Emilyn's 1st birthday

With all of the holiday busyness (yes, yes, I am writing this a month late), I had wanted Emilyn's first birthday to be a small family affair, but since both sets of grandparents flew in for it, it ended up anything other than simple.

Although my mom, mother-in-law, and I all love cooking and entertaining, I think we are accepting this season of life where we recognize that we don't have to overexert ourselves with home-cooked food to show our love.

So I encouraged us to cater and do take out where it made sense. I set the tone by ordering 40 fried chicken wings and some vegetable fried rice from our favorite King Noodle.

My mom made Chinese stir-fried noodles (symbolizing long life on a birthday) and red-dyed eggs. She picked up roast pork and roast duck from Ranch 99.

My mother-in-law made savory Korean mung bean pancakes from scratch (soaking and grinding the beans from dried), shopped for boxes of fruit, and ordered jjap chae (sauteed glass noodles - the best!), kimbap (Korean sushi), kimchi, and dduk (rice cake).

When my mother-in-law went to pick up the cake at the bakery, the lady asked her how many candles she needed. She replied, "It's for a first birthday party." The lady was shocked because she somehow thought that such a big cake necessarily meant this was for something on the order of a 70th birthday celebration.

Emilyn v. cake for a 70-year-old

We had zero trouble finishing it. Asian cakes are so fluffy, so they are basically calorie-less, right?

My favorite moment of the day was seeing her get her first balloon from her Auntie Coleen.

We did the traditional Korean dol activity, where you lay out a bunch of objects and let the baby pick an item. Whatever she picks supposedly represents what she is going to be when she grows up (e.g., money = success, book = scholar, paintbrush = artist, etc.) My father-in-law forgot to bring his stethoscope so they had to go out and buy a toy set.

She ended up picking up the pen (my favorite black Pilot Precise V5!) probably because I never let her play with mine.

(Theo actually did the same at his first birthday; he grabbed a highlighter. Are they both going to be writers??)

Princess Emilyn thinks to herself, Whatever shall I choose?

I'm so not that mom who is into all the regular things, tradition, etc. Thankfully, my sister-in-law (are you reading this now? hehe) helped pick up the slack and provided so much support with the spread, the activities, and even wrapping up stuff my MIL would have bought for Emilyn anyway just to ensure that there would be plenty of gifts for Emi-baby. :) Thank you, Diana! As a fellow youngest sibling, I so appreciate everything you did to make Emilyn's party as fabulous as it was!

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Previous Emilyn mentions on the blog:
first cameo | seventeen weeks | four months | twenty weeks | five months | ten months