March 3rd was Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day in Japan), so we celebrated by giving thanks to the continued health and happiness of our daughters, and girls everywhere. We had the hinaningyo dolls on display (gifted from my aunt a couple years ago), and Mio loved admiring them. Dan’s parents recently went to Hawaii and sent a cute shirt for Mio they had bought there, remembering that she had had a similar-looking shirt with a Japanese girl/doll when she was a year old, around Mirei’s age, and suggested Mio and Mirei wear them together. It made for some cute photos of the girls matching! 🙂
Ohinasama on display
She’s disciplined enough not to touch, but she loves looking at them!
Can’t believe she is almost four…
13 month old Mirei
The perfect occasion to wear this outfit!
This is Mirei’s second hinamatsuri.
Dan’s mom also sent a whole bunch of hina-arare crackers for the occasion, so I gave some to the girls and they loved it!
Mirei stood on a stool so she could be tall like big sister!
Being goofy together. Love our girls!
Our daughters bring so much joy and laughter to our lives, and we are always so thankful that we are blessed to get be their parents. We hope they continue to grow healthy and strong, and wish for them a future of happiness, love, and abundant blessings!
Today was Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day, in Japan. We are so grateful for our precious, healthy daughters, and wish for them both a lifetime of happiness. ♡ 今日ã¯æ¡ƒã®ç¯€å¥ã€ã²ãªç¥ã‚Šã®æ—¥ã€‚ æ„›ã™ã‚‹å¨˜ãŸã¡ã®å¥åº·ã¨æˆé•·ã‚’ç¥ã£ã¦ã€å¹¸ã›ã‚’願ã„ã¾ã™ã€‚æ„Ÿè¬ã®æ°—æŒã¡ã‚’è¾¼ã‚ã¦ã€ã“ã‚Œã‹ã‚‰ã‚‚å¥ã‚„ã‹ã«è‚²ã¡ã¾ã™ã‚ˆã†ã« ♥
Continuing from Day 1 in Los Angeles, we stayed in and relaxed for most of the day on Day 2. March 3 also happened to be Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day in Japan, and Megumi went all out to celebrate this special day!
Hinamatsuri cookies made by Megumi!
Beautiful Hinamatsuri gift basket Megumi put together for Mio for Girls’ Day! So sweet and generous of her. â¤
We woke up to an amazing breakfast prepared by Megumi.
Possibly the best breakfast potatoes I have ever had! It was surprisingly light but really satisfying.
Homemade scones… I love Megumi’s baked creations!
Refreshing fruit salad 🙂
My kind of breakfast! With a tiny hand sneaking in to grab a bite…
Megumi also got Mio this sweet toy cookie set from Melissa & Doug! Mio immediately fell in love with it. It goes perfectly with her cupcake set back home!
Estella stopped by to say goodbye!
It was great hanging out with Estella and Brent, even for a short time!
For lunch, Megumi was preparing a Hinamatsuri feast and invited a bunch of her Japanese American girlfriends, as Hinamatsuri is a celebration of girls everywhere! We were all floored by how much food she prepared, all according to the traditional dishes that are served for Hinamatsuri. Of course, she put a few of us to work to help with the food prep. 😉 I love helping Megumi cook/bake — it’s part of the fun, I learn new tips and techniques, and all the effort is rewarded with good eats!
Making ichigo daifuku with Emily and Stephanie. It was a sticky process!
The finished result! Ichigo daifuku – mochi with strawberries and red bean filling on the inside. 🙂
Chirashizushi
Pretty sakuramochi
My favorite type of mochi! Does anyone know if there’s a place you can buy sakuramochi in the DC area?
Matcha (green tea) cupcakes
Hinamatsuri desserts, including hishimochi (diamond-shaped colored rice cakes)
Nigiri, futomaki, and inarizushi
Ushiojiru, which is soup with clams. Clam shells in food are deemed the symbol of a united and peaceful couple, because a pair of clam shells fits perfectly, and no pair but the original pair can do so.
