Juhee's 3rd Birthday

On December 22nd, we celebrated Juhee's 3rd birthday together with family - the Murrays and my mom who was with us for a few days on a whirlwind visit. My mom flew in as she didn't want Juhee to feel lonely - without any extended family and friends - on her birthday. Juhee's used to having lots of family around so grandma's visit really helped Juhee feel more secure and more settled, as well as being especially excited on her birthday. :)

The theme was "angel" and the Murrays, the party planners, came up with a whole agenda for the evening (see Party Plan pic)! Mom and I made lots of yummy Korean food for dinner and Susan made a delicious chocolate cake for Juhee's birthday cake. They brought ice cream to go with it too - yummy! :)

Juhee was the center of attention the who~le time and she absolutely loooved it!!! She loved all of the activities that they'd prepared and she loved dressing up as an angel (with blond curls =D) too.

I think my favorite part was at the end when we all went around telling her why we loved her so much, gave her a big hug, and then handed her an angel ornament to hang on the Christmas tree. The angel ornament was advertised as a simple kids' craft so I bought them for Juhee's birthday but they ended up being difficult to make so the Murrays made them all in advance and prepared other craft for Juhee to do. They are the most awesome and thoughtful party planners!

One thing that caught us completely off guard was how difficult it would be for us to find birthday candles! When I asked Susan if there was anything else we needed to prepare, she said candles. No problem, right? Wrong!!! They don't really celebrate birthdays here. Peter went to I think 6-7 different places to buy them with no luck and so the Murrays ended up having to drop by Pam's on their way to our place as she had some candles. Needless to say, we're saving them for next year! Apparently Pam got them at the dollar store here so we'll have to look for it again more closely next time too.






















We were so blessed to have family to celebrate Juhee's birthday with. Initially, I wanted to make it an outreach event, but as the time drew closer, I realized that we weren't ready for it yet. I was so stressed, tired and overwhelmed from the international move and trying to settle in, that I wasn't even sure if I could do a family thing, which made me really sad. But then Susan came to the rescue and offered to do all of the party planning and even bake the cake so that mom and I would only have to prepare dinner. Mom and I just barely managed to do that (without neglecting the kids too much) so without Susan and the rest of the Murrays doing so much, Juhee's birthday would have been... well, very different.

Juhee loved her birthday party and I'll always look back at this first birthday in Japan with very fond, happy, heart-warming memories. Thank you Murrays!!! :)