Hana's Place

A chef in training...

2010-11-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hana is growing up so quickly it seems! She seems to be more mature and more independent every day. It is an amazing thing to watch, it is just too bad we don't get a slow motion, pause or rewind button on this journey. there are days it feels like it is going full speed ahead before my eyes and I wish it would slow down!

Lately Hana's biggest thing is helping in the kitchen. She LOVES to cook. the minute I head towards the kitchen she is right behind me with her chair so she can stand up tall to the counter. And I am trying hard to always have on the menu things she can help with. I am trying to trust her totally with the knife, all though it is only with softer easier things to cut. But she's pretty good with it. I am impressed by all that she can do. She can make waffles and pancakes and french toast. She can make scrambled eggs ALL BY HERSELF, with zero help from me. She can wash rice, peel carrots and potatoes, chop cucumbers, cut up mushrooms, tomatoes, onions (although she wears her swimming goggles for this one), make cookies etc. It is so fun to cook with her. She is also pretty good about helping to clean up too. I hope this interest stays for a long time.

she has also really discovered books, finally! She was not the kind of toddler who would sit and let you read a book to her. She wanted to turn the pages, and take the book away from the reader, and lost interest pretty much by page 3 if not allowed to touch and handle the book herself. And this was all if I encouraged some book reading time, she never brought them to us and asked us to read them to her. But NOW she does! she loves it, and I can see in the future it becoming difficult to keep enough books in the house to keep her satisfied.

She is doing well with reading. she has learned almost all of the Hiragana alphabet and can read almost anything written in hiragana in Japanese (although slowly). In English she has learned almost all of the phonics sounds and she is coming along in reading too. But she has little motivation to read English herself, she wants me to read to her. I am hoping she'll realize how fun it is to read to herself when Mommy can't do all the reading soon. but for now, she only reads what she MUST read during homeschool, and even then is sometimes a struggle to get her to complete.

Homeschool is going well now. We hit a rough patch there for about a month. She realized that Corkey and Yuma aren't joining her for 1st grade and she has to do this alone, plus 1st grade is harder the K was and her attitude about it was pretty bad for several weeks. Sometimes that attitude downright stunk (as we would say in Texas). But I am very happy to report that it is getting much better!

Our sweet Hana is doing quite well!!!

The birthday girl...

2010-08-21T05:51:00.001-07:00

My dear precious daughter. Tomorrow, you will turn 6. I can not believe that you are six years old. To me, it seems like just yesterday you were a tiny little infant, needing my care both day and night. Today, the only thing you needed me to do was put your hair up in a pony tail, and squeeze all the toothpaste in your almost empty toothpaste tube up to the top so you could get some out! You have become such a beautiful independent young lady. I am amazed each day to watch your grow and learn!

You make me smile every day with your crazy antics and fun chatter. I love how you still say condishconer for conditioner, and spensic for expensive. How you so proudly speak of something in the past as being "when I was 3 years old."

It amazes me how you passionately love your family and friends. I am especially thankful for how much you love you little brother. I prayed and prayed that you two would have a very special relationship! You spent the night at Corkey and Yuma's house just a few nights ago and when I went to pick you up Kai couldn't wait to see you. I asked you how well you slept and you said, "Well, I slept okay but it was hard to fall asleep because I kept wondering what Kai was doing." Then I told you how Kai had cried many times after we put him to bed, and had a very hard time falling asleep without you. You turned to Kai and said, "ahhhh Kai, I missed you too. I love you!" and Kai replied, "Wub ew!" So precious! After Kai put a chop stick in his ear and punctured his ear drum a few weeks ago, you have been so worried about him. Even weeks later, when I mentioned taking him to the doctor to be checked, you began to cry for him. It is amazing how much you care for him and love him!

I love how you love animals and LONG for a pet. We hope that you will love the parakeets that you will be getting for your birthday as soon as the bird store can get special ones just for you from the breeder! We went in search of a little bird store a friend had recommended we buy birds from. We found this little shop tended to by an old man and his wife. When we walked in the door, a big green parrot greeted us by saying, "ohayo!" and he proceeded to talk to us the whole time we were there. We found out his name is Hana too, and the shop owner was so excited that you and his special bird have the same name. when we told them all about you and how we are getting you parakeets for your birthday, he began to make special plans to get you the best ones!

And my sweet precious little girl, I LOVE teaching you and watching you learn. I know it is a struggle sometimes to be different and to study at home. But it is a very precious opportunity God has given us. We get to learn about His amazing creation together. We get to learn from His Word together each day. It is a very special privilege that I hope you will enjoy and embrace as the years pass by. God has a very very special future in store for you and I want to give you all the knowledge and faith you need to fill his perfect plan for your life!

Six years ago today I did not know you were about to be born, but I was praying for you and longing for you with so much passion it was overwhelming! In the days before we got the call about you I was sooooooo desperate, almost as if I knew you were out there!

I can not thank God enough for the honor of getting to be your Mommy. I can not praise Him enough for making you who you are and giving you to us. On the day you were born, I remember what a gift I was given. What a sacrifice another family made, so that you would have the life and love that you know!

My Awesome Heavenly Father, How can I thank you enough? How can I praise you enough for giving her to us? I can not. The only thing I can do is offer her back up to you. I know she is YOUR child, entrusted to us. I pray you will help us teach her about you. I pray she will know your all consuming glory and power! Please, even now, begin watering the seeds of her faith through us and through our studies in home school. And Lord Jesus, I ask you to reveal yourself to her. I pray for the day she falls in love with you and makes you her King and her Lord. Until that day, and from that day on please help me to be the guide that always points her to you!

Becoming a great big sister...

2010-07-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Just want to record a few things she has said and is doing before I forget. Okay, first of all, a few funny things she has said...

I was telling her about her grandparents and great grandparents the other night. We talked about Daddy's grandma and I told her that we all called her baa-chan, but that she is Hana's hibaa-chan ("hi" promounced like he and the word means great grandma in Japanese) and Hana very seriously replies, "No Mommy, she's my she baa-chan." and I thought she thought I was making a mistake between he and she which I often correct her for. so I told her, "well no, the "hi" part means she is your great grandma, not that she is a boy or girl." and Hana goes, "Mommy, I was just kidding, get it, it's a joke!" She made a pun!!!! I was floored, it was sooooooooooo funny!

Also her pronunciation for expensive right now is so cute. She says "spanktion"! I love it.

But the thing I am observing about her more and more these days is how she is getting better at being sweet to her brother. She is wanting to take more and more responsibility for him and she loves to help him. She can be really patient and loving when showing him or teaching him something. It is so precious to watch! I love watching them together.

She loves helping me with things around the house. the other day she did some vacuuming for me. And she often wants to do the dishes or help me cook.

She turns 6 in a month. Mommy is in denial. It just is not possible. She is growing up so fast! We have ordered first grade home school materials. She started piano lessons! We are planning a fun birthday party with a pizza theme, because of a Curious George books she loves where George goes to a pizza themed birthday party.

Her hair is getting so long and her little body is changing into a young girl. She is slimming out and getting taller! She is just so beautiful to Mommy and Daddy.

Becoming a little lady...

2010-06-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

This sweet darling is growing up way too fast! Oh my goodness, what a little lady she has become. She was such a big helper on our trip to the states. She loves to take care of her baby brother. And I am really beginning to see what a compassionate caring spirit the Lord has gifted her with!

She had a BLAST in the states. So much so that she didn't want to come back to Japan. She loved the people there, all the family and cousins especially. She loved loved LOVED having Gizmo to ride all the time (Bam's horse). Probably the only thing she didn't just love was the food, but she even did well with that.

She was a breeze on the planes and car travel. Just give this girl an ipod or some DVD's to watch and you are set! Occasionally hand her a Sonic cheese burger and a Dr. Pepper and all is right with the world. Yep, that's right, I said Dr. Pepper. The dreaded day happened. The day she learned to like soda. But I gotta admit, if she's gonna like a soda, I'm so proud it is Dr. Pepper that she loves. She tried other things, but didn't like anything else. Now the only problem is, I always have to share my Dr. Pepper with her ;)

Now that we are back in Japan, we need to try to wrap up the last couple lessons from Home school, although she knows the letters that those units are on. I've tried a couple little activities in the afternoons, but she is resisting getting back into the routine of it. We are going to have to work on a cheerful attitude but we'll get there. There have beens tons of adjustments over these months, so I don't blame her for feeling a bit stressed at times.

My little baby girl is going to be 6 in just two short months though. I can not believe it. I just can't. I love this amazing little angel sooooooooooooo much!

My little sweetheart...

2010-01-09T05:00:00.001-08:00

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to watch this little girl grow into such an amazing person. She blows me away every day with the things she says, does and learns. It's so fun to be her Mommy.

She loves her baby brother with all her heart! I mean she loves this little boy fiercely. There is not a jealous bone in her body when it comes to him. I was watching a show tonight on sibling jealousy in Japan, and just sat there thinking how amazing it is that we haven't dealt with the things they were talking about. She loves to help care for him. She doesn't resent it when her needs have to wait a moment because I am caring for Kai. She WANTS him to be taken care of first. This morning was a perfect example.

It was a Saturday morning so we had no alarm set, and usually that means the kids wake us up. But now that we have two, they entertain themselves in their room for a while, and we don't have to get up the moment they wake up. Hana and Kai had been talking a playing for a while, when I heard Hana tell Kai she needed to go tee tee. As she was opening the door to leave the room, Kai started to cry. So she closed the door and went back to him and comforted him, then tried again. Again he cried, and so she went back to comfort him. It was so sweet. There was no frustration in her tone, no exasperation, just sweetness. And she was telling him she needed to go "REALLY BAD" but still wouldn't leave him crying. So I got up to go and rescue her.

She wants to hold him and feed him. When he falls and bumps his head or something she runs to comfort him, and often times he calms down and I don't have to get involved at all. This last Friday at cafe they played together in the toy room at church so happily, for well over an hour. When they went in there Kai was fussy and wanting me to hold him so I thought it wouldn't last very long, but he was so happy playing with his sissy. I could even go and check on them and Kai made no attempt to come to me and didn't care when I walked away, he was happy as could be with his big sister.

They are just so sweet together. I'm so thankful that God is growing her into such a wonderful big sister.

She is learning a lot in home school. She is picking up reading slowly. At first, she seemed to catch on quickly, but now she is suddenly lazy. She wants to do every part of home school except the part where we learn the sounds that consonant and vowel blends make, and the part where she has to sound out words. She even pretends not to be able to sound out words that I know she recognized the minute she saw it. Not sure why she is doing this, but I am just patiently trying to help her through it, and hopefully pretending to not be able to do it will get old soon.

She loves numbers though. She is counting by tens. Oh and writing the number 3 and all other numbers beautifully in case you keep up with my blog and you're wondering, lol! She wants to count EVERYTHING. If we are reading a book, she wants to stop and count the items on the page often. I catch her counting the things around her all the time. She is starting to add a little bit too. She will do that on her own, she'll tell me she has two spoons for me and Daddy and needs one more so that makes three. I think Math is going to be one of her favorite subjects.

For some reason over the holidays she suddenly became very good at writing. When before, I had to constantly show her how to keep it between the lines on her lined papers, and how to make lower case letters bellow the dashed line, now she is doing it all herself. In her play time she asks for lined paper and writes lots of letters, even ones she hasn't been officially taught yet. And now when she has writing assignments, she really takes her time and is working hard to form the letters instead of just trying to get it over with as quickly as possible and being messy. I don't know what changed, but it is neat to see her being so devoted to it.

She still really loves memory verses and practices them all the time. I never thought that would be one of her favorite parts of home school.

Tonight in the bath she washed and conditioned her hair all by herself, all I helped with was rinsing it out. And she washed all by herself. She is getting so big, I still can't believe it sometimes. It won't be long before I can send her into the bath all by herself. Amazing!

How much longer can I call her my baby girl?

You can join my milk!

2009-12-26T06:25:00.000-08:00

Tonight at dinner, I was cautiously feeding Kai. He's had a cold and a lot of crud. Every time he eats he coughs a lot and usually ends up throwing up most of what he ate. This has been going on for days so Mommy's appetite has not been what it normally is. I can take blood, I can take gore, I can take pain and tears, but I can NOT take vomit. Not the sounds, or the smell, and especially not the sight of it. But when you are a Mommy there isn't much you can do. So at dinner tonight Kai's had more of an appetite than he's had in days, and I was so happy he was eating, I kept giving him whatever he wanted. Of course after a while the coughing started and then he threw up and I was right there for the whole thing. Luckily most of it landed in his bib pocket and Daddy ran to the rescue to wipe it up. I was enjoying a wonderful little dinner up until then and was so disappointed to have my appetite ruined again. So I said, "Oh man, I really wanted to enjoy my meal. ugh!" Our precious darling Hana, always with a positive encouraging comment when one of us is discouraged... "Mommy, that's okay. You can join my milk!"

IF you get that, and it makes you laugh, I hope it was worth the read!

When I was 3...

2009-11-30T06:15:00.000-08:00

Something this little darling is doing that I don't want to forget. She still can't express past, present and future very well. Anything more in the past than yesterday (which she can use correctly) is "When I was 3 years old _______." or if it was a really really long time ago it is "When I was 3 months old ______." SO cute!

Starting to read...

2009-11-15T06:12:00.001-08:00

This week in home school, the curriculum started teaching her to blend consonants and vowels together. I literally saw the moment she made the connection with the sounds these letters make and then putting it all together in a word. It is like she is off to the races and I can't stop her. The curriculum wanted her to only read two letter syllables the first day but she was making up words and begging me to spell them out for her. If we were learning the blend "sa" she would start saying, "sa, sa, sad! Mommy spell sad, let's read it!" Or if we were reading "la" she goes, "la, la, laugh! Mommy make laugh!" (of course she would pick a hard word like that one!) It was crazy to watch. For months I have been pointing to words as I read them, trying to get her to sound out short simple words, but she just didn't seem to really get it. This week, I think she got it!

Tonight as we were reading a story she kept stopping me and asking me to let her read. Or I would read a sentence until I got to a word I knew she could sound out and let her read THAT word, she was LOVING it! by the end of the book, she was reading the word kitchen, sat, cake, go, and more that I can't remember. After reading a page she would go back and search for the words she could recognize. Then a few pages over she would ask to go back to the previous page and find the word again! She's got great learning skills, she WANTS to do these things herself. It is so fun to watch her doing this. I don't think it is going to be long before she just takes off reading all by herself.

Teaching your child is soooooooooo addictive! I can't get enough of how fun it is to watch her learning and growing. This is Sunday and she BEGGED to do home school this afternoon, so we did home school on a Sunday! AWESOME!

Growing and Learning!

2009-11-10T04:32:00.000-08:00

Our baby girl is getting soooooooooooooooo big! I am just amazed everyday at the thing she can do. What fun to watch her growing and learning at this stage in life.

Tonight she washed her own hair in the bath! She needed direction from me and I'm sure it'll be a while before I can just let her do it without watching and at least telling her where to scrub but I was amazed. At this rate she'll be able to take a bath all by herself by the time she's six. (OH man, did I just say SIX, I can not believe she is going to be six on her next birthday.)

I wish I could always remember all the hilarious things that she says. She makes us laugh everyday and then I sit down to write about it and I can't remember anything she said. But she is sooooooooo fun.

Home schooling is going so well. She really loves it and she is learning so much! She has THREE memory verses that she can easily recite now and we start a new one tomorrow. She has the days of the week and the months of the year totally memorized. This has REALLY helped her with understanding time like today, tomorrow, next week, next month. She is very excited about January coming because it is Kai's birthday AND she can start chewing gum again (she got gum in her hair once and then spit it directly at me once all within a couple days, and is now grounded from gum until January). So she often talks about how this is November and next month is December and then comes January!

