We just celebrated Isaac’s first birthday (two weeks ago, sorry)! With Jay in the the Army, it’s tough because our family is on the West Coast and most Army bases are on the East Coast or in the South. Some families do really big first birthday celebrations, but since we just moved to a new house and city, we didn’t have many people to celebrate with. We were blessed to have Jay’s mom, my parents, and Jay’s best friend and the godfather to our kids, Ellis, fly in and visit us for the weekend. We also received lots of FaceTime calls!
We began our day with dinosaur puzzles, tours of the house, and catching up on life.
While the big kids and little kids played downstairs, the parents cooked.
Caleb was adamant on getting his little bro some balloons.
We followed some Filipino traditions:
Not cutting hair before the baby’s first birthday – There is a superstition that if you cut a baby’s hair before their first birthday you’re cutting their life short. There’s also an old wives’ tale that if you wait, then your baby will have less cow licks. Whatever the reason, we waited to cut those luscious locks until his first birthday and my heart broke because of it.
look at that hair. <3
on the way to get his haircut
Putting baby hair in books – more specifically the Bible or an encyclopedia. My mom said that if you put hair from the first haircut in some books, the baby will grow up to be really smart. I didn’t question, I just handed her the hair. I just need to make sure I know where the hair is. I just imagine Caleb needing to look something up in a few years and getting greeted with a lap full of baby hair. Ha!
Eating Pancit – Pancit is a dish of long rice noodles with chicken and vegetables in it. This is a main dish at every Filipino party – graduation, barbeque, birthday, anything. Not only it is delicious, but the long noodles represent good luck and long life. Apparently Filipinos want to live forever.
This low key day ended with rubbing our full bellies, playing with balloons, watching a movie, and finding my dad. Dad went on a walk in our neighborhood to burn off all the food we ate. His 30 minute walk lasted 2 hours. At least he burned all his food off! :)
We felt very lucky that Isaac received some presents from his aunts and uncles. He feels very loved from a far. Thank you to all of our friends and family all over the world who wished this special boy a Happy Birthday, I wish you were all with us to celebrate. We love you!
