Spreading the Awkwardness

With Father’s day coming, I am thinking of giving my husband a family portrait session with our wonderful photographer, Ruth Woodruff, because without her help, we’d be probably be posting quite a few of our family portraits on this new and awkwardly funny website called Awkward Family Photos.

The site's name says it all. It’s a relatively new website that started last month and if you don’t laugh out loud looking some of their top picks, there’s definitely something awkwardly wrong.

Seriously, you've got to check out a few of their top picks:

Happy Mother's Day (I love that they are in a lush garden of Eden setting, although there's nothing natural about this pose.)

The Wonder Years (This picture disturbs me on so many levels!) -UPDATE: May 22, 2009. They have since removed this picture.

Something this wrong has to be shared. Happy Monday!

-Thuy

Children's Day

Today is Children’s Day, also known as Kodomo No Hi. This national holiday is celebrated in Japan and by many Japanese Americans stateside. Children’s Day celebrates the happiness of all children and gratitude towards mothers. In my family we've always referred to May 5th as Boy’s Day.

On Boy’s Day, families traditionally hang carp flags, or koinobori, outside of their homes. The bigger fish represents the father and the second fish represents the older son. The younger sons and/or other children also get a carp flag to hang below their siblings.

In addition, families display a Kintaro doll usually riding a large carp and a Kabuto, which is a traditional Japanese military helmet. Both of these items represent a strong healthy boy.


Mochi, or rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves, as well as Chimaki, a kind of sweet rice paste wrapped in an iris or bamboo leaf, are traditionally served today.

The origami Kabuto hats in the photo above are very popular and easy to make. Here is a short tutorial if you are up to it. It's very basic. You'll be able to make them in 2 minutes and you don't need origami. Really!

Even though Children's Day is targeted more towards boys, the girls are not forgotten and have a day all for themselves. Hinamatsuri, also known as the doll festival, is celebrated on March 3rd and is exclusively for little girls. However, it is not a national holiday that has caused some controversy over the years.

If your are feeling crafty, grab your little boys (or girls) and have them make their own carp kite.

Or you can always help them celebrate by making a festive bento lunch!

-Kacey

PS: Happy Cinco De Mayo!

A Crafty Plan

If you asked my sister Mindy about my personality she would most likely say that I’m your typical first born: bossy, organized (ha!), know-it-all, and a planner. However, compared with my first born friends, Francesca and Keri, I am NOT what you might call a “planner.” They, on the other hand, both take the cake, literally, especially in Keri’s case.

This is the reason and my main motivation for starting my craft projects early. Yes, Halloween is several months away, but I’ve already found Emi’s costume, thanks to my new favorite crafting website. Just to make sure you love it as much as I do, here’s a sneak peek at what I’m working on this year to fulfill my new year’s resolution.

Not only is this cute and very appropriate for Emi (I probably won't have to use much stuffing!), but also after Halloween is over, the cookies can double as chair cushions. Hello? Can you say genius!

Emi’s birthday also happens to fall in October. This year, I would love to make her one of these photo banners.

I’m hopeful that this craft will be doable considering the fact that I will only have to make her two of the pennants for her second birthday! Baby steps, people.

Finally, after Halloween, it seems like Christmas always sneaks up on me. If I were Francesca, I’d be done with Christmas shopping in May, but sadly this is not the case. I figure that my summer might be well spent making some of these super cute felt onesies and t-shirts. Please do act surprised if you, in fact, get this for Christmas! To be honest, I will be surprised if you get this for Christmas 2009 too.

As promised here is my NEW favorite resource/inspiration craft site:

The site name does lack some originality, but do not let that sway you from checking out their fabulous ideas. Thankfully, most of the patterns look easy for those like me who tend to be a bit challenged in the craft department.

-Kacey

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Random question: Can anyone tell me the history behind pinching people who don't wear green? A student of mine asked and I do not have the slightest idea. Bad teacher!

Happy Setsubun!

Last week Thuy did a beautiful job sharing the festivities to prepare for Tet or the Lunar New Year. Although Japanese do not follow the same lunar calendar, we too have our own way of getting the evil spirits out and allowing luck to flow into our homes. It’s a festival known as Setsubun.

Setsubun, meaning “seasonal division”, is usually celebrated on February 3rd or 4th. It is not a national holiday in Japan but rather a festival celebrated at schools, temples, and in the home. This festival involves throwing mame maki, which are soybeans, at your friends or the head of your household. Yes, you read this correctly, we Japanese throw beans at you to get the evil spirits out and to bring luck and happiness in!

Here’s how it works:

First, you purchase mame maki at the stores. The beans are usually accompanied with a mask.


If you are celebrating at school, one of your classmates wears the mask and pretends to be the oni, which is a ogre. The other classmates throw beans at the ogre while saying, “Oni wa Soto, Fuku wa Uchi!” This is to ward off any evil spirits for the coming year. It sounds much worse than it is. It’s pronounced foo-koo and translated means, “Get out, Ogre! Come in good luck/happiness!”

If you are celebrating at home, the father usually plays the roll of the ogre while the children throw beans at him. What I find most amusing about this festival is the fact that Japanese are very fixated on cleaning their homes before the New Year, yet throw beans everywhere just a month later!

After the bean throwing, you are supposed to eat the same number of beans as your age, plus one for the coming year.



In the evening, families usually eat a special thick sushi called futomaki. Rather than slicing the sushi, each person eats the roll while facing the yearly lucky compass direction, which is determined by the annual zodiac symbol.