Shots of shirozake
The ladies at Hinamatsuri lunch. What a feast! Mio was napping for most of it, but there was still plenty of food for her when she woke up.
Cutiepies Mio (23 months old) and Hiroki (16 months old).
Mio dressed in her jinbei for Hinamatsuri. Here she is upon discovering a cat (behind her) by Megumi’s apartment.
We had such a wonderful time in LA! Thank you to Megumi and Daniel for being such amazing hosts and making our stay so memorable and fun.
Our time in Southern California was short but so sweet! The LA portion of our trip was over, but we still had lots of fun times ahead of us up in Northern California. Stay tuned!
Hina-matsuri, or “Girls’ Day” in Japan, is celebrated every year on March 3. While the day is a celebration of little girls everywhere, the literal translation of hina-matsuri is “The Japanese Doll Festival,” and as it suggests, a major part of the celebration involves bringing out the display of a set of ornamental dolls, called hina-ningyo in Japan. They represent the Emperor and Empress, and the more elaborate traditional sets have several platforms and include attendants and musicians in addition to the royal couple, all dressed in the traditional court dresses of the Heian period. Families who have young daughters typically display the dolls in early to mid-February and take them down immediately after Girls’ Day. It’s said that leaving the dolls up past March 4 will invite bad luck and that the daughter will marry late in life.
In Japan, virtually all families with a daughter would have a set of these dolls in their household. My mom told me about how the set that she grew up with had been one that was passed on for multiple generations so parts of the dolls were broken or had missing props, but that she and her sisters couldn’t contain their excitement and joy to see the dolls brought out every year for them. As a little girl myself, I always wanted a hina-ningyo doll set to be put on display for me, but the traditional sets can cost thousands of dollars, and were impossible to find here in the States, so there was never one in our house growing up. Last year, I considered finding one for Mio because I wanted her to be able to experience the time-honored tradition that I couldn’t have, but alas, it’s still nearly impossible to find them in the States, and while there are cheaper plush and plastic versions sold in Japan, the traditional ones are still pretty darn expensive! Factor in shipping (if they even ship to the US), and I couldn’t find anything affordable.
So imagine my surprise when last week, on Valentine’s Day, a huge package arrived on our doorstep from Japan. It was from my Aunt Chikako (my father’s sister) and her husband, Uncle Koichi. It was addressed to my father, with a letter from my aunt saying “Dear Older Brother, I would like to pass on my ohinasama set to Dan and Misono’s beloved daughter Mio.” I was honestly so surprised and excited by the unexpected gift that it overshadowed any Valentine’s Day gifts and surprises that Dan had prepared for me!
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what was written for the contents of the package. (And that the value was 100,000 yen – yikes!)
The letter from Aunt Chikako (Mio’s Great Aunt)
Earlier this week, I set up the display in Mio’s room, up high on top of the dresser so she couldn’t easily reach it. I did at one point pull up a chair for her to stand on so she could admire the dolls more closely (under our supervision, of course).
The hina-ningyo dolls set up in Mio’s room.
Ohimesama (Empress)
Odairisama (Emperor). The detail and craftsmanship in these dolls and all their accompanying props is astounding.
Mio’s reaction? So. Excited.
Mio is usually very rough in handling things like her toys and random objects, as most toddlers are, but she seemed to understand that the dolls and their accompanying props were not to be handled carelessly. She didn’t even really venture to touch anything for the first several minutes, just gazing at everything and taking it all in, occasionally poking something gently here and there.
Mio is already in love with the dolls.
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When “viewing time” was over, there was one thing that Mio decided to snatch up as I took her off of the chair and away from the display…
Very attached to the cherry blossom tree. She had a death grip on it, repeating “hana, hana.” (“Hana” = “flower” in Japanese.)
It’s only fitting that you love the sakura so much as it’s your namesake, sweet Mio!