Learning to write has been our biggest challenge. She is ready for it and wants to do it but sometimes gets very frustrated with it. I am trying to figure out if she is a perfectionist or just lazy. When she can't write one correctly, she quickly gets very upset. Sometimes she gets upset before even TRYING to write it. Before we left for Hokkaido she knew how to write 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10. She LOVED writing these numbers. As we fill in her calendar each day she would proudly write these without wanting any help from me. After we got back from Hokkaido, the first day back in home school she had to write a 3 and she just dug her heels in the ground and refused to even try. For at least 20 minutes she would NOT try it. She wanted me to write it first and let her trace it. So I would do that and then tell her she had to write on herself and she would get livid. It was a major stand off. I knew she could do it and was determined to make her. She insisted she could not. Then she began to cry and wail about how she had forgotten it. I am still trying to figure out if she was embarrassed because she HAD forgotten or if that was an excuse or what. But after an hour of letting her trace it after I wrote it. Guiding her hand while she wrote it. Making her draw one in the air for me (which she could do with no problem). Making her trace it with her finger. She still insisted she could not do it without help and WOULD not write a three all by herself. I think the entire stand off lasted almost 2 hours. For the last hour she would draw the top of the three and then just let her pencil drag down the paper in a line or make the lower part of the three the opposite way (making a backwards s). It was crazy because I knew she knew HOW to do it, she just WOULDN'T. We had to quit because it was dinner time by then, but I told her the very first thing she would have to do the next day is write a 3. The next day it was about a 30 minute stand off but she finally wrote one. Then after that for about 3 days every time writing a number came up, she would fall apart again. But I kept talking to her about how we don't just give up because something is hard and we don't quit. She was doing this happily and without any problems just a few weeks before. It was really throwing me for a loop, WHY was she doing this all of the sudden.

And now, just a week later, she is happily bringing me papers all day long proudly showing me how she can write the number 3. The first day that she did this so proudly all on her own during play time, she came to me so excited and showed me and then said, "Mommy, I'm sorry." I asked her why she was sorry and she said she was sorry that she cried about writing the number 3.

I don't know if I will ever understand what that was all about. And I am still wondering if I handled it the right way or not since I don't know exactly where those actions were coming from. I am sure every teacher out there reading this is shaking their head at me. I bet that most instruction on teaching would totally tear my actions to shreds and have all kinds of research to show me that it was wrong to MAKE her do something. But I feel like she was testing me, to see if I would let her off the hook and not make her do something she just didn't WANT to do. Up until this point in home schooling I have babied her a little. I learned early on that to push her too much resulted in a fit that would promptly end our day of school. SHE learned that too. The only thing is I knew she COULD do what I was asking her to do this time. And I also knew that if I set up a standard for backing down when she doesn't want to do something, she will use that to her advantage in the future. She'll use that little tactic when something is a little challenging, when she just doesn't FEEL like doing something, or when she just wants to see who is in control. I think she was already using that little tactic some of the time. I am still learning what she does and doesn't know and what she can and can not do, so I was letting her get away with it so far. But I decided it was time to draw the line on being lazy and not trying! So far, we are doing MUCH better in the writing department. I think that the fact she is doing well now means I did the right thing.

What is awesome though is that through all that, she still WANTED to do home school everyday and she still loves it. Writing all that out like that makes it seems like it was a big HUGE deal, but it was only one day that the huge stand off occurred. and all other areas of home school were greeted with lots of enthusiasm and fun. It really is amazing.

So here you can see Hana's writing! (Kai's name I wrote first and she traced it, and same with "Rocky" and "Marla" too) but the rest she wrote all by herself! And the drawing is of Kai!

You know, I don't know how school teachers do it. I am working with her one on one. I can take two hours to make her write a 3 if I need to. What do school teachers do when they have 20 or 30 other students to attend to? I REALLY don't know how they do it. I have so much respect for teachers now!

and now here are some pictures for you to enjoy INCLUDING a paper she was writing yesterday (just for fun) while I was cleaning up after dinner! I am so happy she chooses to practice her letters for fun at non-school times! So neat to see her love learning!

Kissing baby's hand (I love this picture because I did this exact same thing with her and Kai when they were tiny babies!)

Some picture from playing at the park!

A picture of the future...

Before boarding a train in Hokkaido (she loves these things where you stick your head through the hole)

A horse back ride at a Thoroughbred farm in Hokkaido (much more expensive then riding at Bam's house) for $10!!!

I want to see my bones!

2009-10-07T03:41:00.001-07:00

This is one line that Hana keeps throwing at us. She wants to see what her bones look like. I wonder how much they would charge us if we just walked in and asked for an x-ray cause Hana-baby wants to her bones... lol

Making rivers on a train...

2009-10-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

So we were at church all day Friday. Finally got home, packed to leave on Saturday and crashed because Hana's preschool had sports day the next morning. Sports day was scheduled to end around 12:00 and we had to catch a train at 12:55. Our travel would take about 6 hours to get to Kouchi for a Friday evening concert and Sunday morning concert, after which we would turn around and come back home (yes, we sign up for this kind of craziness). Sports day went very smoothly and finished early. We actually got to sit down in a restaurant to have lunch. I was beginning to think this crazy trip might not be so bad.

We boarded a train to the main station in town, and then hopped on a bullet train. Kai slept a good part of the way, all was going well. UNTIL we were pulling in to our stop to get off the bullet train. Hana just casually says, "I think I'll go to the bathroom after we get off the train." and I say, "Okay, sure we can do that." I'm holding Kai (still asleep) and Rocky disappears to throw some trash away when I notice a panicked look on Hana's face. And she says, "Mooooommmmy, I am peeing in my pants." I'm like, "Oh my gosh Hana, STOP, wait!" But I look down and her shoes are filling with pee, beginning to overflow and a huge puddle is forming on the floor beneath her. Have I mentioned that this child has been totally potty trained for more than 3 years and never had an accident after about the first month or two after potty training was done?

You must keep in mind, a bullet train stops at a station for like a minute, and we were slowing down for our stop. If we miss this stop we will have to ride another long ways to the next stop get off and come back (we are on the Nozomi super express which doesn't stop very often) and that will make us late for our concert engagement. I'm holding sleeping Kai and can do nothing like pull a diaper or something out of my bag to start soaking up teetee and there is no train staff person in sight.

At this point I'm standing still in a panic having no idea what to do. I must have looked like a flamingo, motionless and doing nothing, only I had both legs on the ground. Rocky appears again and I tell him to do something but he can't find anything to clean it up and we are like seconds from stopping. I look back and a long line of pee is slowly making it's way down the aisle of the train and people are starting to look back to see what is this liquid running down the aisle beside them.

Finally I see a train staff person coming towards me and tell her what happened. She grabs some paper towels and starts to clean it up and all I can do is apologize and bow profusely, stating that we must get off the train at this stop. All the while row by row, train passengers are looking back and I can see the realization come across their face as to what is this mysterious river running down the aisle. The foreigner stands there apologizing and bobbing her head like a duck fishing in the pond as a little girl stands beside her with her legs spread apart in an uncomfortable stance and little wet footprints are following her.

At this point the train staffer begins to ignore my constant apology as I can see this look of total resentment begins to spread across her face. I know she's thinking, "Why did I have to be the one who came walking through this car at this moment? This is not a part of my job description, cleaning up pee!"

By this time the train is stopping and my last glimpse of the car we were riding in, was the passengers in aisle 2,3,4,5 and 6 staring back at us with disdain, several passengers scrambling to get their bags up off the floor, a line of papers towels following the river of pee and the crumpled nose of the train staffer as she is frantically dropping paper towels and whipping up pee.

Bugs!

2009-09-11T05:42:00.000-07:00

Hana has an odd fascination/fear of animals and bugs. She loves to see animals and ask questions about them and recently began to get brave about touching them. Still the only BUG she will touch is a rolly polly.

Today Daddy found a praying mantis and was carrying it around. She was talking about it in the car on the way home. She kept saying, "What that praying mountains eat?" LOL, praying "mountains"!!! Love it!

But it is interesting that she asks great questions about animals. She always asks immediately what an animal eats. She asks other great questions like where it lives, how old it is, if it is a boy or girl, etc. She compares it to other similar animals or bugs. I think she is going to be good at biology!

Little sweetheart...

2009-09-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

I have got the SWEETEST little girl in the whole wide world. Lately she has just been sooooooooooooooooooo loving and caring and helpful. It is amazing to see.

Every time I think about what I saw her do today it just makes me smile. We are having new kitchen flooring installed. The men who are doing the work are a couple of gruff ol' blue collar workers. They speak DOWN HOME local dialect. They are so cute, but sooooo... gruff! For some reason, right from the start this morning Hana just connected with them. She sat in the doorway peeking under the plastic taped across the door to keep the dust out of the adjoining room, and chatted with them. They were so sweet to answer he questions and generally be talkative with her. Then this afternoon they were taking a little break and the oldest, gruffest guy was perched on the ledge leading out to our garage with his back to the inside of the house. Hana walked across the room, wrapped her arms around his neck and climbed onto his back! You could tell he was totally overwhelmed and unsure about what to with the whole deal, but at the same time he was sort of flattered. Can you just picture it!? She's not usually that instantly open and expressive with strangers. I think she probably just made that mans day, for Japanese people rarely receive such interaction and affection from each other. It was very cute and so sweet of her.

Lately she has been so expressive about her love for our family. She tells all of us constantly that she loves us. It's funny too because I always tell her and KaiKai that I'm always gonna keep them and never never let them go! And Hana will tell Kai sometimes, "KaiKai, I never never gonna keep you!" LOL. She's got the whole saying mixed up, but it is so cute.

She is really getting good with Kai. Being very thoughtful and gentle, and protective. This afternoon I took them to the park and where most kids would think the little baby who can't do anything is cramping their style and in the way, Hana loves to include Kai in her play. She wants him on the spring horse with her. She wants to take him down the slide. She wants him to have one of the toys out of her sandbox set. She wants him close by all the time. And when we needed to go back home because Kai was sleepy, she made no argument about leaving the park for his needs. Also, she wanted him with us for home school today and when he reached to get one of her recent birthday gifts that is very special to her, I expected her to react with a "no no Kai!" But instead she asked me if it was safe for Kai to have it and gave it to him, knowing he would chew on it and wrinkle it. I just think that is amazing!

She has become soooooooooo helpful too. She washed the dishes for me the other night and did a very good job of it. She washed and I rinsed, and I didn't have to go back over any of what she had washed!

Having conversations with her lately is so fun too. She just inquisitive and smart and so funny! I wish I could record many of the little talks we get to have.

I had my Mom send us a book that I was reminded of from my childhood the other day. Somewhere in my elementary days I read the book, The Boxcar Children and LOVED it. I have never forgotten the story. I just wanted to share that with Hana although I thought it would be way too soon for her to enjoy this book, I wanted to have them on hand. My Mom sent a boxed set of four books! I didn't know there were sequels! I can't wait to read them! but anyways, back to Hana. She immediately wanted me to read her these books. These are chapter books with only silhouette drawings every 3 or 4 pages. the online review says it for 7 year olds and up. I agreed to read to her thinking she would quickly lose interest in listening and we could put them away for later. I was WRONG! She LOVES it. Now it is what we read before bed time. One chapter a night. And she is comprehending and retaining the story line. It is so fun to have her love it as much as I did. Sometimes she even gets squirmy before I finish the chapter and I think she isn't listening but then she'll stop me and ask a question or make a comment that demonstrates she is listening to exactly what is going on. The cutest part is, each day at one point during the story she wants to stop and name the characters on the cover of the story (four siblings who have run away) and she wants to count them for me. The first night we read the story she was working so hard to memorize them that I could hardly read to her, for every 2 or three sentences she wanted to pause to look at the cover again and review the characters names. I'm not a trained school teacher but I think this demonstrates a lost for her age! It is so fun to share these special times with her.

And we both love the fact that sometimes, from his crib, KaiKai will lift up the bumper pad and peek out to smile at us while we are reading! What a cutie!

Her prayer request every night and at the beginning and ending of home school is to thank Jesus for KaiKai! I just love this baby girl, and I am so thankful for HER!

Five years old...

2009-08-22T06:06:00.001-07:00

My dear sweet precious baby girl. Five years ago today, you were born into this world - one of the greatest gifts God would ever give me. He knew you from the moment you were conceived, and He made you with the plan for you to be our daughter in mind. I still am amazed that God chose us. I get the privilege of being your Mommy! YOU are so precious to me.

Every day as I watch you grow, I see a little more of the precious spirit God has gifted you with. You are so caring and sweet. Just tonight on the way home from your birthday party, you were telling KaiKai, "I'm your big sister and if you ever fall, I will be there to help you. When you drop something, I pick it up for you. Because your still little, and you need my help!" WOW! What a blessing that KaiKai gets you as his big sister.

You are so helpful. If you see Mommmy making dinner, you will drop everything you are doing or ignore the movie you were watching and come ask if you can help me! I love the way you always want to eat the carrots and cucumbers I am cutting up. I am so proud of how you can crack eggs and mix up all my ingredients for me. You can almost make French toast all by yourself, you can do everything but cooking it on the fire. You also help put away laundry. You LOVE to help feed and care for you baby brother. You have been given the gift of helping!

You love to learn! Your favorite birthday gift was a learning set of blocks that Mommy and Daddy gave you. You have been wanting them for weeks, since I gave them to Ma-kun as his birthday gift. I was so happy to give them to you and so proud that it was the first thing you wanted to pull out and play with when we got home! You are going to be such a wonderful student in our home school! I look forward to teaching you!

You are so happy and funny! I am so glad that Jesus put so much joy in your heart! I pray you will always be able to find that joy, no matter what happens. It is something that draws other people to you. I don't know if you will ever be able to comprehend just how MANY people adore you. I pray you'll learn to use this gift for God's glory and to share his LOVE and joy with others!

I could spend hours and hours talking about just how special you are. In only five short little years you have made me the happiest Mommy in the world. I really look forward to watching you grow and change.

Mommy loves you more than you could ever imagine. Thank you for being my precious baby girl! Happy Birthday!!!

Getting ready for homeschooling...

2009-08-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

I have been talking to Hana about home school for months now. We bought some preschool activity books at costco and at times she and I sit down and I let her work on the pages. This has really helped to get her ready and excited about home schooling. She can not wait to start!

Here are some pictures of her enjoying some home school practice activities...

We got this set of cards that are erasable! She loves practicing her letters on these and then she can just wipe it clean and start again. Mommy likes it too ;)

One of her favorite parts of homeschool is putting a sticker on the page when she is done! The cat got some new eyes on this "C" page today...

She is getting soooooooooo much better about taking her time and coloring well. When she started she would just scribble across the picture to get the job out of the way as soon as possible! Now she takes her time and tries to fill in the whole object! Someday she'll care about staying inside the lines right? Like what, around 10 years old? lol

Funny things she says...

2009-07-28T04:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight at dinner Hana cleared her throat and said, "I have a frog in my nose!" LOL

And after dinner this evening she wanted a pop-stickle!

Hana always wants to whisper in your ear and tell you a shweeket (secret).

This one is not funny, just an amazing vocabulary usage. Yesterday she used the word concentrate!

Summer is crazy!

2009-07-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

My baby girl is the most amazing little girl! This summer has been crazy (as is every summer of her life) and she just rolls with punches. I am soooooo amazed at how God built her to be perfect for our busy life in ministry. Not only does she NOT complain, she LOVES it.

You can not imagine the schedule we have had for the past few weeks. We have had day in and day out cram packed so full that there is hardly enough time to properly care for ourselves each day. She has been blissfully enjoying all of it.

CMA was here. They are Hana's favorite people, I mean, MOST favorite people on the planet. She had a BLAST! They are all so great with kids too, but I just enjoy watching her relate to others. It is hard to put into words what it is like watching her personality bloom. She really really loves people. So much so that leaving them was hard. she cried and cried the day they left. and yet someone reminded me what a blessing it is that she can love that much at such a young age. How true!

Then we were off for three days of summer camp. Daddy and I were the Bible teachers. there were a little over 20 girls from one of the Christian schools we minister at. She immediately made friends there and had a great couple of days. A couple of times I even let her go off to the girls rooms and hang out with them. It took a lot for this Mommy to let her go off alone like that. but I thinks he had a blast.

Today at lunch she went to the restroom all by herself. That was a first. Recently she hasn't needed me to go all the way into the stall with her, but this is the first time she has wanted to go all alone. She did just fine. Should I be relieved that she is getting this independent? Then why am I wishing she still needed me.

