1 hour and ten minutes left

It's New Year's Eve and I am the last one left in the kitchen, posting my last blog post for the year. What a year we had. It started with the youngest barely crawling and is about to exit with four bigger, happy and more willful children! 2010 has been the busiest and mentally challenging year for me caring for four little tots while juggling tight schedules and special diet for the boys. We've worked with so many professionals and scrutinized all litterateurs I could find which concerns autism, neurological disorders, chromosome deletions, probiotics, gluten and casein free diets... you get the idea. It was the year of learning for us and we will continue to be on the look out for the latest information out there.

It also was a year of surprise after discovering that I have ADHD. I reflected on my childhood and how I go about my day and was able to see my strength and weaknesses clearer than ever after the diagnosis. I suspect that the hectic nature of my life now made my ADHD tendencies surface. My spontaneity is getting me far in some areas such as researching, but what I desperately need now is staying on top of things, which requires the ability to focus. I am excited to work on myself though and all geared up (literally - collected organizational gears from Staples the other day and got an organization advice book) to start a new year with some improvements!

The highlights of the year 2010 are;

1) Sean's speech reaches his peer level,

2) Sean made a best friend,

3) Alyson and Sean are best mates at home,

4) Saya walked at 15 months,

5) Noah makes more eye contacts,

6) Mike lost 30 lbs and ran a half marathon,

7) I lost about 12 pounds and fit into size 2 pants without running,

8) addition of a guest room in the basement and laundry room off the main level,

9) Saya became the boss in the house.

The best gift of all is having my Mom here for Christmas and my Dad arriving tomorrow to meet Saya for the very first time. Family is the most important thing for me in the universe. The connection, the invisible dotts are keeping us together and I am happy and feel perfectly cozy to be a part of warm and caring family.

Thank you for reading my blog! I hope you continue to visit my page in 2011!

Happy New Year to you, from all of us!!

Sean this evening... He is sick with fever. Looks like he'll be sick on the New Year's Day...

Amy fixed Saya's hair yesterday She looked like a doll!

Saya with her "Chunky". It's her favrite old onesie she sleeps with every night and a must have item when she is cranky.

Grandma trying to break a fight. This happens every three minutes in my house.

Christmas morning - Sean got up first and found the stockings stuffed. Saya quietly observed.

Opening presents! I don't think the kids' eyes were settled in one item for longer than 30 seconds.

Scattered toys and wrappers, two happy little girls!

Aly opening a present from Nana and Pinky.

We had the Dutts over for Christmas Dinner. We stuffed ourselves until we could not help but to rub our rounded belly.

Asian style Christmas cake. It was yummy!

Quiet Moments before Christmas

Noah was anticipating someone tickling his tummy and the thought of it made him giggle!
Aly the artist - she enjoys drawing cats, bears and family these days.

Daddy and kids built a ginger bread house and decorated it with icing and candies.

Malawaina with Noah - she has been a crucial part of Noah's life so far.

A little rascal, Saya. She gets into stuff with a very smooth move and we don't notice it what she'd done till much later.

Who could resist this face!? She is a doll!

A morning walk around the neighborhood. We are blessed to live in a beautiful place with lush greens and fresh smells of pines all year around!


To be honest with you, I've been avoiding this blog for a couple of weeks. Between Christmas and getting my house ready for my Mom was, I was overwhelemed. Now that my Mom's here and Christmas passed, I had no reason not to post and here I am pretty content to get back to business!

Sean and Aly love Christmas season. They love the lights on people's houses, background music in the malls, decorations everywhere in shops, Santas in all shapes in sizes... It makes things extra special to have more colors and cheerfulness in places we visit everyday. I have a lot to learn in terms of American tradition surrounding the Holiday season, but we built and decorated gingerbread house one day. Year by year, we want to add more activities to make fun memories. I am craft challenged, so Mike would have to fill in.

Alyson is getting better with Japanese and she speaks about 50% Japanese at home. Saya started to scream like a hot kettle on the stove and Noah imitates it smiling. Of course, that encourages Sean and Alyson to be loud, so our house is like an Amazon jungle these days.

