Watching Mommy and Daddy sing...

Our friend June caught another great shot of Hana. This is Hana watching us sing. I saw June taking this picture from the stage and thought it might turn out cute, and it is SOOOOO adorable. I know I am Mommy and I am partial, but it is amazing to me how a two year old will sit and watch a concert and take in all that is going on. She is especially observant and it shows in her personality! It is so fun watching this little girl grow up.

Christmas Eve 2006!

Today at church was a blast! Hana was also ADORABLE! (did you expect any less) Thanks to Gram and Gramps (Gagas and Bam) for the BEAUTIFUL dress that everyone thought looked gorgeous on our baby girl. Enjoy the pics...

Reading a book with Uncle Paul

you know what... I don't really want you to take my picture

I'd really really prefer that we not take my picture right now, I'm SLEEPY!

Ok, did I not make myself clear, I DON'T want my picture taken...

I SAID DON'T TAKE MY PICTURE!!!

Unfortunately we waited till after the service and lunch to try to take her picture and she didn't want to stop playing AND was getting sleepy. So it was not a great success, oh well!

I will happily take a picture if Mommy will hold me!

And I am REALLY happy to take a picture with Mommy AND Daddy!

My good buddy Mia looks almost as cute as me! ;)

Attitude...

Hana is mostly happy and smiling but when she doesn't like something she has a "look" and my friend recently caught it on camera. Our friend June takes lots of pictures and loves to take pictures of Hana, but I think Hana is afraid of her camera or something. Lately she doesn't want June to take her picture. On Sunday at the community Christmas worship June caught the look...

It's cute, but not cute sometimes! Anyways, for those of you who thought she was perfect, I'm sorry to say she's not, she CAN pout!

Busy baby....

Things are so busy right now, this poor baby girl. She practically goes to work with us everywhere we go and sometimes it just is NOT fun for her. She is a GOOD girl, stays quiet during meetings and concerts, happily follows along no matter what we are doing. But there are days like today when she just wanted to play and we can't and I feel so sorry for her. This morning we left right after she finished breakfast and got changed, drove in the car over an hour to a concert. she sat through the whole concert and quietly played, then during the lunch hour found some toys in another area of the church. Not 30 minutes into her play it was time for us to go and I had to interrup her play. She was OK with that, but was not OK with the fact that she had to get back in the old car seat again for another hour or more of driving, and she had a ROYAL FIT. Screaming, "MOMMY, HOLD YOU!!!!!!!!!!!" for at least 45 minutes. She cried (or should I say screamed) herself to sleep. She only slept 30 minutes and we were still on the road to a band practice we had to have. During practice at first she just wanted to be held, but then she discovered there was a child playing in the next room in the church where we were practicing. I tried to encourage her to go play but she was shy. As soon as she got up enough courage to go play, the child was leaving and they locked up the room where the toys where. I had been encouraging her to go and now all the sudden I had to tell her she couldn't go. She cried and cried. I felt so bad for her. She eventually calmed down and ventured out to play with some chairs, a book, a few stuffed animals in the room and write on the chalk board in the room. And ask for gum THREE TIMES! but she made it through the rest of the practice without incident and then we had dinner and now she is FINALLY in bed, 1.5 hours late! She is a trooper but today was a rough day. For Mommy and Baby!

Recent funnies...
Daddy was at the table and was about to throw his head back and gargle some tea the other day (Mommy has been dilligently trying to break Daddy of these bad table manners that HANA will pick up and he is slowly learning that she will copy him). Just as he was about to gargle he stopped himself and I congratulated him. Then I said, "Hey Hana, your Daddy is as smart as he looks!" and Hana says "UH OH!!!!" We all died laughing!

Today I asked her if she wanted something, I can't remember what it was at the moment, and she goes... "uhhhhhh, Yea-NOPE!"

She has incredible vision! She spots things, TINY little pictures of Mickey or Pooh or a bow-wow, from way far away in a moving car! It amazes me.

Her favorite phrases right now... "yubs sh00uuu" (I love you) and "hol shoouuuuu" (Hold you) We hear these a MILLION times a day!

We started Advent with Hana each night on December 1st. I bought this advent wooden "calendar" from Costco...

We read a story about Jesus each day from her children's Bible and then she opens the little door of the day of the month (she finds it herself by the way, SO FAR, she only knows her numbers through 9) and then we hang the little ornament somewhere inside the middle of the calendar on the tree! We don't have our big tree out yet, and she has no idea what Christmas is about but she loves it. She knows it's about baby Jesus, but she knows NOTHING about Santa. I wish this calendar where more Christian themed but it was the best I could do her in Japan. She keeps calling Santa (standing by the tree) Daddy! I just laugh and tell her, yep, Santa's are played by Daddy's!

She knows the whole alphabet

In the bath we have a poster of the alphabet on the wall. I got it at the 100 yen store, it is plastic and sticks to any flat surface. Hana LOVES going over it while we are soaking in the bath. Tonight I asked her each letter and she got them all correct the first time except for I, S and Z which she needed a second guess on! She is so amazing!

"Hold you"

I have always thought that the stage where children don't know how to use "me" or "I" yet is sooooooooo cute! Hana is starting to do this. Sometimes she uses it properly but one of my favorite things that she has wrong is this phrase... "hold you!" which means she wants you to pick her up. It just makes my heart melt when that sweet little voice says "hold you". Sooooooooooo sweet! I can never deny her, because we have taught her to ask nicely, without whining and she truely does. So I have been holding her a lot lately cause she figured out that this works! But I figure it won't be too long before I can't hold her anymore cause she'll be too heavy, so I don't mind! She is just soooooooooooooooooo precious to me.

