Happiness is..

...swinging on a sunny afternoon, singing loudly to yourself.

French breakfast

Breakfast at the French bakery near our house (original post probably 2 years ago).  Very thankful for them, and happy that they are doing great.. they've expanded to having two more cafes!

So, given the recent indulgence in bouchons and the cheesecake, I did not order the cream-filled donut.  And I love their whole wheat croissants.  I couldn't help but think (and take a picture while thinking) I sure hope that Kinshasa can measure up to this!!

Becky and Sam, part 2

Yes, they have the same outfits (but not everyday!)

Beige/gray skirt and peace t-shirt.

Crazy kids!

January birthdays

We celebrated our birthdays pretty low-key this year.  Zeric wasn't here for mine, but we did get to Skype with Memere for an hour.  It was fun and funny!

 

For my birthday, I went crazy and made myself pumpkin ricotta ravioli with sage brown butter and chocolate "bouchons" (which none of my French friends have heard of) instead of a cake.  They were really, really good!!

The sugar must have hit the kids just right, because for the last 15 minutes of our Skype call, they did a great job making me and Memere laugh really, really hard.

Birthday selfie!!!

 

Zeric got home the night before his birthday (actually, technically, he got here about 25 minutes after this birthday started).  He requested my homemade 9-layer lasagna and.. cheesecake.  We've all gained about 8 pounds.  We were happy to be all together so that we could sing to him in person as he turns 25!!

 

Instead of getting each other presents this year, we gave money to the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN).  We decided the money should go to the rescued monkeys and dogs.. and so we sent some pretty awesome pictures along too. (Sorry some are upside down!!)

 

 



Makin' mosaic

So we decided to try something different.  The kids get out of school a bit early on Friday afternoons, so why not?  We found an ad for a mosaic class.. and so we went to the house of this lovely Tunisian women who taught us and gave us lovely juice.  It was fun! We learned how to cut tile and how to place everything just right.  And now we have more pretty things for our tables :)

Gingerbread Caryatids

You could have guessed, right?  It just makes sense to do the Erechtheion and Caryatids in gingerbread this year.  The girls, of course.. and the building, well.. it's great.. there's no roof to fight with. Lou and Malvy helped us assemble and decorate :)

The Caryatids with their gummi bear guards..

The I've-eaten-a-ton-of-sugar dance

 

the back wall..

and - TA DA!!

and, for your reference:

Two family portraits

From Jaffa: Zeric offering me a stinky fish (you've read this story recently, right??), and me threatening him with a cooking implement.  Eben with woot and Jaffa with Becky.

From Eben: Eben with a birthday cake that he just made, and me throwing the stinky fish at Zeric.  You can't see it here, but Zeric is chasing a turtle with a knife.  Oh my.