During my message at the camp, at one point I said "So where is the source of love? Where does love come from?" which was of course a rhetorical question. And from the back of the room Hana chimes in a shouts "Yomiya park" which is the park near her grandparent's house. Totally cracked me up.

there are a million more funny and cute things she has done lately but for some reason when I sit down to blog none of it will come back to me. UGH.

I know I say this all the time but she is just so precious. Oh and by the way, she is doing much better with her little brother. Clothes pinning her nose might have done the trick?!

This crazy little girl...

2009-07-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

What to say about my little darling just several weeks shy of her FIFTH birthday. (Mommy is in denial, it is not possible she is already about to be 5 years old, ahhhhhhh, I don't even like typing that! My how the time has flown) She is such a joy to have in our lives. She makes me smile and laugh everyday.

So I have to tell you about something that happened today. We are working hard at learning how to be gentle with baby brother KaiKai and always being thoughtful of whether how we are "playing" with his is also fun for HIM. This seems to be quite challenging for my little preschooler. And Mommy has flashbacks of her childhood and torture session from my big brother. Mommy is determined to teach her to be caring and considerate when it comes to KaiKai. So today, I turned around from my kitchen work because he was fussing and screaming in that "she's torturing me again" tone of voice, and what do I see but her pinching his nose. I told her to come sit down in her chair at the table and wait for me. Which she did very happily, acting goofy trying to lighten the mood and make Mommy forget she was in trouble. I asked her about what she was doing, why she was doing it to him and whether she thought he was enjoying it. When she admitted she knew he wouldn't enjoy it, I asked her what she thought I should do to help her remember not to do mean things to him. She said I could tickle her (silly monkey, at this point Mommy is working hard to be stern and not crack a smile at her antics). Then she asked for a spanking and I told her no, there has to be something else that will do a better job of jogging her memory. So I asked her what if I pinch her nose. I pulled out a clothespin and proceeded to pinch her nose shut for about 5 seconds, which she did not enjoy at all. (I tried it on myself before doing it to her and it was a weak clothespin so I knew it wasn't too painful.) When I took it off I talked to her about remember to think about how it might feel if someone were doing the same thing to her. I talked to her about how she prayed for a baby and that KaiKai was a gift from God to our family and God expected her as his big sister to love and care for him, not be mean to him. All of this brought truly repentant tears, and in the midst of her crying she started picking her nose. When I told her to look at me and listen and stop picking her nose (which sounded hilarious even to my own ears) she immediately fell into a fit of laughter. One second she was bawling and the next she was laughing and that is when I lost it and couldn't help but laugh too. Then in her fit of laughter she pooted and it was all over at that point! LOL! Once we both got over the hilarity of the moment we went back over all that we were SUPPOSED to learn from this little discipline session. I made her apologize to me and to KaiKai and to God. I wonder if anything but the nose picking and pooting will stick in her mind!? *sigh*

She decided to help me make dinner tonight and she was really a big help. I was making breaded and "crisped" (not fried) chicken. She dipped all the chicken in flour then in egg for me, and dumped it into the bread crumbs for me to finish up and put in the pan to crisp. At the end of it all, she asked for permission to mix up the flour, egg and bread crumbs that were left over and I told her to go for it. She had blast with her "goopy stuff" and I was done cooking the crispy chicken in record time. She also helped me cut the ends off of asparagus and cut them in half. She then helped remove the seeds from uri (which I have no idea what it is in English) while I cut it up and prepared it for salad. And she washed dishes while I finished up the cooking on the stove that she can't help with yet! This kid is going to make one good kitchen assistant, that is for sure! At dinner she asked Daddy how he liked the chicken that she made! She was so proud. And when we told her she was going to be such a good cook if she keeps helping like this she grinned and said "so I can be a Mommy!" Lately she is always saying she can't wait to be a Mommy. Just melts my heart!

Even though she has her moments where she wants to play too rough with her brother, she is mostly a very thoughtful and sweet big sister. She constantly tells all of us how much she loves us. After more than a year of preschool, she still would rather stay home with Mommy and Daddy. I think that is so sweet. Everyone told me it wouldn't be long before she would be telling us she didn't want to leave preschool at the end of the day. That has never happened with her. She is just sooooooooooo precious, I can't put it into words!

Right now, at night she has me telling her a story that I let her help make up as we go along. It is a story about Dippitydo, a little dinosaur who is looking for her best friend. Each night is an episode in Dippitydo's search. The first night she tried to climb a tree so she could see all around but the tree couldn't hold her up and she fell. Then she had to have a snack of kelp before continuing her search. Then she climbed onto a neighbors rooftop and was sure she would be able to spot her friend who is orange with pink polka-dots, BUT she couldn't see her anywhere. UNLESS, her best friend was at the orange with pink polka-dot ocean where you can't see her so easily. Tonight Dippitydo had almost made it to the orange with pink polka-dots ocean when she ran into a purple mud hole and couldn't get across without the help of a giraffe and elephants how made a bridge, with their long neck and long nose, for her. Tomorrow the story will continue. I think tomorrow something will chase Dippitydo, I wonder what Hana will choose to be the thing that chases her?! so much fun!

Conversations from the bathroom stall...

2009-06-29T05:39:00.001-07:00

Today we were having lunch with the missionary couple in Miyakonojo where we ministered this weekend. Their whole family was with us. They have a 5 year old daughter, N, that Hana had a blast playing with this weekend.

Hana declared she needed to go to the restroom while I was deep in conversation and N happily volunteered to go with her. Recently I have been trying to give Hana a little more freedom and since I knew the other little girl knew her way around the restaurant, I let them go together.

I continued my conversation and about 10 minutes later realized that they should have been back by then. So myself and the other Mom headed out to look for them. We checked the pet shop right across the way and they weren't there so we headed for the bathrooms.

As we approached we could hear their voices inside so we sort of listened in. That's when I heard N say, "But you know, we are way too young to be arrested!" ROTFL! I have no idea what they were talking about but just hearing that one line left me in stitches.

Kid's say the darndest things!

Teasing Hana...

2009-06-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight at dinner Mommy was teasing Hana and her reaction was soooooooooo funny!

She asked me once for some more dressing for her cucumbers and I said mater-of-factly, "Nope you can't have any!"

She immediately began to complain, "Why NOT?" and Mommy replied, "Because, ummmmm, because... you have a NOSE!"

The look of shock that came over her face was hilarious. You could see the little wheels in her mind spinning and she began to say, "but, but Mommmy, but..." and the she thought for a few more minutes and she said...

"but Mommy, you can't breathe without a nose!"

Daddy and I just died laughing!

Then she said, "YOU have a nose TOO!"

and I gave her the dressing!

She began to pout. Then we lightened up the mood a little and laughed about some other things and a few minutes later I said, "Hana! You have garments on your back!" Again a look of shock came over her face then she shrank down into her chair and said, "Mooooooommmmmy, why you say that to me. I don't have chicken pox on my back!" LOL! I said, "No, it isn't chicken pox, it is garments. Look Daddy, she has garments doesn't she!" and Daddy agreed.

Then Hana's eyes start to turn red and that big pouty lip came out and she said, "Mommy, I'm almost bout to be crying because of you!"

Again I burst out laughing. She doesn't realize how cute and funny she is! I stopped teasing her after that cause I don't think she could take much more.

From there we declared it a Silly Sunday dinner for Funny Father's Daddy. Mommy wore her glasses upside down. We made silly jokes. We hummed songs while blowing into our water glasses making lots of bubbly tunes! It was a fun evening, even if we did have noses and garments on our backs!

Language development...

2009-06-20T06:56:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've written about how Hana is doing in the language department. She is doing so well!

Rocky and I were commenting recently that one thing we don't want to forget which she is saying a lot lately is "don't you". Don't you is at the end of lots of her sentences, even when it should be "doesn't she" or "isn't it". It's so cute. She'll say things like...

Mommy, KaiKai seems hungry, don't you?
It's hot today, don't you?

So I have sometimes started trying to get her to say the correct phrase and now she'll try sticking random phrases in that still don't match the subject or her sentence. Like...

KaiKai is sleeping, isn't it?

It is so cute when she makes these mistakes that sometimes it is hard to correct her.

She still mispronounces a lot of words. Especially accident. it still comes out askident. Lots of words with the double cc in them come out with the sk sound. Can't think of any other examples right now. She says accident all the time so that one sticks out in my mind.

Her sentences keep getting longer and more complicated. Today on the way home, we were turning into our road off a road that has some construction going on. It has been widened and is leading up to a ramp that is still under construction. so the lanes that will enter the ramp are blocked off. So she said, "Mommy, how come this road is blocked like that?" I just thought that was a mighty big sentence for her and her usage of the word blocked was so perfect. I am always wishing that I could figure out where she gets vocabulary like that.

We are sanitizing our hands a lot these days with the H1N1 virus being around (a case of it was reported in our city this week). So now my four year old says things like, "Mommy can I sanitize my hands?" and she'll ask me "Are you sterilizing KaiKai's bottles?" WOW!

She is however trying to get away with using more Japanese with us. when she spouts off to me in Japanese I give her a strange look and tell her I can't understand what she just said. Sometimes she tries repeating it in Japanese several more times, but will finally say it in English. I think this is awesome experience for her brain to have to translate what she wants to say into English! How amazing to get to learn a second language as a child!

We will probably start Kindergarten homeschool in the fall! Pray I can discern what curriculum to order, and how to go about doing all this!

Here's a pic to enjoy, Hana helping entertain her brother while he gets a hair cut!

Hana baby girl...

2009-06-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am just in awe of this little girl. She is growing soooooooo fast. She had on a pair of pants today that seemed to big for her just this winter and now they fit her just right. She is washing herself in the bath (except for hair) and getting out of the bath, drying off and getting dressed all by herself. A couple of nights ago, Daddy was in the bath and I was nursing Kai and she said she was sleepy and wanted to go to bed, so I told her she could if she wanted to. So she just went upstairs and got in bed all by herself! Of course she wanted Mommy and Daddy to come up later and kiss her good night, but she was so proud of going up there by herself! I was amazed that she did too. Signs of growing up I guess.

She is very concerned about her teeth. They started brushing teeth at preschool and now she wants to brush her teeth all the time. She told me a dentist came to school today and checked their teeth and her teeth were great. I asked if I could take her to the dentist to get a fluoride treatment and she got so excited about that! Now she's asking when she can go. I haven't taken her for those until now because at her 18 month required dental check she screamed bloody murder and they never even touched her, he just looked inside her mouth while she was screaming and said she looks okay! LOL! So I figured she wouldn't let them do it. She HATES for her regular doctor to make her say "ahhhh" so he can see her throat and usually he has to pry her mouth open to see as she is crying and resisting it. But maybe the dentist is clearly a different thing to her and maybe now we can get fluoride treatments! Yea!

Last week she ripped the edge of a toe nail off at school and they had to take her to the doctor. She had to visit the doctor daily after that to get it cleaned and the dressing changed. She was so proud that she didn't cry at the doctor after the first day. So cute!

We are working hard at two things right now. Being gentle with KaiKai and being considerate of him, and picking up toys (yes that issues rears it's ugly head again, or did it ever go away in the first place?). I finally had all I could take with the refusal to pick up toys and the almost daily battles about it. So the other night I told her that the next day I was packing away most of her toys and she couldn't have them back until she learned to keep the few remaining toys I leave out for her put away neatly. I packed away more than half of her toys and she can not open her toy box without permission and she can only have one toy out at a time. She can't get another unless that toy is put away! It's working so far, and she is being very obedient to ask if she can open her toy box and to always put things away. I think we may have found what works. And the fewer toys seems to make it easier on her to play so we might just keep it this way! As for being gentle and kind to her brother, she was getting out of control with just doing whatever she wanted to with him. Last week she got grounded from him for the whole day twice and once when I saw her smear her hands all over her face I completely lost my cool and yelled at her. Now we talk a lot about how to treat him and I praise her excessively when she is doing good with him. The past couple of days have been better. We'll see if she keeps it up.

But she really is a wonderful big sister most of the time. And she is sooooooo helpful! Tonight she asked for pigs-in-a-blanket for dinner. She helped me make the bread dough, and rolled it out and wrapped the wieners when the dough was ready. Then at dinner she was saying how yummy it was and she looked up at me and said, "Mommy thank you for making pigs-in-a-blanket cause I asked for them!" Talk about melt Mommy's heart! What a thoughtful little darling!

Poots are pink...

2009-06-04T05:14:00.000-07:00

Hana declared at the breakfast table a couple days ago that someone had pooted! No one had, so Daddy asked her how she knew someone pooted. She said, "I can see it!" So Daddy asked, "Well what color are poots?" and she answered, "Pink!" And Daddy asked, "What shape are poots?" and she said, "Rectangle!" Where do they come up with this stuff.

Hana is growing like a weed right now it seems. She has gotten so tall. I really need to measure her. But she now weighs 16.5 kilo! That's over 36 pounds! When did she get that big.

We have slowed down on the reading thing a bit because things have been too busy around here. She is doing some homeschool workbook pages every once in a while. I was introducing her to writing her letters, but I don't know if she is quite up to it yet. She can't seem to (or doesn't want to) really copy the letter, she just wants to make marks on the paper most of them not resembling the letter at all! We've practiced 3 pages, A, B, and C. But that took more than a week to complete those 3 pages. so we'll see. She enjoys it a lot though and really WANTS to do it.

Here are some pictures to enjoy!

She's starting to READ!

2009-05-04T04:26:00.000-07:00

Hana is just growing and learning and changing all the time! A couple of weeks ago I ordered some early readers that a friend suggested, and started to work with her on them. She is now reading some words, when she feels like putting some effort into it. And she read a whole book the other day. Of course it was a really simple book, but I am so excited. Can't wait for her to learn more.

She also just loves her baby brother. It is so cute to watch them together. She wants to be as close to him as she can get. We can't get it across to her that she doesn't have to get nose-to-nose with him, but can leave a little bit of distance between her face and his so he will enjoy her presence and not get frustrated by it. Sometimes she plays really well with him though and he enjoys it a lot. He is smiling and laughing at her more and more all the time. As we were driving along in the car today I heard her say, "Kai, you the baby brother the whole wide world." Which I think she means the BEST baby brother in the whole wide world. It was so cute.

I thought we had completely give up the thumb, but she got sick and started sucking on it some again. She wants to stop again though and keeps coming to tell me that she didn't suck her thumb last night, or at preschool all day and so forth. We will see if she totally has kicked the habit on her own in time I guess. But if she hasn't by the time she starts losing baby teeth, we are taking drastic measures. In the third picture below you can see the gap between her top and bottom teeth even though she is almost biting down in that pic, and the odd shape of her first two top teeth. I don't know if her permanent teeth are already affected by this, but I want that thumb a thing of the past once they start coming in for sure!

All that to say she is doing wonderful! We are so blessed to be her Mommy and Daddy!

Daddy, I foget you!

2009-04-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hana said the cutest and most profound thing the other day. She came home to find that Daddy had accidentally stepped into her toy baby stroller and broken the strap holding up one side of the "seat". I told her that Mommy could sew it back up soon and she was so sweet about it. Daddy came over and said, "I'm sorry Hana, I broke your stroller." and Hana responded, "That's okay Daddy, I forget you!" I thought that was so cute and sort of a profound mix up of words. To replace forgive with forget! Maybe we should all do that when we forgive.

Hana is really growing so much it seems. She seems taller to me, although I haven't had a chance to check her height lately. Her legs seem so long, and she could reach a light switch today that she always need a boost to reach until now. She weighs 16 kilo now. That's what, about 35 pounds! All I know is she is really heavy and I can't hold her for very long anymore.

And of course I must share some pics!

Getting ready for bath time!

Walking home from preschool together.

Daddy beat her to the front door and she was heart broken.

Little toes in the creek at the park!

Climbing a hill with her best buddy Corkey!

Baby Jesus...

2009-03-13T07:31:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago Hana was pretending that Kai was baby Jesus. She would cuddle with him and say the sweetest things like...

"Jesus, you are my best friend."
"Jesus, you always be there for me."
"Jesus, you give the best hugs."
"Jesus, you love me soooooo much."

