Big girl panties!!!

Well, we have officially put away diapers and are in big girl panties. I decided this week was the week. Hana has been ready for a long time but I didn't have the time and we were traveling too much. We finally have time.

Hana has technically been potty training for 19 months! Yes, that is correct, 19! However, it has been an awesome experience. When Hana was very young I heard about infant potty training. I was fascinated and decided to try it. Hana caught on very quickly. She always pooped just after eating and I knew basically when she was going to pee most of the time too, so I started taking her to the potty or holding her over a bowl, and she would do it! I started using specific words when she did her thing and before long I could tell her what to do and she often would. By about 7 months it was not uncommon to go through a whole day without her ever wetting or dirtying a single diaper. However, when she started crawling she stopped being so predictable and didn't want to go sit on the potty, and we regressed a little. She has almost always poopied in the potty since the beginning but teetee has been off and on from this point.

Several months back I tried big girl panties but it didn't work, we had lots of messes and a very cranky mommy and baby! So I sort of continued to take her to potty when I could and just let her wear diapers. I began to wonder if I couldn't accomplish potty training IN diapers, but over the last month have realized she just KNOWS she can choose to go in her diaper. After meals she is happy to go the potty and even asks to be taken but any other time she prefers her diaper and gets mad if forced to sit on the potty.

So I decided the only way to get over that is to take away the diapers, and that we did. Yesterday was her first full day in big girl panties. She had one small accident in the morning and the rest of the day was perfect. Today so far has been perfect! She is even dry in the morning also. She fusses sometimes when I make her go if it is not after a meal (when she is happy to go), asking her if she WANTS to go ALWAYS gets a "no". So I just make her go and sit there when it has been two hours or more she last went. It is so funny, she will be crying and I tell her she has to put teetee in the potty or she can't get down. She then teetees as she is crying and then says "yea, teetee" while still crying! But what an obedient child! I have no idea why she doesn't want to go if it isn't after a meal, but the fussing is getting less intense with each visit.

I was thinking we would have to wear diapers when going out and at night, but so far it looks good. She went out for two little outings yesterday and did fine without a diaper, and the last two mornings she has woken up dry. She hates when I make her go first thing in the morning but she'll get used to it, she fussed less about it this morning than she did yesterday and the day before. So we may not even need diapers at night. I'm going to give her a few more days to be sure she is consistently still dry every morning.

The only baby thing left about my baby is she still sucks her thumb. Otherwise, she is feeding herself, talking like crazy, sleeping in an open bed, and now out of diapers. My baby isn't a baby anymore, she's a little girl!!!

Two year old mischief...

(This happened on Aug. 21st, the day before Hana turned two)

Mommy keeps talking about this special day tomorrow where we are having something called a party and I am turning two. I don't know what it is all about really but I know one thing for sure, she is making something interesting in the oven and it is shaped like Pooh, and smells good! I helped her mix up some gunk to put in this pan shaped like Pooh and now it is sitting on the table after coming out of the oven. Mommy seems so excited about it but won't let me touch it though, and I sure want to know what that is. She's cutting out something and covering it with paper and putting Pooh on top of that. I wonder what that is for. OH, wait a minute, the washer just quite and Mommy went to get the laundry... hmmmm I wonder if she going to disappear upstairs for a while with the laundry like she always does. I'm not supposed to touch anything on the table up there, but Pooh is sitting there, and I could get a closer look while she isn't around. Here she comes with that basket full of clothes...

Hana, Mommy is going up stairs to hang out laundry to dry, ok?

ALRIGHT! There she goes, nows my chance. I can get up on that chair and then get a closer look at that Pooh thingy. Ohhhh, he looks so fun. I wonder what he feels like. OHHHH, he feels soft! oh and he tastes real good. Here's these scissors that Mommy was using to cut out his blue backboard, wonder if it would be fun to stab Pooh with the scissors. WOW, they go right through him! Weeeee, this is fun!!! UHOH, Mommy's back!!!!!!!

(And here is what partially amputated Pooh looked like when Mommy returned)


This is Mommy here.... at first I was so mad! But soon, I began to smile about it. Now I will have a great story to tell Hana about her second birthday! And what is a two year old without a little mischief! Although she did get punished for touching things on the table, because she knows she is not supposed to do that. I did not have time to make a whole new cake, so I just had to try and do my best with amputated Pooh. However, once decorated, you could hardly tell he'd been mauled! Here is the final product after I decorated him.


