100 days

Just in case you haven't been keeping track, I should probably tell you that today is Isaac's 100th day of life. Here in Asia, it is pretty typical to celebrate day 100 with a little party or get-together or something of that sort.

We had such great fun celebrating Lydia's 100th day.....


and Julianna's 100th day.....


that we couldn't resist doing the same thing for Isaac. The shindig is planned for this Friday, and I'll be sure to take a few photos to share :)

Traditionally, we've "announced" our little one's local names at their 100 days party. Kind of handy that when you've got to come up with not one but two names for each kiddo you get an extra 100 days to make your decision. We are notoriously slow at the whole chose-a-name thing anyways. Isaac Luther wasn't a sure bet until we were already at the hospital, about an hour and an half away from meeting our little guy :) True to form, we still haven't made a firm decision about his local name either, but we'll definitely be ready for Friday night!

Julianna's name is 柯庆恩， pronounced ke qing en. (ke is our last name, qing en is her "first" and "middle" name). Traditionally, all children in the same generation of a family share the same first name, only the "middle" name is unique. Lydia's name is 柯庆雅 ke qing ya. And Isaac will be ke qing ???

[Qing means 'celebrate'. En is 'grace' and Ya is 'beauty, elegance'. ]

Unlike most western cultures, Asians typically refer to one another using their entire name. At school Julianna's friends and teachers refer to her using all three characters of her name "ke qing en". Closer friends drop the last name and might call the girls "qing en" and "qing ya".

Stay tuned for some (hopefully) cute photos of little Isaac celebrating on Friday :)