So Many Presents

Thank you for all of my wonderful presents! I'm so lucky to have so many people that love me!

Thank you Grandma Sharon & Uncle Les for my very own bling! I love my jade bracelet.

I love my Sid doll! Thanks, Aunty Lorna, Uncle Greg, Seth, and Alia.

I'm dancing to my Sid soundtrack! Watch me groove!

Thank you Nana and Papa for the Cinnamon Girl tops. You must know that my mom loves to shop there, now I can match what she's wearing.

Thank you Aunty Yvette, Uncle Briand, Taryn and Davis for my ladybug charm bracelet.

Thank you to everyone for their wonderful gifts. Mommy loved all of the clothes because she has fun dressing me up! I liked the gifts too, especially the tissue paper. I can never have enough paper!!

Party Time

Lexie's big day! The little munchkin turned 1 and boy, did she have a lot of fun!

Daddy's photoshop skills and Mommy's craft skills were put together to make Lexie's birthday banner.

Aunty Yvette gave us the idea of making flower tubes with candy, but we went one step further by using M&M's with Lexie's pictures on them. They were so cute that it was hard to eat them!

Everyone signed Lexie's poster of her first year.

Nana showed Lexie her ladybug cake.

Lexie greeted her best bud, Alia.

Lexie got some loving from Aunty Jodi and Grandma Sharon.

Thank you Taryn for blessing our food.

We had a delicious lunch, those ahi cakes were the best!

Lexie is ready for her first egg hunt!

Jade found some eggs.

Lexie's cousins counting their money from their eggs.

Lexie didn't quite get the hang of the egg hunt. She thought it was more fun to throw the eggs on the ground then to put them in her basket.

Then, it was Lexie's favorite thing to do. Parachute time!

The kids loved running under the parachute.

Mikki kept Lexie company under the parachute.

Lexie and her cousins. She's number 12! What's with all of the dark colors? It's supposed to be spring!

Time for some cake!

Happy Birthday, Lexie! We wish you many years of wonderful memories. You are the sunshine in our lives! We love you!!

Recovering

We are recovering from Lexie's 1st birthday celebration! It was a fun, but really long day. We hope everyone had as much fun as Lexie. Thank you so much to everyone for creating such an awesome memory for our sweet little girl.

We truly appreciate all of your love and support. A big mahalo to:

Aunty Yvette for helping with the favors, coming early to put up the balloons and staying late to help clean up.
Uncle Rob for helping to set up the tables & chairs.
Uncle Briand for helping to clean up the garage.
Taryn for helping to put up the balloons, saying the blessing and helping with the games.
Nana for making the mac salad and taking care of Lexie while we were busy.
Papa Steve for picking up our delicious lunch.
Grandma Sharon & Uncle Les for picking up Lexie's cake.
Aunty Terry for ordering the mochi and musubis and making yummy chex mix.
Aunty Dawn for bringing the brownies and pretzels (lots of people were asking about them).
Aunty Jodi & Uncle Steven for bringing the poke and getting the coolers and ice.
Uncle Mo & Aunty Lorraine for the delicious blueberry cookies (those were a big hit).
Uncle Greg for taking pictures.

We really want to thank Uncle Steven for building this beautiful house for Lexie. That was the best birthday present she could have. WE LOVE OUR HOUSE!!! You're the bomb!

If I forgot anyone, please forgive me, but as soon as the party was over, I caught a cold and my brain is mush right now.

Also, we want to thank everyone for your generous gifts and the love that you have shown to Lexie. We are so fortunate to have Lexie in our life and we are especially happy that all of you feel the same way.

As soon as our house gets back to normal, I will post pictures from the party.

Thanks again and can't wait to do it again next year!!!! NOT!!!

Hina Matsuri

Happy Belated Girls Day to Lexie! I know we're almost a month late, but we have been so busy moving and unpacking. We finally found some free time to take pictures of little Lexie with her dolls.

Lexie is such a special little girl to so many people. She was showered with so many gifts from Nana & Papa, Grandma Sharon & Uncle Les, Aunty Jodi, Aunty Dawn, Aunty Terry and their families, and the Katayama's. She now has a collection of dolls (traditional ones, a few Hello Kitty dolls and some Precious Moments dolls). They made her first girls day extra special.

Lexie dressed up in her chanchanko. When she's a little bigger, we'll get a kimono for her to wear and maybe she can have a taste of mochi, which is mommy's favorite thing to eat.

We wish Lexie a year full of happiness and laughter. You brighten up our lives from the moment you wake up in the morning until you fall asleep at night. We love you, sweetheart!

Lexie's Middle Name is Trouble

Lexie had a blast at Gymboree. She was crawling through tunnels and trying to run everywhere. She didn't want to pose for any pictures and would go in the opposite direction everytime she saw the camera.


She is moving so fast now. The only thing that slowed her down were the edges of the mat. She still hasn't mastered going down a step.


Her favorite thing to do is to walk around the house with her socks in her mouth. We think she spends too much time with Maxx and Gohan!