My fondest memories of my childhood birthdays are watching my Mommy make cakes for us. She would work so hard to make them and they turned out so fun and delicious. I remember watching in wonder as the gooey yummy icing came out of the icing bag in the weird shapes, and created my favorite character in bright colors. I always wanted to squeeze the icing out, but Mom would only let me do a tiny bit and then she would tell me she had to do the rest. I dreamed of the day I would do that for my babies, so I could squeeze the icing out on the WHOLE cake, all by myself!!! I've had this Pooh cake pan and the supplies to decorate it for years. It has been waiting for the day I could use it for one of my children! I finally got to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only did the pan fit into my NEW oven ( a miracle since my old oven couldn't hold the pan) but I think I did an OK job of decorating it! I can't wait to make more in the future!

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl!!!!!!!

Birthday pics...

When is everybody going to hurry up and get here so we can get this party started?!!!

PRESENTS!!!


MMMMMMMMMMM Cake!!!!

Look who's TWO!!!

Today we celebrate my baby girls second birthday. It is amazing to me to think that she was born two years ago today and I didn't even know she existed yet! WOW!!! But I think that somehow I did know because in these few days before we got the call about her I had become so anxious I was almost frantic to figure out a way to get my baby home. As if my heart knew she was out there and waiting for me.

Today she is a rambunxious, happy, smart and sweet little two year old. She obeys really well for the most part (although I am beginning to understand what they mean by those terrible twos). She is not terrible at two but certainly more independent, getting a stronger temper and showing more willpower than before.

She LOVES her Mommy and Daddy and showers us with kisses and hugs though out the day. She is start to say "I love you" which is more like "wub you" but it is so precious to hear.

Her current fad is the "ABC's" she wants to sing the song about a million times a day and wants to see over and over again, one portion of a certain Mickey video where they sing it. When she tries to sing it her self it comes out (with the ABC song tune) as "A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C" and so forth. And where ever she sees writing (whether in English or Japanese) she squeels and explaims " ABC's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I have a set of Baby Einstein learning cards and she can identify the circle, oval, square, rectangle, and triangle when asked. And she can identify one and two. Her favorite number however is two, so every other number after that is always two, unless prompted to say the correct number by Mommy.She still absolutely adores bow-wows, but can identify many many animals. All of them are identified by the noise they make and not their actual name. So cats are "meow, meow" dogs are of course "bow-wow", horses are "neigh-neigh", ducks are "ga-ga" (the Japanese noise they make), lions and tigers are "rahhhh", and so forth.

She absolutely loves Hermie the caterpillar! We watch that movie a couple times a day (she demands it imediatley after breakfast and potty trip are done first thing in the morning) and she would want it to play continuously thoughout the day if I would let her. We discovered hermieandfriends.com and she loves for me to print out the coloring pages for her.She is just such a fun little girl.

She is talking so much now that I can't possibly keep record of all the words she knows. She picks up several new ones a day. She speaks in a mix of Japanese and English. It feels to me sometimes like she is constantly speaking Japanese but really I think it isn't so bad. Most of her nouns are English and her verbs are mostly Japanese. She would be an interesting linguistics study. But Mommy and Daddy are as strict as we can be about making her say things in English before we respond. However, since we understand as readily what she is saying in Japanese sometimes we respond before we realize she said it in Japanese. It is taking a lot of self discipline for us both to reinforce the Enlgish in the home rule we have set up! She demonstrates to us all the time though that is understanding almost EVERYTHING we say. We also have to be careful in this area. She understands so much, in both languages!

I am so amazed to be her Mommy and so thankful to the woman who gave birth to her. She is heavy on my heart today as well as the other family (birth grandparents and other extended) who may be thinking of her especially today. I wish they could also know this precious ray of sunshine and watch her grow. I would love to say thank you to them today and everyday for this amazing and precious gift of my daughter.I can not believe two years have flown by. I wish I could slow down the clock, and at the same time I can not wait to see what a beautiful young lady this amazing daughter of mine turns out to be.

What a personality!

