After picking up Branden from school this afternoon. The boys and I headed to swimming class! While at the swimming class. The people running the swim school, asked me if they could use Branden in a new pamphlet the swim school is making. So next week while we are at swim school, the photographer will apparently snap a few pics of him swimming. I really don't mind/care either way. But since they asked and they asked us which day we'd be there to arrange the photographer to show up. It all seems fine and really no big deal really. So, yes, I said sure.After swim school, we ran and picked up the birthday cake. Then I quickly drove home. Put the cake in the fridge. Noboru had arrived home by now and we all headed to our favorite yakiniku restaurant to celebrate Branden's birthday with a delicious dinner! Yay! : )
We ordered so much food. Four sets of rosu, which means lean beef. And 2 orders of slightly fatty beef because Noboru loves eating fatty meat. We also ordered some kalbi/ribs. And Noboru also had some soup with apples in it as well. LOL. The kids had yakiniku and rice and an udon soup each and 2 orders of fries. We ate good, let's put it that way! Ha ha ha! We also had kimchee and cucumber kimchee! : )
We had our own private room and we loved that, especially when you have small kids. It takes the stress off a parent, a lot by not having to worry if they behave perfectly or not. Branden's old enough that he's not really a problem (knock on wood, he out grew all that stuff, lol). But Noah behaved very well tonight. I think it's because he was kept busy with the cooking and whatnot. This private room stuff is why we always come to this particular restaurant when we wanna eat yakiniku. Kid friendly restaurants A+++!!! Ha ha ha. : )
Here is Noboru feeding Noah with his chopsticks.
Branden cooking the yakiniku! He has become quite good at this. Boy oh boy, do kids love cooking at yakiniku restaurants! Ha ha ha! : )
Noah also got into the act. He was a bit deadly with the 2 chopsticks. So we cut him off and just gave him 1 hashi/chopstick instead. Noboru was amazed at how well he did. He was able to turn and flip the meat with 1 hashi. And once he actually managed to speer a piece of beef. And when he tried to get it off his hashi, he accidentally flung the scorching burning hot beef towards Noboru! Good thing Noboru has fantastic reflexes because he did like a sorta Matrix move and twisted his back and bent down, so fast and so quick. It was so hilarious! I hated to laugh. But death by flaming hot beef just sounded too funny for words. Noboru thought it was quite funny. Next thing you know all 4 of us are laughing about the flying hot beef that narrowly missed Noboru! Thank goodness it didn't happen again and it was an accident! Phew! The boys went back to cooking again right after that.
The cake was so beyond excellent! Japanese birthday cakes are a lot different from American birthday cakes. Japanese birthday cakes are mostly just white spongecake with tons of whip cream and strawberries. Sometimes it's great and sometimes I miss American birthday cakes and I could get one from Costco, but I really didn't need one *that* big, this time around. Two years ago we got that one. So, what we do, is we order our cakes from Fujiya. And we order chocolate cake, and order it with white whipped cream. The balance is 100% perfect. Because while they sell chocolate birthday cakes, they can be too chocolaty with the chocolate whipped cream and stuff. A bit of a chocolate overkill, if you ask me. So with the chocolate cake and white whipped cream and we also had some vanilla ice-cream. It was really very close to an American tasting cake! With the chocolate cake and vanilla ice-cream! Very yummy! We will order it just like this, when Noboru's birthday rolls around in January! Hey just because we live in Japan, doesn't mean we can't taste the things or eat some things that are similar to being back home, right? Of course we can! : )
I love this pic! The lighting and warmth and everything. Truly captured the whole feel of this moment! We were all so happy and so full from just eating an amazing dinner and now we were back home. The coffee was just made and waiting for Noboru and I. The juice was in cups waiting for the boys. We were all loudly singing the Happy Birthday song! Noah was clappng loudly!
Five candles were flickering waiting to be blown out! It was just a wonderful way to spend our sons birthday! There you have it...a small family birthday! : )
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