Many of her comments, even though they were directed towards "Kai", were so fitting for the role Jesus REALLY plays in our life and so sweet to hear. And then all the sudden she says...

"Mommy, Jesus pooped!"

I laughed so hard! Love it!

I think she's actually done it!

2009-03-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

I really really think maybe she's done it! It's been a week! She is still very excited about the band-aids, and she insists she isn't sucking her thumb at night or any other time! I am almost in disbelief that it was this easy! I had told her she can only have one band-aid per thumb per day, but I think tomorrow morning I am going to take her band-aids off to be sure she didn't suck her thumb in the night. On the second morning of this, one of her band-aids was loose and when we took it off her thumb was all wrinkled underneath like when you get out of a long bath. She confessed that she had sucked that thumb in the night. So I threatened to not let her have any more band-aids if she did that again. I think it worked, but I want to be sure! I haven't seen her with that thumb in her mouth during the day though, and that is a BIG deal!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, I really hope this is it!

Is it possible...

2009-03-04T06:15:00.001-08:00

Could we have beaten it? Could my baby girl actually have given up sucking her thumb??? I can not be totally certain yet, but it looks like it is totally possible.

Two days ago she came home from preschool with a bandage on one finger. Her teacher told me that a friend had an owie, and Hana wanted a matching bandage because "her finger hurt too" (yea right). I told the teacher that Hana ALWAYS wants a bandage, and that usually I refuse cause those character bandaids she loves so much are too expensive.

Then, that night at home Rocky was off at a church meeting and I had the two kiddos to myself. It was a circus trying to put them both in the bath by myself for the first time and after the bath when Hana asked for a new bandaid for her finger I didn't feel like arguing with her about her not needing one. That's when it occured to me I could make a deal with her. I told her if she would let me also put a bandaid on both her thumbs and if she'd promise to keep those on her thumbs all night long and not suck her thumb, then I'd let her have new bandaids. She happily agreed and kept talking about how she was not going to suck her thumb, with so much pride, that I was actually hopeful this might work.

We are weeks away from resorting to ordering some kind of hand contraption that you strap onto their wrist and they have to wear for 24 hours the first week and then at night for at least another month! I was getting THAT desperate! She has a huge gap between her top and bottom teeth because of how much she has sucked her thumb. She can not bite into food in the front because those top and bottom teeth will not meet. I still have to cut up EVERYTHING for her or she chokes on it.

Well, she woke up the next morning with totally dry bandaids. She proudly announced she had not sucked her thumb. So I promised to take her to the store and buy her whatever character bandaids she wanted if she'd keep this up. She is always wanting some and I never let her have any, I bought a few boxes in the states last trip back and I won't let her have one unless she's bleeding which means she never gets to wear them! I think the novelty of them is the key to possibly breaking this horrible habit! Could this be it!??? Time will tell. But she kept the bandaids on all day today, took them off for a bath and got her new MIFFY ones we bought at the store on as soon as she could get help opening the box after bath time. She was still proudly announcing that she is not going to suck her thumb anymore!

Can I get "Glory Hallelujah!" Can I get a "Aaaaaaaaaamen!" Can I get a "PLEASE LORD LET THIS BE IT!"

And now for some pictures to enjoy cause you just can't have a blog post without pictures, now can ya?

On her favorite little ride at one of the grocery stores we frequent. She has loved this little elephant for as long as I can remember, even when all other characters and statues totally freaked her out. The song this thing plays will forever be etched in my memory and sometimes I can't get it out of my head. But I don't mind cause the ride is only 10 yen, and you can't find them for less than 100 yen anymore!

Doing some acrobatic entertainment for the people at church! Can you believe how LONG she has gotten! Even though she is a shorty for her age, she just seems so huge to me! I can't believe she is 4 1/2!

Waiting patiently for someone to finish cutting the chocolate cake for a church members birthday celebration last week. Why she waited so anxiously I'll never know, she took like 3 tiny licks of some of the icing off her fork and turned it down. YEP, my vegetarian, still doesn't like sweets very much! I LOVE IT!

Good morning sweet baby brother!

She is still absolutly in LOVE with her little brother. He hung the moon and is her "BEST FRIEND". I'm concerned for Kai, not because she might hurt him out of jealousy but that she might smother him with all her "hugs" and "kisses"! Just kidding! He obviously adores her too, he LOVES to just watch everything she's doing! It is so precious to see this special relationship between them.

Conversation about Jesus

2009-03-03T06:02:00.001-08:00

This morning on the way to preschool Hana and I had a pretty deep conversation about Jesus, well I guess deep for a 4 year old anyways. Lately she always wants to read the story of his death on the cross and resurrection in her children's Bible. She talks about it often. But for some reason she is a little confused and thinks Mommy is also going to die on the cross someday. I have told her many times that I don't have to do that cause Jesus did it for me. Anyways, today's talk went something like this.

Hana: Mommy, Jesus was on the middle one!
Mommy: Yes he was, he was hung on the cross between two thieves. Do you know what a thief is?
Hana: Yes, that friend of Jesus.
Mommy: No, Jesus friends were his disciples. The two men on each side of him were people who had done something bad. The took something that wasn't theirs, they stole something. They were being punished for doing something bad.
Hana: Jesus wasn't bad, right Momma.
Mommy: No, Jesus did nothing wrong but he had to die on the cross anyways.
Hana: Mommy gonna go on the middle one.
Mommy: No, remember Mommy doesn't have to do that cause Jesus already did it for me.
Hana: Then Jesus came back right. Mommy come back too?
Mommy: Well first of all I'm not going to die on the cross, but when I do die I can't come back. Jesus is the only one whose ever come back after dying.
Hana: Yea, that's cause he is God!

I am amazed at her comprehension of some parts of this. Although, I don't think she fully understands what dying is yet. Once we trapped a mouse and we've seen some dead bugs and that is how she knows the word, but I don't think she gets how final it is. But I was so impressed to hear her say that Jesus came back because he was God! She is absorbing some things from our Bible reading.

So fun to watch her understanding grow and her comprehension develop!

Baby Brother's Blog...

2009-02-08T06:02:00.000-08:00

My little brother's blog has been set to private and if you'd like to see his CUTE pictures, you need to email my Mommy and ask her to invite you to view the blog! You just gotta do that, cause you don't want to miss out on him growing up and getting sweeter and cuter all the time! So email Mommy at marla at aromaministries dot org, she'll add you to the blog readers list and you'll get an invitation so you'll have access!!! Thanks!

Silly names...

2009-02-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl my Daddy used to call me by the craziest name. It was Marla Kay Kaddidlehopper Jones Rudd. I always got a kick out of it. And so now, I call Hana, Hana Grace Kaddidlehopper Jones Rudd Ayatsuka, and she just thinks it is hilarious. Today I asked Hana what she thought Kais name ought to be. She came up with something really cute. It's KaiKai Luke Anpanman Kajunie Rudd Ayatsuka! What a name! Way to go Hana!!!

Some Big Sister-isms

2009-01-19T03:52:00.000-08:00

Hana has just been hilarious since Kai arrived. The day she found out we were getting him, she started to ask non-stop questions...

Where is KaiKai going to sleep?
What toothpaste is he going to use?
Can I take him to my school?
and about a million more!

On the way home from church the night we got him and had a dedication ceremony for him she said... "I can't wait to get home with my Kai and lay him on the floor and watch him do tricks!"

She is such a big help. She loves to help change his diaper, hold him even when he's crying while Mommy gets his milk ready, hug him and give him lots and lots of kisses and rattle toys in front of him for entertainment (more hers than his, lol).

There has not been even an ounce of jealousy so far. She is so amazing. She gets jealous when Mommy holds other people's babies, when I say sweet things to other children or show them too much attention, even sometimes when I or Daddy are too close to other adults. With Kai, she has not been the least bit concerned that someone else is getting our attention and hugs and kisses. She loves him soooooooooo much. It is truly a God thing and I am so excited to see her with him!

Pictures of Kai...

2009-01-17T06:34:00.001-08:00

www.kaikais-place.blogspot.com

Check him out!

I'm a big sister!

2009-01-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

We just got a call yesterday that we are getting a baby boy. His name is Kai and he is a tiny newborn. Hana is sooooooooooooooo excited. He comes home to us tomorrow (Friday, 16th). More soon, no time to write more at the moment! Yipppeeee! It's a boy!

What rabbit?

2008-12-15T01:09:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, Hana's preschool had their Christmas pageant. Hana was a bunny rabbit in her portion of the program. She came home today with her little rabbit hat on her head and has been wearing it around the house since then. After dinner Daddy and Hana were playing. Daddy had a huge cardboard tube, that came from the middle of a roll of wrapping paper and he was pretending to use it as a fighting stick. This is the conversation that took place...

Daddy: "Mommy, you need to wrap some more presents so that we can have another stick!" (so that he and Hana can pretend to fight together)
Mommy: "Well from what I understand, you have a present that needs to be wrapped!" (One for me that has been sitting in a bag in the hallway for a few days! LOL)
Daddy: "Oh, yea, I do!"
Mommy: "So go get it out and wrap it!"
Hana: "Huuuhhhhhhh? What rabbit?"

LOL!!!! get it?

Funny line for the day...

2008-11-23T04:33:00.001-08:00

Mommy: "Okay Hana, bath is ready!"
Hana: "ummmmm, how 'bout next week Mommy?"

Hilarious laughter erupts from the adults in the room!

Momma...

2008-11-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

This girl is a TALKER! It seems especially so lately. She is full of questions and loves to have a conversation. I wish I could keep a written record of all the cute things she says.

Last night at 4a.m. Hana began hollaring out for me. I went and got her and put her in bed with us cause she was a little scared. She started asking random questions and for a good 30 minutes the conversation went on like this...

Hana: Momma, how you spell Mommy?
Mommy: "m-o-m-m-y"
Hana: Wow that's lots of M's!

Slight pause, maybe she's going to go to sleep???

Hana: Momma, that a person in that closet?
Mommy: No that's just Mommy's clothes
Hana: Momma, what's that?
Mommy: That's the ceiling fan.
Hana: Why?
Mommy: So we can keep cool in the summer.

Slight pause, maybe she's going to go to sleep???

Hana: Momma, how you spell Robynn?
Mommy: r-o-b-y-n-n
Hana: How you say inhaler in commo estada? (commo estada - Spanish)
Mommy: I don't know you have to ask Daddy.
Hana: Daddy, how you say inhaler in... Momma, what that words?
Mommy: Spanish
Hana: Daddy, how you say inhaler in that Spinach?
(Mommy chuckles, Daddy answers in a groggy voice)

Slight pause, maybe she's gonna go to sleep????

Hana: Momma, what's that light over there?
Mommy: That's the apartment building outside.

etc. etc. etc. That went on for like 30 minutes before I finally told her it is time to try to fall asleep. She kissed Mommy and Daddy good night and eventually went to sleep.

So fun to talk to my girl, but I prefer conversations in the daytime, not at 4 a.m.

Today when she got home from preschool she said...
"Mommy, I love you!" I said thank you and she said, "THAT is a present!" I agreed that her love is surely a precious present to Mommy!

Last night as I was taking her up to bed, she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and said, "Mommy, you my friend and I'm your friend! YOU'RE my BEST friend!" Mommy's heart melted into a puddle on the floor!!! :)

She is too precious for words!

First game of Go Fish!

2008-11-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

My dearest cousin Robynn is here right now and she's got the gift of teaching a child. The other night she got Hana interested in playing cards and before long they were playing Go Fish! I was amazed that Hana could do it. For months and months and months I have been trying to get her to want to know her numbers again (she used to know them all and then totally lost interest). This has been PERFECT for getting her to review her numbers. She has 6 and 9 mixed up and for the life of her sometimes can't remeber 10, but otherwise she does great with the game!

Here are some pics of her playing!

"Yes, Mommy, I have a 3, here ya go!"

"hmmmmmm, which card should I ask for?"

"I'll ask for THIS ONE!"

"Oh, wait a minute, is this a 6 or a 9???"

"I got a match!"

"I WIN!!!!!!!!"

She's a great sport. If she doesn't win, it's no big deal. She encourages others if they get sad cause they aren't doing so well. And she is so happy when she has a card in her hand that you asked for! She loves to give her cards away! It is so fun to be able to play games together. She's wanted to play everyday since she learned how! Thanks Robynn for getting my girl interested in her numbers again!

A few recent pics...

2008-10-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

For your viewing enjoyment ;)

On a recent concert road trip Hana fell asleep with her crown on! It was soooooooo cute!

We won a Wii and Wii Fit in a drawing recently. Hana likes the soccer game (she still holds the high score) and the ski jump. Her favorite part of the ski jump is to NOT jump so she rolls down the hill and becomes a snow ball! Silly girl!

getting ready to NOT ski jump!

Daddy is becoming a professional photographer (of sorts) and this is one great shot he took recently!

On a recent trip to the park...

Talking on the phone with Mommy! Her voice sounded as sweet as she looks in this picture!

Sports day...

2008-10-25T05:38:00.000-07:00

Sports day is a BIG deal in Japan. You might remember last years sports day and a video here! They spend weeks practicing and preparing for sports day here. They PRACTICE every event! So that the big day will be perfect! And it shows, it is always such a major production and I am always soooooooooo impressed!

This year Hana was a little more into it than last year. Last year she was just smiling and laughing and being directed where to go and what to do. This year, it seemed she knew what she was doing, and she got serious about some of the events! We hope you enjoy the pictures...

On the way to Sports Day she was so excited it was hard to get her to slow down, as you can see by how far ahead of us she was!

She was the first student in her class to arrive and after putting on her team hat, she had to sit and wait patiently for the rest of her classmates to show up!

Below is Hana's poster of herself, which she colored! All of the children had colored a self portrait and they were all strung in a zig-zag pattern above our heads across the preschool playground.

Hana's class parading around the grounds.

Hana getting ready to show us her class dance. She spent most of her time during the dance just looking at us and smiling and waving. Her teacher says that everyday they would practice the dance outside she would stand around and suck her thumb. On rainy days she when they would practice inside she would join in the dance! No one can figure out why she won't dance outside!!!

THE RACE!!!
This is the beginning of Hana's race!

She pulls ahead of the pack...

and rounding the first corner, it's Hana in the lead and gaining ground!!!

She just makes it look so easy!

The winner is... HANA!!!!!!!! (she won her race last year too, I wonder if we have a track runner on our hands)

This is where the white team and the red team compete to see who can get the most balls in a basket up high over the heads!

The basketball player in Mommy can't help but be excited about that follow-through! Just look at that! We have to work on squaring up though ; )

And she will surely be good at rebounds!

thorough at rebounding too!

and don't forget to make sure Mommy's watching!

Then the grandparents got to join in the game, and here is Hana with her Baba!

Next up, the parents in the centipede race! Daddy was the leader of the orange team. GO Orange! (unfortunately they lost cause the lady behind Rocky wouldn't let him speed up, she kept screaming she was gonna fall down everytime he tried to speed up! LOL)

And finally Mommy and Hana in the obstacle course!

The balance beam...

Jump through the hoops...

and a piggy back ride to the finish!

You did such a great job Hana-baby! Mommy is so proud of you!!!

Let's go eat lunch, I'm starved!

recent funnies...

2008-09-15T05:52:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to blog a quick little update about some funny things Hana has done lately, before I forget them.

The other night after dinner, we put some praise music on and we were dancing to it. She loves this, the CMA girls obviously had a big influence on her ;) She has her own moves though. One is the "butterfly dance" as she calls it. I gotta get a picture of this. But basically, you spread your arms out like your flying, bend over and stick one leg up behind you as high as you can! It's hilarious! She'll then instruct me in our dance. We have to dance together for a while, then she'll go and take her place in a corner and bend down and wait while I do a solo, then she declares it is her turn and I have to go bend down in the corner while she has a solo! This also definitely comes from watching CMA perform! Well towards the end of our dance time she suddenly turns to me and says, "Mommy you no pretty good dance, I am pretty good dancer!" HA! EXCUSE ME! Evidently I am not as good as she is at dancing!?

Today we were at a friend house for dinner. I was sitting on the couch and she came and plopped down in front of me and says, "Mommy, massage!" Totally cracked me up. She gets this from me, cause I do that to Daddy all the time!

