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!