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!