’t believe how fast your first year has zipped by!

You’ve recovered completely from the trip to the States and now you’re your usual self. You’ve gotten to the point where I can say now that you are sleeping through the night. You’d often wake for short, frequent nursings, but you’re pretty much finished with that now. We’ve also set you up with your own little mattress on the floor next to ours, so you won’t be sleeping (crawling, kicking, sprawling…) with us when your new brother or sister arrives. You seem to like the little bed more than the big bed!

You’ve become a bit more of a trouble maker lately! Daddy had brought home a package of napkins the other day and left it on the kitchen floor, which was obviously an invitation for you to partake in the napkin fun! You are getting a bit sneaky, too, and will push the limits to see how much you can get away with. Even though you know “no” and that you aren’t supposed to be playing in the trash or grabbing in Daddy’s bag of chips, you’ll still try to when we aren’t looking and check to see if you’ve been caught yet!

You’ve become so affectionate lately! You understand “hug” and will give us big hugs often. You even hug all of your stuffed animals. You’re learning “kiss” now, too, but haven’t yet mastered it. You don’t quite know how to pucker, so when you kiss us, it’s with a wide open mouth and dangling tongue! You’re so sweet and sometimes harass us with sloppy kiss after sloppy kiss! Most of your stuffed animals also now have crusty mouths and noses where you’ve practiced your affection on them.

We have planned for your birthday party to be next weekend because your birthday weekend falls on Valentine’s Day and lots of your friends mommies and daddies all ready have plans. Daddy and I wanted to do something special on your birthday anyway, so I made you some cupcakes and you got to open gifts from your grandparents! Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time for festivities because Daddy was at work all day and then we had a church banquet when he got home, so we had your little party over his lunch break. You weren’t so interested in opening presents — maybe because we were hastily tossing them at you! You know how to unwrap gifts pretty well, but this time you just wanted to tear one tiny piece off at a time and inspect each bit. Daddy and I ended up unwrapping everything else for you! You received some really nice outfits, a couple CDs you like to dance to, and some fun toys! Daddy and I gave you a wooden xylophone, which you haven’t quite figured out yet. You like to tink the keys with your finger instead of the mallet, or use the mallet backwards and at a whole arms distance away from the instrument. You’ll get it!

You also had your first taste of chocolate! I made you some yummy cupcakes with chocolate frosting. You were mostly interested in licking all the frosting off the cake and playing with it and made a bit of a mess! You finished the whole thing and seemed pretty pleased with the whole experience! The next morning was Valentine’s Day, so we had a little teddy bear and small box of chocolates for you. You had a piece and liked it, but didn’t beg for any more. I had also given Daddy a bigger box of chocolate truffles, which was left out on the coffee table. You only needed 10 seconds to open the box and shove six truffles into your little mouth and all over your chest! It was definitely time for a bath and you were pretty wound up with sugar the rest of the morning!

It’s been such a wonderful year with you, Rhino, and Daddy and I are looking forward to another fun year with you! Happy birthday!!

Lots of Love,
Mommy

10 minutes ago I was craving a little bit of chocolate, so I decided to try out this Chocolate Cake in 5 Minutes! It’s a neat idea and worked out pretty well, but I’m not really a huge fan of chocolate cake usually. It turned out pretty dense and spongy, not as light as I generally like cake. I’m reading through the comments and there are some ideas in there to modify it that I may try in the future. It’s not terrible or anything, just not my cup of … cake. Try it out if you need a quick fix for your cake craving!

