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March 10th--On March 9th, the day after we returned from our Kyoto trip, Little Miss turned one year old.  Dad had to work all day and then went straight to class that night and didn't return until 10:30 p.m.  Because of this, we celebrated Kirstina's birthday on Tuesday night after Dad got home.

Birthday cakes are a frustration here because it is hard to find the ingredients to make one and also to decorate one.  I don't have my frosting tips here so I can't write on them or decorate them.  It makes for boring cakes.  For Kirstina's cake I went to Daiso (100 yen store) and bought some craft flowers and stuck them on her cake.  It was about as good as I could do to make it cute.  But, I did have baking cocoa from a sister at church whose husband is in the military.  She went out to Yokota to shop and asked me if I needed anything 'American'.  I asked her to bring me some baking cocoa and oatmeal.  Because of that prized baking cocoa, I could make a chocolate cake for Kirstin's birthday.  Her first chocolate! 

Kirstin loves rice!  So, we had fried rice for her birthday dinner.  She ate quite a bit and seemed to enjoy it. 

Next came the presents. 

Her first present was her Hello Kitty from Japan that we got at the official store when we picked up Audra's for her birthday.  Audra picked this Hello Kitty out especially for Kirstin. 

Checking it out....

She likes it!

She also got some bath toys.  And, she got her tea set...all of the kids will get a tea set from Japan for their birthdays this year.  Kirstin doesn't care about her tea set right now, but she will enjoy it someday.

Next came the cake.  Kirstin was mesmerized by the fire on the candle....until we sang!  Then, she looked up at us like we were weirdos.  But, we have the tradition of singing "Happy Birthday" as horribly as we can, so maybe we deserved the looks.

The time had come for Kirstina to have her first piece of sugar.....

Hmmm...this looks interesting.....

Kirstin's high chair is in storage in the states, so the mess that she makes when she eats is on our lap.  She was really interested in the cake and kept picking it up and handling it, turning it around and around.   

In spite of the fact that her cake was chocolate, she ended up only eating the frosting and barely even ate any of her cake!

Not too messy....could have been worse.

She set her cake aside of her plate and began to reach for more cake in the pan, probably to have more frosting!
Miss Kirstina Lee is such a special part of our family!  She doesn't really enjoy toys much, she just enjoys being around her siblings!  She is content as long as she is in the same room as they are and can watch them or participate in their activities.  She loves all of her siblings.  She likes to growl, cuddle with Mom, Pretz pretzel sticks, apples, bread, and apparently, frosting!  She has a thing with texture--she won't eat anything unless she feels it and likes the texture.  If you put something in her mouth, she will take it out and feel it.  If she doesn't like the texture, it is dropped; if she does, back in the mouth it goes.  She loves to climb the stairs, but then she gets mad because she hasn't yet figured out how to get down.  She tries to be a good baby and doesn't demand a lot of attention.  We love our Miss Kirstin and are so blessed to have her in our family!