Taka's First Birthday

Taka's First Birthday. This time last year it was raining and cold, the furnace wasn't working well, the house didn't have a roof on it, and our bathroom was in the process of being ripped out to the studs with all the plumbing removed. What a difference a year makes.

Taka having a good time at his first birthday party.

After cake we decided it was time for a haircut. Taka is not so sure about those clippers coming his way.

Taking a layer off--Bikkei patrols the floor looking for any chance food offerings that may slip in between the tufts of hair.


"Don't cut my ears off please"

The next day--a handsome young man.

Halloween

Halloween: Our little calf drinking his milk.

Taka Visits Norwich

Taka had a chance to visit his grandparents the last week of summer at the lake.

Grandma found some really cool toys in the attic.

Breakfast at the gun club with grandma--Mmmm eggs.

Enjoying a friend's garden at the lake.

Taka in a friend's fairy garden.

Taka in the fairy garden just taking it all in.

Taka meets his great grandma for the first time.

And his great grandpa.

Hanging out with grandpa in the hammock.

Uncle Jimmy and Cousin Ava came up too so we had the whole family together--minus our wives who enjoyed the quiet time at home.

Working at the computer

Taka sits down for a session with the laptop.

Getting down to business.

Taka Starts to Explore His World

Taka has started to explore his world a bit more and learning about our dogs who have welcomed a new member to the pack.

Taka gets a kiss from Bikkei.

The pack on the couch together.

Bikkie sharing the basinet with Taka.

Bikkei disturbed from here nap.

Maybe this is a better place to nap: on the bouncer in front of the heating duct.

Time for bath. With our bathroom in the midst of a remodel Taka has been bathing in our vegetable delivery tote.

Taka with mom.

Always good to get a fresh diaper.

Christmas

We enjoyed a quiet week at home over Christmas. The snowy weather has kept the builders away and we are all snuggled up in the living room.

Space is at a premium in the living room, our only room with heat right now, but Bikkei managed to find a spot on Taka's bouncer.

Taka napping Christmas morning.

We don't have a bath tub at the moment but Taka is small enough to take his bath in a shoe box.

Bath time for Taka.

Taka's Name

We had been thinking about different names over the past couple months trying to come up with something that worked phonetically in both English and Japanese. We settled on Taka and which works in either language and is a beautiful character. It represents a falcon (i.e. a bird from the family falconidae).

The character for Taka.

Taka sleeping under the new blanket from Grandma.

Taka now almost two weeks old with his family.

Welcome Taka!

We welcomed Taka Yamazaki O'Keefe into the world on December 8th, 2008 at 11:44 pm.

Rie went to work on Monday morning and called about noon to say I had to come pick her up. By 4 pm we were admitted into a delivery room.

The contractions were a little painful as the anesthesiologist on duty came in to get Rie fixed up but then his beeper went off calling him to an emergency and we didn't see him for at least an hour and a half.

Aki held mom's hand as he watched the Disney Channel (the delivery room has cable tv and many more channels than we have at home) and sucked on his box milk.

Aki took a short nap but was awake and quite engaged when the baby came out just before midnight.

Taka comes in just under 3 kg.

Mom right after the delivery quite happy to not be carrying that load around in her belly.

Mom holds Taka for the first time just a few minutes after he was born.

Aki holds Taka for the first time in the delivery room. Shortly after we all fell asleep in the delivery room before the nurse woke us up at 4 am and sent us down to our room in the newborn clinic.

Aki holds Taka the next day.

We couldn't bring our dogs but Kota came so Taka could imprint early on a Boston Terrier.

Rie and Taka stayed another night at the hospital and then we got all bundled up and went home on Wednesay.

Ishi sniffs the new creature--"oh no, not another one!"