Maya will be 1!

I am so thankful to my beautiful, healthy and happy baby Maya and to all my family and friends who supported and taught things to me and Toli all this time.

まやちん、明日１歳になります。
これまでいろいろとサポートしてくれ、いろんなことを教えてくれた友人や家族に感謝。そして病気や怪我一つせず元気にここまできてくれた可愛い真弥に感謝。
これからも頑張ります。

THE FIRST ♡ 初恋

She was in love with my nephew, Tak-kun.

Whenever he comes in to the room, she drops anything she's doing and give him the best and the biggest smile she got.

When we're taking pictures and if he happens to be next to her, she gazes at him and never be able to get her to look at the camera.

If he holds her, she tries to look at his face so she ends up arching backwards.

............

The morning we left, Tak-kun who always sleeps in till the last moment woke up early and hung out with her while I was getting ready and finishing up packing.

It was like a dream for Maya.

♡

♡

♡

Old bib & New toothbrush

During the trip, we said bye to some of her buddies. 

The bibs and the wooden feeding spoon she used for every meal ever since she started eating solids at the end of five month old.

The bibs simply got too old and sad looking.

The feeding spoon got too small for how much she can eat at a bite.

This spoon was the best.

It's not hard and painful like metal ones when she bites on it.   

Even when she bites, she let it go not like when she bites on the silicone one and never let go.

Flat bottom mushed food well and was long enough to feed easily.

Hello to the new toothbrush.

Now she can practice brushing her 6 teeth herself!

Oh No! One more hour till Maya turns ONE!!

OK.  I gotta work on those photos from when she was younger.

She will turn one in 40 minutes, especially that we're in St. Louis.

This is the last night at my parents house in Sapporo.

The day after, I flew to Tokyo with my dad and Maya and meet up with my mom who left a few days earlier to participate in the autumn tea ceremony event.

So it's the last family dinner with her auntie Keiko and cousins.

Back to the Japan Trip.....

It snowed a few days before we left Sapporo.

The white fluffy snow looked beautiful on the bright yellow and red tree branches.

In a day, the colorful mountain in front of us became white and brown.

I took Maya to the outside to feel the snow.

She seemed very annoyed when she felt the cold snow flakes melt on her face.

She seemed scared (or surprised) when she touched the snow on a branch with her hand.

She didn't seemed to be so excited to play with the cold snow outside,

but she sure was enjoying the white view from the window.

Visited Great-Grandma.

Maya likes Great-Grandma because she gives her a slice of cake on a small plate with a folk in front of her just like she does to me.  Of course, Maya grabbed the piece quickly and had fun squeezing and trying to put the whole thing in her mouth.

Great-Grandma gave her a set of Matryoshka, Maya liked playing with.

It was from some country she visited where she doesn't remember.

On the bottom there is a sticker says "Made in USSR"

It must be real.

But, too bad, Great-Grandma glued the second small ones because it was loose....

Playing like a kid.

Thank you for the beautiful alphabet blocks, Leah & Doug.

Maya is almost one.  

She started playing with real kids' toys!

After Japan.....

I promise I share the photos from Japan some time in near future.

It's just so many and I don't know where to start.

For now, here are some photos after we get back home.

After living with so many family members who took care of and paid attention to her, her expectation got a bit off from how we do around here.

She needs me around ALL THE TIME.

It's great now she knows what she wants, where she wants to go and she can point at them.

But the thing she doesn't know is I cannot make all to happen for her even I understand what she is pointing at.

Ok.  I'm a bit annoyed.

I miss our french babe.

(After we read "How to raise a bebe," we expect Maya to learn to wait and it was going well.)

Now we eat the same thing!

Burrata and heirloom tomatoes, black bread and mushroom ravioli with roasted red pepper cream.

今晩のメニューは私たちと全く一緒です。

水牛のモッツァレラチーズとトマトのサラダ、マッシュルームのラビオリにローストパプリカのソースをかけて、ウクライナの黒パン。

She wants the ravioli.

She wants it NOW!

今すぐ食べたい！

う〜ん、もう！くれないなら私が取りに行くっ！！

これもみかんを早くくれの図。

It's been raining for two days. 

It doesn't help either....

ここ二日ほどは雨でお家で過ごしています。

Hope tomorrow will be sunnier and better day.

We will go see our Japanese baby-mama friends we've missed a lot.

明日は晴れるといいな。

Nov. 20. Now!?

えぇーー！このタイミングでー！？！？

本格的なハイハイを今朝始めました。

Dec. 18. Jet lag

We're back! 

Haven't gotten time to upload the rest of the Japan photos yet.  Will try ASAP.

We both don't have too bad of a jet lag but still a bit off sleeping routine.  I wake up 4 in the morning and can't go back to sleep. Maya wakes up and cries more often throught the night.  For the first time, she took two hours nap at daycare today.  Tho we did well readjusting to the time.  

Nov.12. After the photo shoot. Enjoying being herself.

Nov.12. Modeling is not easy.....

We went to a photo studio to take some memorial photos.

It wasn't her best day.

She was less smiley than usual from the morning.

But the photographer and the assistant are used to screaming and/or crying babies,

they thought Maya was awesome.  

She had hard time picking up those fruits with the mittens,

she quickly took them off.

Too bad, the bunny mittens were cute....

柄でもない。

おてんば姫の脱走。

The Princess escapes.