I had completely forgotton about the Setsuban festival and was reminded while grocery shopping at my favorite Japanese market in San Francisco. If you would like to bring some luck and happiness into your home and share in the Japanese culture, all you need are beans! (I've heard that peanuts are also acceptable.)

What would be even more fun is to have the kids start throwing beans at Dad as soon as he walks in the door. How can he get upset when the children are warding off the evil spirits and bringing happiness into the home? Let me know how it works out.

-Kacey

Let the Good Fortune Begin!

Today is Vietnamese New Year, or Tet, which brings a vast array of traditions and celebrations to our house. We have been preparing for Tet all week long. The first step in the Tet celebration is to give our house a thorough spring-cleaning. Doing so is not simply about getting rid of the dust bunnies in your closet. Rather, it is about getting rid of the dust bunnies in your soul before the start of the new year. A spiritual cleansing, so to speak.

Dusting, mopping and vacuuming should have been completed over a week ago. No cleaning should be done in the days immediately leading up to Tet because Vietnamese are incredibly superstitious. As the belief goes, to sweep on the actual days of Tet would mean that you're sweeping away any potential prosperity. Sadly, since I was still cleaning as of yesterday, I have a dirty, dirty soul.

Following the cleaning is the decorating. We surround ourselves with things that symbolize good fortune, which means lots of red and gold colors. In our home, we symbolize good fortune with chrysanthemums, peaches, quince, and cherry blossoms. Gold chrysanthemums are symbolic of gold and prosperity. As for the flowering trees, it is said that the blossoms represent new beginnings and the hope that life will blossom in the coming year.

Beautiful Chrysanthemums

We are also supposed to don new clothes for Tet. In M's case, we dressed him in traditional Vietnamese ao dai. He was able to show off his outfit to some of his friends. They all looked so cute, but it was nearly impossible to get a picture of the three of them together.

M looking confused in his ao dai

The majority of the week is spent paying homage to our ancestors and "fairies" with offerings of flowers, food, fruits, and even banknotes, so that they may continue to watch over and protect us, their descendants. Earlier this week, my Mom wanted me to set up an alter in our kitchen to pay homage to Ong Tao, which I translated literally to mean Mr. Apple. (My Mom wasn't amused that I thought this was incredibly funny.) We start the week out by sending Mr. Apple our wishes because of his direct pipeline to heaven. (My husband calls him our Congressman.) At the end of the week, we invite Mr. Apple back to our home to thank him. I complied with my Mom's request. Some things that are just worth putting my faith in my Mom... and in Mr. Apple.

The Homage to Mr. Apple

Perhaps the most well known of the traditions are the red envelopes filled with money or lì xì. Red is considered a lucky color, so the money inside is also lucky. Older people generally give these envelopes to children, who in turn wish their elders good health and a long life.

M's Lucky Money

Since we'd like to wish good fortune to everyone this new year, we thought we would give away our own version of the red envelope. That's right people, let the good fortune begin.

We have six Baby Einstein DVDs that we'd like to share with three of our readers.

Numbers Nursery
Baby Galileo: Discovering the Sky
Baby Wordsworth: First Words - Around the House
Baby Shakespeare: World of Poetry
Language Nursery
Baby Da Vinci - From Head to Toe

The rules are simple:

1) To enter, leave a comment on this post, telling us what you'd like us to write about in the future. (If you do not have a blog/website, be sure to include your e-mail address in your comment.)
2) Contest ends on Friday, January 30 at 12:00 a.m. PST.
3) One entry per person.
4) Entrants must be U.S. residents age 18 or older.
5) Three winners will be selected at random and contacted via e-mail. The winners will also be announced on the 3 Bay B Chicks website.
6) Any failure to respond to the prize notification within three business days will result in the prize going to an alternate winner.

Be sure to check-out Bloggy Giveaways to see other fabulous freebies this week. Happy New Year!

-Thuy

I Have a Dream

Today, we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an African American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement. Although I am familiar with many of Dr. King's great accomplishments, I must admit that I had never read his "I Have a Dream" speech in its entirety until this weekend.

Dr. King's incredibly powerful words moved me to tears.

However, his speech also got me thinking, what are my dreams? What do I hope for, especially as a mother?

After a bit of time this morning, I believe I managed to collect my thoughts on the matter...

I have a dream that one day I will be able to get my hair cut and colored more than twice a year and that personal care appointments will be a part of my normal routine, rather than a reason to shout from the rooftops, “I am getting waxed today!”

I have a dream that one day, at every grocery store I visit, strangers will turn to me and say, “My, your children are so well behaved. How do you do it all and still manage to look so fabulous?” As opposed to, “Huh, it is never easy, is it?”, “What did you do, pinch your baby to make her cry?”, or my favorite, “You look like one tired Mom.”

I have a dream that one day my son will turn to me and say, "Yes, Mama, I would love to use the toliet, instead of my diaper," thereby eliminating the need for my son to wear my daughter's diapers whenever my supply dwindles down to nothing.

I have a dream that my two little children will one day not tear the house apart minutes after I have finished cleaning it and that a floor without crumbled bits of crackers, cookies, and partially eaten food will not seem like a distant memory.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, when my husband asks me, “How was your day?” my response will be something more than, “The children are still alive and that is enough.”

I have a dream that one day, when I get dressed in the morning, I can do so without an audience or four little hands trying to hold onto me while I put on my underwear.

I have a dream today.

And if I am to become the patient, independent, and fun-loving Mom that I aspire to be, then these things must be true.

So let my freedom ring.

-Francesca