Fun with Grandma

Juhee loves the outdoors. She loves walking around the backyard and looking at all of the different flower, fruits, and vegetables her maternal grandmother grows. Mum's persimmons were really yummy this year so they enjoyed some freshly picked from the tree. She liked the pears so much, she even ate the peel (don't worry, it was very thin and soft)! :)

Chillaxing

 

After all of the bowing on New Year's Day at Peter's parent's house, the kids changed into comfortable clothing and sat in front of the tv to chillax. The kids like sitting with / on top of Uncle Peter and watching kids programmes on tv. Juhee has a forbidden object (remote control) in her hand and is relishing in her (temporary) victory. ;D

Happy New Year!

 

Happy (belated) New Year! :D

Most of my family had gone back to wherever they came from so it was just a small celebration at our place, but for Peter's family's it was the first time his brother's family had got together with us and his parents in a long time and the very first time all of the grandchildren wore hanboks, bowed to their grandparents, and received cash gifts for their efforts! :)

I really wish Juhee had one of her cute hair pins in her hair when she had her hanbok on. She looks a bit like a boy 'cause her hair's so short! Allison, the youngest of Peter's brother's four didn't have one of the red hair things so I let her wear Juhee's so she would look the same as her sisters (and wouldn't get upset ;D), so the small round one is actually Juhee's.

It was fun doing it the traditional Korean way.

새해 복 많이 받으세요! :D
(Saehae bok mani badeosaeyo! New Year luck much receive!)

Juhee's Dol Helpers

Auntie Jade and newly adopted auntie Ina! They helped with everything from party favor ideas, to making the party favors and bags, to cooking, setting tables, cleaning, washing up, cutting cake, you name it, they did it!

Uncle Jonathan, Jeff, and Uncle Dennis! Jonathan was in charge of the camera after having cooked till late the previous night and all that morning, and Dennis was in charge of the camcorder. Jeff's always there to help with whatever he can, whenever he can.

And of course, grandma... :)

Theme: pig (Juhee was born in the year of the golden pig)
Party favors & bag: home-baked pig shaped sugar cookies, 3 different types of homemade magnets with Juhee's picture (1 per family), crayons for the kids, colored & cut out photocopies of a piglet glued onto brown paper lunch bags
Menu: two types of crepe (salmon & cream cheese, ham & cheddar), pasta bake, steamed pork with kimchi and Asian lettuce, seaweed soup, (raw) salmon in red pepper sauce on seaweed-type stuff, rice, green noodle salad, glass noodle, kimchi

For more about her dol visit: http://ohayo-ohsaka.blogspot.com/

Juhee's 1st Birthday "Dol"

 
(I wish we had a picture in which we're all looking at the camera... Can't believe we don't have a single one! Oh well... Maybe one of our guests have one???)

She's already 1! We can't believe it... Time's really flown by so quickly this year.

We had her birthday party at mum's in Almaden with family, relatives, Jr. High Team Leaders, pastors, and a couple of friends on Sat, Dec 20th, a couple of days before her actual birthday. None of her baby friends could make it, but we weren't surprised as it was the last Saturday before Christmas and we knew everyone would be busy. We also sent the evite out to them last minute which didn't help! I think we'll have to start having her birthday parties about two weeks earlier too while school's still in session or else her friends will never be able to attend her parties! As Uncle Dennis said on his 1st birthday card to her "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas! Get used to hearing that."

Mum's older sister prepared Juhee's hanbok for us while we were in Korea. She actually enjoyed wearing the hanbok but not the headpieces we tried putting on her. She didn't mind the small round one, but she didn't like the other two. The smaller black one is the one I wore during my "dol" from 28 years ago, and the more elaborate one is her own new one. She did have the plain green part that goes on top of the dress and she did wear it for a bit, but we thought the colorful top was cuter so we didn't have her wear the green part a whole lot.

Bad Hair Day

Pictures from Juhee's first ever bad hair day. Actually, it was a bad hair evening. She took a quick nap towards the end of our trip in the shinkansen on our way to Hiroshima on Fri, Nov 21, and when she woke up, her hair was just so funny! Normally, we have no problems getting her hair to be nice and flat but this time, it was just refusing to lay flat! So cute... We couldn't resist taking a few quick pictures. :P

Why is the top left picture wonky? If anyone knows how to align it to the rest let me know! :)

Juhee's Developments

 

Juhee's been growing and learning so much!

This picture was taken yesterday (Saturday) while we were resting at home after our visit to the Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine for the Shichi-Go-San Festival. She started pulling out her arm and ended up taking half of her top off! And then she resumed playing again as if nothing was unusual. Guess half of her clothes been off didn't bother her. :)

She loves playing peek-a-boo with anything, including her own hands, but she doesn't quite have the coordination yet so sometimes her hands end up on the side of her head instead of covering her eyes. :) She still leaves them up there for a while and then brings them down really fast with a big smile. It took my mum a while to figure out the right timing. ;)

She's figured out how to climb the sofa (I turned around while I was cooking today 'cause she was so quiet and she was sitting on the sofa eating dad's nail clipper- gross!) today.

She's also figuring out how to come down a step as our bathroom is a step / level above the rest of the apartment. Climbing up is no problem, but she's always got stuck coming back down. Most of the time now she can do it herself now, but not always the right way (climbing down backwards) and tries to come down hands & head first instead of feet and bum first.

Today she drank from a straw for the first time! Yay!!! She hasn't figured out how much to suck in yet so sometimes she chokes on the water she sucked in and ends up spitting more out than she drinks but she's starting to get better and better. :)

She knows that when mum or dad put on the blue Baby Bjorn baby carrier thing, it means that we're going out so she gets all excited. If we don't strap her in quickly enough she starts complaining.

She's very good at signing "more" now. She's been signing "milk" for a couple of months now at least but only during the past week started signing "more" (in a way that we can comprehend anyway). She started waving "bye bye" sometime before we left the States too. We've been trying to teach her the sign for "change" too but we don't think she'll ever use that one 'cause she doesn't actually mind soiled diapers, probably won't feel the need to use the sign, and therefore not use it. We're going to start teaching her "thank you" and "please". :)

As we're in the land of miniatures, she can reach many more things, especially when she's on tippy-toes!

She likes taking a step or two on her own now but she's not confident walking yet. She's very good at standing though and does it all the time without having to hold on to anything.

So fun watching her learn and grow!