Last night her good buddy Kouki came to spend the night. They had sooooooooo much fun! I'll have to share pics of that soon, when we get them loaded onto the computer!

She is such a blast!

She's almost 4!!!

2008-08-11T05:09:00.000-07:00

Can you believe this girl is going to be 4 years old in like 11 days!!!!!??? I'm still in shock. Where did the time go?

I just wanted to come and upload a few pics since it has been a while. Our summer has been sooooooo busy, hopefully there will be more time for blogging after this month is over! Enjoy the pics...

SUMMER EVENT AT PRESCHOOL

JR HIGH/HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER CAMP

Coloring at English Circle...

SECRETS WITH MOMMY

A little Princess...

TRIP TO THE RIVER

Translating what Mommy said...

2008-07-25T23:46:00.001-07:00

Mommy: "Hana, you have to have a shower this morning. Who do you want to give you a shower?"

Hana: "Mommy!!!"

Mommy: "Okay then, hurry up and eat your breakfast cause I need to get my shower too so I have time to get ready! We are running out of time!"

Hana: "okay!"

TEN MINUTES LATER (and not one more bite has disappeared off her plate)

Mommy: "Okay Hana, I am going to get in the shower. If you haven't finished eating your breakfast by the time I'm done showering then you'll have to let Daddy give you a shower. Okay?"

Hana: "Okay Mommy!"

Then from the bathroom while getting in the shower I hear this...

Daddy: "Hana, are you eating? What did Mommy say?"

Hana: "She said, 'Eat my food!'"

Pretty good translation, I think!

nick? Nick? neck?

2008-07-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

English is such a challenge especially for an almost 4-year-old whose vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds everyday.

Tonight at dinner, we were talking, and Hana blurted out the line that Rocky always uses in his self-introduction at concerts where he is explaining how he got the name Rocky. When she did that, I decided to ask her if she knew Daddy's "real" name. She said, "Yea, Rocky!" I said, "No that is Daddy's nickname, what is his real name?" She looked rather confused and then said, "I don't know." So I told her that it is "Hiroaki". She thought that was pretty funny but then she said the funniest thing. "Rocky is Nick?" and I said, "yea, it is a nickname." and she said, "Daddy's not Nick." and I said, "Oh no, I'm not talking about Uncle Nick (one of our missionaries at our church) this kind of nick is different, it's called a nickNAME." and she said, "Ohhhhh, a neck." As she raised her chin and grabbed her neck. Rocky and I both laughed and continued to try to explain what a nickname is! What a riot! She might be upstairs at this very moment, lying in bed pondering why we have given Daddy's neck a name, and why we call him by that name all the time! LOL Watching her language develop is so fun.

She has got the cutest pronunciation of some words right now. I am going to be so sad when these disappear.

accident = askident
computer = pacuners
conditioner = dishconer
piano = pinano

That's the most I can think of right now. I've got to get video of her saying all those words before she gets them right!

I am sad to report that "hold you!" is now gone. Sometime while we were in the states she started saying "hold me" and we rarely hear "hold you" anymore. She had been using the word "me" correctly otherwise long ago, but this way of saying "hold you" was one of my favorite things. I am so sad that it is gone. Sometimes I still make her say it that way for me before I pick her up. Silly Mommy!

Otherwise she is speaking both languages like a pro. And she translates for herself sometimes. She'll take off in one language and realize she meant to speak in the other, stop, and repeat the exact same thing in the other language. It just makes me smile when she does that.

She picks up English books and pretends to be reading in English. Japanese books, she pretends to read in Japanese.

Such a smart little girl! And so much fun!

Get caught up on the US trip... part 2

2008-06-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

The "Pool" in Texas (from the dollar store!)

Smelling Bam's feet?? Why???

Four Wheelin'

Stealing Bam's boots!

Riding a horse (my absolute FAVORITE thing in America)

Get caught up on the US trip... part 1

2008-06-26T05:19:00.001-07:00

So much to share! Here's part one...

Friends!

My cousin and my Uncle!

My Mommy, My Aunt and My Sophie (I might love Sophie the most!)

Hana's Portraits...

2008-06-04T20:05:00.001-07:00

Mommy and Me!

2008-05-29T21:02:00.001-07:00

Missing post...

2008-05-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

This post ended up on Mommy's blog but was supposed to be here, so here it is...

This little girl has fallen in love with animals, and especially Bam's horse... Gizmo!

Riding with Bam..

Watching TV with Granny... (Great Grandmother)

Playing with Aunt Kay... (Great Aunt)

Saying Bye-bye to Uncle Bud and Aunt Shortie... (Great Uncle and Aunt)

One thing is for sure... this little girl is LOVED!!!!!!!

My sweet little family!

2008-05-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Mommy and Daddy and Hana had our pics made today! The individual ones of Hana will not be in till next week, but I just had to share our family photo...

A whole month in the US already!

2008-05-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe we've been here a whole month. It's been great. Hana has been making so many friends, and getting so good at it. The other day we went to (yet ANOTHER) church and she saw a small group of children playing outside. She came to me and said, "Mommy, can I play with the kids outside?" I said, "Sure you can!" and off she went. I followed along behind her just to see if she did okay. It was amazing to watch. She slowly inched her way across the yard towards the group of kids. She took a few steps closer and closer into their little circle, until one little girl spoke to her. Then she just joined right in with them! She looked back and me a time or two and smiled and waved. It was so sweet to watch. She was fearless about getting into that group of total strangers. She is really cut out for all this travel that we do!

Today, she was looking at a globe with her cousins. They asked her where she lives and she pointed right to Japan, and right at the island of Kyushu! I was amazed!!!

She is really loving being in America. I am amazed at how much her English has improved. She is speaking in some LONG sentences now. Playing in English with all the kids has been so good for her. When playing, she used to always switch into Japanese, now she plays along in English and even plays by herself in English.

The other thing I have noticed is that she is learning to tease people. Certainly, she has picked this up since we got to the states. She will call someone a silly name, and just loves to watch them be a little embarrased by it. It is hillarious! I didn't know that a 3 year old could pick on someone.

Here are some picks to enjoy of all we've done over the last month...

A HUGE cactus!

The "big hole in the ground" (as Hana called it)

This is what she thinks of American food! LOL, it's been hard to get her to eat. The first night we were at my Mom's house I made veggie soup and she ate THREE bowls full. The two days after that she ate a LOT of cucumbers and fruit!

In Denver we went to the Children's Museum. She LOVED the children's grocery store with kid sized carts, a play cash register and a huge play kitchen. She could have played there for hours!

She also liked the "forest" where she wore a possum suite and crawled through tunnels and caves in a "tree"!

She's here!!!

2008-04-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

Hana is in America!!!!!!!!! It has been an awesome trip for her. What an Angel! She traveled like a pro. Never fussed, not even once. And she slept for about NINE hours on the long flight between Tokyo and D/FW! She did amazing. She has slept through the night both nights since we got home also. I knew she would do well, but she is far surpassing even my greatest expectations.

She is love love loving being spoiled by Mim and Grandad. Mim took her to the toy aisle and let her pick out a toy when we got here. I believe that is the first time in her life she has ever had the priviledge of picking out a toy for herself! We have never wanted her to get the idea that every time she sees toys, we’ll buy her one, so we’ve never bought a toy for her in her presence. She was SO excited to get that toy. It was a Dora picnic basket set, and she loves it, hasn’t put it down since she got it. It is so adorable too, it has toy tortillas in it! They are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!!!

Tonight, at an area wide youth event, she charmed the entire room of people! She had them all wrapped around her little finger within minutes. It has been so fun to watch her relate to everyone. She is certainly different in her personality when she is surrounded by Americans/English speakers, and when she is surrounded by Japanese. It is fascinating to watch.

Some new pics and an update...

2008-04-05T20:53:00.001-07:00

Hana caught something at preschool this week. She'd been coughing for about two days when she woke up Saturday morning with a pretty high temp. I think around 102F (38.8 C), our thermometer is C so I'm not sure and am too tired to go find a converter online and convert it! LOL We got her some meds, and the fever just climbed higher and higher throughout the day. I prayed over her every time I layed hands on her. By night time her fever hit 40.2 once. We kept up fever reducing suppositories as often as allowed, ice packs around her neck and cold compress on her forhead, etc. She did not sleep well and when she finally did fall asleep at 2am after another fever reducer brought the temp down a little bit, I couldn't sleep! I think I was awake until 4am and then when I did sleep it was a very light sleep because I was so "aware" and every tiny noise woke me up. I am so exhausted today. I'm missing Sunday morning worship for the first time in I don't know how many years!!!

This morning she still had about 40 temp but it finally began to break after breakfast! Praise the Lord! I enlisted some of my online friends to pray and that did the trick! She is upstairs taking a nap right now, and I should lay down for a while too. I think in all I got maybe 2 hours sleep last night.

She's so funny. We went to the doctor and the grocery store with her in her pajamas yesterday and she kept saying, "Mommy, I forgot to change my clothes!" Made me chuckle every time. And this sweet little thing, why is it that she is the one who is sick, but she is telling Mommy, "It's ok Mommy. Fever's all gone, cough all better!" I think she sees the worry in my eyes and wants to make me feel better. Little darling.

Well, hope you enjoyed this little update. I'm gonna go lay down for a bit. **yawn**

Game night...

2008-03-25T07:25:00.001-07:00

Oh I have been looking forward to this for so long. Hana is finally old enough to have game night!!!!!!!! It is so fun.

Last night after dinner I just decided to break out a game board that she was given. It's Dora Candy Land. The box says 3 years and up. We've tried games before, particularly "Memory" and it didn't go so well, she didn't want to play by the rules. So I didn't know if this would go over well or not.

It wasn't too bad though. The little game pieces were so cute and fascinating it was hard for her to leave them ON the board. But she got the gist of how to move the pieces pretty quickly. She loses interest if the game starts taking too long, but otherwise I think it was a great success.

Here are some pics of us playing for you to enjoy...

"Is it my turn yet?"

"No Hana, you're piece is the backpack, over here! Don't move Daddy's piece!"

It's almost bed time, but "just ONE more game Daddy, PLEEEEEASE!!!"

Boots, Dora, Backpack and Diego all made it to the Fiesta at the finish line several times this evening! Thanks you guys!!!

Hide 'n Go Seek, Hana style!!!

2008-03-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we some how ended up playing a game of hide 'n go seek in our house, just the three of us. Hana has yet to really get the point of this game, not sure why. But here is how it goes with Hana...

Hana says, "Mommy count!"

So I start counting and she and Daddy take off to hide. As soon as I finish counting Hana happily bursts out of her hiding place and comes running for me! She loves it! The point for her is to hide! She's had her fun, why wait for someone to come and find her? Then she joins me in going to find Daddy.

We tried explaining to her that she needs to stay where she is until we find her.

Then she declares it is Daddy's turn to count. So we try again. As soon as Daddy finsihes counting out she comes, happy as a lark to have hidden! AND in the exact same place as the time before. Then they set off together to find me.

We went through this several times. The only time she would stay in her hiding place until she was found was if I stayed with her. But even then, it was still the exact same hiding place as before!

You just gotta love it! It totally cracks me up, and some day she'll play like normal and it won't be this cute! I love this age!!!

"day-morrow"

2008-02-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

Hana is currently working on getting her past, present and future tense words in order. It is hilarious to have a conversations with her. They go like this...

(Hana's lines in bold)

At 9 pm on the way home from an event...
"Mommy, where going today?"
"We are going home to go to bed, it's late!"
"but, where going today?"
"We are going home, I said."
"Where going day-morrow?"
"We are going home today. Do you mean tomorrow?"
"yes, where going day-morrow?"
"You need to say, 'Where are we going tomorrow.' Hana."
"Yea, "where going day-morrow?"
"You mean tomorrow?"
"yea, day-morrow!"

I have no idea where she got the words today and tomorrow blended but this is so stuck in her vocabulary, after a couple weeks of daily coaching her to just say "tomorrow" she still can't do it! So funny!

Another conversation on almost a daily basis. The word "yesterday" applies to ANYTHING in the past.

"Bible story time!"
"I read this one yesterday."
"No, yesterday we read this one (pointing to the previous story in her Bible), you haven't heard this story in a long time."
"No mommy, I read this one (today's story) yesterday."
"No, we did THIS ONE (yesterday's story) yesterday."
"Yea, and I read THIS ONE (today's story) yesterday."
"Do you mean, you've read this story BEFORE?"
"Yea, I read this one (today's story) yesterday!"

And a conversation I had about our whole week's schedule with her...

"Mommy, where going today?"
"Today you are going to preschool and Mommy is going to speak at chapel."
"Where going day-morrow?"
"Tomorrow, you are going to preschool, and Mommy has a meeting and Daddy has Gos-Kita recording."
"Hana go too?"
"No, Hana has to go to preschool."
"Mommy, where going day-morrow next day?" (I thought it was amazing how she came up with a way to convey day after tomorrow!)
"We are going to go to our church's cafe."
"Hana go too?"
"Yes, Hana go too!"

I didn't realize that kids had such a concept of future events this early in their life. So fun to watch her grow up and learn these concepts, and to see how her language develops!

Mic please...

2008-02-22T08:00:00.001-08:00

Follow up to the post about "mic please"! She does almost the same thing every night now, so we caught it on tape. She changes the way she's acting when she notices the camera, but you get the picture!

I'm a horse!

2008-02-22T07:16:00.001-08:00

Conversation in the car on the way to eat dinner...

Daddy: I don't know why but suddenly I'm so hungry!
Hana: Hana hungry too!
Daddy: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!
Hana: Me too!
Daddy: Wow, you can eat a horse?
Hana: Yea, Hana eat a horse too!

Conversation in the car after dinner...

Daddy: Wow Hana you're tummy is so full, look at that!
Hana: YEA Daddy, I'm a horse!!!

Microphone Please!

2008-02-19T04:31:00.000-08:00

Little miss priss! Oh my goodness she cracked Mommy and Daddy up last night, I would give anything for video of this moment. Every evening after her bath, I plop her down on the counter in the bathroom to blow dry her hair. She always like to open the medicine cabinet door where the mirror is facing her, and sing and play while I'm drying.

Last night, I sat her up there and as I was plugging in the drying she was grinning at her reflection, tilting her head and raising her shoulder, flirting with herself. When she was quite satisfied that she looked good, she threw her hand up over her shoulder in my direction and announced, "Microphone, please." in such a matter of fact, sassy voice I couldn't believe that was coming from a 3 year old! Daddy and I just died laughing. I handed her a brush, and she proceeded to give us a concert while I dried her hair. She never did figure out what was so funny.

Is she the child of a couple of performers, or what!? What a riot!

That's ok Mommy!

2008-02-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my recent post that Hana is such an encourager. Well she just amazes me with this. Yesterday at lunch I made one of Hana's (and my) favorite things. It's called koyadofu, it's a kind of tofu. The broth you cook it in is sooooo yummy, and Hana and I both really really love this food. During lunch Hana had two pieces of the tofu, and then she got up to go to the restroom at one point. She sometimes takes her sweet time actually getting to the bathroom and getting BACK to the table. She had eaten quite a lot of rice and salad, so I thought she was probably almost finished with her lunch. I proceeded to eat all of the tofu that was left. Hana eventually returned to her seat, and I was already at the sink washing dishes. At one point she realized all the tofu was gone and she yelled, "HEY, where tofu go?!!! I want more!" I sheepishly confessed that I had eaten it all and I was very sorry (it had sort of occured to me that she might want more, but I thought to myself "nahhhh" and at the last piece). I appologized to her several times and promised to make it again soon. Then a few minutes later I said, "Oh Hana I feel really bad that I ate all the tofu, I'm really sorry!" And she just grinned at me, patted me on the arm and said, "It's okay Mommy! It's okay!" sooooo sweet and if you could just hear her little voice and the way she pronounces "okay", it'll just melt your heart.