Hana is sooooooooooo full of personality. It is so fun to see, she LOVES people and LOVES being in a group. She is just like her Daddy!

A few weeks back she suddenly decided one day that Rocky is "Daddy" and not "DaDa". I couldn't believe it was such a sudden change, but she always says Daddy now. I miss it and I will be sad when mama becomes Mommy, if it ever does.

I'm also very sad that baby bed days are gone. She is in an open bed now (her baby bed left open like a big girl bed) and I just can't believe it. She made that transition herself too, she just didn't want to be down in that baby bed after sleeping on the floor and in the open so much the past weeks. I've been worried about her getting up by herself at night or in the morning, but she doesn't. At nap time and bed time, she stays put, and when she wakes up, she waits for us to come and get her. She never gets up herself. It amazes me.

She's precious!!!

More fun pics...

I have a whole slew of cousins! And they all love me to pieces! We have had a great time hanging out together and playing!!!

It was especially interesting to go watch my cousin Hayden do Karate! He was counting in Japanese and bowing and greeting people. I got so excited, and I was proud of him!

And this is my cousin Shane! I love him so much. We played together and he gave me lots of hugs and kisses. He's such a sweet guy, just like his big brother Hayden!

And the other really fun thing I got to do at my cousins Hayden's and Shane's house...

learn to DUNK the basketball!!!

I went to see Mim and Grandad in DeLeon too! Mim and I loved to play the piano together.

and I just loved Grandad to pieces (I think he liked me a little bit too)!!!

One other really fun part of this trip is meeting a bunch of Mommy and Daddy's old friends who now have kids too! That means more PLAY TIME!!!!!!! Yippeee!!!

Texas is FUN!!!

Just hanging out it my Chevy!!!




I love the wide open spaces of Texas!



Howdy Y'all!!!!







Here in Texas we eat lots of steak and 'taters!

Little music lover...

She already loves all the noises that instruments make, or anything for that matter. When she walks into a room with interesting accoustics, she immediately notices. When she hears a bird or a dog outside, she instantly responds. And she copies every sound she hears. All of the above, JUST LIKE HER DADDY. I forget more and more everyday that this child wasn't born from our gene pool. One thing is for sure, she was created by God to be our daughter!

Just had to share...

WAY too CUTE! She is the most precious little thing in the whole world! At church on Sunday the little boys she was playing with just adored her. They surrounded her with all the stuffed animals. Just the most precious little darling I've ever seen!

You could just squeeze her to bits couldn't ya!

COOL!!!

the past couple of days Hana has started saying "cool!" It is so funny to hear such a clear timely expression like that from her. If Rocky and I exclaim over something she burst out with "wow!!! COOL!!!" It is so funny!

I'm eating all by myself...

All the sudden this week, I realized I can put things in my mouth with a spoon and I am loving it!!!

It is so much fun, I am eating a LOT at every meal now cause I love feeding myself!

And now the challenge is getting me not to stuff my mouth too full. I just keep shoveling it in cause it is so fun, and Mommy is mean and takes the spoon away till I eat what's in my mouth. I have to yell at her when she does that. She doesn't understand how fun it is to stuff my mouth with as much food as I can get in there. I just can't stop!

I gotta get EVERY LAST DROP!!!

I love my cousins, part 2!!!

This is my cousin Daiki! I call him "DaiDai"!!! (yelling it as she says it) I LOVE DAIDAI!!! We had a LOT of fun playing together.
He was great cause he let me crawl around on him, jump all over him and he would carry me around!


He read me books and played with me all the time!
And we went to the zoo together too. Here we are waiting for the bus to come, and he was sweet enough to keep me out of the street! I was so sad when he went home!

I LOVE my cousins!!!!!!!!!

This is my cousin Tomoki... He's five months old but he weighs almost as much as me!
Let me get that baby! I want to crawl up there beside him! I want to hold that baby! "baby, baby, baby!!!!!!"
Kiss the baby, ahhhhhhh! Hey baby, don't pull my hair!
Love the baby! hug hug!!!
Hold the baby! Sweet baby!

New pictures...

Here are some picture...
It has been a LONG time since I got a picture of Daddy holding her for a nap. Recently she just won't fall asleep with us holding her until just this last week, it has happened several times. I was so happy to get a sleeping picture because I haven't gotten one in so long! She still sleeps like an Angel!