It’s our wedding anniversary and we had a really great one! Matt went into work this morning and asked if he could get off a little early. They sent him home for the whole day because he can have either his birthday or his anniversary off each year. He’s also getting Thursday and Friday off because our household goods are arriving. I love Matt, but sometimes he’s not the best at remembering dates and events or doing anything for them. So I had been a little prematurely disappointed these past few days that he wouldn’t remember anything. Well, I was surprised to see him when he came home and woke me up with the news! We exchanged gifts (he brought me flowers and hazelnut chocolate and the Sims2 Kitchen and Bath expansion — I make the best bathrooms! And I got him a movie and a game.) and had a nice day just relaxing together with Rhino. I made one of his favorite dinners, chicken and corn chowder, and baked an anniversary cake. It is kind of strange thinking about last year’s anniversary. This time last year, we were at Cool Hand Luke’s, waiting on a table, and just seeing two pink lines appear as a missile soared overhead. So we’ve known Rhino was with us for a year now, too. It’s been a wonderful 3 years with Matt (he says it feels like 30 years, which I took as a compliment, though I wonder ….) and I am happier than ever with him. Every year has just gotten better and he is such a great husband! Happy Anniversary, Matt sweetie!

This morning we took a tour of Hachinohe (hatch-inn-oh-hay), the largest city near us. We met up with tour guides from the Family Readiness Center, who give many interesting tours and classes throughout the month. It’s about a 45 minute drive to go 18 miles from Misawa to Hachinohe.

First we stopped by the fish market. Our Japanese guide was a nice older man named Aki. His English was very limited, but we understood him well enough. There’s more than fish at the fish market; we saw all sorts of alcohol, vegetables, sweet treats, trinkets, and small restaurants. Most shops offered samples and Aki wanted to make sure we tried plenty of new things. First on his list was squid ink cake. It’s black spongy cake bites with pudding in the middle and was quite good.

I have no idea what we tried next — it was some green, speckled tough cookie dough -type treat. Then Aki took us around to look at all the sake barrels and bottles. We saw some veggies and for the first time I saw the huge daikons (which we later sampled, pickled. Yum!) We stopped by a fish table with large bowls of seaweed. I tried a glob of sweet seaweed, which was so-so. Matt had some wasabi seaweed, which he liked, but had a taste which was on his tongue for most of the day. The same table offered shark fin and jellyfish, which was actually very tasty.

We walked around and saw many more tables of sea creatures, both dead and alive. I guess we missed the slaughtering of the octopus, sploshing on the floor. We also apparently missed out on the old man who pokes live crabs in the eyes, angrily clawing as he enthusiastically pushes them towards you to prove they’re very fresh.

We didn’t try any octopus, but we saw plenty of it. We did try herring jerky, which was delicious. We also saw squid cups — pretty interesting. They are cups made of squid and when you’re finished what you’re drinking, you eat the whole squiddy cup.

It was a neat trip to the market and not nearly as smelly as you may imagine. I’m not a big fan of seafood, but it was pretty interesting. It’s a little gross — the Japanese use pretty much every part of every animal. We saw octopus guts and salmon eggs and plenty of unrecognizable fishy parts. But it was a neat experience and everyone was very friendly there. We will most definitely go back to pick up some fresh salmon and shrimp soon!

From there we rode to a Shinto shrine, which was amazing. Pretty much all Japanese are Buddhist and Shinto, because the two religious do not conflict with one another. It sounds like Buddhism is there for the sad and serious things in their lives and the Shinto part is for all the joyous things. Upon arriving at the shrine, we went through a purification process. It wasn’t necessary for us, but I guess it’s the norm, that in order to pass through the torii you must be purified. There’s a purification trough with water and I went through the cleansing ritual. You use a ladle to wash your left hand, then your right, then cup your left hand and pour water into it, swish the water around in your mouth, spit it out, rewash your left hand, and go on through.

The shrine was built in 1640 and was absolutely gorgeous. We learned the offering/prayer ritual where worshipers ring bells on big ropes (I really wanted to ring one!) We watched part of a ceremony going on inside the main hall (honden). We saw an ema, where people put their wishes. There were these pretty decorative horse statues, guardian statues of foxes and lions, and really pretty sculptures.

