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!!!

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!

She's starting to READ!

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

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

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

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

Is it possible...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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



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


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


Good morning sweet baby brother!



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

Sports day...

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

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

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




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


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



Hana's class parading around the grounds.


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


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


She pulls ahead of the pack...


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


She just makes it look so easy!


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




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


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


And she will surely be good at rebounds!


thorough at rebounding too!


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


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




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



And finally Mommy and Hana in the obstacle course!

The balance beam...

Jump through the hoops...

and a piggy back ride to the finish!


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


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

nick? Nick? neck?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such a smart little girl! And so much fun!

Some new pics and an update...

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

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

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

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

Game night...

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

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

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

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

"Is it my turn yet?"


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


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


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

Growing girl...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!!!!!

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.