Baby Arlo - Finding His Destiny

This afternoon, baby Arlo, his parents, and his sister, all came for our special ancient Chinese ceremony. We had a number of things laid on a blanket, each one representing a future career or life choice. As you know now, on a child's first birthday this ceremony will determine the destiny of the birthday child. Arlo is turning one over the weekend, so we were thrilled to have he and his family visit for the occasion. The children came up with these ideas themselves, I only helped in collecting some of them:

Piece of chalk (teacher)
Toy car (race car driver)
Button ("sew-er")
Finger puppet (puppeteer)
Puzzle piece with President Obama's face (the president)
Gem (jeweler)
Bead (beader)
Pencil (author)
Book (librarian)
Test tube (scientist)
Doctor's coat (doctor)
Paintbrush (artist/calligrapher)
Caution tape (builder)
DVD (movie maker)
Farmer poster (farmer)

Here is Arlo and his dad, Mark, getting ready ...

Pondering his many options ...

Yes! Arlo went right for the test tube. Our future scientist! Arlo then made a second choice of finger puppet, so we figure puppeteering will be his hobby. Congratulations, Arlo!