Leons 3rd Birthday

I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. There are no excuses...so enjoy my new pics of Leons birthday. OMG, my son is now 3! I'm feeling like it was yesterday when he was a baby and cried every two hours. Now he is 3! He can walk, talk, contradict, lie ("the monster was it, not me!") and even flatter "i love you soooooooo much, mommy!".


This is the cake I made at his birthday for the kindergarten.


Valerie is his girlfriend in the kindergarten. They are so cute together.


Look at Leon's surprising face expression when he got a new fairy tale book. :)


We celebrated his birthday with his friends a day later at a playground. They had a lot of fun. I was so glad that it hasn't rained, otherwise I would not know what to do with 18 people at home!

In my next post I'll show you Leon's birthday party with my family.

Hubby's Decadal Birthday

Hubby was a little bit afraid of getting old, so he asked me not to write his age on his birthday cake. He didn't want to see how old he is!

This is the cake I designed and baked for him!
The photo is eatable. No, it's not my son Leon in the picture, it's Hubby when he was about 7 months old! When our friends saw the pic the 1st time, they thought it would be Leon. Leon thought it was his pic as well. When Hubby was cutting the first slice of the cake Leon was annoyed...he was almost whining and blubbered out:"Daddy is cutting Leon! He is damaging the cake!"


..........shush! He is not 30! ;-))

We had for dinner vietnamese fondue with tender thinly-sliced beef and big prawns with a lot of herbs and vegetables. All these yummy ingredients can be wrapped to summer rolls and dipped to a magical delicate hot and spicy sukiyaki sauce. While writing this I get hungry again!





A snack plate made by my friend. Nice colors and composition.


This toy (Blackberry Bold 9700) was my present for him.
It was a great party with some friends and thank Mum for babysitting.

Hubby's Birthday

Oh my god, my last post was from a month ago! I was so busy the last weeks that I can hardly answer all of my emails or post something new. This was the cake for Hubby. He loves cars, so I decorated the cake with a Porsche Cayman, a Mercedes SLK and a Porsche 911. I wish I could shape the cars with fondant, but 1st I can't and 2nd I didn't have time to try it, cause the birthday organisation (cleaning up, cooking, decorating etc.) for 12 people was time consuming enough. The cake was filled with a light mandarines buttercream.

After I baked and filled the cake with a light mandarines buttercream I covered it with an american buttercream, especially for fondant cakes...to make it even. You can't make a fondant cake without that covering.

Then I covered the whole cake with a thin layer of fondant and made it smooth with a fondant smoother.

Voilà! It's now like a canvas for a painter!

A snapshot of the buffet. They seemed to have fun. We celebrated till 5 am with loud karaoke music and thanks God I have very nice and tolerant neighbours who didn't say anything or call the police! Even my friends were astonished by that tolerance. I think if you are the whole year nice, friendly and good neighbours you can do that once a year without anybody being bothered about it.

Na's Birthday

My cousin Na celebrated her 24th birthday at home. It's always nice to be together with my family.



For dinner we had "Bo va Tom Nhung Dam" (Vietnamese Beef and Shrimp Fondue with Special Vinegar Broth). It is one of my favourite dishes...no, it's my top favourite vietnamese dish! It is light, but very delicate, a real taste explosion. On top of this: it's healthy, too! You cook the beef and shrimp lightly in this fragrant special broth, put them on a wet rice paper and wrap them together with lettuce, cucumbers and herbs (spearmint, thai basil, cilandro) into a summer roll. It can be served with different dips. I forgot to take a pic of the summerrolls...

...so take a look at these (vegetarian?) summerrolls by photogourmond (flicker).


I made this cake for her.

The color of my cake matches the flowers, you see?
But it's only a coincidence ;)

It's also the birthday of her mother! How cute they're looking together.

I didn't have much time, so I decided to make a less complicated cake which still had to look nice.




My aunt is looking radiant, as fresh as a daisy. Can you believe she is 49 years old?

Na's family.



Vivi and Leon.

All the best to both of you!

Valentine's Day & Lisa's 18th Birthday

This is the cake I made for my cousin Lisa, who became 18 yesterday!


18 is a wonderful age. You are yet an adult, but still can affort to be childish! In Germany you are almost allowed to do anything from now on. Drinking alcohol, going to the casino, driving a car, even being a chancellor (comparable to a president of the US).

Making the cake was very very very time-consuming, for I'm a really greenhorn in making cakes and cake decorations. So I had searched for recipes and how-to-videos for several days/weeks before I began to start making fondant and modelling blossoms. It has cost me 6 evenings to make the cake for Lisa! (Of course I baked the cake fresh that day, but there were so many steps of preparations the days before). For Lisa's 18th birthday the cake have to be very special. I suppose that Lisa doesn't really realize my effort. She'd just think: "Oh, a nice cake. ...Ok, where are my shoes? Do I look pretty tonight? Do I have enough booze for my friends?..."
The recipe for the cake I'll post another day.


"Selbst ist die Frau!" (german proverb). Self-reliance is the thing!


Nice atmosphere!


The party food was good. Many fingerfoods, yummy sushi, egg rolls, bread nibbles, etc.


Schöfferhofer Grapefruit is a good german beer mixed with grapefruit juice. Very refreshing even though I'm more a wine and champagne fan.


So many young people...Hubby and I, we felt so old. But our "age compensation" son was there, too. He had a lot of fun with balloons and his aunts and uncle.


Vivi:"Do you want a balloon? Then give me a kiss!" - Leon thinks:"Oh, no, that stuff again....

...But ok, it won't hurt."

smack!

For aunti Lisa, too!
He does it right: He closes his eyes whenever he kisses somebody. Very emotional :-)


We were just for more than one hour at Lisa's party, cause Leon shouldn't go to bed too late. And 11pm is very late!


Last but not least...this bouquet I got his morning for Valentine's from Hubby. He didn't forget ;)

Visit from South Germany

Aunti Thao and Uncle Tam from South Germany were here some weeks ago.
Mum served grilled duck and prawn with vietnamese spinach (I don't remember it's name).

Leon is so happy playing with them. Usually he's very shy.

If you think Leon is always laughing...Wrong! At this pic he is in a do-it-yourself-store with us...while he has high temperature...He doesn't want to go further and is sitting there the whole time...incapable of moving...of speaking...of doing anything! He is really tired. I felt so sorry for him, but I thought going out would help him to get better faster.

Happy New Year

Tết Eve in Saigon, Taken off of Le Loi St. (January 2009)

Taken off of Ham Nghi St, district 1, Saigon

Tết is January 26, 2009...
and around Chợ Bến Thành on the North side, things are getting festive.
3 photos above by lynhdan

A blessed new year to all of you! :)

These are such beautiful impressions of Saigon Tet 2009! I wish I was there. I'm not a poet, but my uncle-in-law Chú Hùng versifies every year at this time. It's quite good.

Yesterday we had dinner at Mum's (ăn giao thừa).

Leon loves Grandma sometimes more than me.

Today we did nothing special. I cooked Spaghetti Bolognese with mushroom and grated parmesan...Leon likes that.

Who am I?
I love my mirror image. Yes, I admit: I'm narcissistic. I always have to look into the mirror if I wear something new. That's the cap of my mommy.

Let's try my baby cap.
I like bags, too.
I wish you a happy new year!