Triplets Tol - First Birthday Celebration

Triplets Tol - First Birthday Celebration

First of all, I apologize for taking a while to post about their Birthday celebration. I had to wait a while for some of the pictures and then I further delayed the whole thing by procrastinating.

I am very good at procrastinating.

We were blessed enough to have my wonderful family offer to throw the babies a traditional Korean first birthday celebration, AKA Tol. My parents hosted the event at a hotel in nearby Koreatown. In Korean culture, this is considered a very important celebration and a once in a lifetime event. It was truly wonderful. My Mom did an amazing job planning the event!

Look at my cuties in their Han-Boks!

SOMEBODY was on the fuss bus the entire time...

The Cake

The Five of Us

My cousin Chi-Hee emceed the entire event (Thanks Chi Hee!) and my father's friend Mark gave a wonderful talk and prayer for our children and our family. He did a wonderful job and I was so moved that I bit back a few tears . I didn't want to ruin the cake makeup you know. Seriously though, I am so grateful for the blessing and loving prayers for our babies!

There was also a video montage showing details of the year starting from their birth. And MOST IMPORTANTLY (OK, maybe not MOST importantly but you know what I mean), there was so much good food for dinner! The buffet was jam packed with an array of delicious Korean food, including an assortment of colorful ddeok (rice cakes) - a traditional food for this birthday celebration. The babies had a beautiful birthday cake (which was also delicious, btw) too!

One important part of the Tol celebration is the Toljabee. During the Toljabee the birthday baby chooses from several items which are laid out in front of him or her. These items each represent various professions and whatever the child chooses is said to foretell the path he or she will take in life. Of course, we're not really superstitious - its just a fun tradition!

Alexis went first.
It looked like she was going for the stethoscope...

At the end she grabbed the computer mouse! Possibly a blogger like her Mommy?

Zachary was next.
He was a little shy at first...


We put Jackson down to give Zachary some competition...


Jackson headed straight for the goods. He chose the bowl of rice, which represents prosperity!


Zachary followed suit and he too chose the bowl of rice!


Check out the video of us singing "Happy Birthday" and of the Toljabee:

Cindy's family

Brian's family

The five of us at the Birthday Table

You can see more photos here.

Of course, since their actual birthday was a few days later, we had to celebrate again! This time it was just us (and Jen who so graciously helped by taking this video clip for us) at home. I made them cupcakes and frosting made with cream cheese. I had to make sure the cupcakes were safe before serving them to my precious babies so I took one for the team and tested a few one. Delicious, BTW. :)

It was so funny how each of them approached their cupcakes - so different!

Thanks to all the family and friends who attended this very special once in a lifetime event. Special thanks to my parents who threw this shindig for the babies! It was so important to my Mom for the babies to have this important traditional celebration. We could not have done this ourselves and I am so grateful to my family for the gift. Although the babies will not remember this, they will always know that we honored their Korean roots and I hope they will look at the pictures and videos someday with great pride for their heritage!

P.S. I apologize for the weird formatting and inconsistent quality of the photos posted. There is an issue with my template and uploading the photos. I have to go into each photo and adjust the resolution to fit my template. Unfortunately, I think I just screwed things up even more. I am definitely going to have Brian help me fix it. I may have to change my template - hopefully not, since I love this template that Stef created for me - Stay tuned.