Lately, it is almost like I have amnesia or something, I forget that she is adopted and I wonder why I don't remember being pregnant with her or giving birth to her. She is so much like us, has so many similar characteristic that could not have been "learned" and I am just amazed that I didn't give birth to her. I truely forget! I totally understand now those parents who introduce their family and say, "one is adopted but I forget which one!"

She is also such a healthy eater! She has FINALLY started to eat some sweet things. She'll take a piece of chocolate now and then, or some ice cream, but she never wants a lot, she doesn't want anymore after a few bites. She LOVES veggies! We sit down to eat and the first bowl she grabs is her salad, scarfs it down and asks for more. This evening we had stir fry and she was picking out the spinach, onions and mushrooms with her fingers. Her FAVORITE food by far is cucumbers. On the walk back from the market the other day she asked for a cucumber from the shopping bag and ate the whole thing by the time we got back home. Everyone we passed on the street thought it was so amazing and cute! I agreed!

She is talking so much more these days, and is using more English with each passing day so Mommy feels better about that. Her favorite two things to say in Japanese though are "what's that" and "look". Daddy and I try to always tell her "say it in English" before we respond. So now, whenever I use the phrase "say it in English" even though she is trying to say something else, she immediately says "look". If I shake my head no and don't respond, she will then blurt out "what's", if I still don't respond she will say, "that". (cracks me up that she trys saying "what's that" in two different tries) And if I still don't respond, she starts babbling nonsense! It is so funny! Then I coach her on what to say and she repeats it. so funny!

Hana said the prayer for us at dinner tonight for the first time. When we held hands to pray, she started babbling with her head bowed, so Daddy asked her to say the prayer. She just grinned and stared at us. So I told her what to say and she said it! TOOOOOOOOOOOO precious for words. I nearly cried.

After the years of infertility we dealt with I can not believe I am so blessed to be this little Angel's Mommy. She is straight from heaven and we are so blessed!

A few new pics...

This girl can play hard and stack blocks! She built that stack all by herself!!!

My sweet family!!!

Look at my Mommy and Daddy and me!!!!!!!!!!

A riot!!!

Hana comes to me this morning and says " Mommy, boobies!!!" and I turn to see this...

Hana funnies...

She is saying some of the cutest things...

Banana= banananana
Onigiri (rice ball) = oninini (SO CUTE!)

Tonight we had a concert. There was this one little grandpa there and she just LOVED him, and he was sooooo flattered! They were so cute together.

On the way home, she was looking at a map, she LOVES maps in the car because Daddy looks at them in the car too. and she and Baba (grandma) were talking and she was telling Baba what everything on the map was. Then Baba asks, "is this my house?" and Hana says so matter-of-fact "ummmm, nope!" It was so funny, that matter-of-fact so adult sounding answer.

she's priceless

One more wish list item...

Mommy has a wish list item for Hana-baby...

Leap Frog's Fridge Phonics Magnetic letter set...

click this to see it on the leap frog website

A friend has this and Hana LOVES it! She'd love to get it for Christmas I think... *wink, wink*

Scared of Colonel Sanders...

Hana HATES mannequins, statues, or any large fake character. Hana has very few fears so this strikes me as odd. We can put her to bed at night, leave her alone in her room in the pitch dark, and she's fine. Most loud noises don't seem to bother her, even a typhoon going on outside and all kinds of loud noises in the house didn't faze her. She IS scared of animals if she gets too close too, but this extreme fear of amnnequins is so interesting. It all started with the huge mannequin of Colonel Sanders outside of KFC. The first time she encountered him a while back she clung to Daddy in fear and has become more and more tramatized by him ever since. Even when we are simply taking a road that goes by a KFC restaurant she begins to get upset and yells "no, no, kowai (scary) no, no".

The other thing that is really interesting is that she clearly knows evil things are scary too, without us ever having taught her this. Obviously frightening LOOKING things make her scared, but she also is afraid of small Buddhist statues, the things around temples and shrines, and so forth.
Recently at a friends house she saw a butsudan (the small shrine to the dead inside some people's homes, pictured right) and she would not go anywhere near it. It is simply a decorative wooden cabinet with a picture of the deceased nearby, sometimes a statues inside, some candles burning, and a place for "worshippers" to kneel and light incense and pray. She hated it, and wouldn't even go into the room where the butsudan was. We were driving near her grandparents house recently and there is a street corner that has a small Buddhist alter with a stone statue inside. She began to point and say "kowai, kowai (scary)" when we were near that alter. We later asked her grandmother is she had taught her that this alter is evil, and "ba-ba" said "no, but everytime we go near there she tells me it is scary."

Her little spirit knows!

Children are amazing...

Christmas Wishlist...

OK, a lot of you guys are asking Mommy what to get me for Christmas. Here's the things I love and stuff so you can know what would be great for me! But don't spend too much money on me OK!!!

DVD's Hana loves...
Praise Baby
Veggie Tales
Baby Einstein
Dora
JoJo's Circus
Winnie the Pooh
Mickey and Minnie
Anything with ABC's or educational (SHE LOVES ABC's, 123's, shapes and color educational stuff)

Clothes...
18 months sizes fit her perfectly right now, especially since she is already in big girl panties and they are made for children still wearing diapers. 24 months stuff, is a little too big BUT she will grow into them. You make the call...
Clothing NEEDS -- warm winter PJ's, warm coat, shoes (size 4), outfits

Toys...
she loves blocks, legos, baby dolls (LOVES LOVES LOVES to care for baby dolls, feed and cloth them, put them to sleep, etc.), drawing and coloring, finger painting, stacking things, pretending to cook and shop.

