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!
We celebrated Valentine’s Day a little early this year, because I had plans to visit my best friend in Philadelphia with my girlfriends on February 14th. I took some photos of the girls matching in red to commemorate Valentine’s 2015!
It was impossible to get them to both smile in one shot! Sigh.
Smiling sweetly for the camera! ♥
Mirei’s expressions look so mature lately…
Dan and I got to have an early Valentine’s dinner date on Thursday, thanks to my sister watching the kids for us! We dined at Maple Ave Restaurant, which we had heard so many good things about! We were pretty excited to have a quiet romantic dinner together, and the food did not disappoint. Everything was so incredibly delicious!
Steamed PEI mussels with saffron coconut broth, chinese sausage, and crostinis as an appetizer.
I ordered the duck leg confit with caramelized brussel sprouts, truffle aioli, and apple cider gastrique.
For dessert, we had the chocolate dumplings with fried pastry shell, melted chocolate ganache, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate sauce.
…and the “omg” flourless chocolate cake. Both were amazing!
Love you hubby! Thanks for a lovely and romantic evening.
When we got home, Mio delivered surprise Valentines gifts from Dan!
A sweet Valentine’s card from Dan and the girls!
Mio signed her Valentines to her classmates this year! This was actually her first time writing her name out. We’d been encouraging her to write her name for a while now and she always resisted so we’ve tried not to push her… but she willingly wrote it this time. So proud of her!
Mio’s Valentines haul from her classmates. She loved it, and has been treasuring her bag of Valentine’s cards in the days since!
On the same day (Friday), we received this card in the mail. Mio’s preschool class has been learning about the post office, and apparently they sent their Valentine’s to their parents out in the mail in time to get to us by Valentine’s Day! I will treasure this always.
Mio telling us about how she sent the Valentine in the mail.
Thank you sweetheart for such a beautiful Valentine! We love you and your sister so much!
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!
