Abraham's First Birthday

Kodomo-no-hi
Children's Day
For centuries Japan celebrated Boy's Day but recently the festival became known as Children's Day or Kodom-no-hi which celebrates the healthy growth of all children. Families with a son fly fish-shaped windsocks outside their homes on a long pole. The Koi nobori represent carp swimming upstream. Parents hope their sons will overcome obstacles as they grow up and become men. I thought this would be a great theme for Abraham's first birthday. I'm so glad he's reached his first birthday with health and strength. We wish him well in the trials he is sure to face.
This is one of my favorite times in Japan. I love seeing all the flags big and small flying. Eli's school Fuji yochien would have these absolutely huge ones that would fly in their courtyard that must have been easily 12 to 15 feet long.

Abraham had a wonderful yet seemingly unexpected first birthday. He was constantly amazed that we were all singing and clapping for him and whilst smiling and clapping he joined in all the fun and merriment. I'm sure he's still wondering why everyone was soooo nice to him yesterday!
What a beautiful cake! It was the centerpiece to our celebrations. I'm so glad we decided to go in to the Covered in Cake lady. I was telling her a little about Abe and she came up with the idea of having waves around the bottom of the cake and I decide to add in the fish flag and "rising sun" a nod to the Japanese flag.

We put everyone to work creating those fish flags. It took a lot of love to color each scale a slightly different and unique color. Abraham even got in on the action.

He sure loves them!

Abraham has such a sweet warm spirit. He's always "flirting" with everyone by waving, smiling and wanting to make others happy. He's curious and adventurous in all that he does. He never goes half way. Timid is not in his vocabulary. If he wants something he doesn't just look, he'll go up and pounce on it!


We went to Abe's first Baseball game! It was a lot of fun. I had forgotten the first time Abe had seen fireworks. It was the Fourth of July in Japan and we had a flash flood that knocked out our power making it hot, muggy and basically miserable with a new born. (No food, no air conditioner, no communications etc.) Well, I didn't feel like even getting in the car to drive down to the fireworks so Dad and the kids jumped in the car and went to watch them. I was left holding a fussy Abe. He usually calmed down if I brought him outside so I was walking around the front of our house with him when the fireworks started exploding in the air. I thought this would startle him, but he started looking around and amazingly stopped being fussy. We sat out front snuggled together watching the fireworks in the warm summer evening. It all came back to me as I held him last night, as we snuggled together while he was barely holding his eyes open (since it was almost 11pm). It almost brought me to tears.


To complete our theme we brought Abe to this great pool so he could splash to his hearts content. We also HAD to bring him to the "Flying Fish" a place downtown that has the best fish...which he loves! OH, and there are cute "stuffed" fish all over the walls.


Abaraham your family loves you so much and we know that you will grow up to be your namesake....Strong, faithful, honest, a leader and a beacon to many generations to come. Ok, so we just hope to have lots of grandkids that are as cute as you! WE all LOVE YOU so much sweetheart!