Other things Hana loves... she loves pictures of her family members (I make her little laminated pictures into a booklet), she loves video of family members

Lots of new words...

Thankfully most of them are in English! Today I have noticed especially that she has lots of new words. And some of them are funny.

Until now she has played peek-a-boo in Japanese (inai-inai-ba) but recently a friend played it in English with her little girl and Hana picked up on it. Now she says "peep-a-ba!" using the Japanese ending of ba, with peek-a-boo! too cute.

Some other new words and phrases...
mine!
breakfast
painting
blocks
play
cumbers (cucumbers - her FAVORITE food)
bath
and more I can't remember right now

She loves brushing her teeth too and comes to me saying "mama..." and then sticks her finger in her mouth and rubs it back and forth on her teeth! Makes me laugh almost every time.

She has stepped up her pretend play a lot the last couple days. Yesterday she came to me and said "mommy, money" and held her hand out. She had a bag on her shoulder and she pointed at the door and said go. So I went along and asked her if she was going shopping and she said "yea" and asked for money again. So I handed her some pretend money and off she went. In a few minutes she came in yelling "okaeri" (means "welcome home" it is what the person inside the house is supposed to say to you in Japanese when you get home. The person returning is supposed ot say "tadaima" but she uses the wrong word, so cute) She came and showed me what she bought and asked for more money. I pretended to pull more out of my pocket and give it to her and off she went again. She did this over and over again. Then she did it again this evening. It is so cute how she packs up a bag before she leaves. And today she went so far as to ask for the car keys! OH MY, asking for money and the car ALREADY! I'm not ready for this!

I have also noticed that when she is coloring and drawing, she now names what she is drawing or has drawn. Today some scribbled squiggly lines were a plane and a bow-wow. Quite the imagination. She also did finger painting today and was telling me what things she was painting. This is new, until now she asks us to draw those things for her.

We haven't had any accidents and a long while! She is a pro at the potty!

we are doing great!

Cosmos flowers in bloom!!!

Silly little girl liked the fake flowers more than the real ones...

and she liked the rocks and dirt, and the "pool" (a little river nearby) better than the real flowers. But we go visit blooming flowers when we can because our little Hana (her name means flower in Japanese) is so cute in pictures with them!

Taking care of babies (real ones and baby dolls)

Hana LOVES babies. She can be in a room full of other two year olds and instead of joining them in play, she'd rather be sitting beside the babies (real ones) giving them kisses, covering them with blankets, patting them. She is equally attentive to her baby dolls at home. One little doll is always cared for while sitting on the kitchen rug, like this....



This one is blurry but so sweet!



Last week we cared for our friend's baby, Mia, for a few hours. Hana LOVED it! They played together, shared toys, and Hana loved and loved on Mia, giving her lots of hugs and kisses.

Kindergarten Sports Day

Because I teach English at a local Christian kindergarten we were invited to their sports day. It was a major big deal, and here are some pics of Hana enjoying it.


Okay, this is boring, why do I have to sit here when all those kids out there are having so much fun!!!




Oh boy, what are we out here with everyone for??? What do I get to do!?


I got one I got one!!!!!!!! (she was supposed to run get her prize and the head straight out of the area, but she knew where Daddy was and she was going to him to show him her prize, made a B-line for him and couldn't be redirected! it was so cute!)


The other fun thing to do at sports days, COVER yourself with dirt! from head to toe!!!!

Finally some new pics!

I know you've all been waiting for these...

First of all a disclaimer, she doesn't really want me to put her hair up much these days, so I feel like she looks like a shaggy mess. I may cut it a little soon, I was wanting to grow it out a bit more before cutting it, but it looks so shaggy all down, so we'll see. Anyways, she's a real hoot! Enjoy

When we studied "B" in preschool, we blew lots of bubbles one day. Now she asks for bubbles on a regular basis. She likes to catch them in her mouth! yuck!

Every where we go she makes friends with any little kid who is willing! This little girl and Hana had fun but she wouldn't let go of Hana's hand and after a while, Hana didn't like that very much! too funny



She loves to drink out of cups by herself, and it usually ends up all over her, as you can see here. And she loves to check out the high chairs in every restaurant, she proudly crawls up in them and sits down for a while with a fervent "Mommy too, Mommy too!" as she pats the chair next to her!

Cell phones are one of her favorite "toys". Most of the time Mommy and Daddy don't let her play with ours (she actually calls people when we do) so she loves when someone else is around who will relinquish their cell phone into her control. On a recent car trip she found a willing friend in the back seat who would let her play with the cell phone. This is her having a conversation with the imaginary person on the line. She does this often, goes on and on, inserting pauses for the other person to speak, she even raises her voice and gets "stern" with them or excited, and then says "bye". I have tried to catch video of it, but as soon as she sees to video camera she stops.


Hanging out with Daddy in the tent. She LOVE playing with Daddy. "Daddy pay, Daddy pay!" pay = play

Talking/Growing up a storm...