Then this morning, at breakfast, she again decided she needed to get up and go to the restroom during the meal. Before she left the table, she pointed to her oatmeal and said, "Don't anybody eat this I'm gone... 'kay?" I just chuckled and promised her oatmeal was safe. I then asked Rocky where he thinks she got that from, we never tell people not to eat our food when we get up from the table? I don't even know where she learned to put together that sentence. It just occured to me while I was writing this post, maybe she was afraid mommy would eat all her oatmeal, since I had eaten all her tofu the day before!

LOL!

Growing girl...

2008-02-09T04:33:00.000-08:00

This morning Hana asked to see video of herself from when she was a baby. I decided to sit beside and watch some too. It seems unreal to me that she was that little. We watched from 3-6 months and also from 12-15 months. It seems like just yesterday that she came, and yet at the same time I can't imagine that there was ever a time she couldn't talk and run around and feed herself and so forth. That time passed OH SO quickly. Especially since we waited so many years for this precious gift to come along. I really want to slow down the clock.

This afternoon she was getting cranky. We are in an in between stage where she doesn't really need a nap some days but other days she does. Today I was thinking she didn't need a nap because last night she had a hard time falling asleep in the evening after having a two hour nap yesterday afternoon. I left for the gym at 8:30 and when I came home a little after 10:00 she was still singing and talking to herself in bed. I went up to re-tuck her in as Daddy had already done his duties, and even after that she was awake and talking and singing for a while. SOOOO, I'm trying to figure out what to do about naps. Most days at preschool she doesn't sleep at all, those days she goes down very well but she can get cranky on those evenings, and will often fall asleep in the car around 5 or 6 if we go somewhere (which messes up bedtime). So should I limit naps and wake her after 30 minutes or so (but waking her up makes her a bear)! When she was getting cranky this afternoon I let her crawl up in my lap for some cuddling and eventually she fell asleep there. It was so sweet to hold her while she slept, I rarely get to do that anymore. With my movements and talking to Rocky she woke up about 30 minutes later. Tonight we are running late for bedtime also, so I am hoping she will have no problem falling asleep.

Speaking of, gotta go get her out of the bath and put her to bed... brb

Anyways, she is just such a sweetheart. She loves to love people. And her babies are really REALLY her babies. I didn't realize how much so until yesterday. We were at our church and one little boy who was there came up and whacked her baby on the head. You would have though he hit Hana for how she screamed. She came running to me crying and I realized her cry was a heart-broken cry, not one of pain. She was REALLY really heart-broken that her baby had been treated so badly. It was funny but at the same time I could see how very tender hearted she really is about the thing she loves.

She is such an encourager too. She often uses the line, "It's ok Mommy!" If she sees I am disappointed or worked up about something. This comes with a pat or a kiss.

Night before last when I came home from being gone somewhere for a little bit, she came running to me and said, "Mommy, I spill juice. I'm sorry!" I thought that was so honest and sweet. I asked her if she told Daddy about it and she said, "yes" and I asked if Daddy cleaned it up and she said "yes". So I asked if she thanked Daddy? She ran to him and said "thank you Daddy!"

When she is in good spirits and not overtired or hungry she is very thoughtful like this. She is not always this way, especially if she is tired.

We are still struggling with picking up toys. I do NOT know what is going to be the breakthrough on that. Tonight she lost her sticker, and I still had to tell her many many times to pick up the remaining toys. Finally I told her whatever is left on the floor I am throwing it away. THAT didn't work, she could care less that I really threw away the toys that were left on the floor (some paper money, a small watering can, and some plastic kitchen veggies). So, that didn't work. Maybe toy time out? If throwing them away didn't work I don't think time out will though, cause she clearly understand that things going in the trash don't come back.

It is fun and exciting but not without it's challenges, that is something to say about parenting!

Not a peep from her bed tonight, I think she is already out. Ok, a 30 minute nap and late bedtime works... noted! LOL

Pics and fun stuff...

2008-02-03T17:54:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share some more about our sweet little girl (whose growing like a weed)!!!

Here are some pics to start off with...

Every morning while waiting for Mommy to fix breakfast and the heaters to warm up the room, Hana and Daddy enjoy a little "hold-you cuddle cuddle" time!

This is one of Hana's best buddies Corkey, we do English time together on Saturday mornings twice a month. They LOVE to play together!

Hana REALLY enjoys books these days. She loves to "read" them herself AND have someone read for her.

This is Hana's other best buddy, Mia! She gets soooooooo excited when she's going to get to spend time with Mia. Yesterday on the way home from church we were making plans to go to Mia's house for dinner, and Hana wanted to go IMMEDIATELY. I told her she had to nap or she couldn't go to Mia's house. Then she wanted to take a nap IMMEDIATELY! The minute her eyes popped open from her nap the first thing she said was "Mommy, I take a nap! Let's go to Mia's house!" It was so hard to get her to wait until Mommy and Daddy were ready to go too.

One time recently when she fell asleep in the car with her hat on. I just threw this one in as a cute bonus!

She's growing so fast. She's almost 3 feet tall (35.5 inches to be exact) and weighs almost 30 pounds! I can not believe my baby is that big.

She'll talk your ear off in either language. It is so cute to watch her when she is in a room with Japanese AND Enlgish speakers. She has her designated language for each person and she'll flip back and forth between the two like it's a piece of cake. She even translates for her Grandma these days. If Mommy and Daddy are having a conversation in front of Baba in English, Hana will tell Baba in Japanese what we are talking about! We are to that stage that we have to be careful what we say in front of her cause she is understanding it ALL!

It is a joy to be her Mommy. She's full of hugs and kisses all day long, and loves to help me wash veggies and prepare for dinner! She REALLY loves to take care of her babies which reminds me of one more picture I have to share. I was cleaning up the kitchen the other day and turned around to see this scene in the living room...

I guess she thought her babies needed a little TV time too, they were all enjoying VeggieTales I think!!! Too cute, I just love the way she has her legs crossed and is slumped down in her chair. Looks like a teenager already, OH PLEASE time SLOW DOWN!!!

Some new video...

2008-01-20T06:11:00.000-08:00

REading a story book to us...

Looking at fish at the aquarium...

Before I forget...

2008-01-16T18:01:00.000-08:00

I have to write this one down before I forget about it. Then I have to come back later and post a real update, I didn't realize it had been so long.

Anyways, on the way to preschool this morning Hana was asking what I am going to do today. I told her that Daddy and I have to go to a meeting and I was explaining to her who would be there. Lately she doesn't want to go to preschool, but would rather stay with us. She knows the things we do and even has to go with us sometimes and I think she is beginning to wonder why on some days she has to go to preschool and other days she can stay with us (we take her with us one days that our ministry will make it impossible to pick her up ontime from school, on weekends, and on holidays when the school is closed). Most days she protests about going to school. So, then the conversation went like this...

Hana: "Hana go meeting too?"
Mommy: "No, you have to go to preschool today."
Hana: "Hana no sleep?" (do I have to take a nap today)
Mommy: "Yes, today you will take a nap at school today."
Hana: "Hana no take a nap!"
Mommy: "oh, sweety, you have to be at preschool today and you'll need to lay down at nap time"
Hana: "Preschool, no thank you. Hana, Mommy, Daddy meeting together."
Mommy: "Oh Hana, you'll have so much fun at preschool today!"
Hana: "No thank you"
Mommy: "oh sweety, you should decide at the start of your day to have a fun day, and then it will be fun."

At this point she kind of furrowed her brow and I could tell she was deep in thought. We pulled into preschool and made our way to her room. She was silent and seemed to still be deep in thought. Usually once we arrive at preschool she clings to me and often cries when I leave. Today she didn't follow me around the room clinging to my leg as I was putting her things away, and she bounced into the room after putting her shoes away and smiled at me and said, "Mommy, I have fun today!" She hugged and kissed me and ran off to her place at the table where they were they were taking their break for morning milk.

It just made me so proud. She pondered what I said about deciding to have fun, and she took my advice!!! I was just so amazed at her little three year old mind being able to comprehend that and THEN deciding to have a positive attitude! Kids are amazing, or should I say, MY daughter is amazing!

Hair wash...

2007-12-10T00:55:00.000-08:00

When I (Mommy) was a little girl, my mother had a hair salon. I LOVED for her to wash my hair in the sinks at the salon with the shower head in that big sink with the little place for your neck to lay. When I got a bit older Mom closed her shop and started a different business. She still gave me perms and so forth at home, and those times she would lay me up on the kitchen counter, hold my head over the sink and wash my hair. She'd also do this when I was really sick (which was often with my asthma) if I couldn't take a bath but needed a hair washing. I LOVED having my mom wash my hair and it was always so special to me.

On our recent trip to Aomori it was REALLY cold. In Japan there is no central heating, and so bathrooms are pretty cold places in the house here. Plus they had only a shower stall, and it wasn't the biggest thing so it was pretty cold and cramped to try to give Hana a shower. So since she didn't really need one everyday, I would just wash her hair in the sink. She LOVED it just as much as I did when I was a little girl.

There is something so special and intimate about someone washing your hair. I remember it being especially sweet to have my Mommy hovering over me holding my head and washing my hair. And the water running down my head tickled sometimes so it was often an experience that caused me to laugh too.

Hana love it too! She just loved looking up at me and would grab my face and say "Mommy, yubs you!" She would also giggle when it tickled! She jumps at the chance to have me wash her hair in the sink now.

These moments are the things I dreamed of doing for my babies and never knew if I would get these opportunities when we were deep in the despair of infertility! HOW VERY EXTRA PRECIOUS it is when I finally get to experience all of these things!

Here are some pictures of our little make-shift hair salon in the kitchen where we stayed in Aomori!!! Enjoy...

Hana 3 yrs with Maggie

2007-12-06T07:12:00.001-08:00

First of all, Daddy was shooting pics with the camera side ways and he forgot to put it back to normal for video. Anyways, this was just cute cause she was pretending to have Maggie be the baby Jesus! So sweet!!!

Cowboy Hana

2007-12-06T07:10:00.001-08:00

This is one is specially for Bam, cause Hana has decided she is a cowboy! I don't know why she is whispering in this video, but she sure did LOVE this little rocking horse. Makes me want to make one for her!!! She's so precious, isn't she!?

Playing at the airport

2007-12-06T07:08:00.001-08:00

At the play area in the airport she was "taking a spicy bath"!? and it had ice cubes in it! What a nut!

Hana eating ice cream

2007-12-06T07:07:00.001-08:00

It's not often that she eats sweets but she was so bored in the airport she went for some ice cream and she was so cute eating it that I had to take some video!

The Apple story

2007-11-19T05:05:00.000-08:00

Every night before bedtime for the past year or more, we have read a story from Hana's little children's Bible. We've been all the way through the Bible twice, and just recently started over again at the beginning of Genesis. Hana LOVES this part of her bedtime routine and will not allow it to be passed over for anything.

She loves Bible time and the newest part of her bedtime routine which she calls "stickers". I started a reward system where she gets a sticker for 5 things she had to do each day. Make her bed, use manners at the table, pick up toy, dress herself, and speak kindly to Mommy and Daddy. These were all areas we were battling over everyday and I got tired of having to use force to make her do them, and hearing constant whinning regarding most of these issues. So we implemented the sticker system, for every category she did well in, she gets a sticker at the end of the day and that includes doing each of them joyfully WITHOUT whinning!!! It has worked like a charm. Mid-day, if I am having trouble getting her cooperation, all I have to do is mention the loss of a sticker, and she straightens up right away. And a major incident of disobedience can result in the loss of all stickers for the day, which she learned she doesn't like at all the first time she lost all her stickers for disobeying. It has been such a relief to have a tool that motivates her to do things, instead of forcing her to do things unwillingly which was all that I could do before. Incidentally she also gets 5 yen for each sticker she earns, she saves them in a little piggy bank, and will take 10% to church each Sunday and the rest can be used to buy a toy now and again on a shopping trip.

Well, back to the Bible story time. From the time the New Testament was about to end a couple weeks ago, she KNEW that we were going to start over from the beginning again and she knew which story was coming. She started asking for the apple story everyday, and she was soooooooooooooo excited when we finally got to it three days ago. She was enthrawled by this story all of the sudden. She has also requested that we re-read it everyday since, and I am gladly complying since this story is a basical Biblical truth that I want her to grasp well.

And grasp it well is exactly what she is doing. The first night we read it she kept asking which tree that God told Adam and Even not to eat from. The second night she went on and on about that tree being a no-no and was shocked when Adam and Eve disobeyed. When I read the part about them being kicked out of the garden she said, "They need spanking! This a spanking?" And I said that yes God kicking them out of the garden is kind of like a spanking. Then she asked if the snake has a belly button (since he has to crawl on his belly from now on!) LOL

Then tonight, she really wanted to know WHY God told them they couldn't eat from that one tree. And why did they eat from it. When we read about Adam and Eve leaving the garden tonight she said, "Mommy, NO stickers today!" I told her that she was right, they had done something very wrong and wouldn't be getting any stickers that day.

It just amazes me, at 3 years old she clearly understands right and wrong and consequences that come with disobeying. But what's more, she really wants to understand WHY God wouldn't let them eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I can't wait till she can understand the deep meaning behind this story, and not just that God disciplined Adam and Eve but that He showed them mercy and love also.

Raising kids is such a blast!!!!!

Me too!!!

2007-10-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

While driving along in the car the other day...
Daddy: "ugh, I've got a pimple right here"
Mommy: "I've got one right here too, it's so annoying!"
Hana (from the back seat): "ME TOO!!!"

Sometime last week...
Mommy: "My bra itches right here..."
Hana: "ME TOO!!!"

There have been plenty more funny ones involving Hana saying "me too" but I just can't remember them all. She's so funny!

Hana's Sports Day Video

2007-10-25T06:32:00.001-07:00

I wasn't able to put much time into it, but at least here are some clips from the sports day at Hana's preschool recently...

recent cute stuff...

2007-10-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

She just keeps getting more and more adorable all the time! Just wanted to share some recent pictures, and maybe I'll have time for some video uploads today too.

On a recent trip to Osaka, while walking through the train station to change trains, she spotted this Panda bear and just had to go and see her. I was amazed because she usually HATE statues and such. She had no fear of this and even wanted to ride on top of it. It was hard to get her to leave the Panda behind.

Recently we had a charity concert for the agency that brought Hana to us. I dressed Hana up in this sweet little red dress, and her friend Mia was all dressed up too. They had a great time playing together, climbing up and down the steps in the back seating area. Such fun to have a little buddy like Mia!

This VERY VERY precious man, Mr. Tsujioka is our favorite stork in the whole world! When Hana was 9 days old, on August 31, 2004 Mr. Tsujioka personally brought Hana by plane to us. He is the director of Chisana Inochi o Mamoru Kai (Organization for protecting tiny lives, or in English it is known as Pro-Life Japan). We were so glad to get to see him again and we even had him in our home for one night following the charity concert! There will be pictures, and video over on the ministry blog of the charity concert and Mr. Tsujioka's wonderful presentation at the concert. So check it out.

TWINS!!!!!??????
In Japan there are lots of yummy variations of bread available at the bread shop. One of Hana's favorite Japanese cartoon characters is Anpan Man (a little bread roll with bean paste in the middle). The other day when choosing breads for our lunch she discovered this little guy who looks a lot like Anpan Man but is really Chocopan Man. (Pan means bread in Japanese, by the way). She just had to have him, even though I was pretty sure she wouldn't eat him. But we got it anyways, she took a few small bites, but mostly she just enjoyed playing with it! LOL

Videos coming soon!

2007-10-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Today I saw Hana do several things that really caught my attention and REALLY show how much she is growing up. On the walk back home from preschool I decided to stop off at a park very near our house and let her play a little bit. We haven't had a chance to play at this park for months. The last time we were there to play, there were several things she couldn't do that she could do OR taught herself to do (right in front of my eyes) today! It was amazing to watch.

First of all there is a tall perpendicular ladder that she couldn't climb without some help last time. Today, the first time up she asked for a little help. The second time up, I barely gave her an extra little push on the last rung, and the third time up she just shimmied her way right to the top without even thinking about it! The first couple time she was figuring out where to put her hands and how best to pull herself up and she figured it out quick.

The next thing I noticed was that the taller longer slide didn't intimidate her at all and she zoomed right down it and landed on her feet! Until now, she's always layed down on the way down and then slid off the bottom at the end and landed on her little tush! Today she was popping right up on her feet when she hit the ground. I was impressed again.

