Cooking time!

K loves to help out in the kitchen, and 'mixing' is definitely one of his favourite things to do. The other day we made these super-easy 5 ingredient peanut butter cookies, found via Mary Beth's blog Salt and Chocolate. They were a bit too sweet for us; normally I'd reduce the sugar in the recipe but as the only other ingredients were peanut butter, chocolate chips, an egg and baking soda I thought I'd better not mess about with it too much! Yup, no flour and no extra fat. Admittedly they did taste rather like sweetened peanut butter with chocolate chips in, but who says that that is a bad thing?

Our other recent mixing activity was rather less tasty - playdough. I found a recipe for it here, and K had fun cooking it up.


Then we divided up the dough and worked in some food colouring to make red, blue and green dough as well as leaving some plain. That's what H was doing in that picture I posted yesterday :-)

After that it was just a matter of playing! The dough was not too sticky and generally quite nice to handle. It reminds me a bit of Silly Putty, in that it will stretch but it will also snap if you pull it quickly. Still, I think the one that Mum used to make for us when we were little was better. Do you still have the recipe Mum?

What we've been up to lately

March was supposed to be the time for Doing Lots Of Things but, between bad weather and my bad back/hips, not that much was achieved. We have done a few fun things over the last few weeks though, so here's my report...

attempting to pick up H's parents' cat...

• K and I went to a classical music concert, his first! It was a performance by the Kansai Philharmonic, designed for small children; the poster said 'It's OK if they cry!'. The music was great of course, and they also spent time introducing the different instruments and letting volunteers conduct. A lot of the children did get fidgety, or fall asleep (it was nearly 2 hours long including the intermission), but K was great and seemed interested during the whole thing. The concert ended with a rousing performance of 'Land of Hope and Glory' which was really quite moving, especially when K turned to me part way through and said 'I like this song'.
  
  
• All 3 of us went to the City Art Museum the following day (it was clearly The Monkey Household Week of Culture) to see a display of artwork from the children's books Lisa and Gaspard, and Penelope. K didn't really know the characters very well, but he enjoyed looking at the picture books on display... and then had a total meltdown in the foyer, but the less said about that, the better.

• K has been brushing up in his computer skills. The other day I came into the living room to discover that he'd switched on the laptop, opened Internet Explorer, was playing a CD and browsing photos. I suppose he's preparing to help Grandad when he gets here...
  
  

  
  
  

• We've had several visits to the play centre (usually greeted by some variation of 'Haven't you had that baby yet?), including a special one yesterday where all the mums had a go at some flower arranging. K enjoys jumping on the trampoline and looking at the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and I like chatting with the other mums and the staff.
  
  
  

  K wishes you all a Happy St Patrick's Day!
  
  
  

• Lunch with Chieko last week, while K was at pre-school, and then, very decadently, afternoon tea with Lisa on Sunday! We had crepes at Giardinos and they were Very Nice, although we agreed that we could really have done with 2...
  
  
• The cowboy blanket I won in the MADE giveaway arrived! Yeah!
  
  
  
  
  
• K's pre-school had its graduation and end-of-school-year ceremony. Only one girl was actually 'graduating' and going on to primary school from April, but several other children were leaving to go to 'normal', Japanese kindergartens. The children sang songs and put on a play...

... and then each child was awarded a medal for their particular strong point. In the little ones class, children were praised for being able to say their name and age well in English, for always tidying up well, and so on. And K's award-winning talent? 'He has the loudest voice in the class'. Hmmm...




And of course, there have been various preparations for the baby, and for Mum and Dad coming. I think now, we're pretty much as ready as we ever will be...

A message to raffle entrants

Thank you so much to all of you who have already entered the raffle. There have been so many generous donations and I'm excited to see how much we can raise in total. And of course there is still time to enter here!

I have just one request for you:

Please make sure I can contact you !

I have had several entries with neither an e-mail address nor a public Blogger profile. I have queries for a couple of people and can't get in touch with them and, of course, I need to be able to contact you if you win!

Don't forget that there are lots of other great raffle and actions going on too, each needing their own donation to enter. Jo has also posted about where the money is going; I think it's a great combination of emergency measures and long-term aid.

