Mio’s preschool had a special “Mom’s Day” on February 25, where mothers of the students could come about an hour earlier than the regular pickup time to spend time with their children in the classroom and see what kinds of activities they usually do, before attending the weekly Wednesday chapel that the kids go to before dismissal. I’ve always been so curious about how Mio acts in school, so it was fun to get a little peek into her life at school, and observe her in a classroom setting. My heart was warmed to see how excited she was to have me in class with her, excitedly showing me the toys and games she likes to play with!
Mio showing me an activity at preschool
She was so giddy that I could be there with her.
Can’t contain her excitement!
Mio’s class singing and moving to the “Yoga Clock” song — so cute!
Here’s Mio singing “Jesus Loves Me” on her own at chapel, but then she forgets the lyrics towards the end and gets stuck repeating the same part over and over. lol
We have been getting a lot of snow lately! Here are some photos from Sunday, February 21, when we went outside and played in the snow! This was Mirei’s first time being in the snow, and she seemed kind of stunned and fascinated by it.
Mirei’s first time playing in snow
We built a snowman!
Showing Mirei the snowman
Mio loving the snow!
A video I took of the girls playing in the snow:
Mirei with a snowball. Ready to start a snowball fight?
Such a sweetheart ♥
Of course, you can’t have a snow day without a snowball fight! Mio joined in and had a blast!
Picking up from Part I and Part II of Mirei’s birthday party posts, the smash cake was the finale of her first birthday celebration! Mirei got a whole cake all to herself, to smash and lick to her heart’s content! The smash cake has become 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 but it’s very entertaining, as it was when we made one for Mio on her first birthday. I usually expect the birthday baby to have a similar method to Mio, where they just go at the cake full force, but I’ve seen other cases where the child only takes a little lick here and there, or just doesn’t want to touch the frosting at all because they don’t want to get their hands dirty! It’s always very interesting to see the differences in personalities and approaches to the smash cake, and we were really curious to see how Mirei would react to her own smash cake!
At first, she took a moment to look around and take in her audience.
You can watch Mirei with her smash cake in the following two videos:
“This is a good size cake they gave me.”
“Let’s have a lick-sy…”
Mirei’s first taste of cake!
Instead of smashing the cake, Mirei poked it several times (as you can observe from the holes on the side of the cake).
“Back off, sister… I’m still working on it!” Mirei savoring the smashcake
Digging into the top!
We were surprised to find that Mirei’s approach to the smash cake was much more tame than Mio’s, and that she did a lot less damage! (In fact, it was so intact that we were able to reuse the cake for her first birthday photos we posted earlier!) So interesting how siblings can be so different, even though they share the same DNA!
Dan and I with our birthday girl… with a photobomb from Uncle Ted.
A heartfelt thank you to all of our guests who braved the wintry weather to to celebrate Mirei’s first birthday with us! It is a sweet memory that we will keep with us for years to come, and Mirei is so lucky to have so many people that love her so much. Our first year as parents of two has been challenging at times, but we really can’t imagine a life without our sweet Mirei now, and we look forward to making many more wonderful memories as a family!
Just as we did with her older sister, we wanted to observe the Japanese first birthday tradition of erabitori at Mirei’s first birthday party. (We opted not to do the issho mochi tradition this time with Mirei, because it was a little heartbreaking when we observed it with Mio.) For those who aren’t familiar with erabitori, here’s a brief explanation.
ERABITORI (é¸ã³å–ã‚Š)
The literal translation for erabitori (é¸ã³å–ã‚Š) is “to pick and keep an item.” The following objects were set before Mirei. It is said that the first object that the baby selects will show her calling, or a tendency towards a specific career field.
WRITING BRUSH: Artist / Writer CALCULATOR: Merchant / Good with business BELL: Music / Performing Arts SCISSORS: Skillful hands / Fashion or Crafting STETHOSCOPE: Doctor or Nurse (Medicine) CHOPSTICKS: Chef / Culinary Arts, Never go hungry DICTIONARY: Scholar / Academic Excellence BALL: Athlete / Career in Sports
So what did Mirei choose? Watch the videos and see the photos below!
Explaining erabitori and the items
Mio kind of caused a scene with a potty emergency while I was explaining the items… ::sigh::
…back to the main attraction! Here is Mirei choosing her item(s).
Go Mirei, go!
Walking towards the items…
What will she choose?
Surveying her choices…
Touching the calculator at first…
…but then picking up the bell.
She was really into the bell!
A family picture after Mirei’s erabitori. Still holding that bell! 😛
It was fun to get a peek at Mirei’s possible future calling! Will she excel in business and/or mathematics? Or pursue a career in music and the performing arts? We’ll have to see! She might just be very busy, trying out various fields throughout her life!
Stay tuned for Part III, in which Mirei gets to enjoy her first birthday smashcake!
On Christmas morning, we gathered with our family to open gifts together with family, but Dan wanted to do something a little special for Mio since this is the first year she really understands the idea of Santa Claus and how he comes to deliver presents to each house. He found out about an app called SantApp, which uses the light and sound features on your phone to create the illusion that Santa Claus is right in your living room delivering presents. He set it up and woke Mio up early Christmas morning. We thought that it’d be hard to wake her up (because it usually is), but as soon as Dan said, “Mio, I think I hear Santa. He’s here!” she jumped out of bed and ran down to the foot of the stairs, from which Dan told her to wait and listen. It was really dark, so I mostly caught just the audio in the video below, but you can hear and see what went on below:
Afterwards, we let her open just one present before the rest of the family gathered later that morning to open gifts. It was her much-anticipated pink octopus that she’s been asking for from “Santa” (actually thoughtfully sent by Uncle Ted and Auntie Jackie) — you can see her happy (and a little bit sleepy) reaction in the following video:
We’re so happy that we could share with Mio some of the magic of Christmas, and bring Santa Claus to our home! We then went back to bed and slept in a little more, before Ted & Elisa came over and it was time for us to exchange gifts…
The gifts under the Christmas tree
This was Mirei’s first Christmas!
Ted & Elisa brought their dog Asher over! It was his first Christmas, too!
Mirei was happiest about the puffs she got from Grandma and Grandpa!
Mio hugging the Zoku Character Kit for our Zoku popsicles that we love to make!
Mio with her Christmas haul. I think she got the most presents out of anyone!
Dan handled cooking most of Christmas dinner, and it was delicious!
Christmas honey ham. So good!
Green beans with mushroom and bacon, made by me. I usually dislike green beans, but ever since my friend Mimi awakened me to this recipe, I can’t get enough of them!
Fresh salad prepared by my mom
Crisp potato roast! This was also delicious, and we made two pans of it!
Dan carving the ham
The family gathered for Christmas dinner
Christmas Day also happens to be my birthday, and this year I turned 32! Growing up, I used to be saddened by the fact that I often couldn’t spend my birthday with friends, or that a lot of them would be out of town when I had a birthday party close to Christmas, but recently I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that I’ve never had to go to school nor work on my birthday, and that my family is usually gathered anyway for Christmas, so I can always spend it with them. In a way, it’s the perfect day to celebrate a birthday!
Celebrating with a birthday cake after dinner
Blowing out the candles… Mio is very serious about helping me out here.
A happy Mio! She loves birthdays.
My first birthday with this sweet chubster! She has made this past year all the sweeter.
Mirei also turned 11 months old on Christmas Day! Her birthday is exactly a month after mine.
Love Mio’s ecstatic expression here!
We hope everyone’s Christmas was just as warm and sweet! There’s so little left of 2014, and we wish everyone the best as we close this year and ring in the new one!