She is growing and talking like crazy. I can not keep up with the hilarious things that she says, and I never can remember them when I sit down to write here, but she is so cute. I am still concerned that most of her talk is in Japanese, I can get her to say a lot of things in English if I say it for her and make her repeat it, but most of what naturally comes out of her mouth is Japanese. She understands EVERYTHING said in either language, and people keep telling me she'll start speaking English a lot too. I'm just praying that is true!

her newest fad is Ice Cream! I gave a little as a snack a few days ago and watch out, her goal is to get it for almost every meal! She can open the freezer (on the bottom of the fridge here in Japan) and pull it out. She asked for it for breakfast yesterday! It is so cute, I only mentioned what it was once, but she remembered it, and talks about it a lot. She calls it "I keen"

She hasn't had any accidents in I don't know how long so she's doing great with the potty. She has been waking up in the middle of the night some lately so that can be a pain. She wants to get in bed with us, and if she does that she sleeps ON ME and tosses and turns the whole rest of the night. So a couple times we've had to put her back in her bed and let her cry herself back to sleep. We haven't had to cry it out for a VERY long time, so it is kind of crazy. But usually it only takes a couple times, and she knows Mommy and Daddy are seriously not coming back and she gives up quickly, so we'll see. Two nights ago we were in a hotel, and last night she was so tired she didn't wake up, so we'll see how tonight goes.

This morning we went to the kindergarten where I teach English and watched their sports day. WOW, Japan is SERIOUS about sports days. I've always heard what a big deal they are, but to see it was AMAZING. Talk about preperation, I mean it ran like clockwork, and everything went perfectly. Hana LOVED playing in the dirt, she covered herself with it. I really enjoyed watching my kids, they did a dance I helped to make up too, and they were so awesome! It was a great day. Hana did one activity for preschoolers, they did a little race to go grab a prize, she wouldn't do it alone though. Most of the other kids didn't either! Then once later she go ahold of a ball that needed to be returned to the teachers, and she went out into the middle of all the kids to try to give it back. No one even seemed to notice she was there and she came back with the ball after half the group had laughed at her cute little attempt to return the ball.

That's life these days for us!

Marla

Two is fun!!!

Hana is so much fun! She is always taking in her world around her, and loves to share her joy with us. Squeeling and laughing about everything around her. She is so funny, she'll ask what something is and when we tell her she goes "hahaha". Don't know what is so funny about the names of things.

She is still doing wonderful with potty training. But we have had a couple of accidents, one here at home, and ONE at a concert!!!!!!!! I was mortified, everyone else thought it was so cute???!!! It was a concert at a community center and all the mothers were like "Oh it takes me back." They just laughed it all off. They were so helpful cleaning up and didn't care at all. But that has been all the accidents we've had. She is still even dry at night and in the morning will even wake up and play for a while before going to the potty. She amazes me with her ability to "hold it". She EVEN told us she needed to go teetee during the bath the other night and truely needed to go. Then she has even told us on car trips too! She also consistently asks to be taken right before bed and nap times. It is cute, it is her way of putting off going to bed for a few minutes, but she also goes for me and that makes Mommy feel less worried that she might go in her sleep or wake up and go before I can get to her.

She still loves ABC's, shapes and learning. She is into Veggie Tales and Dora the Explorer videos right now too. The hilarious thing is, she calles Veggie Tales videos "bobby". It took me forever to figure out why. She is mixing up Bob and Larry's names, Bobby! I love it!!! She gets Gummies after going potty for me and calls those "bummy". Oh and get this, she LOVES chewing gum. I should have known that my child who loves to stuff her cheeks with fold and hold it there for forever would be good at chewing gum. We give her our CyberWize chewing gum which all natural and actually good for her, so I don't mind her chewing it. but I am amazed that a two year old can chew gum. AND she calls it "bum"!!! She likes to get some when we get in the car so she starts yelling "bum, bum, bum" from her car seat every time we go somewhere. She always has new words she is using but at the moment I can't seem to recall any.

She is a joy to parent!

Declaration PT'd

I think I am going to officially declare little Miss Hana potty trained, even though I know there are bound to be accidents now and again here and there. Why is it official...

1. She has been perfectly dry for two weeks or more.
2. She is in big girl panties at night too, and has been perfectly dry at night for a LONG time. (Only one wet night in a diaper about a week 1/2 ago)
3. She is telling me consistently throughout the day when she needs to go, or she happily goes when I tell her she needs to (if we are going to be in the car for a while or something).

Only thing left, when does she start taking herself???

It was so easy, I am so glad for all those months of taking her to the potty as often as possible even when she was still in daipers. So worth it! We saved who knows how many diapers over the last two years, and it was such an easy smooth transition for her, nothing tramatic about it. The potty has always been a part of everday life, we just polished off there at the end. I will definitley follow the same process with the next baby (and any others after???). I highly HIGHLY recommend it, you could never start too early with using the potty.

I can hardly believe it, no more diapers!?

Lazy, lazy day...

I don't know if it is because she had a fever for a couple of days or what but Hana has slept soooooooooo much today. She slept until almost 10 a.m. this morning and then took a 3 hour nap this afternoon! lately she has been getting up around 7 or 8 a.m. and only taking a 1 or 1.5 hour nap. I was amazed today. I should have gone to work out while she was sleeping.

Today she asked me, after her nap...

Mommy atsui too? (atsui = hot) 'Mommy are you hot too?'

She had sweat a whole lot during her nap time, and I thought that was funny.

She is sooooooooooo happy these days, I mean ALWAYS happy and smiling and squeeling and running around. I don't know what has got her in such a good mood constantly but I hope we can keep it this way. She hasn't been grumpy in a long time.

Potty training is really REALLY going well. She has not had an accident in almost 3 days (I think, I lose track) and she had one night time wet diaper this week. She is telling me almost always now, that she needs to go. There are just a few occassions throughout the day that I take her because of the amoutn of time it has been since she went.

