Number One!

After surviving a year "under the sun", we reward young humans with a party.

But really, we are rewarding ourselves for not completely losing our minds, whether accidentally or on purpose, in the past 365 days.

A co-worker was kind enough to lend us her apartment for a wonderful one-year bash, but there was a catch: we had to wear ridiculous fuzzy animal ears. TheFry, being the birthday boy, got to wear a bow tie.

We ate one of TheFry's favorite rarer foods: spaghetti. The noodles aren't difficult to find here, although they're a tad more expensive than you would find in the USA. The sauce was more expensive: a little less than $5 per jar. Still, it was a welcome treat.

We always get sauce on our face when eating spaghetti.

He likes the camera-lady.

Next, we opened presents from my very generous co-workers.

TheFry wanted to taste the shiny paper.

One of his favorite presents was a duck. It's got a string that you pull and then it rolls along.

It also tastes great!

Another present was a wonderful pair of winter pajamas. How thoughtful!

TheFry received many other really wonderful gifts, and we were all quite surprised. Among them were some winter shoes and a really great stroller. Thank you, everyone!

Finally, we had cake. I baked it at home. We also made the frosting at home by melting chocolate and butter together, then whisking in powdered sugar until the frosting became thick, but not clumpy. Delicious and simple! The cakes were cut in half and filled with either strawberry jam, persimmon jam, or more frosting!

Then, I helped TheFry blow out the candle. I wasn't expecting to look so conspicuous.

He may not have been able to figure out the whole "blowing out the candles" thing, but he sure knew how to eat the cake!

What would the event be like without a family picture?

Thanks to everyone who made this day really great!