Happy Birthday Daddy Ebi - only 2 weeks late!

Waaahhhhh I just realised that the posts I had sent up hadn't published!!
That's why nothing has been going out all week!

I batch my posts so that there is regular posting, big fail!

Anyway, it was Daddy-Ebi's birthday at the start of the month so Ebi-kun decided to make yuzu cheesecake.

I was very nice but we couldn't get it out of the silicon pan! O do have a small loose bottom pan but it was too small for the recipe. Oh well!

It tasted good and that's what's important.

Daddy gets home late so we have the birthday celebrations in the morning before school/work. Cake for breakfast and why not! To offset the cake calories we have green smoothies too!

Daddy is somewhat addicted to PokemonGo so Ebi-kun designed and hand stitched a Mega Charrezard - I have no idea if that is spelt correctly, we didn't learn Pokemon spellings in school back in the day!

I'm going to go through all the pre-written posts now and make sure they are all scheduled correctly, then I will bang my head on the wall for some time...

Birthday Fun

It was a fairly low key event this year, of course he got his 'number T-shirt' a tradition, I accidentally started back when he was 2!

We took the train to Manchester for the requested lunch... at Jamie's Italian, I'm pretty sure he waits for this all year long!

 

It was great, as expected! If you plan on going, join the free online gold club before you go to get freebies and specials, they did us proud this time around! Mom and I got free wine, and Ebi-kun got homemade lemonade, also a couple of tasters and his dessert was free too.

Took him a while to decide but he went for the carbonara in the end...

Then he got a special warm brownie with salted caramel ice-cream, caramel pop-corn and butterscotch sauce. It was really good but he struggled to finish it! (Of course I had to help him a bit!)

We then had to go to the book store and the Lego shop, after all that we were all knackered and decided to head home... for birthday cake (a bit of a cake overdose!) Colin The Caterpillar from M&S, had to be done!

All good fun, another year done! He is already planning on what he will order from Jamie next year!

Cake, cake and more cake and the most beautiful book...

Ebi-kun was sick and had another day off school, and I take the day off for my birthday - work wise that is, I have such a great boss (thanks me!) so we basically ate cake, watched movies and read books...

Cake #1 which was absolutely delicious - you should always start your birthday with cake for breakfast!

Cake Set #2 - The new Star Wars film open on my birthday, of course we couldn't go and see it but we did celebrate with fancy Star Wars cakes - Japan does cute cakes s well, and these were no exception...

It felt so mean eating the cute Ewok..

Ebi-kun is a big Yoda fan so he went for the the matcha Yoda cake...

I did get some lovely gifts including the book Before They Pass Away by Jimmy Nelson - I have been drooling over this book since it was released, It is absolutely beautiful, the photography is stunning, if you want to see his work check out the tribes section on his site Before They. He has also done TED talks and hundreds of interviews, there are plenty of links on his site if you want to learn more about his photography.

In the book there is a page dedicated to each tribe telling your were and how they live, their main source of food etc. Ebi-kun and I sat for most of the afternoon going through the book, it is a coffee table sized book though, so not suitable to stick in your bag!

The book is available on his site and on Amazon UK and Amazon.com

images © Jimmy Nelson

Warwick Castle with Sir Ninetoday and Sir Stropalot

For Ebi-kun's birthday I booked an over night stay at the glamping at Warwick Castle and invited my best mate Di and her little boy along too. We were coming from opposite directions and met up just before lunchtime.

There are some very cool perks to the glamping experience, one is that the carpark for the glamping is free and only a couple of minutes from the tents and the glamping site has a short cut up to the castle grounds, whereas the non glamping peasants have to walk a good 15 minutes from their car to the castle!

If you do go, either take swords with you or be prepared to buy one, Sir Stropalot (aged 4.5) had a foam one, which was just as well considering how much he was into fighting! Many small boys would have been going home with broken fingers and missing eyeballs otherwise. Sir Ebi-kun bought himself a wooden Excalibur from the shop.