There are still a few places in Northern Japan where they don't have enough of basic supplies, but in most areas aid is getting through well now. The number of people in shelters has halved since I last wrote about it, as people become able to return to their homes or find family or friends who can help them. Electricity is still a problem for many, whether due to damaged supply lines or the nuclear plants being out of commission. Temporary accommodation is already being built and different areas around Japan are offering public housing to people who have lost their homes. Our neighbouring prefecture which, like many rural areas, is suffering from a distinct lack of young people, is offering free housing and a cash incentive to people who move there! There are a lot of sad stories on the news, but the discovery of an 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson, alive and uninjured in the rubble of their home, cheered us all.

And while the future of the nuclear reactors is still unsure and worrying, H told me some reassuring information about the current situation. News reports of double the usual radiation level in Tokyo sound bad but apparently the usual, background radiation level in Rome is 6 times the current level in Tokyo! It all depends on what you define as 'normal'...

Japan Quake Appeal - Raffling Japanese Fabric - CLOSED

*** This raffle is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone who donated! ***

Here in Western Japan the earthquake and tsunami have not affected us at all. Obviously I am so thankful that my friends and family are all safe, but at the same time there is a certain guilt connected to carrying on as usual when so many people are suffering. I feel so helpless here, especially as local governments in the affected area have asked individuals not to donate goods since sorting and distributing those goods increases the burden on an already overloaded system. So, cash donations it is, and if you too would like to chip in, here is one way you can help...

As I wrote yesterday, Jo at A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That is encouraging bloggers in Japan and around the world to hold raffles and auctions to raise money for the relief effort. For my part, I'm offering...

25 Fat Quarters of Japanese Fabric

That's over 6 metres/yards of material in total! This photo is just to give you an idea of the sort of lovely fabrics you might win. All the fabrics will be chosen by me from my shop stock (including some that have yet to be listed there) in consultation with the winner. So if you're particularly interested in traditional Japanese fabrics, or prints suitable for boys, or florals, or a particular colour, or kawaii cutesy designs... I'll pick out a bundle that'll make you smile. Have a browse through the shop if you'd like to see more of the sort of thing you could win.

How to enter:

Go to GlobalGiving.co.uk (United Kingdom) or GlobalGiving.org (United States) and make a donation.

• Every $5 donation or 3 pound donation entitles you to one raffle ticket.
• After you have made your donation, come back and leave a comment on this post, telling me how much you donated (ie how many tickets you have bought) and your receipt number.
• Don't forget to leave your e-mail address in the comment too - you can write it as name 'at' yahoo 'dot' com if you are worried about spam.
• If you make a mistake or need to change your comment, please go back and delete your first comment and rewrite it.
• Open to anyone, anywhere in the world!
• The raffle will close at mid-day Japan time 26th March and the winner will be drawn at random and contacted by email. However, there is a risk that I will be, ahem, giving birth that day, so please forgive me if I'm a day or two late in posting the results here.

For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html

The raffle being held on this blog, and others around the blogosphere, is held in conjunction with A Bit of This and A Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.

Later this week Jo will be putting up a list of all the blogs involved in this appeal, each of which will be hosting their own raffle or auction, each requiring separate donations. So if you're not interested in fabric, there will be lots of other things to tempt you. Do please check out the others and enter as many as you can afford. Let's do what we can to help those in need. And if you blog, or Facebook, or Tweet, or have friends in real life, please do spread the word!

I won!

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Dana of MADE fame. Just seeing that message in my in-box left me super-excited and somewhat star-struck... Then I opened it and found that I had won a prize in one of her Celebrate The Boy giveaways! A chenille cowboy blanket to be exact, which you can see here. Perfect for snuggling up with little boys I think... Thank you Dana!

It's time to...

Yes, once again Rae from Made by Rae and Dana from Made are dedicating a whole month to all kinds of crafty goodness for the little men in our lives. Actually, the month is already half-way through and there have already been lots of great tutorials for trousers, bags and more, round-ups of cool fabrics for boys and lots of generous giveaways which you have, well, missed. Sorry. But there's still a lot more to come, so pop over and have a look. And if this is all news to you, you probably missed Celebrate The Boy last year too, so don't forget to look through the archives while you're there...

