Happy Holidays

It's been a busy year with building a house, moving twice, school, trips to the US and three very busy children. I won't be a better blogger, but do hope all is well with the few who still check this out.

Hey Big Brother!

Hey, BK! Let's see if we can hide under this kitchen rug.

Totally Mahana's idea.

Brother and sister

I love pictures of them sleeping close.

Who ARE you?

Mahana is not quite sure how she feels about daddy's new haircut.

Doing dishes

This is what the boys do to their sister while I'm washing dishes.

Park time

We are going stir crazy, so in an attempt to keep the death toll low, we take a lot of park trips.

Dinosaur wrangler

Dinosaur are Mahana's favorite thing to ride. She was so excited from the moment she laid eyes on it.

Gale force winds

Fierce winds outside means attempts to recreate it inside with three person chair spinning.

Finally! Cookies that work!

My mom is the cookie whisperer. She makes myriad of fabulous cookies. I did not inherit that gift. Sure I can make crème brulle, and some authentic Japanese food, but I suck at making cookies. Until yesterday! In an attempt to assuage the zoo animals with the storm outside, I made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies sans recipe and it finally worked! Hallelujah! I love doing it thus way. We shall have to try again soon.

Old kitchen

For my grandparents. Here is what our house kitchen looks like now.

Bento for Sarah

Today is girls day, so we made a special Bent for Ed to take to school yesterday.  Here it is!

One computer?

So it is probably glaringly obvious, but with three kids, I don't get on the computer much anymore. Heck, I'm writing this on my iPod as I put the baby to sleep. I'm seriously considering selling my computer all together. So I need advice. Any single computer homes out there...what's it like? Issues, benefits, thoughts. 007 is a little wary, but I'm feeling OK about it.

Ok go!

Snow Festival

Grandma wanted to do something on her bucket list, and so we went with her to see the Hokkaido Snow Festival.  I may not have a list, but I sure am glad she does, and that she took us along for the ride.  Everyone had a good time, and I still dream of it.  Maybe we should retire there.  I know Ed would live there right now if he could.  We had a very difficult time getting him to ever come inside to warm up.  He just wanted to play in the snow the whole time.

Here we are on the subway going to our first stop

This pretty much sums up Ed's attitude the whole time.

Amazing scupltures, eh?

Can I tell you how cold an ice slide is on one's derrière?

The girls with the girls day dolls in ICE!

Disney sculpture.

BK was pretty cold at this point and just wanted to be held.  I don't blame him, it was -9 C.

007 went out again(I wanted to too, but fell asleep putting the kids to bed).  This was what I was most looking forward to seeing.  Doesn't that look cool!

We'll definitely have to do that again some year.  For now though, we have to save up for the house stuff.  Thanks again grandma!

p.s. this trip was right afte the flu, with stomach flu flare, and near the beginning of ear infections, woo hoo!

Birthdays!

We've had two birthdays in the last little while.  They've grown a lot, and since they both keep me very very busy, you get two photos of each.  Happy Birthday little ones!

She really enjoyed her vegan lemon tart!

So excited!

This is BK's personality in a nutshell

Oh, this is also why no one got Christmas cards.  Between Christmas, Mahana's B-day, New Years(Japanese equivalent of Christmas), and BK's birthday, it was busy.