Posts Tagged ‘birthday’

We had Heron's first birthday party today! It was a little hot, but I guess it's a good thing that all the families that RSVP'd didn't make it. We had a good turnout of kids and babies and a good time just playing and chatting.

This is the cake I threw together in the morning before the party. I had a more elaborate vision, but it turned out cute! I made chocolate fondant, but the humidity (I guess?) made it SO goopy/drippy and it was impossible to work with. I would've added more sugar, but the grocery store was closed so I just scrapped it and frosted the cake. Heron's party was bug-themed, so he got a little buggy cake!

He had a cute bug outfit from Mom & Dad and there were bug stickers for the bigger kids and big bugs all over the floor for the little ones. We had blue, yellow, and green balloons on the floor and the ceiling to play with and some cute Japanese paper lanterns. Heron had fun crawling around with all his baby buddies! Rhino was in need of a nap halfway through the party, though.

We had some other cute treats. I made some rainbow Jell-o cups (kind of like these but without the condensed milk) with hidden gummy worms. I actually wouldn't recommend doing that. The Jell-o reacted strangely with my gummy worms and "stuff" flaked off the worms and they got really hard, too. It wasn't what I was hoping for. We also had "ants on a log" (peanut butter piped into celery sticks, topped with chocolate chips) and a variety of toddler-friendly treats. Yum!

Heron had a blast opening his gifts! He didn't quite understand what was going on, but seemed to enjoy the attention. The older kids helped him rip open his paper and play with his toys! The older kids had fun playing with Dad's cool RC helicopter. We didn't have any planned activities, just a general play time. First birthdays are the only ones that I want to invite this many people to. When he turns two next year, he'll get two guests at his party, then one more added each year!

Happy birthday to my big baby boy!!

Happy first birthday, Heron!!

I'm so glad that Mom & Dad were able to be here for Heron's first birthday! We had a great time!

I sewed up a special birthday crown for him (like I did for Rhino, but I'll be redoing Rhino's for future birthdays.) [Idea from Amanda Soule's book, The Creative Family.] I also sewed up a birthday banner for his party on Monday (idea from the same book.)

He received some wonderful gifts! He was given some cute outfits from Great-Granddaddy and GG and Pop. Matt's parents got him some adorable clothes too, as well as a Punch and Drop and some stacking wooden rings. I finally got to give him the knitted rainbow snake that I finished a while ago! Matt and Rhino and I also gave him a Walk N Roll for when he starts walking (soon!)

And, of course, there was cake!! I baked him his own little chocolate cake with my yummy chocolate frosting. Lucky boy! We tried to hold off on giving him any sugar until his first birthday, like we did for Rhino, but it hasn't really worked out. Rhino likes to share his treats! So this is the second time Heron's had chocolate cake.

He did pick the whole thing up and try to eat it like a cupcake! When it first came out, he didn't want to try the cake, actually. I took a finger full of frosting and chased his mouth around for a while until I could finally sneak it in. Then he knew what to do!  I cringe a little at this baby-chocolate-cake tradition because it's just so much sugar and we try to limit sweets. It is just too adorable though (I love this messy, chocolate baby!) and it is a one-time thing. It won't be every birthday that he gets to dive into his own cake!

The mess was so worth it. He had a blast! And cleanup was pretty easy. Once I got him in the bath, crumbs fell off him and he turned the water brown. At one time, a small piece of cake floated by him and he grabbed it and attempted to have seconds! Such a pig!

Happy birthday to me!!

I had a great, relaxing birthday. Matt always treats me right, but it was a nice, special day for me. Matt doesn’t usually like to go out for Mexican food, but I often crave it. We haven’t found much good Mexican food here in Japan, but there is Mike’s Tex Mex, which I like enough. So we went there for lunch. Yum!