We grabbed some lunch as soon as we arrived and then watched the jousting - better pics tomorrow because we weren't in a very good spot the first day. Then it was time to explore, we found these young hoodlums on our way...

The Horrible Histories were set up too and were hysterical, I really wish history had been this much fun when I was a kid. Here is the Gorgeous Georgian who told us all about using mercury to kill the head lice, which make your hair and eyebrows fall out. So you would the catch a rat, skin it and use a couple of slices of rat fur to make eyebrows! Delightful.

We did lots of exploring and around 4.00pm we headed down to the campsite. Each tent will sleep 6, they have a double bed, two singles and if you want more beds they put in a couple of airbeds. All with fresh linen and a wooden floor. Spotlessly clean. They also hide chocolate coins for the kids to find.

We were camped right at the far end which was lovely, the setting is beautiful, under all these old trees and next to the river.

We decided to go for the early sitting for the banquet, the food was delicious and you could just help yourself to whatever you wanted. The roast hog and cracking was superb and I maybe ate far too much! Cider was quaffed and much merriment went on.

I had sneaked a cake in earlier so the staff bought it out and we sang happy birthday but then we were too full to eat it! So we took it back to the tent.

I suppose you think that was it for the night but oh no...after dinner was school time. First up was archery school for Sir Ninetoday, he has been asking to do this for months so I was chuffed that he finally got to do it. All this is part of the glamping package.

Then both the boys joined knight school, which is where they learned sword skills

And jousting skills...

Then at the end they were knighted! The staff are brilliant and this fella at knight school was really good, funny too.

Finally we got the boys into bed (and my mom) and me and Di went to find some Good Knights, well actually the bar and to take some silly photos for her comping habit. We had a good chat and a chinwag, then headed off to bed around 11pm. Ebi-kun did wake us up shouting "Stop, Stop" but he didn't realise because he was still asleep. The next morning he said it was because he was dreaming someone was trying to steal his sword!

Lots more photos tomorrow and I will share my top tips to get the most out of the experience!

The Almost Nine Birthday BBQ

We arrived safe and sound, very long trip but fairly uneventful! Doha airport was rather nice, some great play sculptures and super clean.

We arrived in Manchester just after lunchtime and headed home for a cheese and beetroot buttie (sandwich!)

Yesterday the family descended at the house and Ebi-kun got a few presents then we went up to the local pub for a BBQ. 

Hanging with his cousin, who I hardly recognised, he has shot up! 

After we had eaten we had a round of pass the parcel, this was a very low tech, old skool birthday party - mainly because that was all I could be bothered with!

More presents, and help from the girls...

Followed by a Storm Trooper cake, which Ebi-kun decided was too sweet.

The weather was lovely, all the kids got on and it was great to catch up with everyone. This is Kate who actually lives in Japan but is from the same town, so she came over with her girls too.

Lovely day by all accounts! 

Did you know…

That they always put the flags out on my moms birthday? It's because she is so important - or so she always told me!

Happy 70th Birthday Mom! Wish we could be there to celebrate with you xxx

Happy Birthday To Me! and a gift for you!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday to MEEEEEE

Happy birthday to me!

A while ago I was looking for a specific picture and I came across this, me on my 3rd birthday! With a little house cake and some strange lad behind me, I have no idea who that is!  Looks like my mom is rockin' some fancy 70's outfit too! Shame there aren't more photos to go with it.

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A Big Day and A Trip to The Doctor!

Ebi-kun is 8 today, a whole 8 years old, how the heck did that happen? We had a party at the weekend, I will post about later. This morning we got up like a normal school day so that daddy could see him open his presents. We also had Nana and Papie on Skype - I love how we can include family who are the other side of the world!

The traditional I am '8' t-shirt, I started this when he was three, he gets a numbered shirt each year.

And of course lots and lots of books...

and Lego! You really can't go wrong with Ebi-kun if you get him books or Lego, maybe he hasn't realised he could have other things for his presents!

