On Sunday, we drove out to the city to go to Golden Gate Park, where the cherry blossoms are in bloom by the Hagiwara Japanese Tea Garden. Cherry blossoms are my favorite flower, and I love seeing them come in bloom every spring and this year, Mio got to see the beautiful blossoms she was named after. There were a lot of people having hanami (flower-viewing) picnics around the trees in Golden Gate Park — gotta enjoy them while they are still in bloom! 🙂
We captured some lovely photos of Mio, our own little blossom, among the sakura…
Arriving at Golden Gate Park
Cherry blossoms!
Mio with her namesake.
Love that smile!
A cascade of blossoms
Mio with Daddy
A kiss from Daddy
It was a cowboy boots kind of day!
Tickling Mio's cheek with a flower.
Mio clapping her hands in delight.
Mio and Mama
Our family's first hanami
Picnic time!
Happily eating lunch.
Attacking Mama while she dozes...
Mio is so full of energy that we can't keep up!
For the full slideshow of photos of our hanami, see below! 😀
Mio received a ride-on car as a generous birthday gift from our friends, and she loves playing with it — honking the horn, turning the ignition, pushing the car around, and of course riding on it. The other day, she ran off to the other room after playing with it and when I entered the living room, I was greeted by a curious sight.
She had placed a pack of travel wipes on the seat of the car, and propped up a panda doll keychain on top of those wipes. It was all stacked quite neatly, right at the front of the seat, by the steering wheel. I was both amused and perplexed… what did it all mean?
Did Mio sit the panda on top of the wipes as a “booster seat” so that it could reach the steering wheel? Probably not… I’m pretty sure her one year old brain is not thinking that complexly yet, and that it’s just a coincidence… but I like entertaining the idea! Who knows how those little gears are turning in that little head?
Happy Easter! My favorite childhood memories of Easter was decorating Easter eggs with my mother and my brother every year. It’s been well over fifteen years since the last time I decorated Easter eggs, but becoming a mother myself brought back those memories and made me want to relive them this year.
As always, Dan was a good sport with my sudden urge to craft, and we decorated these eggs together on Friday night. (I know, we’re such party animals!) We huffed and puffed and blew the eggs out, and then tried a couple decorating techniques.
The first one we attempted was a “gilded” look with some metallic dyes. It didn’t come out quite as clean as I had wanted them too (I wanted them to have more uniform coverage), but as Dan pointed out, you have to have enough dye to dip it in, and we only had enough to paint it on with a brush. Oh well… it has more of an organic, abstract look to them with the painterly texture.
The second method I tried (at this point, Dan had given up and run off to indulge in a Breaking Bad-watching marathon) was one which involved wrapping the eggs in Japanese patterned paper. I was definitely happier with these results! 🙂 It’s a lovely Eastern take on a Western tradition.
The best part about these is that we can keep them around for decoration for a while, since the insides are hollow because we blew them out, and the decorated eggs won’t go bad.
I can’t wait until Mio is old enough to decorate Easter eggs with us! 😀
Now that Mio is one year old and eating a lot of the same foods we are eating, we decided that it was a good time for her to learn how to brush her teeth. She grew her eight teeth in a matter of a few weeks months ago, but she hasn’t grown any ever since. I feel like I probably should have started brushing her teeth a while ago, although she’s been using a teething toothbrush to bite on until now. Yesterday was her first time using a big girl toothbrush! Our dentist gave one to us a little while ago which is the perfect size for her!
She already has the hang of it! 🙂
Brushing those little front teeth.
Even reaching towards the molars that she doesn't have yet... lol.
Now she's just gumming it... sigh.
Gotta keep those pearly whites sparkly! Good habits start early. 🙂
Continuing from Part I and Part II of Mio’s birthday party posts, here’s the finale portion of Mio’s first birthday celebration — the smash cake! While we had made plenty of cupcakes to go around for our guests (in lieu of a birthday cake), we had a dedicated birthday cake all for Mio to enjoy! For those who are not familiar with a smash cake, it’s a common first birthday tradition where the child is encouraged to attack the cake with her fingers, fists, or face — no utensils required! It typically makes a huge mess on both the baby and the surrounding area, but it’s a whole lot of fun for the grown-ups to watch and get a good laugh out of it. And I’m sure most children don’t mind digging into a sweet dessert without restraint, so it’s a win-win for all!