Then finally, on the shorter slide she has always wanted to climb up it the opposite direction. It has been impossible until now to go even three or four steps up it. But today she was sooooooo determined. I was over checking my cell phone and I kept hearing her giggle and scuffling around a lot. I turned to see her trying to make her way up the slide from the bottom and falling over backwards as the slope got too steep! And she was laughing at herself about it. I went over to help her, and tried to support her bottom while she climbed, but she pushed my hand away and say "I do it!" So I just stood back and watched. She learned how not to fall over backwards, but she kept making it a little farther up and then falling and sliding all the way to the bottom on her tummy, only to giggle and then get up and try again. She'd make it a little farther up and then fall and slide, over and over again. Sweat started breaking out on her forhead and she was even breathing hard, but she was so determined. Once she made it all the way to the top and just had one tiny step to go and she fell again and slid all the way to the bottom. I just kept telling her how good she was doing and to keep trying. All the while she would laugh when she fell and then get a REALLY determined look on her face and start up again.

Finally she made it all the way up, and we both cheered. She ran over and took the long slide back down, scurried around the little play set and headed back up that slide AGAIN! This time she fell a few times, but she made it up more quickly. She slide down the other side and came back for more. After countless times of this, she had mastered making it to the top without even slipping!

I pray she keeps that dedicated determined spirit and thrives on it! It was so fun to watch her do that.

Then this evening while I was making dinner we had one of her favorite CD's going and she went over and sat down at her little piano (I call it her "Linus" piano, like the character from Charlie Brown has). Anyways, she started playing along with the CD and she was pushing down notes with the rhythm of the tune of the songs. She stayed on the same note, she wasn't actually playing the tune but she was keeping the rhythm of the tune. I was pretty impressed. We have to seriously think about piano lessons soon...

WOW, I can't believe she is growing up so fast! Where did my BABY go???

Sports Day 2007

2007-10-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

Today was the big day! Hana and all her classmates at preschool have been preparing for today for many weeks now. Today was "Sports Day" or "Undokai" in Japanese. This is a BIG deal in Japan! A REALLY big deal! And it was so neat to go and watch them perform for us all the things they've been practicing. We were even able to participate in some of the games, and we had such a fun day.

Hana was such a good girl! I worried that since we were there she would insists on staying with us, and each time we got to be with her she might not like being seperated again. But she did AWESOME! And she totally loved being in front of the crowd, which I wasn't sure how she would handle. You'll see in the pictures, she was a little ham! She had a huge grin on her face almost constantly when her class was in front of us all. I will hopefully have video up soon. I need to upload and edit the live action video. We took our video camera today instead of a camera and I only took video, then I took still photos off the video this evening. The sad part is, there was a huge smudge on our lens and we couldn't see it in the glare of the sun. Plus our battery ran out right before lunch, so I couldn't catch the ending. But I think we got some great shots to remember this fun day by. Luckily in some of the shots the dirty lens is not that noticable.

Enjoy these pics...

Big girl FUTON, and a new English word!!!

2007-09-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

Well, we found Dora sheets at K-mart in Guam. So we bought them and I wasn't in a big hurry to use them because they would not fit on her little Japanese baby bed matress. But the first night we were back she pulled those sheets out of the suitcase and asked if she could sleep on them. So I decided we'd give it a try. While she and Daddy were brushing her teeth, I ran upstairs and wheeled her baby bed into the next room, pulled out our guest futon and put the sheets on them. Here is her reaction when she walked into her bed room...

She has never missed the baby bed, and LOVES sleeping with Dora every night! So that was easy enough, bye bye baby bed. I try not to think about it too much or I will cry!!! Now the only thing left is to get her to stop sucking that thumb - *big sigh* and we are NO WHERE NEAR seeing the end of this it seems. That really is the only thing left that is from my BABY, she is growing up so fast.

And now for the new English word she came up with. She has been singing a song about "wani-san" a lot, since we were in Guam. There was a big 'ol "wani-san" in one of the pools we swam in (not a real one). For those of you who don't know what a "wani-san" is, maybe you can figure it out from her video and her new English word for it...

It's a "crock-a-gator"!!!!!!!! Love it! Bilingual life is so much fun! We have jokes all the time that require understanding of both languages. She will surely inherit this "sense of humor" that only bilingual people can enjoy. And it will be rare that sharing these things will interest any of you. But this one was so cute, and could be appreciated by all so I had to share!

Back from Guam!!!

2007-09-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Back with more about Guam later but here is a link to a digital photo album I made of the vacation and also the two blogs below are videos with Hana in them. Check Mommy's blog (on the right under links) for video from our vacation that is not about Hana.

I'll be back with more later!

The kids pool

2007-09-23T07:44:00.001-07:00

Hana HATED that huge bucket and wouldn't go anywhere near this fun play area in the kids pool cause she didn't want that bucket dumping on top of her.

Guam Vacation

2007-09-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

Swimming in the pool at PIC Guam

Grandparent's day at preschool...

2007-09-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Hana's preschool had a special morning for grandparents to come and participate. They started with an opening worship and then all the grandparents were invited to come back to the classrooms and do a craft with the children. It was fun. I got some short clips of various parts of the opening worship.

In this first one, they are preparing for worship with some quiet time. I love how they put their hands together beside their cheeck as a symbol of quieting down for worship. Can you find Hana???

In this clip they are supposed to be listening to the message the pastor is giving. Hana is more worried about smiling and waving at me! She even blew me a kiss!!! So sweet. The children sitting on the floor are in Hana's class. All the children in the chairs are from the 4, 5 and 6 year olds classes.

She was such a good girl. Usually when we show up at preschool she drops whatever she is doing and runs for us. This was our first time to come for an event like this and I was afraid she would insist on being with us and not participate. She somehow knew that she should stay with her class. She spent most of her time making sure we were still there, but she stayed in her place and behaved herself! I was very proud of her! Jiji (grandpa) was able to come too and I was so proud of him for coming because he usually doesn't like big group things like this. It was very special that he was there, unfortunately Baba was competing in a swimming contest that day and couldn't make it. But this coming month is their Sports Day so we'll have lots of video to share from that.

Just thought you all might enjoy seeing something from her preschool. They have worship like this everyday in their classroom, but not corporately as a group like this. They sang several songs, said the Lord's prayer, had a short message from the pastor and dismissed. Hana was singing along with most of the songs, and might have been saying part of the Lord's prayer although it is in very difficult to understand Japanese, even for an adult. But the 4 to 6 year old said it loud and proud! I was impressed!

And here are a few pictures!

You'll notice that here she is surrounded by BOYS! Evidently this is the norm at preschool. They told me the other day that she has a "boyfriend". One little boy in particular she spends most of her time with and when practicing for sports day she and he always want to be together and hold hands! UGH, not ALREADY!!!!!!!

Little sweetheart...

2007-09-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

Hana is really begining to show a side of her that is so sweet and thoughtful.

Yesterday at the dinner table Rocky and I were talking about some of the horrible things that happen to young girls in Japan. Hana was intently listening and I was getting pretty upset over some of the stuff that goes on. She reached over and grabbed my arm and said, "Mommy, you ok?" I said, "Yes baby! But you just remember that you don't ever have to let anybody treat you bad. You can tell Mommy and Daddy ANYTHING and we will help you. OK!?" She said, "Tell you ANYTHING?" I said, "Yes, you can always tell Mommy and Daddy ANYTHING!" And she looked at me and said, "Mommy so pretty!" ahhhhhhhhhhh, melted my heart!

Then tonight when Daddy was puting her to bed, he says she looked around at her room and said, "Daddy, Mommy bought this, Mommy make room for me." And Daddy told her "Yes Mommy did all this for you." and Hana said, "Mommy make room PRETTY!" She remembers! For her second birthday I (and her big cousin Robynn) painted and decorated her room. And she remembers that I did it for her! That just amazes me!

Her grandmother told me that at her birthday party she was proudly telling everyone that I made her kitchen for her.

She's just so sweet!

A 3 year old's prayers...

2007-09-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

One thing I didn't realize about raising children, is how EARLY they start to do things. I never really thought about when a child would start dressing themself or feeding themself, etc. And I especially never thought about when a child might start to pray!

When Hana was 2 there were a few times that she wanted to pray at meal time and we'd let her. But it was always unintelligable, Hana-nese (as we call it) and she'd end with "AMEN!" That was cute, and sweet but nothing like the last couple of weeks.

First of all, on the way home from our long ministry trip we heard her say a prayer. We pray with her every time we lay her down for a nap or night time sleep. In the car on the way home, she must have begun to get sleepy and wanted to sleep. Everyone else in the car was quiet and we heard this soft, "Dear Jesus, thank you for YOU!" and she popped her thumb in her mouth and was fast asleep within minutes. Rocky and I just looked at each other and smiled. It must be a part of her, to pray before sleeping! Soooooooooooo sweet!

Then she began to ask to pray at the dinner table. She will pray mostly "thank you for ..." and she'll name people or places and then she ends with "Jesus names, Amen!" She EVEN thanked Jesus for preschool one day, I was so proud!

Yesterday, Mommy was having a huge hay fever attach. Hana was very concerned about me and kept asking me if I was ok. Once when we were getting ready to get in the car and go somewhere, she asked, "Mommy, you ok?" and I knelt down to her level and got close to her face and told her, "Mommy doesn't feel very good, you can pray and ask Jesus to make mommy better." She reached up and held my face in her hands and said, "Jesus, mommy better please! AMEN!" and then she leaned in and rested her forhead against mine while still holding my face and said "loves you too Mommy!" I just about cried a bucket of tears right on the spot!

She prays randomly throughout the day too, as she is playing or in her car seat, etc. Sometimes in Japanese like they do at preschool and sometimes in English. It is just so sweet and precious! My little prayer warrior! and she's only THREE!!!

Dinner and a Show!

2007-09-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

You guys are probably going to get sick of video now since I figured out how to do this! But oh well!!!

Here are a couple more videos, the first is of her helping me make dinner. She is a good helper in the kitchen. Especially with making salads or washing veggies before I cook them. Of course I'm not letting her use a knife yet, but she will patiently wait for me to cut things and then put them in bowls for me. She loves to pour ingredients together, and she'll wash dishes for me too!!! (I usually have to make sure they are really clean but she gets pretty close to done before I make one last check and put them in the drainer) It is fun to make dinner with my daughter! This video is her tearing up Chingensai (I have no idea what it is in English). Before I turned on the camera she was chatting away and humming songs with me. She refused to talk once I turned on the camera! TODDLERS!

Then there is a video of her putting on a show for Baba and Jiji (Rocky's parents)! She is singing and dancing and carrying on like crazy. Half of the singing is random Japanese, the other half is what we call Hananese, her language of ramblings! She went on for so long her voice is starting to wear out and crack. I was able to turn on the camera without her really knowing it, so I'm glad I caught the show!

Video

2007-09-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

YIPPEEE! I am so late in learning how to do this, but I am so excited, I can put video here on our blog!!!!!! This is just a random video I took recently cause I was trying out how to do this. But enjoy anyways...

I mentioned a few blogs back that Hana is singing songs a lot more. Here is a video of her singing a song from preschool...

Happy 3rd Birthday/Gotcha Day Hana!!!

2007-09-01T07:29:00.001-07:00

Well, this evening was soooooooooooooooo fun! We had an awesome party. I'm just gonna upload photos for now... I'll write details later. I gotta go to bed, I am pooped!

I went with a rainbow theme because there was a rainbow on the cake I found.

There were at least 32 people in attendance. AMAZING that we fit that many people in our garage and first floor rooms (living and office/playroom) but we did it!

I was able to tell the story of Hana coming to our family just real quick before we sang happy birthday, just for anyone who might be at the party but didn't know the history. Later I showed a video I made of the day Hana arrived.

The cake!

Hana opening presents...

She did so well this time with all the attention. I was so proud of her.

Just a few bonus shots from here down, our first batch of cookies we made together and Hana playing in the clothes hamper! She was so cute playing in there. And she was so proud of that batch of cookies. We took some to her teachers at preschool and they said she was so proud to tell them that these were cookies that she had made! ADORABLE!!!

The day we met...

2007-08-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

3 years ago today we met our precious little baby girl for the first time. Words can not describe what a miracle it was to hold my baby girl in my arms for the first time. WOW!!! She is soooooooooo precious to us and we praise God everyday for bringing her into our family in such a special way. In adoption circles, today is called "Gotcha Day". This is a picture of our first time to meet little Hana, and the ceremony we had at church that day...

What a beautiful precious precious miracle! Thank you Lord!

Two weeks of PURE fun!

2007-08-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

Hana had the BEST time on our trip. She did NOT want to come home yesterday. She complained about having to come home most of the way, and will probably be talking about all her new friends for many many weeks to come.

In Karuizawa at the mission meeting, they had children's programs all day for the MK's. Hana was blessed to join in with the mission children and had a blast. She is still singing bits and pieces of all the songs she learned, talking about baby Moses as they studied Moses all week, and talking about the kids she played with. Her English vocabulary exploded during this week too! It was so fun for us to see. The Missionaries just loved on her and she has some extra Aunt's and Uncle's now who just adore her!

Then, in Nagoya, we stayed with our friends who have a 5 year old son, Motoki and a 2 year old daughter, Miwa. Hana and Motoki especially got along really well. We were all raising our eyebrows at the future prospect there! Mommy would be thrilled if this really happened, if they grew up to like eachother, because Motoki is such a sweet little boy! We have tons of pictures of these two playing together. Also at this church there were other children she really had a great time with, especially "Big" Hana, a ten year old girl in the church also named Hana. She REALLY didn't want to leave Nagoya.

They were so sweet to throw Hana a little birthday party in the afternoon on the day of her birthday. We enjoyed cake and she even got some presents. What a blessing that was! We will be celebrating her birthday and "Gotcha" day this coming week, since we actually got Hana on the 31st of August.

She is going through a stage however where she doesn't want to have her picture taken. She also didn't really enjoy having the birthday song sung to her. So we don't have as many good pictures as normal because when she realizes the camera is pointing at her she often turns her back to it. But here are SOME fairly decent pictures to enjoy.

A short reunion one evening in Karuizawa with special friends and their new baby boy!!!
Playing in the pool with Motoki!

BIG Hana and LITTLE Hana!!!

Turning her back when everyone sang Happy Birthday, silly girl!

Motoki and Hana saying good-bye in the rain. They were soooooooo cute with Motoki holding the umbrella for Hana! To be continued??? ;)

Look who's THREE!!!

2007-08-23T06:46:00.001-07:00

We can not believe that she is 3 years old ALREADY! Where oh where does the time go! We just got back from a long two weeks on the road, so details and pictures will have to come later, but I just thought I would drop in and let you all know that this precious little miracle of ours is doing GREAT!

OK, ALRIGHT, here are a couple of pictures to tide you over till I can get some more uploaded! ;)

Just a quick note to say she had an AWESOME time on this trip and did NOT want to come home today. One of the main reasons is this little boy she is playing in the pool with! Her new buddy Motoki. They had a great time playing together and she would have brought him home with her if she could! (so many great stories to tell about these two little Angels!) I'll be back with more in the next few days.

Lots of pictures to share...

2007-07-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

This girl has been a very busy little girl lately...

Mommy braided my hair for the first time! Doesn't it look cool!!!

CHEEEEZEEEEEEE!!!!

This is my BEST buddy, Mia! We have a blast together at church and stuff.

Mia came to my house the other day and I was her babysitter for a few hours while her Mommy and Daddy went out on a date! We had sooooooooo much fun. We ate dinner together.

I taught her how to eat all by herself. She's pretty good at it already though!

And Mia thought something was funny!!!

We even went swimming together! Mommy said we were taking a bath, but we were really just playing in the water. Don't tell Mommy though, she still thinks it was a bath!

We took some time out during our pool play to study some English too! We both have to study English extra hard since we are growing up in Japan!

Then today my good friend Corkey came over for English Circle (kind of like Saturday English Sunday School) and we had a GREAT day together!!!

Corkey has a little brother too, and we all watched some TV shows together and played all afternoon! I didn't even take a nap today, I was having so much fun!

