Saya's Happy Third Birthday

My little baby girl turned three on Apri 25.  The little baby that were part of the decor in early years is now a loud and bubbly little girl with exaggerated expressions on her face.  She is constantly talking, the only time she is quiet is when she is watching her favorite TV shows or sleeping.  She can defend herself against the invading forces, aka big brothers, sister, sometimes Mom and friends.  Even Sean gets chased by her pounding fists and he isn't sure what to do with his firecracker of a little sister.  Though she has a spirit of an octagon fighter, she knows how to be sweet.  She would just pretend like a cat and just meows at you at perfect moment.  It's as if she knows exactly how to sell her little girl charm and who would not melt when a three year old pig tailed girl meows with a shy smile?! 

Her birthday this year fell on Wednesday, so we cancelled Sean's OT session with Jessica and had a cupcake with her brothers, Mom and Nana.  Nana was very excited to be part of her birthday celebration since this is the reason why she moved here.  I promised Saya I would bake her an Anpanman (her favorite Japanese cartoon character) cake, but I baked pumpkin cupcakes for her actual birthday and saved the Anpanman cake for Saturday when I had more time to bake.  At school, they made her a tulip crown that said "Happy 3rd Birthday, Saya" in Japanse and she loved it.  She wore it all day and pretty much all week as long as it held up.  With her crown on, we sang her the birthday song and she actually sang it the loudest.  She knew all the words and looked very happy that it was her moment.  We decorated our own cupcakes with icing and sprinkles.  It was very good.

On Saturday, I wanted to have a mini party for her.  I invited Yuana-chan's family, but they were not able to make it since her Mom had to work late.  That was good though in a way since the Anpanman cake was a disaster!  I pushed hiding veggies in anything idea too hard this time.  I mixed in pureed sweet peas in the batter.  The main purpose of it was to make the cake green since green is Saya's favorite color.  I didn't have the green tea powder and all I had was the peas.  Peas are sweet, so I thought it would work.  However, I underestimated the grainy texture of sweet peas.  The rice flour itself has grainy and heavy texture compared to the regular wheat flour.  On top of that, I decided to make my own buttercream frosting from scratch.  I've learned that when it says "butter" in the name, you should not use a vegan fake butter.  I made a most aweful frosting I've ever made in my short baking life on top of the most aweful textured ill colored sponge cake. 

The ony thing that turned out decent was the Anpanman thin cookie I made for decoration.  My friend, Yukie, gave me a fun recipe to make any characters you want on the cake.  It's the same recipe I used to make the Ironman decoration as well.  It's a pain streaking task and it took me a while to complete it, but Saya was very happy to see Anpanman on her cake.  Saya wasn't sure about the taste of the cake and Noah didn't eat it at all.  Sean ate at least half of it and that was very surprising to me.  Nana was polite and ate all of it and Mike and I looked at each other while poking at our slice. 

I think she had a nice third birthday.  She is very proud to be three and she is now almost fully potty trained!  She pees and poops on the potty 90% of the time and we are very proud of her.  The tinkling I hear after she seats herself on the toilet is the cutest noise.  She slowly smiles and asks for a cookie as that is her reward for doing it right. 

Funny side notes about the very early stage of Saya's life...
My friend, Hanae, teases me all the time how Daddy and I drove to Sammamish to look for a bigger house the next day the pregnancy test came back positive.  I also remember feeling a little embarassed that I came back to see Dr. Roger for another pregnancy after seeing him just five months ago in post birth check up.   I think I sort of said to him in my little OB gown "yep, I am back!" Hanae and I went to get contraception implant about the same time after the twins birth, but I got a stomach ache and left the clinic before the doctor could put it in.  I am so glad I had that stomach ache because if not for the cramp, we would not have had you, Saya!