All I really wanted for my birthday was a Japanese cake. They are SO delicious! I asked for it to say “Happy Birthday Melissa” in Japanese on it. Matt misunderstood and got “Happy Birthday” in English and just my name in Japanese. Not even really my name. When he went into the shop and ordered it, I guess he got flustered and mispronounced my name. In Japanese it’s pronounced may-ree-s-sah, but he said may-ree-ee-sah. Instead of doubling the s, he elongated the e. So my cake said Happy Birthday Meleesa! It tasted super delicious anyway, though!

He turned 2, so for his party he had two little friends (plus parents and siblings.) It was the perfect size party and a great time with our friends!

There were lots of balloons on the ceiling and the floor. Blue, green and yellow.

There were cheese and crackers, veggies and fruits, heart-shaped cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, ants on a log, and an assortment of juices. All of Rhino’s favorite snacks. For lunch the kids made mini pizzas. Rhino really loves his cheese!

Rhino loves to color and paint, so after lunch we took out large sheets of paper. There were carefully thought-out blobs of color on one, a beautiful rainbow and mother and daughter on another, gentle strokes of light blue and yellow on a third, then Rhino’s: large marker circles and goopy smears of handfuls of finger paint.

We were going to do presents after the cake, but Rhino snuck away and tore into them without us. I heard from the other room an overjoyed “Elmo! Elmo!” as he discovered his new Elmo microwave! I couldn’t say no then, and let him open up the deluxe Mister Potato Head (40 parts I never knew about!) and tote bag of Play-Doh and accessories. The kids were all mesmerized by the microwave until we drew them away with the cake.

I wanted to make a Blue’s Clues cake because it’s his favorite show. Tanja loaned me a dog-shaped pan and I dyed the batter and the frosting blue and did my best to resemble Blue. Rhino was so overexcited as he danced in his chair and sang along to the birthday song (“happy, happy, happy, happy …”), immediately blew out both candles, and lifted one out of the cake and bit off the bottom of the candle. After we recovered the wax from his mouth, we directed him towards his slice of cake and he wolfed it down in record time!

He’d never seen a party blower before, but it didn’t take him long to figure it out. Soon enough he was blowing it so the extended end would knock his cup over, poke friends in the head, and dip into his fingerpaint (and then roll up again, and extend on the blank paper making little party blower paint marks.) We partied for about two hours and then our friends left and he crashed on the floor, with blue on his face, next to his Elmo microwave. What a party!

I do think traditions are important. In the past years, Matt and I have been lazy about our celebrations and traditions. Now that we have children, I think it is essential that we pass on traditions we grew up with as well as begin and maintain our own. When Rhino turned one last year, we didn’t really have many traditions in place. He opened presents, ate his first cupcakes, and had a little party. I did quickly sew him up a felt birthday hat to wear, which he hated! I want to keep the birthday hat tradition, so this year I made him a felt crown. Both hats are specific to his age; last year’s hat had a big “1″ on it, and this year there’s a “2″ right up front. I’m thinking that next year I’ll start a little earlier (I made both the hats very hastily the day of his birthday) and make a special crown that he can reuse for birthdays. I’m going to get started early on making Heron a special first birthday hat, too!

Rhino loves to color. Scribble, whatever. He still eats crayons, though. We have his first masterpiece hanging in the boys’ bedroom, which he scribbled on his first birthday. He completes many works a week, which we (shh) recycle, but I thought it would be great for the boys to make a piece of art on their birthdays for us to keep. Rhino’s medium of choice is crayon (unless he finds a pen!) but he has used plenty of paint this past year. He loves painting with brushes, and his 2nd birthday was actually his first experience finger painting. Matt had to demonstrate for him and Rhino seemed pretty hesitant. He still doesn’t really like to be messy. He was pretty upset that his hands were covered in paint.

