Highlights from my Mom's visit

Always standing in the kitchen making food for us come meal time.

Taking the seeds out of cherries for the girls.

Reading with the girls.

Gets to sit in the best seat in the van, sandwiched by the boys car seats.

Some of my Mom's friends think my Mom comes to the U.S. for a vacation, but she comes to work when she visits us.  She takes control of our chores and keeps going like an energizer bunny all day long.  She cooks, cleans, teach reading and writing to kids, does laundry, the list goes on.  I don't know where she gets the energy, but I think I know now.  It comes from her heart, wanting to help her daughter out when she can.  Thanks, Mom for all you do!  I am hoping I will be just as youthful as you are when I am a grandmother and help my children when they need me! 

Grandpa and Shasha's visit

Dinner with grandpa and Shasha.  Aly's face tels us we had spaghetti.

At the restaurant on Lake Union - Tina is a part of our family now.

We sang him the Happy Birthday song and he was quite embarrassed.

It's not easy to embarrass him.

The GQ cover models... well, now that Mike shaved his beard off, realized he looked pretty goofy with his bushy mustache! 

At the Fremont market.  To people from Grandpa's generation, they are all junks!

Driving into Fremont - an artist in me cannot resist a pretty scenery.

Two musicians at the market.  I went in a store to warm up since it was freezing outside. 

Ok, the posts are obviously all mixed up.  Bob and Marsha visited us from 12/8 to 12/12.  It was Bob's birthday on December 5, so we celebrated his birthday with sushi on the Lake Union!  They have no chance of getting fresh sushi in Lewiston, so I am glad they had an opportunity to feast on them.  Aaron and Tina arrived on Saturday night and we had a good time catching up.  The kids are always happy to see their extended family and they were content to have their favorite people at our house all to themselves! 

Christmas 2011

So finally, I am getting to Christmas! 
My Mom arrived from Japan on the eve and that put me in the Christmas mood.  She is like Santa Clause with her suitcase full of presents and my favorite foods from Japan.  Kids were super excited to see her because it means they'll be well taken care of while she is here. Of course, the presents don't hurt!

Sean and Alyson get how things go on Christmas day.  Sean woke up first and found the stockings filled with presents inside.  He was good about waiting until everyone woke up.   We had our kids get dressed and eat their breakfast before opening presents.  Needless to say, the breakfast was a piece of cake~

We didn't go overboard with presents this year.  Each kids got two toys and small things here and there.  Sean received a moon wall light and rocket toys, Aly got lolaloopsy doll and Hello Kitty Squinkie, Noah got a wooden puzzle and rock climbing shoes, and Saya received lolaloopsy doll and Anpanman juice vending machine toy.  Grandma gave them special toys from Japan and they all started to play with them immediately.   Mike bought me a pressure cooker I've wanted for ages and I got him a bike t-shirt and slippers.  I am glad we decided to do it low key this year.  It had worked out quite nicey - no melt downs from over-stimulation!

The Christmas has such a long build up, but then it's gone in an instance.  I enjoyed this Holiday season even more than last year since the children were more excited and intrigued by the traditions of Christmas.  We will see what next year brings.  Who knows, Noah might be more involved next year!

Noah's Ginger Bread Party at School

Noah looks uninterested, but he had fun touching icing, gooey mashmallows etc...

Noah playing puzzles with friends.  Ms. Sharon on the left.

This is another missed December post as well.  Boy, what a back log!
In the last week of school before Holiday break, Noah's preschool class at Phantom Lake had a gingerbread decoration party.  I had gone to all the parties Sean's class had in preschool and I have not been thorough with Noah's class events, mainly because I am having hard time juggling children's different schedules.  Life sure was simpler when the twins didn't have school. 

It was good to see that Noah was perfectly comfortable with his teachers and friends and was somewhat following the flow of the class.  In the end, he needs to learn to function in the classroom setting and I think he is doing a much better job than last year.  He was interested in eating the gingerbread than decorating it, but he was not the only one!  Most parents came for their child and most of us were quite busy helping the youngster decorate their gingerbread house. 

After the party, I observed what Noah does during the choice time.  He went straight to the puzzle area and played with the puzzles.  He is getting very skillful with puzzles and his educators agree.  His aid, Sharon, has a high school aged son who has severe Autism.  She came to me and said she thinks Noah is going to be fine.   She believes he is very smart and has a lot of potential.  Hearing it from experienced Mom and special education aid made me feel assuring and I was happy that there are some people out there that see beyond his obvious delays. 

Noah turely is changing a lot in the past four months or so and I have a feeling that we are going to see a big change by the time he turns five.  I was happy to see Noah in his school environment and came out feeling good about my little man and his future!

Zoolander Girls

This shot is from December.  Amy came to watch the kids during the winter break and that means the girls hairs will look pretty.  I went somewhere and came home to find two girls with enormous buns on top of their head.  The buns wobbled as they talk or walk and it was the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

Snow Storm 2012

Saya had so much fun in snow, she didn't want to go inside.

Mike clearing the driveway.  It snowed and snowed the next day and gotten about 7 inches more.

Sean enjoyed sledding and so did the entire kids on the neighborhood.

Aly wanted to sled all by herself.

Saya bear. She got tired and just sat down to rest.