A few pics and stuff...

2007-06-26T05:36:00.000-07:00

She was sooooooooo proud of this tower that she built. I have some video of her with it too, and hopefully will have time to post that soon.

Daddy memorializing the baby girl's artistic creation with a picture!!!!!!

This little darling is getting so big! She is almost able to dress herself without help (when you can trick her into doing it without realizing she is doing it)! For some reason if she realizes you aren't helping her get dressed she gets all grumpy and whiny and wants "Mommy try, Daddy try!"

She is really starting to sing songs these days. Hopefully I can get a video of that up too. She LOVES to sing the ABC's and will do that while she's playing. We also catching her humming the tune of some classical music she's learned on Little Einstein shows. She sings along with her CD's in the car now. It is so fun to watch her learning songs. It is so funny, in the video we have of her singing, Daddy is playing a song off of the computer that she sings everyday at preschool this month. The song is about the sound of rain and why it rains. It is rainy season so it is a very appropriate song. But Hana doesn't know all the words and she makes up some things as she goes along. In the video at one point she sings (in Japanese "kusai") "It STINKS!" SO FUNNY!

Lately she is captivated by the bodily funtion of pooting! Whenever someone poots she says "What you say?" and waits for them to say "excuse me". But the funniest thing is, she'll say, "Mommy, it coming!" and then she'll poot and just laugh and laugh and say, "cuze me" (excuse me). She may have a little bit of "Rudd" in her afterall (Mommy's side of the family!) Or actually she probably gets it from both sides... DADDY!

She loves to wash dishes these days, and going to preschool has really taught her to pick up her toys much better than before. They tell us at preschool that she is very obedient, she never cries and she is soooooooooooooooo CUTE! Everybody at the preschool just loves her.

She is a bundle of energy and fun. She loves to give Mommy and Daddy hugs and kisses. She's just a little sweetheart. Growing up so fast! TOO fast!

Some pics to enjoy...

2007-06-10T18:07:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I posted some pictures so I thought I would put some up for everyone to enjoy!

Mommy's counter space is now big enough for ME to help her cook. And LOOK, this is my favorite food in the whole world! (no kidding, she LOVES 'cumbers)

Tickle time!

This little sweetheart is doing so well! She's grown 2cm, and now is 84cm tall! That's 2'9". She's still on the petite side. Her 24 months size clothing fits her perfectly right now. 2Ts are still pretty big and 3Ts are huge! But we wear it all anyways!

She is speaking both languages really really well. I am amazed at what she communicates with us these days. And she switches to English with us without being told to most of the time! She's getting to be a pro at translating too. The other day Mommy and Daddy were talking in the car and Baba was wondering what we were talking about (the conversation was in English) and in the back Hana told her what we were talking about in Japanese! too cute!

I'll have to come back later to post some more details. But just wanted everyone to know that we are doing great!

Fiasco at McDonalds...

2007-05-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

We drove Daddy across town this evening for a rehersal time with some musicians he is playing with, and on the way home Hana and Mommy decided to treat ourselves to some Mcy-D's for dinner! We happily made our way over to the restaurant and with giggles and smiles like two little girlfriends on a "ladies night out". We entered the establishment ready to FEAST! Hana ventured out of her normal menu rut and decided to have a Hamburger Happy Meal Set, instead of her normal Chicken McNuggets (way to go Hana-baby!). Mommy ordered her usual Chicken Sandwhich, Salad set. We secured a favorite high chair with Ronald smiling ever so enthusiastically at us, and headed with our feast to a table with a view! We girlies were having fun.

Now, Mommy knows Hana has a tendency to decide she needs to go tee-tee during the meal so I asked her specifically when we entered the restaurant if she'd like to get that little event out of the way, and she adamently said she did NOT need to go. TWICE! So Mommy believed her.

We had just settled in for our scrumptious meal, Hana had her whole spread on the high chair tray in front of her and she was sampling her first bite of Happy Meal Hamburger when suddenly she says, "Mommy, teetee!" Go figure.

So Mommy is on her own right? We have all our food spread out in front of us and there is no way I am going to make her wait until the end of the meal. I decide there is no choice but to just go, and leave our food there. I scoop up my purse and begin getting her out of the high chair when Hana-baby jerks her knees up and POP - off flies the high chair tray, making a 180 degree flip and splat, on the floor goes all Hana's food. All the while Hana-baby is more adamently reminding me that she needs to hit the John, LIKE, NOW MOMMY! Mommy is almost in a panic, what do I do with the mess while I take her? I quickly reported the incident to a staff member and headed to the potty, when we returned, the mess was still on the floor, every patron in the whole restaurant was watching milk slowly make a stream across the entire restaurant with a "poor foreigner" expression on their face, and I was blushing furiously! Finally a staff member appeared with a mop, the mess disappeared, and get this, THEY BROUGHT US A WHOLE NEW MEAL!

OK, most embarrasing moment for Spring '07, out of the way!

By the way, Hana thoroughly enjoyed her new Happy Meal menu. She ate the WHOLE burger. But she so totally takes after Mommy, we had to remove the pickles! Daddy would have laughed, you see Daddy receives a bonus couple of pickles every time we eat hamburgers in our family, FROM MOMMY! Now, he's gonna enjoy even more. We hope Daddy doesn't turn into a pickle!!! Nahhh, we don't eat hamburgers that often, I THINK!?

It's empty!

2007-05-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

After dinner this evening I took Hana to the potty. Potty time is a bit difficult to judge these days, sometimes she's done in a sec and wants to go back to play and sometimes she'd like to stay put for a while and play with some books. Mommy sometimes gets frustrated at the unpredictability of such visits, so instead of just leaving her there this evening only to be called back just as I get my hands in my dish gloves, I decided to ask her if she was going to be staying for a while. So I said, "Hana, are you all done or do you need to poopy?" and she goes...

"uuuuummmmphhhhhhhhhh" (a long grunt) and then looks up at me and says "Nope, it's empty!"

and she was all done! She cracks me up!

What a memory!

2007-05-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

You will NOT believe this. Hana has an incredible memory (I knew it but she demonstrated something amazing yesterday).

At the breakfast table yesterday morning Daddy was looking at an advertisement. Hana suddenly started saying, "Eiji, Shoko" the names of some friends of ours in Tokyo. We talk about them off and on and have mentioned them recently, plus Rocky has their picture in his cell phone and she regulary makes him go through all his cell phone pictures so she can identify all the people. So Daddy asked her, "Do you want to go see Eiji and Shoko?" and she says, "Yea, Eiji, Shoko!" And we told her that we will get to see them this summer. Then she points to the add he is looking at and repeats, "Eiji Shoko, Eiji Shoko!" Rocky and I looked at the add and there are no pictures of any people on the add, so Rocky asked her, "Where are Eiji and Shoko?" and she just sort of furrowed her brow at him and then pointed again to the paper and said their names. Rocky and I were both confused and we asked if she could see Eiji and Shoko on the paper. She said no, and pointed specifically to some Sushi and said "Eiji, Shoko! Eiji, Shoko!" and Rocky says "OH MY GOSH, do you remember going to eat sushi with Eiji and Shoko?" And Hana says yea, and points and again and says their names. Rocky showed her a picture of them to be sure this is who she was talking about. She said, "yea, eata, Eiji Shoko!" eata = eat

We looked it up and she was only 14 months old when we went to visit them and went out to have sushi together. But she clearly remembers it! I know that she has an incredible memory, she demonstrates that all the time. but I didn't know that children this young had developed a long term memory yet. But she clearly remembers eating sushi with them because there is no way it was a coincidence that she associates them with the sushi she was seeing in the ad by chance. She is now 2 years and 9 months so that means that it was about a year and 7 months ago that this happened!

She has also demonstrated that she sort of remembers some things from our last trip to America but I always thought that was from the pictures that she remebers it and can talk about it. But now that I think about it, she remebers the names of people that we haven't seen for a long time, she remembers the names of stores or locations we haven't been to in a while when she sees them again. She also remembers things that happened months ago and sometimes talks about them. So I should be so amazed. but I thought that surely more than a years time with NO mention or reminder of something would certainly mean it has left her memory. Not in this case.

WOW, I wonder if it is just her or if this is common in children???

How come?

2007-05-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

This is her cutest new little expression... "Mommy, how come?" It is so cute to hear such a matter of fact perfect statement come out of that little mouth. And then when we answer her, the response is always, "Oh." or "Oh, I see." So cute!

She is speaking in such long sentences these days to. Today she said to me, "Mommy, what that thing, over there, that blue one?"

She is doing so well with preschool! She is still sad in the morning and doesn't want to go, but she comes home SOOOOOO happy and has such a great time playing. We won't be leaving her all day everyday for the most part but right now, until she gets used to it, we are leaving her until nap time is over. She still doesn't want to sleep there, but for the past two days has napped a little. She comes home everyday chattering about what she did, and it is so fun to see her so happy. It has definitely brought on increased Japanese usage, but she is doing well with switching back to English. And Rocky and I have time to get things done while she's at school, so when she comes home we can interact and play with her more than before! I am glad we made the choice to go ahead and put her in now, instead of wait till later. And I think we made the right choice of which school too!

She's growing up way too fast though. I can't believe how big she is. I'll post pictures soon.

Little Hudini...

2007-05-09T06:15:00.000-07:00

Our escape artist! I didn't know we had one, but we do. I was doing some work on the computer this afternoon and Rocky was washing the lunch dishes when I heard him go look out in the garage and say, "Hana, what are you doing?" Let me preface this by saying Hana can't and shouldn't go outside alone where we live. Our front door litterally steps INTO a street, and cars and bicycle riders are not looking for little kids to come popping out there. Well I realized a few minutes later that Rocky had disappeared, and so I went to look for them. They were out in front of the house and Hana was pushing one of her babies around in her stroller. I asked Rocky what they were doing and he said he'd found her outside by herself pushing her baby around! Evidently she went and got her own shoes, put them on and escaped through the screen door into the garage. The weather is beautiful right now so we are keeping doors and windows open. NOW I KNOW that I have to watch her really closely with the doors open. I never dreamed she'd decide to go outside without saying something to either one of us. Little Hudini Hana!

Hana started preschool this week. Two hours in the mornings for now, till she gets used to it. It is a Christian preschool just about a ten minute walk from here, and actually Daddy is a graduate of this preschool as well, so you know it is GOOD!!! The first day she SCREAMED and CRIED when her teacher took her from me. It was so hard for me to hold back the tears but I did well. Rocky went with me to drop her off, how'd he know Mommy needed the moral support!? We were speaking at a Christian college chapel service that morning so we headed off to work, and sometime during chapel they called to say Hana had a fever. Poor dear, Mommy and Daddy abandoned her on a day she doesn't feel well! We rushed back to get her and she fell apart when she saw us again. They said she'd played pretty well while we were gone though, even though she had a fever.

Yesterday her fever was down by morning so she went again, and didn't do so well. On the way over she wouldn't ride in her stroller and I felt compelled to spoil her a little so I carried her THE WHOLE mile walk over there (needless to say my arms are sore today). The closer we got to the school the tighter she clung to me and the higher she climbed. But the time we walked through the gates she was practically clinging to my head with her legs wrapped around my chest! I left her in the arms of her teacher, one UNHAPPY little girl. They said when I left, she discovered the church pastor (the school is attached to a church) and she knows and loves him so she sweet talked him into holding her all morning (imagine that, she has this power over sweet Christian men!) and she cried hard again when we arrived to pick her up.

But today was a little better. She cried when I left her, but when I got back they said she'd been playing happily and she didn't cry when she saw me, she was waving and smiling and chatting about her morning playing outside. So maybe things are getting better already!

Mommy on the other hand wonders if I can handle preschool. There are so many things to remember! I also have to always keep in her backpack or at the school two changes of clothing, a hand towel, a wash cloth, a bib (that I had to make according to instructions), shoes, a back pack, two record books, and more! I have to write down how she's been doing eating, sleeping etc in a booklet. I have to write or iron on her name in or on EVERYTHING she takes to school (all the washclothes, underwear, towels, socks, EVERYTHING!). It's going to be quite a chore making sure her name is all her clothes, writing all that down IN JAPANESE all the time and keeping up with what's at school, what needs to be taken, what needs to be washed, etc! All you veteran moms out there are chuckling at me right now saying, "girl it is just the beginning" aren't ya?! Just wait till sport uniforms, text books and club activities are thrown into the mix right!? OH BOY, being a Mommy sure is a blessing but sometimes it comes with surprises and more than I bargained for! Especially doing this in another country. I was scared to death I wasn't putting her name in the right places on her clothes or that I'd get reprimanded for what type of towels I bought or something! I've heard horror stories of preschool from other international Moms! But so far I guess I'm being a good girl. I wonder if I get a grade at the end of the semester?!

I'll have to try to get some pictures of Hana at preschool once she is happy about going. Her backpack is the CUTEST!

Golden Week...

2007-05-05T06:39:00.000-07:00

The first week in May is a long holiday, and we always get a chance to take some time for family during this week. Hana's cousins always come from Osaka to visit and she LOVES it!

Here are some pics!!!

There were some kangaroos at one park we went to and Hana just LOVED them. She was especially excited about the Momma kangaroos with babies in their pockets!

This is little Tomoki (who is not so little anymore). He's 1 1/2 and weighs MORE than Hana does! He's a happy guy!

We got to do a pony carriage ride too!

One more time around with Daddy too!

Here I am with my big cousin Daiki! We were worn out from the long day at the park.

Listen...

2007-04-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

Every night before bed, we read a Bible story with Hana. Then after it has been read to her, she takes her little Bible from me and begins to flip through the pages and pretend to read as well. Tonight Daddy and I were sitting on the couch together listening to her read to us, and we were noticing some of the things she was saying and whispering to each other about it. Hana stopped reading and turned to us and said, "Listen!" and then went back to reading. We both thought that was funny (it sounds exactly like what we say to her when she isn't paying attention during Bible story time) and we giggled about it. At that point Hana stopped again and turned to us and said, "Listen!" So funny!

She said it in a kind voice but it was still funny that she has learned the clear meaning of that word, and she used it so perfectly.

Bye bye, bow-wow

2007-04-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

Well Hana had her first death in the family tonight. For Christmas Baba gave Hana a little ceramic dog that barks when it detects motion. I wondered how long he would last. He was supposed to be perched in our entryway to announce visitors, but there was no way I was going to put him there where he would also wake up a little girl all the time. And Hana also would not have stood for bow-wow living in the entryway. For weeks she has carried this puppy around as a toy, feeding him, putting him to bed, giving him baths (in available card board boxes) and just generally loving on him like she does all her favorite dolls and stuffed toys. I was amazed that a ceramic dog was so appealing to a two year old, but she loved him. Probably partially because he was a gift from one of her favorite people. Well tonight while preparing herself and bow-wow for bed, Hana was carrying him and she tripped and fell on top of him. Mommy was at the gym, so Daddy was on hand to witness the event, and unfortunately bow-wow broke! Daddy says she was really upset that bow-wow met with the end of his life as her toy. We could glue him back together, but I think he would just meet the same fate again soon, and I would rather her not keep playing with a cermaic toy (although sturdy it was) so we are going to bury bow-wow tomorrow. Or maybe just let bow-wow disappear overnight.

Gagas and Bam...

2007-04-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Hana LOVES her Gagas and Bam (Gram and Gramps) and we called them this morning. It was so cute. She told them "yubs shuuuu" several times, and talked about what she's been doing, then she took off and I thought she was going to play. I was just chating with Mom and Tracy when Hana comes back YELLING, "MOMMY, GAGAS, GAGAS, GAGAS!!!!!!!!" and I look to see her carrying her family photo album that I made for her. I laminated pictures of as many of her family members as I could from our last trip to America, and tied it into a book for her. She hasn't looked at that book in a while, but she went to find it so she could see Gagas and Bam! I thought that was so cute! Then she proceeds to say, "See Gagas, See Bam!" Rocky and I were like, oh boy we're in trouble now! She wants to go see them! We weren't planning a trip back to the states until early 2008, but I sort of agree with Hana, I want to see Gagas and Bam! hmmmmmmmmm (as Hana would say when she is deep in tought)