Snow and preschool!!!

We had some snow! Just a couple of days of cold weather and one morning of snow on the ground seems like all the winter we've had. And you gotta be QUICK to get out and play in the snow or it will melt, FAST. We didn't make it out to play till 9:30 and it was already melting away. But we had plenty of fun, here are some pics...

What's this white stuff???

Cheese!!!!

I made a snowman!!!

Then there is preschool. Preschool of all kinds. On Wednesdays we have Strawberry group at one of the private kindergartens where I teach English. It is for two hours, they read stories, sing songs, play with lots of toys, and play games. Hana enjoys it for the most part, although she is still getting used to structured play. Then there is our English preschool. Twice a month now we meet with a group to do about an hour of English preschool, then let the children play together while the Mom's hang out and talk. It's fun, and this last week we met at our house. Unfortuantely only one family could make it this time, but we had fun. And since it was here at our house Daddy was able to take lots of pictures for us!!! Enjoy...

We always start with an ABC chart, and place ABC cards in the right place on the chart. Then we sing the ABC song several times.

Then we color the letter for the day.

We sing songs like Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes; If You're Happy and You Know It; I'm In the Lord's Army, etc.

And we do a Bible story and craft. This day we talked about creation and we made a "creation dice" which was a cube with the days of creation represented on the six sides.

Fun fun fun!!!!!!!!

A long awaited update...

Well, I finally put aside some time today to download pics off of the camera and put them here for y'all to see!!! She's growing up so fast, she is 2 years and 5 months this week! I can not believe it. I was looking back through all her albums on the adoption website the other day and times has flown by so fast, but it seems unreal to me that she was ever that small.





She has gotten so independent. Poor thing gets so frustrated because she wants to do things by herself but can't yet! And Mommy is the bad guy when I force her to let me help her (like when she needs to go teetee and get can't her pants down and get up on the potty by herself). It's funny but frustrating at the same time. But Mommy really loves the fact that she is so determined to do things herself! That's a great attitude to have! She has mastered putting on her shoes by herself, and can sometimes put on pants. She is pretty good at undressing alone. But Mommy's favorite part, she eats all by herself now!!! Next step, making it herself? (that's year away right!)





Her vocabulary is beyond what I can keep up with now. She is picking up lots of words a day, and sentences are getting longer and longer. There are days I think her English is stronger and days it seems like all she speaks is Japanese. I bet that means there is a pretty good balance. Her knowledge of the alphabet is amazing and can identify them randomly if you point to any letter anywhere, and she recognizes a few words (because of a video she watches). We continue to do preschool, and lots of other activities for learning. She loves to learn and that is great! She sang along with me on the ABC's the other night in the bath.





Here's the pics for ya, enjoy!

Gig Em Aggies!!!!!!! (a cheerleader for Mommy's college! Thanks Gram and Gramps)

A wedding we attended recently. The bride was name "pretty, pretty" according to Hana!

Let's go home Daddy!
Hana had to have an apron and head cover for her preschool class this week so Mommy made them for her. It is sooooooo sweet when she wears it. This is Hana baby doing the dishes for Mommy!

Vocabulary EXPLOSION!!!

This little girl is talking up a storm. And so much of it is in English, this Mommy has finally put her doubt about whether she'd be totally bilingual to rest. She is speaking a whole lot in both languages, and is beginning to be able to seperate the two languages if told to say something in one or the other!

She is so hilarious though. Get what happened the other day. We were on our way to eat with some friends. She was asking if they had arrived and I said, "no, nobody is here yet." Well lately Hana loves the word nobody, she'll open the door to an empty room and say "nobody?" and then loudly proclaim that nobody is there! Well our friends were not at the restaurant but other people were here and there, so she asked again, and I said, "nobody is here yet" and she said, "Mommy! No, No, Yesbody!" This inteligent little muchkin made up her own word for "somebody" and I think it is just about the most creative thing for such a little mind to come up with! So now Rocky and I have decided to replace the word somebody with yesbody in our speach!!! LOL! and now, when she sees babies, she says, "babybody!" What a riot!

She is really beginning to express so much and it is so fun. I especially love that when I have been away from her for a little while likes to try to tell me what happened while I was gone. So fun to try to figure out what she is saying and she gets so excited when I understand!

She is becoming such a loving affectionate child. She randomly tells us she loves us. She sometimes runs to us and wants a hug, and when we pick her up she wraps those little arms around our neck and tightly as she can and squeezes. She scrunches up her face when she does it too! So cute! she is also saying "I missed you" when we've been away.

She is also a very helpful, very generous little girl. She loves to help out, so we have no problems with disobedience when we go to the store or out in public. I just get her to help me, gathering up groceries or whatever. She loves it! and she loves to help me wash dishes or clean up the room. She wants to help so much, sometimes I have to ask her not to, because it can make the job more difficult for Mommy sometimes.

So very very precious!!!!!!

Watching Mommy and Daddy sing...

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

Christmas Eve 2006!

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

Reading a book with Uncle Paul

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

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

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

I SAID DON'T TAKE MY PICTURE!!!

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

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

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

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

Attitude...

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

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

Busy baby....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She knows the whole alphabet

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

"Hold you"

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few new pics...

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

My sweet family!!!

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

A riot!!!

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

Hana funnies...

She is saying some of the cutest things...

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

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

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

she's priceless

One more wish list item...

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

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

click this to see it on the leap frog website

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

Scared of Colonel Sanders...

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

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

Her little spirit knows!

Children are amazing...

Christmas Wishlist...

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of new words...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

we are doing great!

Cosmos flowers in bloom!!!

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

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

Taking care of babies (real ones and baby dolls)

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



This one is blurry but so sweet!



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

Kindergarten Sports Day

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


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




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


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


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