March 3rd is hina-matsuri, or Girls’ Day, in Japan. This is the first hina-matsuri since Mio came into this world, and although we didn’t do anything special because we don’t have a hina-ningyo set (I have yet to find an affordable set… my parents don’t have one at home, either, so I’ve never actually seen one in person!), it was definitely a nice day for myself to reflect in gratitude for our little girl.
I have always wanted a daughter, for as long as I can remember… even when the idea of having children was still that of a distant future, I always imagined a future with a daughter. Of course, I would have been happy whether Mio had been a girl or a boy… but I definitely would have wanted to eventually have at least one girl. Any child, whatever gender they may be, is a blessing and I would love them no matter what, but I couldn’t deny that longing for a daughter… I have to confess that my worst fear going into parenthood, as horrible as it may sound, was that I’d only have sons! I couldn’t wait to have a sweet little girl that I could dress up and dote on… who, when they eventually grew up, I could have heart-to-heart talks with. Boys are great too, and a good number of them are Mama’s boys, but there is something so unique about the bond and relationship between a mother and daughter. I’ve seen my own relationship with my mother grow and take on an added dimension to it in recent years, one that is very much like a close friendship. My cousin once told me that a daughter is such a gift because they will be a lifelong best friend to their mother. I couldn’t wait to have my own daughter whom I could nurture such a deep, beautiful connection with.
During my first trimester when I was pregnant with Mio, I was anxious to find out the gender, but for some reason, I was convinced that I was going to have a boy. It was mostly thanks to all the old wives’ tales my mother fed me about how having really strong morning sickness is a sure sign that you will be having a son (completely unfounded, but for some reason, I bought into it), but I also had a gut feeling. I was of course prepared to welcome and love our baby no matter what the gender was, but perhaps my brain knew that deep down in my heart, I secretly yearned for a girl, and it was its way of guarding me and making sure I didn’t set myself up for even the slightest feeling of disappointment. (You can see how paranoid even the deepest recesses of my brain are….) So when the ultrasound tech at my 20-week appointment told me that I was having a girl, I was stunned and in disbelief for a few moments. I had to ask her a couple times how sure she was of that, because in my head I had already pictured having a baby boy and realized I had not even really let myself imagine the baby as a girl. She confirmed to me that from what she could see, it was pretty certain. As the information sunk in, my disbelief gradually turned into elation — I was having a girl! The daughter I had always wanted! My dream had come true. At first, I couldn’t believe it, but my heart soared and I felt so happy that I could kiss the sky!
And now, with Mio turning one year old in a few weeks, there’s still a part of me that’s in disbelief that this sweet, beautiful little girl waddling around me is my very own. She trusts and loves me unconditionally, and as she grows older, will study me as an example of a grown woman (although whether she decides to follow my example is completely up to her… I of course would want her to reach for greater heights and become much more). In time, she’ll go into my closet to try on my shoes and accessories, and sneak into my makeup and smear her face with my lipstick, just as I had done with my mother’s. Several years later, I’ll buy her her first training bra, and have to explain to her grownup things (but hopefully that won’t come too soon… yikes!), and someday, I may go shopping with her to find a wedding dress. I hope that no matter where we end up in thirty years, we’ll have the kind of relationship my mother and I have, where at least once in two days, one of us will find ourselves unconsciously reaching for the phone to call the other, where we can laugh together over silly things and confide in each other on more serious topics. I know that in between now and then, there will definitely be rough times, when she wants nothing to do with me, or think her friends are more worth her time, but I hope she will always know that I will always be there for her when she needs a place to come back to or someone to listen, and that she will never doubt how much I love her.
Dearest Mio, I dreamt you long before I birthed you. You are the daughter of my dreams.
March 3rd is hina-matsuri, or Girls’ Day, in Japan. This is the first hina-matsuri since Mio came into this world, and although we didn’t do anything special because we don’t have a hina-ningyo set (I have yet to find an affordable set… my parents don’t have one at home, either, so I’ve never actually seen one in person!), it was definitely a nice day for myself to reflect in gratitude for our little girl.