Last year I got quite into it all, but this time the extent of my boy-celebrating seems to be limited to preparing to give birth to one. I would like to make something for K's birthday too (which is Saturday) but we'll see how that goes. The pile of crochet squares is slowly growing - I've made 23. Thanks to ridiculously early trains to work, I made 2 this morning before 9am! Unfortunately the pattern calls for 64...

I made the same blanket for K and was horribly behind then too. I remember that I took some shortcuts so I had a look at his blanket today; not 64 squares, not even 49, but a mere 36. Then I just sewed them together and crocheted round and round the edge of the whole thing until I ran out of wool. Add that to the fact that I was stitching together those 36 squares while in hospital having just given birth, and I don't feel quite so behind schedule after all...

Mistletoe

Here's something else I didn't get round to showing you until now...

Last month I found the online magazine and blog Rhythm of the Home, just when they happened to be having a giveaway. I entered my name and later discovered that I had won this lovely handmade mistletoe! I've never seen mistletoe in Japan and every Christmas I think I would like to have some - and now I do!

This mistletoe was created from wool and recycled wool felt by Kendra of by hand at home, who I have just noticed had a baby on Christmas Eve! Thank you Kendra and congratulations!

The birthday crown

If you saw the photos I posted from K's birthday, you may remember that I made him a crown. And just in case you missed it, here it is again...

I think I first got the idea for a birthday crown from one of my favourite blogs, Salt And Chocolate. I had it it my head for ages and knew I wanted to make one for K. I ordered the felt from Paper And String and started to think about how to make it.

Then, thanks to all that excitement in February known as Celebrate The Boy, I came across the blog Juicy Bits. And there in the sidebar was a tutorial for a felt crown! So thank you Jessica for saving me the bother of working out exactly how I'd make it, and for providing a pattern too.

Blog world fame!

I was very excited the other day to see that my little shop had been featured on Made By Rae!

Rae had offered to feature shops that had some kind of Celebrate The Boy promotion going on, and she kindly included the free shipping I'm offering this week (still happening by the way ;-D). Not only was that a fantastic bit of advertising for my shop, it was also just Really Cool! As I commented on Rae's blog, I felt like I was hanging out with the cool kids...

And as a result of all that, I had a bumper trip to the post office today with lots of orders winging their way around the world as we speak. I also had some new visitors here (hello!) and some lovely comments.

So this weekend's main jobs have now become Get More Fabric and Get More Packaging Supplies! Thank you so much to Rae for featuring me and to everyone who read it and popped in here or to my shop! Y'all come back again, y'hear?

International fabric swap anyone?

One of the first blogs I started reading regularly was Jo's A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That. Like me, Jo is British and is living in Japan with her husband and little boy. Her blog is far superior to mine though! It's where I first heard about Montessori, and is a great source of creative inspiration.

From time to time Jo organises swaps, usually Montessori-related, and this time I've signed up! Actually this time we're swapping fabric so it's not specifically Montessori, and anyone can join in as long as you're willing to ship internationally. Each person will send out and receive a total of one and a half yards (or metres, if you prefer!) of fabric. Jo is still on the lookout for more participants so pop into her blog here, get the details and sign yourself up!

(Have fun at Jo's blog. Just don't be so enamoured that you never come back here...)

Celebrate the boy!

Two of my favourite bloggers, Dana of Made and Rae of Made By Rae, have declared February the month to celebrate the boy! There are loads and loads of cute tutorials and craft ideas out there for little girls, but the little boys do tend to get neglected. So these two super-creative ladies (and mothers of little boys) are spending this month sharing tutorials and ideas for making things for the little men in our lives. Yeah!

Already Dana has posted a tutorial for her 90 minute shirt (though I suspect it'll take me somewhat longer...) and Rae has shown us how to create a little boy's shirt from a fully-grown man's shirt. And there's going to be more, every day this month! I feel my list of Things To Do will grow ridiculously this month...