Dan with Mio's smash cake
Because we haven’t really exposed Mio to anything with sugar in her diet yet, and would like to avoid giving her sweets for as long as we can manage, I did some research before making her smash cake, to see if there were any wholesome cake recipes that didn’t contain sugar and artificial sweeteners. Thankfully, it seems that there are many other mothers out there who feel the same, and I was able to find some helpful resources and recipes! After going through various recipes, I decided on making a carrot cake that used applesauce and apple juice concentrate as sweeteners in place of sugar, and that used whole wheat flour instead of enriched white flour. (I took a taste of it when it came out of the oven, and it actually still tasted pretty sweet, thanks to the natural sweetness of the apples and carrots!) The frosting was the toughest part, as most frosting depends on sugar to achieve its thickness and ability to crust, and many of the sugar-free recipes I found on the web used artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes like Equal and Splenda, which I think are just as bad (if not worse) for a baby to ingest. I ended up using a stabilized whipped cream recipe, which used gelatin to help it hold its shape, and added some meringue powder as well to help with stiffening the frosting. I then added icing colors to achieve the hues I wanted as I frosted roses onto the carrot cake. Even stabilized, the whipped cream was melting down the sides of the cake (see picture) while I was frosting it, and I had to keep it in the freezer until right before the party began to make sure it held its shape. I guess something’s gotta give when you are working with limited ingredients! I am just happy that I was able to make a cake that was pretty healthy and wholesome and still enjoyable to eat.
Mio went to town with the cake and really worked the crowd (she’s quite the entertainer!), but you can see for yourself here in the video, or scroll further down to see the cake demolition step by step!
Mio staring at everyone while we sang "Happy Birthday" to her.
My little birthday girl!
Reaching her hands in...
Scooping up the frosting...
Fistfuls of frosting!
Bringing it to her mouth!
"Go Mio! Go Mio!"
Surrounded by paparazzi!
Going for more...
An impressive cake beard.
She just keeps going...
The cake didn't stand a chance.
Breaking into the cake
A sheepish smile.
"Banzai! I am victorious against the cake!"
Me surveying the damage.
Mio trying to hand me a handful of frosting. "Here, have some!" No thanks, Mio...
The demolished cake.
Afterwards, Mio changed out of her caked dress and we gathered around to open presents.
Thank you Sarah for the adorable lamb hat!
Mio with her lovely new ruffle shoes!
Because Mio had been up from 6:45 am, and didn’t take her morning nap due to all the excitement, she was noticeably cranky and tired by the 3 o’clock hour when we were opening presents. I can’t believe she was able to stay up that long!
Starting to whine.
Getting more and more cranky.
We tried to carry on opening presents, despite all her protests.
Mio ended up curling up in Daddy's lap, crying with her eyes closed.
Can't... stay... awake.
And within a minute, she passed out. Poor Mio was exhausted.
It was so noisy, but she didn't even stir. Even rolling a toy on her doesn't wake her up. She was out cold.
So we just continued opening presents on her behalf, in peace.
Thank you everyone for all the generous and thoughtful gifts!
In all my busy-ness running around during the party, I lamely didn’t take many pictures with our guests! I have what little photos I have with them from pulling them off of friends’ Facebook and phone uploads. Thank you to everyone who shared their photos with me, and if you have any more photos from the party, please feel free to send them on over! 🙂
Adorable Megumi and Sam with their mason jar mugs.
With lovely Sam!
With beautiful Megumi, who has spoiled Mio so much, from even before she was born!
With Jason! Thanks for coming from all the way across the bridge!
Hyang Sun was 8 months pregnant at the party and was still a month away from her due date, but she ended up having her baby girl a month early, the day after Mio's birthday party! Congratulations!
Special thanks to Wynn, Megumi, and Sam who came an hour before the party started to help with last-minute preparations and set-up! We couldn't have pulled it off without their help.
I didn't get to take a photo of the favor box until after all the favors were gone, but we gave away our homemade cookies in little packages for our guests to take home with them.
See below for a slideshow of all the photos taken at the party! (We couldn’t post all of them on the blog without crashing your browser.)
Thank you so much to everyone who came out to Mio’s birthday party to celebrate with us! It was definitely memorable and we will treasure these precious memories for years and decades to come. Our first year as parents was definitely a challenge and had its fair share of ups and downs, but it is thanks to the love and support of our family and friends that we’ve been able to come this far. We look forward to many more great memories together with you! 😀
