Jordan's Tol Celebration

This past Saturday we had another birthday party for Jordan. In Korea a child's first birthday is called the Tol and is marked with a lot of celebration. Before the time of adequate medical care, if a child made it to his first birthday it was likely that he would survive to adulthood. We decided to honor Jordan's heritage by incorporating many of the Korean traditions at his party. One of the traditions is the wearing of traditional Korean clothing called a hanbok. Jordan's foster mother had purchased this hanbok for Jordan. Although it was a beautiful piece of clothing Jordan did NOT like wearing it at all! He wore it for maybe 20 minutes before we changed him back into his regular clothing. Here is a rare moment when Jordan actually smiled while wearing his hanbok. I think a lot of people behind the camera were making funny faces in order to get him to smile!

Here is our happy family!

Another element of the Tol celebration is the Toljabee table. Several items were put on display on a table for Jordan to choose from. The item he chose represents his destiny. After much studying and deliberating Jordan choose rice which means that he will become wealthy. Way to go, Jordan! Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of this part of the party as we were too busy trying to videotape it.

Here is Jordan meeting my cousin's new baby girl. She was born on Jordan's first birthday!

Jordan approached this cake much more cautiously than the cake he had on his birthday...

...however, it wasn't long before he dove right in and managed to smear the frosting everywhere!