Metuli's 1st Birthday


Happy Birthday Metuli Lapreal Fuimaono!!!



And just like that our lil premie baby turned ONE!!!
Can't believe how fast this year has passed. 

 On January 22, 2018 she entered this word 2 months ahead of schedule and spent the 1st month of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) strengthening her lungs, learning how to eat, and gaining weight. 


After 5 weeks in the NICU, we were all so excited when she was able to come home. She was so tiny and fragile that we all became hypersensitive to her needs.

 Everyone instantly fell in love with her and it has been a joy to watch everyone dote on her. 















 Wow Viiga has a ton of pics with her lol..making them look like besties even though Leila and Sefa are the true heroes who make her bottle, change her diapers, bath her, feed, her, and make sure the other two are gentle around her.

Our whole family has this tendency to treat Metuli like she is very fragile (well for good reason... I mean she is smaller than most babies her age and started her life in the NICU) but she is fiercely resilient with a strong spirit and body. Over a course of one year she has met many milestones--
  • She officially has one tooth and another one cutting through
  • She started taking 3-4 steps on her own a week before her birthday 
  • Her gross and fine motor skills are on point
  • She is an easy going baby who can say Mom and Dad, but really only talks when she wants to
  • She is an awesome cuddler 
  • She is curious and loves to eat everything
  • Despite all the noise around her (aka her siblings) she can hold her own
  • She is bright and learns quickly 

We love her to pieces and are so happy that she is a part of our family. For her birthday we had a nice family dinner, had her open her present that Sefa wrapped with duct tape, but then she fell asleep before we could do cake and ice cream lol. Soooo we saved her cake for the following night. 

She loved the cake!


All her cupcakes from the first night were devoured by the little demons so we used the extra round cake to sing happy birthday. Buuuuut then Saleima got cleaning spray on the frosting so we had to scrape all the frosting off and refrost the cake with a "ganache" made up of melted chocolate chips that I accidentally poured too much cream into..hahaha 
So there you have Yellow Cake glazed with a crimz (but still tasty) "ganache"
 which had semi melted chocolate chips still in it (cuz we had no patience to melt the chocolate chips properly hahahahha).


Bless your little heart Metuli Lapreal! 
We promise to improve our baking skills by your next birthday!  

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