I don’t have many Rhino hand prints. I have ink footprints from the day he was born and Andrea and I gave a clay slab with Amelia’s and Rhino’s hand prints in them for Christmas last year. That’s it. I wish I had started on birthday #1, but this will have to do. I thought I would sew his hand prints. He loved having his hand traced onto paper for a template. We made a whole bunch because he enjoyed it so much! Between making the crown and this appliqued, embroidered hand, it was a lot of work for me in one day. So they were both extremely rushed and sloppy. I really meant for the apples to be rotated and right-side-up but I don’t know what I was thinking (I just wasn’t.) And the outline stitching is so messy — I am terrible at turning with my machine! I know very little about sewing, so it’s possible I’m using the completely wrong presser foot or something. That was very tricky for me. And I cut out the reverse applique kinda messy. It’s still charming, though! I embroidered Rhino’s name above his hand and his age below. I’ll put it in a wooden hoop or something and hang it on his wall. Hopefully I stick with it (or something similar) every year for the boys. Maybe I can use them to make a quilt or something in the future!

So those are some of the traditions we’re working on for birthdays. There will be more, most likely food-related. I loved having a special meal on my birthday, which was usually tacos (which is not what I’d be choosing now!) I received birthday spankings growing up, but I don’t know about using that one … To the one or two of you that read this blog… what are your birthday traditions??

Today you are two years old! You are having a great day so far! We are having a family celebration right now and next week you will have a small party with some of your good friends. Last night you went to a party while Daddy and I went to our church Valentine’s Day Banquet, so you were out late and playing hard! You got to color, listen to music, play games, hit a pinata, and have lots of snacks! So you wanted to sleep in this morning. As soon as you woke up, we went to the Weasels’ Den for the Pajama Jam, where you played on the playground and bounce house, had a big breakfast buffet, saw some friends, and watched some Ice Age on a big screen. When we came home, you opened presents from us, from Grandma and Grandpa, and from Grammy and Uncle Ron. You were given some fantastic toys, snazzy shoes, and a Blue’s Clues DVD and CD! We talked to Grammy on Skype while you opened gifts from her, then we traced your hand and you painted a picture. We have more fun lined up for you, but right now you’re enjoying playing with Heron and your new Blue doll.

I thought it would be nice to keep track of some of your favorite things and see how they change from year to year. Love you!

Favorites
Fruit: mandarin oranges; apples
Vegetable: carrots
Snacks: cheese; tuna salad; scrambled eggs; peanut butter
Meal: breakfast
Drink: apple juice
Songs: the Itsy Bitsy Spider; Skinamarinky Dinky Dink
Movies: Aliens vs. Monsters; Potty Power
TV Show: Blue’s Clues
Cartoon Character: Elmo
Book: I Love You Through and Through
Friend: Carson
Toy: Duplo blocks
Stuffed Animal: Yellow Bear you got from Uncle Matt your first Christmas
Playtime Activity: blowing bubbles
chores: sweeping; unloading dishwasher
Place: the Thursday Playgroup room at EDIS

On Saturday, Rhino and I went to a 1st birthday party for Carson and Cole, two babies at our church who were born a week apart.

Rhino had a blast playing with all the helium balloons and their strings (so did the other little kids!) We spent about an hour just watching the kids enjoying themselves before we dug in to hamburgers and hot dogs.

Charren (Cole’s mom) and Katy (Carson’s mom) had kiddie music playing: “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, etc. and Rhino spent a lot of time just jamming out to the songs and dancing for the guests. His favorite new moves are deep, repetitive squats with his arms straight out or waving around. The boy is going to have awesomely strong thighs!

After all the food, the boys opened their presents. I gave each of them a hand-stitched felt ball, embroidered with their name and the year. After everything was unwrapped, the kids tossed it around a lot, so I think it was a hit! I still have to finish knitting up some little bear finger puppets as a belated gift. I just couldn’t get it all finished in time!

After presents we had cake! The party was baseball-themed and the cakes were very cute (and delicious!) baseball cakes with a trophy for each boy. Carson and Cole each were given a chocolate cupcake. Cole was pretty unsure about the cupcake, would cautiously take a little nibble from his dad’s finger, and sort of complain or avoid the cupcake for the rest of the time! Carson, on the other hand, immediately picked up his cupcake by its bottom, and shoved nearly the whole thing in his mouth!