She learned the letter P somehow, I have no idea how, but she knows that one now too. And she is getting better about saying her numbers. She says three now, and she doesn't call EVERY number two anymore, but 5 is still 2 to her and she insists that it is a two. She looks at me like I am crazy when I tell her it is a 5. She also says 2 for S's. they look very similar.

smart little cookie I got here, and so much fun!

Language explosion...

Hana is not necessarily having a vocabulary explosion but a language or communication explosion. In the last week she has started putting together 3 and 4 word sentences and today made a 5 word sentence. I was so shocked. We were talking about going somewhere and Hana comes running up and says "Daddy, Nana wants to go too." She calls herself Nana. I couldn't believe it. She sounded like a 4 year old or something to me. She is so cute about using every word in her vocabulary to communicate. Which at this point means using both English and Japanese so I have decided to lay off being strict about using only English for a while. I'd rather her be able to communicate, and instead am just repeating things in English as much as a I can. It works too because before she was saying eat-tai or pool-tai for I want to (shitai means I want to in Japanese) but she has stopped doing that on her own with my simply repeating what she wants in English. Now she leaves of the tai part and just says the main word. It is just amazing to me how quickly her language is developing, there is a visible difference every day!

Yesterday Hana had a fever and by late evening was telling me she needed to go teetee like every 20 or 30 minutes. so I thought she may have a bladder infection. Turns out she doesn't but somehow, that couple of hours of telling me so often she needed to go, made something click in her brain and she is now totally telling me she needs to go. I only asked her twice today if she needed to go and she said no and meant it. All the rest of the day she came and found me and told me. I even didn't take her right after her nap but waited for her to ask to go, and she did eventually without any accidents. I am tempted to declare her totally potty trained, BUT I will wait because she changes so much sometimes. and she seems to be in a phase of wanting me to treat her like a baby, she wants me to hold her milk cup and let her drink while being held like a baby, and she is even wanting to nurse lately! I can't believe she remembers it, but being around a few babies recently has triggered her memory I guess. I'm not letting her (I'm too afraid she would bite me) but she seems to want to go back to being a baby a little bit. So I am cautious about the potty too. Plus she isn't totally night time dry yet. So I am keeping her in diapers at night.

Other than that, all is well. She is so happy and fun these days. We are doing good with pre-school, it is just a short part of our mornings or afternoons (30 min. to an hour or so) but she really enjoys it. She just loves learning and I want to keep it fun! What a joy raising a two year old is. She is also so so so obedient. I am very proud of how obedient she is. I can not remember the last time I really had to get onto her. She is just so much fun!!!

I took some video today of blowing bubbles during pre-school AND I have some pics, I'll get those up soon, but for now Mommy is off to bed.

Expressing more

Hana is sooooooooo cute! One of the things she said to me today that I thought took some creativity to come up with is... "chicken atsui bye-bye" atsui means hot in Japanese. She was saying the chicken is not hot anymore. I thought that was such a smart way to express that.

We had another perfect potty day, after two accidents late yesterday (I think). I can't figure out if one of them was a teetee accident, OR a spilled drink. but I had to clean it up either way, so I count it as an accident, in her CAR SEAT no less!!!

She's doing pretty good about telling us she needs to go, but I still have to take her from time to time against her will, especially when she is busy and distracted by a lot of people. She is just like her Daddy, LOVES to be around people, and stops being aware of EVERYTHING else in the world when with a group of her favorite people.

She is such an odd mix of being shy and other times not being the least bit scared of a stranger. Today she went straight to two men she doesn't know. They were both sweethearts, and she can spot a sweet man from a mile away. She just KNOWS! I pray she keeps that up and ALWAYS only wants to have anything to do with sweethearts.

We start home preschool tomorrow. I just pray I can keep it up, I have three weeks planned out. This week we study A, next week B, and next week C. I have a game or an art project, songs and Bible lessons planned. It will only take about an hour or so each morning. But I thought it would be good for us, sort of a trial homeschool venture! It will be interesting to see how she responds to it. I don't know if she is going to like the structure or not. As structured as games and playing with letters can be for a two year old. But we'll see!

Starting to tell me...

I was suprised yesterday when Hana told me she needed to go teetee once in the morning. The rest of the day she did not tell me, I just take her at certain time intervals. But yesterday was a perfect day!!! Today she has told me twice so far that she needs to go. IF she keeps this up, I will be able to relax knowing she will tell me when she needs to go. However, she doesn't always keep doing something just because she started at some point. So we will have to wait and see on that. So far today has been perfect!!!

We went to play with Corkey today and it was so fun. She even inspired Corkey to use the potty several times while we were there. Corkey's Mommy as like, "Come back ANY time and motivate Corkey again to use the potty!" My little inspiration!!! LOL!

I was going to blog about something else she has been doing lately and now I can't remember what it was. Maybe I'll remember later.

I remembered what I was going to write. The funniest thing she does right now. When we see a knat or a misquito I always try to kill it by clapping my hands together and trying to catch it in mid-air. So now, when Hana sees bugs flying around, she'll say "Mommy, Mommy!!" and then enthusiastically clap her hands together while staring up in the air at the bug, pretending to follow it around with her eyes! So funny!

Little Miss Creative

Tonight on our way home from shopping Hana was being so creative. She loves to spot the moon in the sky. Tonight there was an almost full moon and she was really excited to be seeing it. It was positioned in the sky perfectly that in the direction we were driving she could watch it constantly. Then all the sudden she starts yelling,

"Daddy, Mommy, Moon 'something something' BOW-WOW! BOW-WOW, BOW-WOW 'something something' moon, moon, bow-wow!"