Thinking back of summer, I don't know how I managed having all four children at home while school is out. I vaguely remember thinking I actually enjoyed having all of them at home. At the moment, I am not finding that enthusiasm in me. Thank goodness my Mom's here to entertain the kids.

I will write about Christmas day in the next post!

Getting Things Together

Not ready for bed yet! Noah and Aly were playing together walking around in headlock position. Noah liked it, surprisingly.

A little more organized playroom downstairs. Every evening though it looks as if a tornado came through.

Sean had no school today (Wednesday), so we played downstairs in the morning before his OT (occupational therapy).

We are learning to share. Sharing is still a big issue for us. Sean was wanting the carp toy Aly has in this photo.

Here, Noah's standing on the bar stool trying to grab wine glasses on the cupboard. He realized that he can pretty much reach anything with a bar stool. Slick guy.

We had a somewhat typical Wednesday today, me running around in my minivan hauling kids to places. I say somewhat because our nanny Chio was not feeling well and she left at 1:00. She normally stays until 3:30 on Wednesdays. She's been having a headache and her cheeks looked red, so I thought it would be best she goes home and rest. I felt bad that I made her go to Crossroads mall with me this morning with Sean, Aly and Saya! Sean has OT from 11:00 with Jessica, so I thought I would drop Chio, Aly and Saya off at the mall during therapy so that the girls can get out of the house.

The kids like to drive around after dark (it gets dark after 5 here now) because they enjoy looking at Christmas lights in the neighborhood. We put it up last weekend on our house, however it kind of looks a little beaten up since there are blocks of lights that are burned out. Sean still loves looking at Christmas trees. We set it up last Sunday in our house and every morning he runs down to look at it. I think Christmas is his favorite. It is very exciting for him to see all these decorations everywhere in town. Of course, if Sean's excited about something, the younger ones are also. Sean makes everything official for them.

I have been busy everyday but it seems even busier these days. It's not the shopping, but I seem to be running around doing something but not accomplishing much. My mind must be busy thinking of all things I have to do (what are they?) and having hard time focusing. I need to start writing things down so that I can cross them off the list. Well, that's about it for today. I better get some sleep so that I can function better tomorrow!

Xander's 1st Birthday Party

Aly and Sean having fun at the table.
The birthday boy!

Beautiful private room at the steakhouse.

Saya ate well as usual.

Xander and me - I love the colors of his clothes.

Aly pretty much ate the entire cake all by herself.

Jen decorated a Costco made cake and made it look like a wedding cake, WOW!

Kevin and Jen's son, Xander, turned one on December 3, and they had a Korean style birthday party for him on Saturday. Saya is 7 month older than Xander, but he is about the same size as Saya (and Saya's not small). He is a very happy little boy and I am sure he'll be a nice pal for Saya, if she wouldn't boss him around!

The party was held at a nice steakhouse in downtown Bellevue and everything was set up beautifully. There was a table with symbolic offerings and Jen was explaining what each item means, however I must admit I wasn't paying close attention (I had the peripheral vision switch on to keep track of the kids). They were all pretty though. :-) The lunch was delicious and kids ate well. We met some nice people and had fun chatting with them.

Xander changed into the traditional outfit after lunch and he looked ADORABLE with little black hat and bright colored silk clothing. He didn't want to keep the hat on after a while, but we got some nice pictures. After blowing the solo birthday candle, they had a traditional fortune telling game where you line up items such as money, pencil and ball which have symbolic meaning like wealth, education and athleticism etc... and Mr. Xander chose a basketball, computer mouse, and money. I guess he is going to be an athletic computer guy with money!

Kids were a little overstimulated towards the end, but we enjoyed being part of Xander's birthday celebration. The Collins are wonderful family and we are so glad we live a few houses down and our kids are best friends (however, Parker and Sean started to argue more these days).

Thank you Kevin and Jen for having us at the party!!