It was a great time chatting with other moms, watching the kids play (Rhino loves being around other kids now!), and getting some yummy food! Happy First Birthday, Carson and Cole!

Last Friday was my 26th birthday. We had just gotten home from our Tokyo trip on Thursday evening, so I was really in the mood for a quiet, relaxing day. There wasn’t really anything excited to speak of! Matt was on “Rhino Duty” all day which means that I didn’t change any diapers or get feed him. If I wanted to knit and he was “bugging” me (he always wants to play with what I’m playing with!) then Matt would make sure he’s distracted and entertained. Of course, I didn’t want a Rhino-free day, so I got to play with him and do all the fun things! I got to read, knit, browse the web, and just veg — it was very nice!

Nicole called me up that afternoon to say that she and Mike were taking us out to dinner, my choice! That was super-nice so we didn’t worry about cooking dinner or anything. One of my favorite places to go in town is The Global Kitchen. It’s a cute little place that has a little bit of everything: some Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Italian, “American”, etc. It’s not all amazing, but it’s a nice selection and we like to go on Sunday afternoons because you order all-you-can-eat of about 20 different little plates. They have a whole big room devoted to families with children, which is really nice for Rhino. They have high chairs and a fenced-in play area with a small slide, lots of books, stuffed animals, blocks, etc. Rhino used to not care so much about all the toys, but now whenever we go it is such a blast for him! Mike and Nicole hadn’t been in a long time, so it was nice to bring them back there too. We had never been for dinner, which isn’t all-you-can-eat but they offer larger portions and a much wider variety. I had cheese rolls (they make the best cheese rolls I’ve found and I crave them pretty much every day now!), a big bowl of corn soup (Nicole and I love finding places with corn soup!), and some spicy pineapple pork curry. Delicious! There’s always something for Rhino, too. He loves the little panko-breaded chicken pieces, cheese rolls, some of Matt’s yakisoba, and some of my Thai coconut curry (he eats my cute little mushrooms and eggplant pieces, but mostly loves the bamboo!) It was very nice to go out with Mike and Nicole and was quite a scrumptious dinner!

On Saturday we had Mike & Nicole and Liz + kids over for dinner. We did a strawberry and kiwi appetizer (which Josh and Aime inhaled!) then meatloaf, potatoes and green beans. I can’t find my favorite meat loaf recipe, so I sort of winged it this time. It was very tasty, but really fell apart. The whole thing was finished off, at least! And Rhino probably ate twice as much as I did — he kept demanding more meat loaf! It may be one of his favorite foods (the only other thing we’ve seen him act like this towards is lasagna.) Matt wanted to bake me a birthday cake on Friday (he says he’s never baked a cake before!) but because we went out, I suggested he wait until Saturday. He made my favorite boxed cake: strawberry with white whip frosting. And he added cute little flower sprinkles! It turned out very well and was so sweet of him! When the Armstrongs and the Kisers come over we usually entertain with a Mystery Science Theater 3000. This time we watched Space Mutiny, one of our favorites! Josh and Aime kept Rhino amused most of the night. It’s so much fun having kids over and seeing how he reacts these days. He likes to chase them around and do whatever they’re doing. It was a nice night hanging out with friends and a very pleasant birthday!

We hadRhino’s first birthday party at the Weasels’ Den, which is such a great place for the kids! We rented a little barn-kind-of-place for 2 hours and Rhino was so ecstatic the whole time we were there! He had a blast crawling and cruising around the baby area, which is full of padded mats and castle pieces, mirrors, and giant building blocks. The Armstrongs (kids: Josh (5) and Aime (3) ) and the Kisers showed up for the festivities. We had pizza and pasta, chatted a bunch, and did presents and cupcakes.

Rhino received a gift certificate and cute card from the Kisers, a bunch of wonderful books in a pretty bag (Rhino loved the bag, hahah!) and an animal memory game from us. He was a little more interested in tearing the wrapping paper than he was for his little birthday celebration, but he was mostly interested in the ribbons and bag!