She kept going on and on about the moon and bow-wow. At first I couldn't figure it out and she was so adament that Daddy and I understand her. She was getting all worked up saying it over and over again. Then I realized, since I was a little girl, I thought there appeared to be a bunny rabbit in the moon. To me, the moons craters sort of look like a bunny rabbit. I don't know if anyone else sees this, but I always have. Well it seems Hana sees something similiar because I finally said, "ohhh, Hana do you see a bow-wow in the moon?" And she got so excited, "YEA" she says, "Moon, 'something something' BOW-WOW" And on and on all the way home. She sees a puppy dog in the moon! I thought that was so creative. I don't know, maybe you can see one too?

This is the best pic I could find on the web, and it is really too clear to see what the naked eye sees in the sky at night, but maybe you can make out my rabbit (Hana's puppy dog) it looks like he is laying on the moon on the upper left hand side. He is arching his back, so his face is upside down on the upper right, and his feet down at the bottom left. You can sort of see two ears coming out of the top of the head, he's got huge eyes and a huge nose, his body is just weird blotches, but you can sort of see two feet at the bottom left??? Maybe?

I just think it is so wild that Hana sees the same thing, a shape of an animal in the moon! MY DAUGHTER!

Still doing good...

She's still doing really well in big girl panties! There are accidents here and there, but I think we are on the back streatch. She is dry every morning too. It won't be long now. The only thing is, I have to decide what I am going to do with this huge pack of diapers I got. I'd been filling up a point card for her brand of diapers for the past year since we moved here. The store I get them at has a special, after you buy ten packs of diapers, you get one free. I finally got one for free so I chose the pullups, but she isn't going to need them all. And to save them for the next baby, who knows how long they will have to sit around!? But I guess diapers don't go bad, so I could just put them in a large plastic bag, so they don't get moist, and save them for the next potty training!

She is such a happy baby these days too. Mommy and Daddy being home and not so busy has made a big difference in her personality. She is so fun, and playful. She is pretty good about letting me get things done and playing by herself too. She is watching way too many videos while I work on other stuff right now, but when I get the house in order I hope to start some morning homeschool pre-K acitivites. Just simple stuff, coloring numbers and letters, etc. We are going to costco this afternoon and I am going to see if I can find some good coloring books, etc.

She's talking like crazy too. Putting together three words sometimes. Like "teetee no go" and "Mommy, eata kore" eata is Hana's way of saying eat. I don't know why she puts the a on the end? And kore means this in Japanese. So she is mixing the languages. she is also into possession. She must declare what is whose. Hana's booka (she also adds a to the end of book). Mommy's bowl, Daddy's bowl, Nana's bowl (she calls herself Nana). When she sees objects and she knows who they belong to, she tells me. It's so cute.

Mama, has also almost completely disappeared. I'm Mommy now most of the time. Dada left her vocab a while back, but she slowly started switching back and forth between Mama and Mommy, but the last few days I don't recal hearing Mama at all. I thought I would be sad to not hear Mama anymore, but it doesn't matter what she calls me, it is so precious to hear that sweet little voice calling my name.

She is still over stuffing her cheeks with food, but is getting good about understand that she has to chew and swallow it all before she gets more food. We have had a few stand offs where she refussed to chew and swallow, especially one with Daddy that lasted almost two hours. They are both very hard headed. LOL! but she hasn't done that again since Daddy outlasted her. Sometimes it takes her 15 or 20 minutes, and yesterday she wet her pants because I wouldn't let her out of her high chair until she chewed up and swallowed what was in her mouth. But she is slowly learning that we mean business, and she might be getting better about not stuffing her mouth as full as she used to. Maybe!

she's suck a joy to me! She really is so very obedient for a two year old. There are days that the level of her energy drives me nuts, the constant, "Mommy, mommy, mommy!!!" and chatter chatter chatter, and when she gets really hyper! But at the same time it is precious, and it is well within the boundaries of normal. I have seen much worse. And she is easy to control, even when she gets hyper! She's a good good girl.

Plugging along...

Today was good, two small little accidents. This morning she had a little bit of wetness in her panties just a little while after breakfast (she'd been to the potty so I'm not sure why), and then when she was crying once this evening she had a little leak. Otherwise, she is doing great. Woke up dry again this morning too, but the day before she had wet her pull up at sometime during the night. I'm still holding off on big girl panties at night because I am suspicious that she is not emptying her bladder during the day, and I'm afraid she will just not be able to hold it at night. Today especially she didn't seem to ever go very much in the potty when I would sit her down. I will be interested to see if she is dry again in the morning. Maybe I just need to get used to the volume of teetee that is normal.

She still fusses a little when I make her go sit on the potty but she is getting better about just accepting it and calming down. Or teeteeing as she cries. Which is still so funny.

We're doing good! It will just be a matter of time before I can relax a little bit. We have had any BIG accidents where she made a puddle on the floor in 4 days, so we're doing good.

this Mommy stuff is so fun!

There are good days and there are bad...