We have these clear door stops around the house. She is always pulling them from the doors. And if we catch her doing it, she will run away from us.


If we don't take it away from her, this is what she does with the door stop!


Eric bought me a new camera. As you can see, he's the one that's been using it, not me! The camera has a panoramic feature so he took this picture of our kitchen.

Life is Good!

It is still hectic trying to settle into a new house, but we are truly enjoying life with Lexie.

Lexie loves bath time. She has her own bathroom now, so she can have all of her toys in the tub. She loves the foam letters because they stick to anything that's wet. Since she's teething, she uses the letters to bite on, so most of the letters have her teeth marks in them. I'm trying to teach her the letters in her name.

Aunty Jodi gave Lexie a toothbrush and baby toothpaste so that she can start getting used to brushing her teeth. She has 2 teeth on the bottom and 4 more are coming out on top. Lexie lets me brush her bottom teeth, but her top ones are still a little sensitive, so I usually just wipe them with a wet cloth. When I'm done, I give Lexie the toothbrush and she enjoys biting on it. I don't think brushing her teeth will be a problem.

Taryn came by to visit. Lexie had a lot of fun playing with her cousin. She can't wait for Taryn to come by again.

We are still in the middle of unpacking, but we needed a break, so we took Lexie to the zoo. Eric crawled with Lexie into the middle of the fish tank to look at the giant koi.

Then we took Lexie to see the goats. This time she could walk around and touch the goats. She liked sitting by them and wasn't afraid to pet them. There were some children that were older than her that were scared of the goats, but Lexie just went right up to them. This girl has no fear and there were some pretty frisky goats there. One tried to eat the string on my blouse and another tried to eat the camera strap.

Lexie made friends with one of the goats. He was so cute!

Finally, a Gymboree Day

We've been so busy that we've missed Lexie's Gymboree class for a few weeks. We were finally able to make it to class today. Lexie's favorite teacher, Ms. Erica was there, so we knew she would have lots of fun.

Since Lexie is walking now, she's able to do so much more. She was climbing, sliding and just moving everywhere. She was so cute when she had to cross a balance beam. She stopped and started shaking her head and kept saying, "No, no, no!" The funny part was she put her leg on the beam and tried to get across it even though she kept saying "no".

Then, Ms. Erica brought out this box of toys and the little ones could pick any toy they wanted. Lexie watched Ms. Erica show what was in it, then she went to the box and we laughed at what she chose. It was a microphone! If you know Lexie, her favorite cartoon is "Sid the Science Kid" and he always carries a microphone around. It was funny because she didn't want anything else except for the microphone.

As usualy, Lexie loved parachute time and didn't want it to end. After we got into the car, Lexie fell asleep right away. We even went to Big City Diner for lunch and she slept through our entire meal. We had to wake her up to feed her. It was a great day! Thanks, Gymboree!

Home at Last!

It's been a crazy few weeks since Lexie's birthday. We have finally moved into our new home. Thank you, Uncle Steven, for building us such a beautiful house. We are loving it so much.

The best part is Lexie has her own room. It's still not quite finished, but she's been having a ball. She knows where all of her toys are and pulls out the pink drawers when she wants to play. She picks a book each night for me to read to her.

Then, every night, Lexie gets to sleep in her beautiful crib. The first thing we did when we moved in was to put Lexie's crib together. We've had it for 7 months and we were so excited to see it out of the box. Lexie was so cute when Eric was building her crib. She would sit on his lap and read the directions with him. When he was pounding the pieces together, she had her little rattle and started pounding on the crib too. She's too adorable.

We bought this crib set a couple of months ago and it looks so cute with all of the ladybugs. Maxx and Gohan love Lexie's room too. They are always hanging around in it when she's playing.

Lexie is having the time of her life in her new home. She loves her kitchen where she can enjoy her cereal treats. We have only been here a week and her walking has gone from 10 wobbly steps to being able to walk from her room all the way to the living room. And that's a pretty long walk.

We are so happy that this is where Lexie is going to grow up. We are finally able to start our life as a family!

Birthday Fun All Day Long

We had a girls day out to celebrate Lexie's birthday. We went shopping and had lunch with Nana. Lexie was being so silly during lunch.

Lexie loves spending time with her Nana because she gets so spoiled.

Lexie got a taste of chocolate cake and ice cream. Her face was so funny when she ate the ice cream. I guess it was a little cold, but she wanted more of it.

Nana bought Lexie a whole bunch of clothes. She will be the best dressed 1 year old!

I made a cake for Lexie and we celebrated some more when Eric came home from work.

Maxx wanted a taste of the cake.

Lexie tried a little bit of the frosting. I think it may have been too sweet because she made a funny face, but she liked the cake part.

It's hard to believe that our sweetheart was this tiny! A year ago, Lexie was being monitored in a hospital in Taiwan because of her heart problems. Today, she is healthy as can be! We are so lucky to have this amazing girl for our daughter.

WE LOVE YOU, LEXIE GIRL!!