I wanted to make cupcakes again because it just seemed to make sense for Rhino to have his own little cupcake rather than a piece of cake or a mini cake just for him. I wanted everything to be colorful for him, so I wanted to make the cupcakes as colorful as possible, too. A few months ago I found a tutorial online for making pretty swirled cupcakes and had been waiting for an occasion to try it out. Thankfully the BX had a great assortment of paste food coloring! The technique is really very easy and turned out wonderfully! Our home just gets so warm that often the frosting would be too runny when it came out of the bag to make pretty, firm stars. Most of them looked pretty good, though! Rhino didn’t care either way, he just gobbled his little cake up!

It was a nice, small first birthday party and Rhino seemed to really enjoy himself the whole time. He didn’t get crabby at all and really likes being around Josh and Aimé. The Armstrongs and Kisers are our best friends here at Misawa right now, so of course it’s always nice for us to spend time with them, too!

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

You’ve made it through the first year — hooray! I have known that “time flies”, but I really can’t believe how fast your first year has zipped by!

You’ve recovered completely from the trip to the States and now you’re your usual self. You’ve gotten to the point where I can say now that you are sleeping through the night. You’d often wake for short, frequent nursings, but you’re pretty much finished with that now. We’ve also set you up with your own little mattress on the floor next to ours, so you won’t be sleeping (crawling, kicking, sprawling…) with us when your new brother or sister arrives. You seem to like the little bed more than the big bed!

You’ve become a bit more of a trouble maker lately! Daddy had brought home a package of napkins the other day and left it on the kitchen floor, which was obviously an invitation for you to partake in the napkin fun! You are getting a bit sneaky, too, and will push the limits to see how much you can get away with. Even though you know “no” and that you aren’t supposed to be playing in the trash or grabbing in Daddy’s bag of chips, you’ll still try to when we aren’t looking and check to see if you’ve been caught yet!

You’ve become so affectionate lately! You understand “hug” and will give us big hugs often. You even hug all of your stuffed animals. You’re learning “kiss” now, too, but haven’t yet mastered it. You don’t quite know how to pucker, so when you kiss us, it’s with a wide open mouth and dangling tongue! You’re so sweet and sometimes harass us with sloppy kiss after sloppy kiss! Most of your stuffed animals also now have crusty mouths and noses where you’ve practiced your affection on them.

We have planned for your birthday party to be next weekend because your birthday weekend falls on Valentine’s Day and lots of your friends mommies and daddies all ready have plans. Daddy and I wanted to do something special on your birthday anyway, so I made you some cupcakes and you got to open gifts from your grandparents! Unfortunately, we didn’t have too much time for festivities because Daddy was at work all day and then we had a church banquet when he got home, so we had your little party over his lunch break. You weren’t so interested in opening presents — maybe because we were hastily tossing them at you! You know how to unwrap gifts pretty well, but this time you just wanted to tear one tiny piece off at a time and inspect each bit. Daddy and I ended up unwrapping everything else for you! You received some really nice outfits, a couple CDs you like to dance to, and some fun toys! Daddy and I gave you a wooden xylophone, which you haven’t quite figured out yet. You like to tink the keys with your finger instead of the mallet, or use the mallet backwards and at a whole arms distance away from the instrument. You’ll get it!

You also had your first taste of chocolate! I made you some yummy cupcakes with chocolate frosting. You were mostly interested in licking all the frosting off the cake and playing with it and made a bit of a mess! You finished the whole thing and seemed pretty pleased with the whole experience! The next morning was Valentine’s Day, so we had a little teddy bear and small box of chocolates for you. You had a piece and liked it, but didn’t beg for any more. I had also given Daddy a bigger box of chocolate truffles, which was left out on the coffee table. You only needed 10 seconds to open the box and shove six truffles into your little mouth and all over your chest! It was definitely time for a bath and you were pretty wound up with sugar the rest of the morning!

It’s been such a wonderful year with you, Rhino, and Daddy and I are looking forward to another fun year with you! Happy birthday!!

Lots of Love,
Mommy