Birthday Girls: Megumi (March 13, 2008) and Martha (March 8, 2008)
Our baby girl is ONE! I can’t believe it, but I am so incredibly thankful for this precious life and the fun we had (and will continue to have) celebrating her birthday.
Martha’s birthday was yesterday (the 8th) but we decided to have a party with our friends the Hoshinos, because their baby, Megumi, was born only 5 days after Martha. A birthday party shared with a friend is more fun, right? The photos and captions speak for themselves so enjoy!
The Hoshino Family: Kimiyasu and Yukari, Wakana, Yutaka, and Megumi, the birthday girl!
We also had the Dingle family along to celebrate with us. This is Kevin and Titus. Nice smile, Titus. (Titus is our resident "big brother" figure to our girls. He keeps them tough and lavishes his love on them. We are so glad he's our friend.)
Yukari with the babies. Alee is less than 2 months younger than the birthday girls, but she keeps up like the best of us. Such cute little friends.
Kimiyasu, Yutaka, and Megumi
cute kids!
Then it was birthday cake time. The one-year-olds had a Pink Piggy Cake.
Martha loved her first experience of cake and sugar. This was after she originally left it on her tray and ate with just her mouth, no hands. That wasn't getting it into her belly fast enough, so she changed strategy.
Megumi wasn't too sure about the cake at first...
Martha and our favorite Chizuka! (Who has been at every one of our childrens' birthdays so far - that would be 3 birthdays . I hope she's ready start flying to America for the next several years 
Friends enjoying cake and each other. What a great way to celebrate birthdays!
After our other friends left, I wanted to have at least one photo of these two best buddies together. I love how much they enjoy each other and it was really fun to see how much Noa enjoyed Martha's birthday celebration. I look forward to many many years of watching these girls celebrate the life of their sister. What a gift they are to each other!
Can you believe it??? I certainly cannot, but it’s true and it’s wonderful. How we praise our Father in heaven for two amazing years enjoying this precious little girl. He has been so good and so faithful and we give Him all the glory for her life.
Since her birthday fell on Saturday, the 27th, we had a party at home that evening with some friends. The Dingles, Pfeils, and Stewarts families, as well as Ai-chan and Chizuka (you may remember these two celebrated Noa’s first birthday with us) all came out to celebrate Noa and shower her with love (and some sweet gifts too!). What a great birthday for our girl. Here are some photos from her day:
Breakfast with baby sister (Noa has moved to a big girl seat so that Martha can use her high chair. Doesn’t she look 2?
Shopping for some party food with her very own cart… what a big helper!
Party games: Duck Duck Goose…
… and Simon Says
…or Noa says
Sweet friends, sharing in our celebration
Opening gifts and learning to be thankful
blowing our candles on her elephant cake (i will have to get a better picture of the cake from a friend… I don’t have any)
SO HAPPY to be getting to eat happy birthday cake.
So many sweet friends to share such a special day (LTR: William Stewart, Annabella Pfeil, Titus Dingle, Noa Noll, Hana Dingle, Isabel Stewart, Olivia Pfeil)
More to come later on some of Noa’s new milestones and still need to post photos of the wedding… hopefully we will get to it soon!
On the 21st, Eric turned 28… WOW! It was kind of a bummer, because me and the girls were probably at our worst, sickness-wise, on his birthday so we had to wait till later to celebrate. But we made up for it by celebrating 3 different days!! My mom had an amazing dinner and cake for him on the 23rd, and then we had a little party at our house last friday with some friends. Here are some photos:
We had temaki-zushi for dinner – Yummy! It’s pretty much make-your-own sushi and it was fabulous. The best part was, all I had to do was open our house and make the rice, and our sweet friends Ai-chan and Kumiko did the rest. What a blessing!
This is my first ever attempt at an ice cream cake. It didn’t turn out too bad, the only trouble is that it was so warm in our house that we had to be on fast motion from when we took the ice cream out of the freezer, cut and stacked it, sang “happy birthday”, and ate it. It was fun to try and Eric, the biggest ice cream lover I know, ate about 3 servings!!!
We did it big this year because on Saturday evening, Eric and I went into Tokyo for the big annual firework show. It was awesome and I wish I could show you pictures but, alas, the camera ran out of battery on the way there. I mostly wish I could show you the absolute sea of people that were there… incredible! The birthday boy was super excited to get a real American hamburger at TGI Fridays while we were out. What a treat!
Happy Birthday, Eric!
