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

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!!!

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

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

Swimming in the pool at PIC Guam

Grandparent's day at preschool...

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...

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...

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!

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

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!!!

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...

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!

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!!!

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!

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!

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?

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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)

Homemade Easter basket...

Well I'm sort of limited on my Easter supplies here in Japan and waited too long to order anything (which would have been outrageously expensive anyways) so we got creative for her Easter eggs and basket! I found a little pattern for making a basket online, and used our old milk cartons to hand make the basket. I printed out some stickers to decorate the outside of the basket. But then came the challenge of coloring the eggs. Well, I found Japanese food coloring but it is all "natural" and not very potent. The red, yellow and green did OK with coloring, but the blue and purple would NOT color the eggs at all! Oh well, we got some pretty pastels. Except for one egg that I left sitting in the green coloring for a couple of hours. It got REALLY green!

Happy Easter to my sweet baby.

Cherry Blossoms!

Our little flower girl enjoying cherry blossoms!!! (Hana's name means flower so we try to get her picture with flowers as much as possible!)


Here is Hana's very first Cherry Blossom season, she was 7 months old!!!


And here is last year!


And again this year... she has grown so much!

Just some stuff before I forget...

I am trying to keep a running log of the things she is learning and happenings, so today I have time during her nap to type and I'm just gonna try to remember all the stuff she has been doing lately.

I am trying to get her to begin to learn phonics but she is completely uninterested. She has a poster on the wall in the bath with the ABC's on it and she has them all memorized, so I thought maybe it was getting boring just identifying the letters so we can start learning what the letters say. She looks at me like I am a complete idiot when I try to get her to repeat that "B says buh". I guess it hasn't sunk in that B is more than just a B, it stands for a sound. Oh well, I'll keep trying!

Our car can seat three in the front and three in the back and the middle seats will adjust on a sliding rail, so that they can be pushed back. This means that Hana can sit in the front with us, and her seat is just slid back for safety (so the airbags won't get in case of a crash). Until now we've always had her in the back but recently we took a short day trip with friends and we put Hana up front with us so our friends could be in the back with their child. She loved it and we were surprised to enjoy having her up front with us in the middle. So we've left her there, and it is amazing to see how much she observes as we drive around and how much she knows. We didn't know that she knew the names of so many shops or could identify so many letters and numbers, etc. This girl is one smart little cookie.

She is speaking English almost exclusively with us and other English speakers and switching to Japanese with Japanese speakers. I am trying to figure out if this is just a learned/conditioned response or if she knows the difference between the two langauges. I don't think she knows that they are two totally different languages yet, although she does know that most everything in her world has two names. It's kind of hard to explain why I think she doesn't totally understand the difference yet, but it is still amazing what her mind is doing with the two languages. I have read that they don't consciously know the difference until the age of four. I am just soooo relieved that I have been able to condition her to respond to me in English most of the time. Many of her words that were automatically coming out in Japanese EVERYTIME, are now coming out in English OR both. Like she'll say, "Mommy, mite, look look" or something like that. Now we'll throw another kink in the formula when she starts going to preschool three days a week in May! UGH!

When either Rocky and I turn on the "oh boy your in trouble" tone, her response has become so cute. She'll immediately look up at us and in the sweet voice say, "Ok Mommy!" And stop what she is doing. That little "OK" sounds so sweet.

We borrowed a Little Einstein DVD from friends and she LOVES this show. I downloaded a season of Dora on iTunes but I'll probably be downloading Little Einstein sometime soon too. This show is so educational, in Art, Music and Science. I am amazed that she loves it so much, and it teaches majorly big words, like metamorphosis and metropolitan and stuff. She's gonna sound like a 40 year old at 4! No wonder kids these days blow me away with their vocabulary. They learn it from CARTOONS!

Right now in Japan is election season and one of the ways they campaign is to drive around in vans with big signs on them, and a loud speaker. They wave at everyone and yell their name a million times a minute through that speaker. Talk about distrurbing the peace. Anyways, she always asks "What's that?" when she sees them and Mommy always tells her, "Those are politicians, they are campaigning." So today we were driving around and saw one of those vans and she said "Mommy, ticians!" I've been teaching her to wave at them cause if you do the person yelling on the loud speaker gets all excited and thanks you for your support and everyone riding along waving gets so excited too and they wave real big and smile! It's funny to watch and it must make their day after so many people ignore them all day long. She won't wave with me yet, maybe tomorrow!

She is GREAT at saying, "Thank you" "You're welcome" "please" and other polite little things. She is so polite and we didn't really work hard to make her say these things, she just does it.

I'm sure there has to be more but that is all I can think of right now!