Long time no blog.

So other forms of communication sort of took over my life and I haven't blogged in a while.  Was happy to discover blogger finally has a decent app, so hopefully I can get back to it.  Since Hana is NINE now!  Where did the time go.  Hope to keep a better record of my kiddos little lives here.  The missing pieces can be found on Facebook. ;)  So here's our little 9 year old.  She loves piano, playing horses, mommying her dolls (or any live babies that may be around) and loving her friends and family.  She is the most personable 9 year old I know, can make friends litterally in an instant!  She's precious!

With her best buddies.

Cooking, one of her favorite things to do.

selfie!!!

First babysitting job!!!

A chef in training...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!

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...

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...

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!

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!

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...

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!

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!

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...

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...

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!