His gift from us was a new bike, he has been riding the same one he had when he was three so we thought it was about time he had a big boys bike. Sadly the weather was being mean but he still had to try it out. It also had a compass, watch, 7 gears and a speedometer - I'm not too sure about that bit! As if boys need any encouragement to ride dangerously hmmmm.

Giving his new wheels a spin....

After presents, daddy went to work and we had breakfast, Ebi-kun didn't each much. About an hour later he is complaining of a headache, I feel his head and he is burning up. take his temperature and it is getting higher by the minute. So I bundle him into his raincoat and we walk round to the doctor, luckily only 5 minutes away. Of course he didn't want to go because he said he shouldn't go to the doc on his birthday, pretty rubbish, poor kid. 

We came back with some fever reducing meds, I manage to get him to eat a bit of lunch then he crashes on the sofa and asks to watch a film, Lego partly built.

I think the meds have helped, he has perked up a bit now and built some more of his Lego, he has requested broccoli soup for dinner instead of birthday pizza. We will have that later in the week!

8 years ago I cuddled a tiny bundle for the first time, I got lots more today. Happy Birthday Ebi-kun you are a rock star and your jokes are rubbish (in a good way!). Here's to many more birthday and cuddles 💖

A word of advice...

When your child asks to make a specific type of cake for Daddy's birthday, it is a good idea to see what that actually entails before saying yes!

Ebi-kun has suddenly got a taste for Mille Crepe Cake and so he wanted to make one for daddy. I thought, 'How difficult can it be? Just a pile of pancakes really'. ahem - I stand corrected. I got on The Google and found this recipe. It actually isn't that bad, you have to plan ahead though, the batter and custard needs to be made a day ahead of time, the crepes were easy enough to make and building the cake but then it need to set in the fridge for a couple of hours. Definitely not a quick cake to make!

The only issue we had was folding the cream and custard together, the custard wasn't very creamy so I ended up whisking the mixture, it was a bit lumpy but OK once it was spread out.  Oh yes, I halved the recipe too, since there is just 3 of us. I think I got 17 crepes out of the batter rather than 20.

It is the perfect cake to make if you have no oven and you need something fancy to impress! I used to have a recipe for a Belgium Pancake Cake which was similar but the filling was chocolate and crushed nuts. Yum.

It got a resounding 9.5/10 from the family voting, I can't see me making it again any time soon but it is a good recipe to keep for when you need to make an impression! It would be lovely served with some fresh berries or a fruit coolie.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY daddy, hope you enjoyed the cake and that you are looking forward to Lego Discovery tomorrow! (yes, my husband is a big kid and is more excited than Ebi-kun about going to Lego Discovery!)

How To Make A Super-Card

A-kun is Ebi-kun's best friend and it was his birthday this week so Saturday we went to A-kun's house to celebrate. I didn't tell Ebi-kun we were going until that morning because of him not being well and we didn't stay long. The boys had fun playing for a few hours and I had a chance to catch up with A-kun's mom and dad.

Anyway, we don't exchange gifts for birthdays but Ebi-kun wanted to make A-kun a card. I remembered that I had a blank jigsaw puzzle so we went all out and made a super-card!

Ebi-kun drew a portrait of A-kun on the jigsaw puzzle...

Then we had a look through the paper drawer, we had some card that he had been practicing water-colour blending on so we used that to make the card. Next we folded some origami paper into little envelopes and stuck them onto the card. I managed to sneak some maths into this, he had to work out how many envelopes we needed and how many to stick on each side of the card.

Inside the card we taped the jigsaw base in it's plastic envelope and Ebi-kun wrote his message.

Then we muddled up the pieces and popped one in each envelope, and sealed each envelope with a sticker. A-kun loved his card and said it was his best present ever! I can see Ebi-kun wanting to do this again, I had better stock up on blank jigsaws! This one was from Muji but I have seen them in Daiso too.

When you were a kid, what was your best present ever?