Beatrix's First Food

We officially gave Beatrix her first food the other day.  I say officially because I know she has gotten snippets of food here and there off the floor a few times before now.  Anyway, it was homemade greek yogurt.  It went ok.  She is over nine months old, so older than we fed any of the other kids. I really just don't see the point in it right now and I don't have a lot of extra time to be dealing with baby food.  But I know that eventually she will need to transition into eating table food with us so we do need to start sometime.

2nd Japanniversary and More

September 4th was our 2nd Japanniversary!  We have been now living in Japan for over two years.  The whole thing has gone by quickly and times and very slow at others.  It has been a huge adventure and I have grown a ton as a person.  Our family has even grown by one over the last year.

The actual day was a perfect representation of our life here.  I did the usual school routine in the morning, full of fun and craziness and lots of messes by Calista (food coloring dumped on our floor).  Then Bob came home for about a minute to grab Tucker and head to young men.  Then I attempted to make a cake.  I put it in the fridge to cool so I could frost it and before I knew it Calista had dug the whole thing apart.  It was super difficult to frost after that and I just ended up dumping powdered sugar over the whole thing to get it to look white.

Bot got home after the kids normally go to bed.  I was frustrated and tired and so we quickly took a picture and ate some cake before going to sleep.

I tried to quickly run into the grocery store with Calista while Bob stayed in the car with the other kids.  The store ended up being so crowded!  It is usually crowded, but this time we were waiting in line partway down the isle.

 Those yellow things in our basket are sooo good!  I don't know what they are called, but if you are ever in Japan you should get them.

 Just had to throw in a Calista picture here.

Here is another little snippet of our lives.  Kids playing and fighting and being crazy all at once.  I love it...except the fighting part.

Dominique Ansel Bakery

We had some time after our pilgrimage and headed over to the Dominique Ansel Bakery in Tokyo.

I didn't know much about the bakery before we went but when I heard it was opened by the creator of the Cronut I couldn't pass up the chance to go.

Everything was so pretty!

I tried to get the kids to share their blooming hot chocolates but no one wanted to.  Leon choose the Mr. Robato donut instead.

In the end everyone was jealous of Leon.  The hot chocolates were pretty but they were made with very dark chocolate.  They were bitter and not at all what we were expecting.  After adding sugar they were more editable for us.  But I ended up throwing most of them away.

My frozen s'more was my favorite.

It was a marshmallow on the outside with chocolate graham cracker crumbs and ice cream on the inside.   Sooo good.  I already want another one.

I also got a orange creamsicle cronut to bring home.

Calista's First Food

Calista had her first taste of solid food a couple weeks ago.  I was really putting it off for a while.  Bob wanted to start before I did but she just didn't seem ready to me.  I made sure we waited the full six months before letting her try it. 

The look. "What is that?"

The lick. "I'm not sure."

The taste.

"What just happened?"

She seemed to enjoy the cracker a bit more.

Honestly her first attempt at eating went pretty well.  I was surprised.  But we have been doing it for a couple weeks now and we usually try it every night.  After her first try she didn't want anything to do with food for at least a week.  We never made her eat.  If she wasn't interested, that was fine with me.  After about two weeks of her not really wanting it these past couple of days she seems like she really likes it.  I even tried a couple other baby foods that aren't rice cereal and she really did not like them.  The one perk for me is that once she eats a little food I feel like I can leave her at home with Bob for more than two hours.

The kids really love Calista.

Here she is in her favorite nap time spot.  

And all wrapped up sticking her tongue out.

Okonomiyaki and Shabu-Shabu

While living in the Navy Lodge we are eating out ALL. THE. TIME.  Seriously, we tried to make pizza here in the oven and it set off the fire alarm.  The firemen came and then someone from the Navy came and we had to show ID.  It was a whole big deal and pretty embarrassing.  The worst part was that it was barely smokey in here at all so now I am afraid to cook anything.  Between that and me always itching to get out of the hotel we go out once or twice a day.

There are tons of restaurants nearby and lots of new things for us to try.  This first one is of Shabu-Shabu.  It reminded me of the Melting Pot back in the states, but only the meat course.  You get to choose your broth and then cook your own meat.  It is all you can eat so we have a little screen and just keep ordering more food on it.  Mostly different meats but also some veggies. 

We all really liked it.  The only hard part was that Calista was being fussy and it is a little difficult to hold her and try to bounce her while cooking the food and passing it out and ordering more all the time.

These next two pictures are from an Okonomiyaki place in the mall.  We've had it before but this is our first time at a cook it yourself place.  Notice how Calista has a firm grip on my salad.  I'm always trying to eat and in a struggle with her over my dishes.  If I put the plate far away then I spill food everywhere trying to get it to my mouth.  Too close and she gets her hands on it.  One time she pulled a dish off the table at a restaurant and it broke on the floor.  I'm sure the Japanese people love it when they see our family walk into their place ;)

This is like a cabbage egg pancake thing.  A very different flavor than any of us were used to.  Maybe I'll grow to like it.

Sushi-Go-Round

I like sushi and we used to make it quite a bit at home.  But I only put in it things that I liked and that never included raw fish.  Now that we are pretty much living in the sushi capital of the world I want to expand my horizons a bit.  We went to a close by Sushi-Go-Round restaurant the other day.

Of course everyone wanted to sit next to the conveyer belt, but after some rearranging Bob and I sat there.  We learned that lesson the hard way years ago.  Once a plate is taken down you aren't supposed to put it back up, and you pay for how many plates you have.  Kids like to touch and pull the plates down.

Can you see the english monitor?  We were able to change it to English, woohoo! If we wanted anything specific we ordered it on the screen and a couple minutes later it got sent on the conveyor belt to us.  It was pretty cool.

We all totally ate a piece of squid until Tucker took the batter off of one.

Even though I knew it was squid in the first place seeing it totally grossed me out and I couldn't eat another.

This next one was pretty good.

I did have to draw the line somewhere.  I'm still not ready for full out raw fish.

Calista even wanted in on the action.

I wanted to try the different desserts as well.  I've seen the first one around several places and when I tried it, it wasn't at all what I was expecting.  I thought some sort of sweet noodle.  Nope.  It was more like a mousse frosting thing.  And below that are candied sweet potatoes.