Mio’s last day at preschool is April 10 (since we’re moving her to a full-day daycare), and she had a birthday celebration on April 8, the first day back from spring break. It was bittersweet because it was like a birthday party and farewell party in one! Her teachers and classmates all told her they’d miss her very much and were sad to have to say goodbye.
Birthday cookies we baked for Mio’s class.
Mio couldn’t contain her excitement while we were baking the cookies:
The happy birthday girl with her birthday crown!
At preschool, parents are allowed to bring a birthday treat and a book to read to the class on their child’s birthday. I chose Me… Jane by Patrick McDonnell, which is one of Mio’s favorites, and it seems like the class enjoyed it, too!
The next day, Mio got a birthday card from one of her classmates!
Such an adorable card handmade by Mio’s friend Elizabeth and her sister Emma
Mio was elated to get a birthday card from her classmate and friend! So sweet of them to think of her.
Mio has also said she’ll miss her preschool and her teachers and friends there, but she’s also expressed excitement about her new daycare! We’ve had a great two years at the preschool, and are so thankful for all the wonderful teachers and classmates there that have made it such a great experience for Mio and our family.
There’s nothing Mio loves more than to sit down with a good book! I think reading is so important for kids, and because I was such a bookworm myself as a child, it fills me with so much joy and pride to see Mio taking an interest in books at such an early age. We read to her often every day, but there are also many times when she’ll just sit down and flip through the pages and “read” to herself in her own babbling language.
Here’s a cute moment I captured of Mio having some reading time with my sister. She takes such great care of Mio! 😀
Kicking back with a good book.
Mio’s favorite books are the ones with flaps that she can look behind.
Uh oh! It looks like Mio caught me spying on her reading time…
…and then she pounced, and I died from the cuteness. 😉
I mentioned my obsession with donuts in my previous post, and I tried yet another variation of a baked donut this week with making French crullers for the first time! My best friend Debbie, upon hearing about my recent donut-making adventures, sent me this awesome book: Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home, by Lara Ferroni. There are tons of recipes in it, from traditional fried doughnuts to baked variations and some really exotic flavors. Just looking through the photos of the donuts had me drooling! Thank you bestest for the thoughtful gift. ♥ (She always sends me the most perfect gifts — A few months ago, it was massage bars and body butter from Lush to help soothe my stretching belly.)
I can’t wait to try making all sorts of donuts from the book, but I decided to try making one of the basic classics before I moved onto the more ambitious creations. So I decided to make the classic French cruller.
What’s interesting about making crullers is that in order to form the pâte à choux, you initially boil the dough in a pot, steaming away the water:
You then throw the dough into a mixer and slowly add in the eggs, mixing with a paddle attachment until peaks form, to create the pâte à choux pastry dough.
The more traditional method of making crullers calls for frying them, but the recipe offered alternative instructions for baking, so I went the baking route since I figured it was easier, healthier, and would create less of a mess for me to clean up afterward. For baking, you pipe the pâte à choux with a star-tipped pastry bag onto parchment paper.
Here’s what they look like fresh out of the oven! They were so fluffy and lighter than air.
Once they’ve cooled, you dip them in a honey glaze to give them the glistening look and sweet taste.
They came out pretty good and comparable to the French crullers you can find in donut shops! My only issue was that I have a strong taste aversion to eggs, and the crullers ended up tasting a little too eggy for me to stomach too much of. :(Â (I should have considered this before I decided to make the recipe which called for the most eggs in the book! lol)Â The hubby has been doing a good job of devouring them on my behalf, though, and I will definitely be consuming a lot more of whatever donuts I decide to make next….
Dan and I have been watching a lot of movies lately. We watched two in theaters this weekend: The Time Traveler’s Wife and District 9.
I had actually just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, and found it to be one of the most powerful books I’ve read in a while. The author does an incredible job of developing each of the characters and making them come to life, even the marginal ones — each of them have so much dimension and depth to them. The story itself was one of the most original I’ve ever read, and the way it is written is very interesting as well. Clare’s life is a linear constant while Henry’s is unpredictable and jumps around all the time; Clare is his stabilizer, one of the few things that are constant in his life. A lengthy book, it took some time to get through, but it was a detailed character study, engaging science fiction concept, and timeless love story rolled into one. The story is magical and is one of those that haunt you and stay with you for weeks, and I can see myself revisiting it and rereading it for years to come.
So, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see the recently filmed movie The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the bestselling book. I knew that movies based on books, in general, usually pale in comparison to their novel counterparts. I knew that the movie got a whopping 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. But somehow, I still felt compelled to see it. Maybe it was the fact that I like both Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Maybe because I was curious to see how they would translate this complex story into film. Maybe it’s because the only way I can get Dan to show interest in a book is to make him see the movie first. (I know, bad approach to reading… but he is a movie junkie.) So Dan and I went to see a late showing the other night at the Shattuck Cinema, and let me say that that particular theater we saw it in (I believe it was Theater 10 within the Shattuck Cinema) was so comfy! They had two-seater leather sofas for seats, and it was perfect for couples. Dan thinks that they show romantic movies in that particular theater so that they can have a more comfortable and sweet viewing experience. Of course, it would be sort of awkward for the single viewers who come to see it by themselves… then again, it would even be nice if you were going to see it with a close friend. But I digress. The movie was alright. I think it did pretty well for how complicated the storyline is — the movie didn’t include several of the subplots and some of the secondary characters (there was absolutely no appearance by, nor reference of, Ingrid Carmichael). I kept getting frustrated while watching because I’d just read the book and knew exactly how certain scenes were supposed to play out, but had to witness the dialogue and scene play out in a very different way onscreen. I went on for a whole hour after we’d exited the theater about how this scene was supposed to go like that, and actually, that scene didn’t go that way in the book. Some parts of the movie were cheesy, and there was less emotional depth than could be felt from the book, but there is only so much you can expect from an onscreen adaptation. I went into the movie prepared to be utterly disappointed, and came out feeling like there were some redeeming elements despite much of what was hacked off of the novel’s timeless tale of love.
Last night, we went to see District 9 at the Alameda Theater with my sweet coworker Tarrin and her equally awesome boyfriend Jason (but not before having a heavenly meal at Burma Superstar… it was our first time trying Burmese food and it was so good). Dan has been dying to see this movie for about a month now, being the sci-fi/alien/horror flick lover that he is. I, on the other hand, was a little apprehensive — seeing those creepy, insect-like aliens in the previews seemed like enough of an alien dosage for me, but I obliged, since I had dragged Dan to see The Time Traveler’s Wife with me and since everyone seems to be raving about District 9 since it arrived in theaters last weekend. (It got a 89% on Rotten Tomatoes! I don’t necessarily follow the ratings on RT religiously, nor do I completely trust them, but it does serve as a quick reference to gauge how the general public is receiving the movie.) Although the movie had some stomach-turning moments and had a good share of bloody violence, I actually found it to be pretty entertaining. I didn’t expect to find myself taking sides with the ugly aliens and feeling sympathetic towards them, but in this case the humans are the bad guys. Dan definitely liked the movie a lot and was talking about it for a while afterwards. Not the prettiest of movies, but definitely a new, groundbreaking alien sci-fi movie. I liked the way it was filmed, with documentary-esque segments that flowed smoothly into the actual ‘live action’ scenes.
Ponyo (or the Japanese title Gake no Ue no Ponyo – translating to “Ponyo on the Cliff”) seems to be doing awesome in the States, too! We actually didn’t see this one in the theaters — we saw it last year, when Dan downloaded the Japanese original version, with English subtitles. I’m glad that the critics are liking it, because despite how great of an animated film it is, it does have its share of strange parts, like many other Studio Ghibli films by Hayao Miyazaki. The movie has elements of the Hans Christian Anderson story The Little Mermaid, although it by no means follows the folk tale strictly, and Ponyo is a fish instead of a mermaid. I’m a little concerned that Disney may have tweaked the story here and there, based on what I saw in the American trailer, but hopefully it is true to the original for the most part. I am still getting over the fact that they had Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas sing the theme song though — it sounds like a horribly digitized, (at some parts) inaccurately translated, sped-up version of the simple Japanese theme song. I liked this latest film from Miyazaki because it’s reminiscent of some of his cuter films from back in the day, like Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Many of his recent work, like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, have some really bizarre, even frightening moments. I think since I grew up watching all of his movies as a child, I really liked the more “child-like” ones. Totoro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind are among my childhood favorites. I’m kind of bummed that I missed Miyazaki’s lecture when he visited UC Berkeley a month ago, since his movies have a special place in my heart and I really respect him as a filmmaker. I think Ponyo is a movie that almost anyone would love, although I recommend getting your hands on the Japanese version with English subtitles, if possible.
So I’m a little movie-ed out from this weekend, although with a film lover/cinema major for a hubby, the movie-watching just don’t stop….
I mentioned my obsession with donuts in my 
I had actually just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, and found it to be one of the most powerful books I’ve read in a while. The author does an incredible job of developing each of the characters and making them come to life, even the marginal ones — each of them have so much dimension and depth to them. The story itself was one of the most original I’ve ever read, and the way it is written is very interesting as well. Clare’s life is a linear constant while Henry’s is unpredictable and jumps around all the time; Clare is his stabilizer, one of the few things that are constant in his life. A lengthy book, it took some time to get through, but it was a detailed character study, engaging science fiction concept, and timeless love story rolled into one. The story is magical and is one of those that haunt you and stay with you for weeks, and I can see myself revisiting it and rereading it for years to come.
Ponyo