We also got a fortune slip (“omikuji”). People will keep them if they are good fortunes (“daikichi”), or fold them up and hang bad luck (“daikyo”) to turn them good. Both of ours were good. We read our zodiac information (Matt is year of the dog, I am year of the boar) and found that Rhino is year of the Rat. Apparently that means he is noted for his charm and attraction for the opposite sex. As you can see, it must be true.

Rhino has flashed so many huge grins this week. He is such a flirt with all the Japanese ladies and, of course, they all love him!

After we visited the shrine, we stopped by the Hachinohe train station to learn how to ride the rails. They have normal trains there, then also the speedy bullet train (“Shinkansen”). They had a neat little store there with plenty of pretty trinkets and packaged squid. They also have a beautiful float on display from the Sansha Taisai parade. When in motion, this float starts out as a box and opens up bit by bit to tell a story.

The float also had snow monkeys all over it. These monkeys live up around us and like to chill out in the hot springs (“onsen”). Oh, and there was this one scary monkey with a fish.

From the train station, we visited the Lapia mall. We had a bite to eat at Pier8 (“Family Restaurant”), where Matt had some ramen and I had some panko breaded pork. Yummy! Lapia mall is home to Fantasy Dome, which is a small amusement park / large arcade. We didn’t really spend any time there, but we plan on returning to check it out. Matt picked up some yummy peanut senbei crackers. The interesting thing we learned about Japanese malls is there are no walls dividing the stores. There are patterns on the floor to show barriers between shops, but it’s difficult for us to tell where one ends and the other begins. The entire floor of the huge mall is just wall-less stores. We went to get dessert at an ice cream stand before we left. To our surprise, when we stuck our spoons in the scoop for a bite, the ice cream crumbled into small flakes. I guess this is common, but I had never seen shaved ice cream. Boy, it was yummy! Light and flaky vanilla with chocolate syrup/powder and coconut on top! Oh, and some of the escalators didn’t have steps, but were just an incline. I got a kick out of those.

It was a very neat tour and we are looking forward to returning to Hachinohe! Rhino was very calm and alert and really took in all the sights. I’m looking forward to taking him back when he’s a bit older and can appreciate Fantasy Dome and eat some funky fish at the market!

It’s Rhino’s 1-month birthday! The time has really flown by so quickly. I feel like we just brought him home yesterday. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so many visitors and haven’t really settled into our own routine. I’m looking at his birth photos and he all ready looks so different! We measured him and he’s about 23 inches (but probably someone inaccurate) and don’t have a reliable way to measure him. He’s all ready outgrowing some of his clothes!

It is also my birthday today. Hooray, I’m 25 now! Papa flew in from Dallas last night and will be visiting with us until Monday. Rhino, Papa and I drove down to Santa Barbara this morning to pick up Rhino’s birth certificate (yay, it’s finally in!) Then Papa took me out for pizza in Goleta before driving back up. We picked up Matt from work then enrolled him in the military system and went to get his passport photo taken. At first the photographer told me to have him up against the wall. Considering he still has a floppy neck, that didn’t seem like a good idea. He decided to put some white cardboard on the floor and I put Rhino down. For the photo, he had to have open eyes, looking towards the camera, head straight, couldn’t have any arms or hands in the photo, and I couldn’t be propping him at all. It was pretty tricky and we went through a lot of shots, but we finally got an acceptable one!

We tried out a new restaurant, Lompoc’s Blacksmith Steakhouse, for my birthday dinner. It was a nice place that Robb and Janeece recommended to us and we had never known existed. Rhino was nice and quiet for a little while, but then started to get a little fussy and let out a few shrieks. We had a few women come over to coo over him and tell us all about their babies. Matt held him most of the way through dinner and it was amusing watching him try to cut his steak with one hand! We all had steaks and corn chowder, which was pretty yummy. They serve three desserts: cheesecake, chocolate cake, and tiramisu. We decided to get one of each to take home, then split them over the next couple days. Yum! It was a busy day, but nice to get things done. Definitely a good birthday!