At long last, birthday season is over! We celebrated Matea's first birthday Korean style, complete with "toljabee" ceremony. She chose a wooden knife, which means that she is destined to be a good cook!

Take a look here for more information on the "tol" event.

After the oh-so-serious ceremony, we had a regular ol' birthday party at our place. We feasted on Korean food (courtesy of my mom, of course--some day I'll learn to make everyone's favorite dishes!), the kids played with every single toy in the apartment (including the ones hidden away in the closet), and generally had a good time.

Here is a photo of the cake I made for Matea's big day. I think she even got to try some! (I made enough little bugs so that all the kids could have one, and we still had a few to spare). I'm a sucker for those novelty cake pans!


Next up was Meris's birthday. Here he is, showing us that he is now four years old.

We had a BBQ in the park to celebrate both his and Ariel's birthdays. I think we had more kids than adults at this one. The weather was perfect--warm and windy. I had planned some super simple games for the kids, but they just decorated butterfly/fairy wings with markers and glitter (great idea on a windy day!) and ran around like crazy.

Here is Meris, getting ready for cake. And then I've got a close-up of the butterfly swarm I created, inspired/instructed by Hello, Cupcake! (yes, I have the book).


~jkg