Thanksgiving Festivities

A big crowd at Hemker's!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Saya with aunt Wilma

Saya stealing Grandpa's food. Grandpa got tickles from Saya's antenna.

Sam, Laura and Grant playing with Sean. Grant is pretending to jump onto Sean from the ottoman.

Aly jumping onto Laura.

Paul playing Wii bowling game. A French lady Mariline and Tom looking on on the right.

At the hotel - Saya looked like a sci-fi character wearing her snow boots with white tights.

This is where all began. The BSU Student Union building where Mike and I met 14 years ago. We explained to kids that they should be thankful this place existed.

Three generation photo. This is the third edition. The first one was Sean only and the second one was missing Saya.

The kids fell asleep as soon as we left Grandma's house to go to the restaurant.

Little diners. They looked so cute!

Kirk worked hard to keep kids busy as he promised!

Warning!! This is a long post!!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

We drove down to Boise for Thanksgiving this year. As I wrote on my last post, we had a big snow storm a few days before the trip. It seemed like we might not be able to make it but thanks to steady traffic flow and sunny weather, the mountain pass was in decent shape the day we left. We'd done our research this time and knew exactly which town to take a break at and where to go (McDonald's indoor play areas). The kids did great and whined much less than we expected. Mike and I even could have some conversations! By the time we arrived at our hotel, we were so tired. The excitement and extreme fatigue didn't mix so well and the kids were just going crazy. They were jumping on the bed until 1am and Mike and I felt pretty sorry for ourselves (and that did not help at all).

The next day, we headed out to uncle Kirk's to see everyone. We were invited to their long time neighbor and friend, Hemker's hosue, for Thanksgiving. I've known them since I started dating Mike and was excited to see them again. I have the best family in the universe! Well, at least I think they are perfect for me. We live far, but we just pick up where we left off. I love their dry sense of humor, because I cannot take it any other way. The kids felt comfortable very quickly with everyone (although Sean was a bit scared of Kirk's dog, Pax). Even grandpa Bob put Saya to sleep for a nap.

We walked over to Hemker's around 4 pm and had a fantastic time there. We had a big crowd there and they had the longest dining room table I have ever seen. Their children, Laura and Paul, who were teenager and pre-teen have all grown up. They are a beautiful family. The amount of food we had was ridiculous. I don't think I was able to eat every dish because there were about at least 2 different varieties of each. I was so full, I could only eat a slice of grandma's eggnog pie for dessert. The kids did great at the party. No fit, no fight, just giggles and smiles. They were the only children there and everyone was willing to play with them. Sean and Aly were jumping on to Laura, Laura's boyfriend Grant and cousin Sam from the ottoman and Saya joined the spin on the coffee table game, too, where they spinned the kids really fast. It was the sort of gathering we used to have with my extended family in Japan. We enjoyed it very much. Thanks, Hemker family for having us!

The main reason we were determined to get to Boise was because Friday was grandma Marie's 90th birthday. We were very excited to be able to celebrate it with her. We spent Friday afternoon at grandma Marie's house, kept eyes on the kids not to break her antique collections. We then went off for a dinner at Murphy's for a family birthday dinner. Marsha booked a private room with a door so that the kids can run around if they wanted to. That was a very nice thinking, but the kids stayed perfectly happy on their high chair thanks to all the attention they were getting. Kirk kept bugging Sean, asking him if he could have his food and Sean in return were all worked up trying to protect the food he wouldn't even consider eating (celeries and carrots etc...) I sat on the opposite end of the table from the kids and they let me relax and visit with the women. We ended the party singing grandma a happy birthday song with a party noise maker thingy (don't know what they are called) and the kids thought it was hilarious. Grandma looked happy and it was all worth it.

We left the next day, Saturday, at 8 am and arrived home at 6:00 pm. The highway in Oregon was completely white with snow and ice, but we made it safe. We don't see the family in Boise so often and we were so glad to be able to spend some time with them. We will plan to visit again next summer. It was very nice seeing you all. I was not able to see any friends this time since we had a very short stay but looking forward to catching up with them next summer!!