The Party

Finishing touches on the crazy cake....

I still like the paper better than the gift, sorry Eh Pa (the friend in the pic)

Caleb and Sophia waiting for the 'fireworks'



How old are you, Sophia? Just kidding, she is actually pointing to the light. She also points to the light when you ask where mama or dada is. Hmm...

THE DETAILS:

Sophia hardly ate all day. I think she is teething, or still fighting a cold. It was as if she knew she was in for something sweet later. We had just a few friends over for cake and ice cream. Sophia tasted the icing with just one finger and slowly, eventually really dug in. But she still did not eat too much. She really didn't like all the sticky gook on her fingers. We also bought her two balloons that she loves and she actually sounds like she can say the word balloon when we say it enough to her. She walked a lot today too, with me running behind her, of course. She still is not stable enough to completely be without 'just in case' support... but she is moving. The cake topper is something that always amazes at every party I have been to here. The flower is lit and then eventually it opens up and it looks like a sparkler for a few seconds and then each petal has a small candle that is still lit when it fully 'blooms,' all the while it is playing the music to 'happy birthday.' Truly incredible. Sophia thought it odd I think. The little contraption must be using energizer batteries because it is almost 3 hours since we lit it and our garbage can is still singing 'happy birthday.' Altogether it was a good day, and we thank God for our Sweet Sophia and the privilege of living in this place.

Two views

here sophia is peeping through our couch that separates in the middle, and she loved playing peek-a-boo with David, who caught it on film

the makings of a cake

Sophia's birthday here will be real low key, but in my pride I thought I wouldn't be a good mom if I didn't make a cake. Here I am in the land of no ingredients and attempt a cake. I started yesterday by powdering the sugar for icing, which worked great in our new Philips brand juicer/blender/food processor/etc. But it smelled like real cane sugar (because it is, one of the biggest crops in this area), and tasted that way too. Can sugar taste bad? It wasn't bad just different. Today the cake making began. Though I had no butter, I have a great stock of shortening (thank you TCC folks), so I randomly chose a Silver White cake and made it a marble cake. I thought my pans were 9 inch, but no, 8 point something or other, so three layers, not two, oops. Then one layer (of the three), stuck bad to the pan. So we are back to two. The icing still looks a little grainy, I had to make the baking chocolate with cocoa for chocolate icing. It turned out looking okay and tasting okay, nothing to write home about (even though I am for the comedy of my attempt). But then... I thought I had to write something on it. All the bakeries here use whipped topping for icing, so I thought I would just mix milk with some of my powdered sugar (like for icing cookies), and add food coloring (pink). It turned out pepto bismal pink (yuck). The whole thing is hilarious, you can hardly tell what it says, poor Sophia, I promise by the time you can read, I will get better at this whole cake making/icing thing. I told David we can't take pics of it, but of course we will, with the candles and hoopla. Party starts at 6:15, expecting just a few. Wish everyone could be here. We will of course post pics, etc. (minus the cake :) )

bed shopping

It is almost bed time here, and speaking of... the second night we were home, we had Sophia in bed with us as she babbled and tried to play. It was around 3:30 a.m. or so, when suddenly our bed went crashing to the floor. It was somewhat hilarious, but we were too tired to laugh, we just moved the mattress to the floor. As we have been shopping around we were reminded of one of the best features of this friendly country: One sales clerk will whisk Sophia away to play and show her to all her co-workers while we look around, it is quite convenient, Sophia doesn't mind it either as long as someone is walking her somewhere...

curious george

This stuffed animal, a monkey, was the very first toy that we bought Sophia. That along with her 'my first soccer ball' were purchased at Toys R Us in Hong Kong last February (2007), when we had to fly there for David to get some rabies shots (awful). She loves little George, named after the curious monkey in the famous children's books. Here she had figured out his arms could reach around her waist, and then played 'peek-a-boo' after I had done the same thing with her. Her brain is a sponge these days. She keeps us laughing, and extremely tired.

"don't look at me, you gave it to me"

This was at her birthday 'rehearsal.' We actually had two of them before we left. The rings were given to her by the Bugnars, must've come from a seasoned mom, she LOVED them.