Fortunately, we have mostly good days! With potty training that is! Things are going quite well. We started last Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember for sure. We had a couple of GREAT days and then one really bad day (FOUR accidents), then the next day I think there were a couple of accidents, and the last two days have been perfect (or maybe very early yesterday morning she had an accident, it's all running together for me now). So I was brave enough to go to church this morning in big girl panties. We started with a baptism at 8:30 a.m. which is quite early for us (be sure and check out the ministry blog and read about the baptism, AWESOME stuff!!!), and then there was a major meeting after church so we were there until 5 in the afternoon. And it was a PERFECT day! We just have to get into a rythm with each other it seems. On that day that she had four accidents, I was getting a little too relaxed because she had done so well the first couple of days. She had accidents right around the time I would be thinking to myself, "I should take her to the potty, but I'll just finish this up first." and before I would finish up what I was doing, she'd have an accident. I have to learn to listen to those Mommy instincts! AND I have had to learn to take her even when she doesn't want to go. It is soooooooooo funny, since we've been doing this all week, now when I look at her and say "Hana, do you......" before I even get that far into my sentence she says "NO" and goes on about her business. For the next few minutes she completely ignores me! SOOOO funny. She must be so sick of being asked if she needs to go teetee. So today, I never asked her. The answer is always no anyways, so I just took when I thought she should be needing to go! It seems to be working. Now someone tell me how long it will be before she truthfully answers me when I ask if she needs to go, and then how long will it be till she tells me every time and I don't have to ask, AND THEN tell me how long it's going to be till she can take HERSELF to the potty! That day, there will be a HUGE celebration in this house!!! I'm already worn out! But I am just thankful I am not cleaning up puddles all day long and washing 20 panties a day!

This really is FUN! If I sound like I'm complaining, well, I'm having the time of my life!

Big girl panties!!!

Well, we have officially put away diapers and are in big girl panties. I decided this week was the week. Hana has been ready for a long time but I didn't have the time and we were traveling too much. We finally have time.

Hana has technically been potty training for 19 months! Yes, that is correct, 19! However, it has been an awesome experience. When Hana was very young I heard about infant potty training. I was fascinated and decided to try it. Hana caught on very quickly. She always pooped just after eating and I knew basically when she was going to pee most of the time too, so I started taking her to the potty or holding her over a bowl, and she would do it! I started using specific words when she did her thing and before long I could tell her what to do and she often would. By about 7 months it was not uncommon to go through a whole day without her ever wetting or dirtying a single diaper. However, when she started crawling she stopped being so predictable and didn't want to go sit on the potty, and we regressed a little. She has almost always poopied in the potty since the beginning but teetee has been off and on from this point.

Several months back I tried big girl panties but it didn't work, we had lots of messes and a very cranky mommy and baby! So I sort of continued to take her to potty when I could and just let her wear diapers. I began to wonder if I couldn't accomplish potty training IN diapers, but over the last month have realized she just KNOWS she can choose to go in her diaper. After meals she is happy to go the potty and even asks to be taken but any other time she prefers her diaper and gets mad if forced to sit on the potty.

So I decided the only way to get over that is to take away the diapers, and that we did. Yesterday was her first full day in big girl panties. She had one small accident in the morning and the rest of the day was perfect. Today so far has been perfect! She is even dry in the morning also. She fusses sometimes when I make her go if it is not after a meal (when she is happy to go), asking her if she WANTS to go ALWAYS gets a "no". So I just make her go and sit there when it has been two hours or more she last went. It is so funny, she will be crying and I tell her she has to put teetee in the potty or she can't get down. She then teetees as she is crying and then says "yea, teetee" while still crying! But what an obedient child! I have no idea why she doesn't want to go if it isn't after a meal, but the fussing is getting less intense with each visit.

I was thinking we would have to wear diapers when going out and at night, but so far it looks good. She went out for two little outings yesterday and did fine without a diaper, and the last two mornings she has woken up dry. She hates when I make her go first thing in the morning but she'll get used to it, she fussed less about it this morning than she did yesterday and the day before. So we may not even need diapers at night. I'm going to give her a few more days to be sure she is consistently still dry every morning.

The only baby thing left about my baby is she still sucks her thumb. Otherwise, she is feeding herself, talking like crazy, sleeping in an open bed, and now out of diapers. My baby isn't a baby anymore, she's a little girl!!!

Two year old mischief...

(This happened on Aug. 21st, the day before Hana turned two)

Mommy keeps talking about this special day tomorrow where we are having something called a party and I am turning two. I don't know what it is all about really but I know one thing for sure, she is making something interesting in the oven and it is shaped like Pooh, and smells good! I helped her mix up some gunk to put in this pan shaped like Pooh and now it is sitting on the table after coming out of the oven. Mommy seems so excited about it but won't let me touch it though, and I sure want to know what that is. She's cutting out something and covering it with paper and putting Pooh on top of that. I wonder what that is for. OH, wait a minute, the washer just quite and Mommy went to get the laundry... hmmmm I wonder if she going to disappear upstairs for a while with the laundry like she always does. I'm not supposed to touch anything on the table up there, but Pooh is sitting there, and I could get a closer look while she isn't around. Here she comes with that basket full of clothes...

Hana, Mommy is going up stairs to hang out laundry to dry, ok?

ALRIGHT! There she goes, nows my chance. I can get up on that chair and then get a closer look at that Pooh thingy. Ohhhh, he looks so fun. I wonder what he feels like. OHHHH, he feels soft! oh and he tastes real good. Here's these scissors that Mommy was using to cut out his blue backboard, wonder if it would be fun to stab Pooh with the scissors. WOW, they go right through him! Weeeee, this is fun!!! UHOH, Mommy's back!!!!!!!

(And here is what partially amputated Pooh looked like when Mommy returned)


This is Mommy here.... at first I was so mad! But soon, I began to smile about it. Now I will have a great story to tell Hana about her second birthday! And what is a two year old without a little mischief! Although she did get punished for touching things on the table, because she knows she is not supposed to do that. I did not have time to make a whole new cake, so I just had to try and do my best with amputated Pooh. However, once decorated, you could hardly tell he'd been mauled! Here is the final product after I decorated him.