And this is a picture of her hanging out at the back of the worship center during our concerts in Yamaguchi city this last weekend. The little boy in the background was her buddy. They played a lot, and the little boy's mother said that Hana is such a sweet little girl, she shares her toys and loves on him and pats him! She tried to hug him a lot too but he didn't like that very much!

Playing "in" the toy box...

You see the last time I went to the doctor he told my Mommy that I am a little on the short side. All I know is I can't reach most of the stuff in the bottom of my toybox, so I had to compromise... I found an easy solution, just climb in! Once I'm inside, I can reach everything, AND it really seems to get everyone elses attention too. I wonder why this is so funny to Mommy and Daddy?

Aren't I smart? I should have thought of this a lot sooner. Now my only problem is, figuring out how to get inside without asking Mommy for help... I'll figure that one out later. In the meantime, Mommy doesn't mind putting me inside. In fact, I think she thinks it is cute. She smiles and runs to get the camera.

Ah, I found what I was looking for. It's right down here...

BOW-WOW!!!

She LOVES the park...

She would live outdoors if we would let her! Which is interesting because Mommy is a homebody! She took after Daddy in this area... enjoy this recent trip to the park.
You know Mommy, I like horsies and all but this is not as fun as...

The SLIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Now this is FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

She can climb up to the top of the slide, sit down and slide down all by herself! They grow up WAY too fast!

Hana's vocabulary...

she has just taken off with talking the last few days. It is so fun to watch her learning how to use words and the look on her face when she realizes that we understand her. This week she is also gaining a lot of Japanese for some reason. She is so fun, she says stuff like using various nouns other than these examples...

bow-wow otta (A dog is there) mix of English and Japanese
wabeewee atta (there is a strawberry) also a mix
poopoo detta (poopoo came out) also a mix
gummy peaz da (can I please have a gummy) the "da" is the Japanese "to be" verb, she puts it on the end of lots of her sentences.

and she is putting "a" in front of everything

a mama
a dada
a baby (when she sees pictures of herself)
a bear (with a very strong Texas accent)

She knows eyes, ears, nose, mouth (also knows mouth in french from one of her DVD's). She very clearly points them out by almost poking her own or your eyes out, or sticking her fingers up her own or your nose, and by forcing her fingers into your mouth.

I did it (this one shocked me today when she said it)
oishi wabeewee (delicious strawberry) by the way wabeewee is English!

These are just a few of the things I pick up throughout the day. The things she is doing are too funny too.

1. She has learned to spin around in circles and she will get dizzy. It is so funny to watch, she thinks it is hillarious.
2. She loves to draw and write these days.
3. She loves to get the broom and run it around the floor for me.
4. She could stand on a chair at the sink and pretend to wash dishes for hours, soaking the front her clothes and the rug beneath and drinking half of her pretend dish water along the way.
5. She finds a bag, puts it over her shoulder and comes to tell me bye-bye then heads for the front door. I ask her if she is going shopping and she says "yea"
6. She gathers up her baby dolls and finds some towels and her blanket and lines them all up and covers them up. She will pick one up and rock it, pat it on the back them put it back down. She also pretends to give them drinks. If she finds one of her diapers, she will insist that I take off the baby dolls' clothes so she can pretend to change their diapers. It is too sweet to watch her caring for her babies so tenderly.
7. All bow-wows are spotted immediately and loudly proclaimed. And when we drive past any place where she has seen a bow-wow before, she loudly proclaims it!

She's a mess and so much fun!

Cherry Blossom season!!!

Hana loves to be outdoors! She had a great time at the park yesterday but wanted to do her own thing and NOT pose for pictures. But here's her trip to the park...

Hey all you puppy dogs!!! I'm coming to get ya!

"Hey look, there's a puppy dog over there!"

The breeze tickles!

Hey, what's that over there?

Momma, are you sure I don't like cotton candy... cause it sure looks fun!

Let's go see what's down here!

What are you guys waiting for, come play at the park with me!!!

Every little girl's gotta have a blog!

Especially so her grandparents and Aunt's and Uncles can keep up with her! Here's Hana's place! I think it will be easier to post pictures and updates here. Our adoption website will still be available, but I will probably update here more often!

Blessings,
Mommy