150: Jaakko's birthday

Today was the children's father's birthday. I didn't know anything until his parents came over with doughnuts and flowers and sang 'Happy Birthday' in Finnish to him...while I was washing up in the powder room near the entrance. I couldn't pretend I didn't hear anything, so after washing up, I went to him, wished him a happy birthday and gave him a hug...all done while still in my PJs and messy hair.

Way to go, girl.

It has been really hard to wake up lately as the sun rises so late in the morning. I always try to wake up at 7am but the sky only gets bright at 8-ish, 9am nowadays. And it's so cold you just want to hide under the comforter. So yea, I woke up at 10am, again. Pfft.

Note to self: wake up even when the sky is dark, cos winter will be even darker.

The sun is also starting to set earlier. Last week, it'll be dark by 7pm. This week, it's already dark by 6pm. Days are getting shorter and nights are getting longer. I don't know how well I'll adjust to this. I hope when Debbie comes here, she'll be fine.

Taken last Thursday, 5:45pm

Oh, Debbie's a friend from church in Nilai, who's visiting me from Oklahoma. For Christmas! I'm so excited! =D

Both sets of grandparents came over for iltapala in celebration of Jaakko's birthday, bringing more flowers and chocolates. We had coffee, tea, and mini pies with ice cream.

That's spiderweb in the background, decorated for Halloween

An otherwise nice picture if not for the shakiness

Fazer's mini apple pie & vanilla ice cream

One of the days during the week, I attempted to make beef pie without rolling out a pastry dough. I simply cooked the beef in the kids' favourite seasoning: taco mix, adding a dash of red wine, salt & pepper and beef broth, topped it with puff pastry sheets and popped it into the oven and prayed hard it would work.

It did, but it wasn't pretty. As my cooking normally depend on the ingredients I can find in the fridge, I used small rectangular pastry sheets instead of a large one so it was kinda like a puzzle :P But oh well, it was edible and the kids liked it. Although the normal words from them before they began to eat were, 'That don't look good.'

On Saturday, Anu took Helmi to Helsinki's costume shop to get her a costume for Halloween. After that, we went to the Asian store to get whatever I wanted to eat and needed to cook. We bought so many things from roti and pau to durians and rambutans. The same night itself, we had roti and curry chicken for dinner. It was heaven.

The next day, we had char siew and fried noodles. Not exactly the char siew we usually eat, but similar. The premix is from Thailand. The noodles were wok fried by Jaakko. Ang moh fried noodles Chinese style, ok, don't play-play.

Food and fun aside, I feel that time is flying. Maybe it's because days are shorter compared to before, or maybe it really is flying by really quickly. Winter's approaching soon. Everyone's getting ready for it. Poles are struck along roadsides for markings, the ice skating rink has been set up in a nearby field; all waiting for the snow. I've spent almost 5 months here now, another 6 more months to go. My permit expires in 4 months and I have yet to secure myself something that will give me the flexibility to stay and perhaps work. But fret not, they say. Something will open up eventually. Well, let's see. Hopefully.

I shall end this with some random fun the kids had with the dad after dinner.