Pretty winter scene.

Last Wednesday, a big snow storm hit the Puget Sound and turned out world all white for a few days.  I drove to YMCA for my bolywood workout on Tuesday night, but the Y was closed early for pending snow storm.  I looked up at the sky and doubted it really coming.  The sky was clear with some clouds and it wasn't that cold at all.  I went home, a little disappointed and looked at the weather map online.  It mentioned something about wet moisture from the south and cold arctic air from the north combined makes a serious snow weather.  It said the snow will start falling on early morning on Wednesday and boy they were right!  I woke up at 6 am and the whole neighborhood was covered in snow!

Sean was super excited to see the snow.  He was jumping up and down in his pj.  The school called previous night to report there is now school that day, so we had all day to admire and play in snow.  That means Mike also worked from home.  The driving conditions or the other drivers I must say pose quite a danger driving in snow in this area.  We rarely get snow and everyone freaks out with slight snow on the road. 

After lunch, the neighborhood kids started to come out and play in snow.  I dag out show gears for the kids and put them in the bulky, warm clothes.  Saya became quite round with all the clothes Mommy made her wear.  I could not find the gloves for Alyson and she had to play in wool mittens instead of waterproof kinds.  I also pulled out the sled we brought from California out of the shed.  Our front yard is slightly sloped, so we had fun sledding in our own front yard!  The children cook turns without fighting and we all had a good time.  I was getting cold and bored, but the kids could have played there all day. 

I stocked up on food and necessities prior to the storm's arrival so we did not have to go out at all.  I did not go out for five days and I was quite stir crazy.  The kids also were all couped up in the house except playing in snow and started to fight a lot towards the end.   The snow lasted for a while but finally melted by Saturday. 

Snow storm, it was fun having you but thank goodness you left!  I hope not to see you for another year~

Happy New Year ~

"What's this?", Sean had lots of questions at the shrine.

Shake that thing!

Checking out what else is goin on.

What's up with children and rocks?

We want to get out, too!

My Mom made all these by herself!

Let's eat!!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the brand new year.  Something took over me from mid December on and I was avoiding logging on to my blog.  I made countless excuses not to turn on the computer in the office.  Maybe blogging became another item on the countless to do list over the Holiday season, who knows.  But here I am!  Ready to blurb about all the chaos and joys my family regales me. 

This is the longest absent I had ever since I started this blog four years ago (wow, four years) and I don't know how I should be filling in the blank...  I hate to leave some things out since we did do a lot of memory-worthy stuff.  In this post, I will write about the New Year's Day since I want to my very first post of 2012 to be fresh and current.  I will write about Christmas etc... in the next few posts so that I won't leave them out. 

In Japan, we spend the New Year's Day eating the traditional dish called Osechi, which the women spend days cooking prior to the New Year's day.  This year, we decided to follow this tradition and asked my poor Mom (she was visiting from Japan) to make some for us.  I had to have it for the CHILDREN, you know?  My Mom did a very good job and the girls liked fish cake the best.  Sean surprised me and ate some boiled octopus and shiitake mushrooms!  I was very proud of him. 

After breakfast, we drove up to Granite Falls to visit a shinto shrine to give a New Year's prayer.  This is the shrine Mike and I spent about four days in late 90s for an Aikido camp.  I would have never imagined we would go back again 13 years later with four children in hand!  The shrine was packed with mostly Japanese visitors and a few wore kimono.  The children were wide-eyed and asking a lot of questions.  Sean and Alyson walked and Saya and Noah sat on the double stroller.  We first washed our hands and rinsed our mouth at the stone water basin and entered the main area for prayer to pay our respect.  We threw the money into the donation box, shook the bells, clapped twice and bowed twice.   I am not sure if it was the correct order, but I often got lectured when I mess up the order in Japan, too.  At least no one else knew how to do it right, either. 

The shrine has a beautiful river in its premises, so we decided to check it out afterwards.  The river bank was covered by rocks of all shapes and sizes and, of course, all my childrens' light bulbs lit up and decided to throw rocks into the river.  Mr. Noah charged towards the river and he looked like he wanted to practice the traditional purification ceremony of submerging into the freezing river,  so I stopped him and put him back in the stroller.  He did not like that at all.  He was screaming to be set free and I was getting a lot of stares, so decided to go back to the car with him and wait for the rest.  According to my Mom, Saya kept grabbing the little ceramic frog displayed by the pathway to the river and didn't want to let it go.  She kept running around near the river and scaring my poor Mom, making her run around, too, chasing the little chunker.  Sean and Alyson could have spent all day throwing rocks in the river, but they did come back not so long after I brought Noah back to the car. 

It was a gorgeously sunny day and we were happy we got to spend time together out in the beautiful countryside, teaching our children the Japanese traditions.  The orange pearl of the sky as we drove home was so peaceful, it made all of us feel blessed.   If how we spend the New Year's Day represent the sentiment of the entire year like some Japanese do believe, this year is going to be a blissful year.  I am not looking forward to entering the fourth decade of my life, but I am ready to conquer another year and inch towards the person I want to become. 

Thank you for reading my blog!  I will never quit blogging.  By blogging, I can look at my life from a third person's perspective and it makes me realize how lucky I am to have my family and friends.   Have a wonderful year, everyone!