My fondest memories of my childhood birthdays are watching my Mommy make cakes for us. She would work so hard to make them and they turned out so fun and delicious. I remember watching in wonder as the gooey yummy icing came out of the icing bag in the weird shapes, and created my favorite character in bright colors. I always wanted to squeeze the icing out, but Mom would only let me do a tiny bit and then she would tell me she had to do the rest. I dreamed of the day I would do that for my babies, so I could squeeze the icing out on the WHOLE cake, all by myself!!! I've had this Pooh cake pan and the supplies to decorate it for years. It has been waiting for the day I could use it for one of my children! I finally got to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only did the pan fit into my NEW oven ( a miracle since my old oven couldn't hold the pan) but I think I did an OK job of decorating it! I can't wait to make more in the future!

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl!!!!!!!

Birthday pics...

When is everybody going to hurry up and get here so we can get this party started?!!!

PRESENTS!!!


MMMMMMMMMMM Cake!!!!

Look who's TWO!!!

Today we celebrate my baby girls second birthday. It is amazing to me to think that she was born two years ago today and I didn't even know she existed yet! WOW!!! But I think that somehow I did know because in these few days before we got the call about her I had become so anxious I was almost frantic to figure out a way to get my baby home. As if my heart knew she was out there and waiting for me.

Today she is a rambunxious, happy, smart and sweet little two year old. She obeys really well for the most part (although I am beginning to understand what they mean by those terrible twos). She is not terrible at two but certainly more independent, getting a stronger temper and showing more willpower than before.

She LOVES her Mommy and Daddy and showers us with kisses and hugs though out the day. She is start to say "I love you" which is more like "wub you" but it is so precious to hear.

Her current fad is the "ABC's" she wants to sing the song about a million times a day and wants to see over and over again, one portion of a certain Mickey video where they sing it. When she tries to sing it her self it comes out (with the ABC song tune) as "A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C" and so forth. And where ever she sees writing (whether in English or Japanese) she squeels and explaims " ABC's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I have a set of Baby Einstein learning cards and she can identify the circle, oval, square, rectangle, and triangle when asked. And she can identify one and two. Her favorite number however is two, so every other number after that is always two, unless prompted to say the correct number by Mommy.She still absolutely adores bow-wows, but can identify many many animals. All of them are identified by the noise they make and not their actual name. So cats are "meow, meow" dogs are of course "bow-wow", horses are "neigh-neigh", ducks are "ga-ga" (the Japanese noise they make), lions and tigers are "rahhhh", and so forth.

She absolutely loves Hermie the caterpillar! We watch that movie a couple times a day (she demands it imediatley after breakfast and potty trip are done first thing in the morning) and she would want it to play continuously thoughout the day if I would let her. We discovered hermieandfriends.com and she loves for me to print out the coloring pages for her.She is just such a fun little girl.

She is talking so much now that I can't possibly keep record of all the words she knows. She picks up several new ones a day. She speaks in a mix of Japanese and English. It feels to me sometimes like she is constantly speaking Japanese but really I think it isn't so bad. Most of her nouns are English and her verbs are mostly Japanese. She would be an interesting linguistics study. But Mommy and Daddy are as strict as we can be about making her say things in English before we respond. However, since we understand as readily what she is saying in Japanese sometimes we respond before we realize she said it in Japanese. It is taking a lot of self discipline for us both to reinforce the Enlgish in the home rule we have set up! She demonstrates to us all the time though that is understanding almost EVERYTHING we say. We also have to be careful in this area. She understands so much, in both languages!

I am so amazed to be her Mommy and so thankful to the woman who gave birth to her. She is heavy on my heart today as well as the other family (birth grandparents and other extended) who may be thinking of her especially today. I wish they could also know this precious ray of sunshine and watch her grow. I would love to say thank you to them today and everyday for this amazing and precious gift of my daughter.I can not believe two years have flown by. I wish I could slow down the clock, and at the same time I can not wait to see what a beautiful young lady this amazing daughter of mine turns out to be.

What a personality!

Hana is sooooooooooo full of personality. It is so fun to see, she LOVES people and LOVES being in a group. She is just like her Daddy!

A few weeks back she suddenly decided one day that Rocky is "Daddy" and not "DaDa". I couldn't believe it was such a sudden change, but she always says Daddy now. I miss it and I will be sad when mama becomes Mommy, if it ever does.

I'm also very sad that baby bed days are gone. She is in an open bed now (her baby bed left open like a big girl bed) and I just can't believe it. She made that transition herself too, she just didn't want to be down in that baby bed after sleeping on the floor and in the open so much the past weeks. I've been worried about her getting up by herself at night or in the morning, but she doesn't. At nap time and bed time, she stays put, and when she wakes up, she waits for us to come and get her. She never gets up herself. It amazes me.

She's precious!!!

More fun pics...

I have a whole slew of cousins! And they all love me to pieces! We have had a great time hanging out together and playing!!!

It was especially interesting to go watch my cousin Hayden do Karate! He was counting in Japanese and bowing and greeting people. I got so excited, and I was proud of him!

And this is my cousin Shane! I love him so much. We played together and he gave me lots of hugs and kisses. He's such a sweet guy, just like his big brother Hayden!

And the other really fun thing I got to do at my cousins Hayden's and Shane's house...

learn to DUNK the basketball!!!

I went to see Mim and Grandad in DeLeon too! Mim and I loved to play the piano together.

and I just loved Grandad to pieces (I think he liked me a little bit too)!!!

One other really fun part of this trip is meeting a bunch of Mommy and Daddy's old friends who now have kids too! That means more PLAY TIME!!!!!!! Yippeee!!!