Amy Baby!

One day I got a text from Amy, our former nanny, that she is expecting a baby in June.  I almost fell off my chair!  My Amy who in my mind is still a college kid (who is a full-time first grade teacher in Seattle) is having a baby!  It made me feel old, more so than on Sean's 8th birthday!  I am so happy for her and her fiancé and cannot wait to meet the cute little baby.  I know one thing that baby is going to have for sure - hip and stylish clothes!  Amy was my fashionista and I always looked forward to seeing what she decided to wear when she walked in.  Saya also enjoyed her shoe collection since Amy was a self-claimed shoeholic and owned many different shoes.  Saya as a baby and toddler was equally fascinated by shoes and tried on every single shoes Amy left by the door.  

They are not going to find out the gender until birth and the whole family and friends are making their own guessing bets on boy or girl.  In my humble and unreliable opinion, her fiancé looks like a father to a little girl however, Amy's vibe is a boy.  So, I am torn and have no clue!  Congratulations Amy star!  You are like a baby sister to me and I am so excited to that you are starting a new journey of Motherhood.   You will be a great Mother - I know for a fact because you took an excellent care of my babies.  You could even handle twins at 23 years-old!   So, go have that baby and enjoy every minute!  You know how quickly babies grow up.

The pictures are from the baby shower at the end of April.  I took the girls with me and we had a very good time, not to mention lots of good food.  The girls thought their candy station was the best thing ever and had lots and lots of candies.  I was so happy to see Chio, Amy's Mom, too.  Amy's family is amazingly kind and I admire them very much.  I hope we can build a warm and caring family like them. 

Happy Birthday, Saya!

 

 

My baby girl turned big five in the last week of April.  The surprise baby is not a baby anymore but she will forever be my baby.  She was so excited to be five and thought being five would mean she is going to be half of a grown-up.  She thought she would earn lots of privileges like eating ice creams whenever she wants to (that is a grown-up privilege, isn't it?) but that is a wishful thinking, Saya! 

We opted to not having a party this year for her since I was too slow to organize one and kind of tired of having kids' parties at home.  Instead, I took the three kids (not Noah) to an overnight stay at an indoor pool resort, Great Wolf Lodge, about an hour and half south of Bellevue.  It was a big surprise for them and kids were stunned like they won a jackpot.  I wish I had captured their reaction on a camera!  I picked up Sean and Aly at school at 11:45 and they had no idea where they were going.  I had already packed their luggage so we went straight to the resort after school.  Saya didn't remember her last visit to the resort since she was only about 2 years old.  The kids loved it of course and I was just plain wiped from being a chaperon to three excited children.  I mean, Sean woke up at 5 am, ready to swim!

The highlight of Saya's birthday must be (I hope) her cake.  I baked a sponge cake with strawberry cream filling.  The decoration was her favorite American cartoon character from Little Pet Shop series.  It took all of Sunday morning, but it was worth it.  I love making cakes for my babies.  Spring is a busy time for baking for me with three kid birthdays.  She received gifts from Mom and Dad, all her siblings, Nana and grandma.  All the gifts were spot on and that made Alyson very jealous.  I think she was crying much of the time while Saya was opening her presents.  She is only a year older after all.  I forget that because Alyson is very very tall. 

I think Saya had an excellent 5th birthday.  She is such an one of a kind type of person and brightens my day everyday.  I love you so much Saya! 

Easter 2014

 

 

Easter has been around at stores since February and so when it actually arrived, my impression was "it's about time!" It didn't mean though I had plenty of time to prepare and of course Mike and I were stuffing the eggs with goodies the night before yawning.   I know the kids look forward to it every year.  They have so much fun egg hunting like it's a second Halloween.  We are not a religious family however coming from a spiritual culture like Japan, I kind of miss having the larger than life element in our lives.  I learned to be respectful to nature and be humble through Shinto and Buddhist teachings although I am not a member of neither religion.  Their teachings are sort of blended into everyday life in Japan.  It would be nice to introduce our children to varieties of customs and beliefs through Holiday like Easter not just the presents and catchy fun activities they gravitate towards to. 

We had Nana over for Easter dinner.  I served oven roasted lam and asparagus, spring beets salad with goat cheese and roasted pine nuts, deviled eggs, and sourdough bread.  Nana brought mushed potatoes, which was very nice.  I think the dinner turned out great!  I hardly ever make a lam dish but it was tender and flavorful.  I enjoy cooking very much, so it was a lot of fun to whip up a special meal for my family.

We had a very nice Easter again this year.  I am hoping Noah develops more interest in collecting eggs next year.  He found some eggs but didn't really see any point in keeping them.  The girls were adorable in their dresses.  I am glad we have two little girls to dress up.  Sorry boys only parents.  You are missing out a bit!

Sean's Walk of Fame

Sean's class had a biography presentation event a couple of weeks ago called "walk of fame".  Each student had a famous historical figure to present and Sean picked John F. Kennedy.  They all made a poster with a drawing and wrote about the subject.  I thought they are going to present it in front of the class but instead they had a mini presentation in front of their desk.  The audience was to push a "button" on the presenter's hand to hear about the subject, sort of like a recording at a museum exhibition.  I thought that was a clever idea!  Sean did great and looked like enjoying himself.  There were many parents and grandparents jam packed in the classroom and it was very hot.  Poor boy who was wearing a white colonial wig, hat and heavy jacket was sweating.  Sean opted not to dress as JFK.  I honestly didn't know how JFK typically dressed.   I was proud of all of them as I knew how hard they all worked for this project.  They thrive with sense of accomplishment and warm encouraging words.  I hope all students grew more confident and had a positive experience in their first biography project. 

Roller Skating Party

Saya's friend from Gymnastics had a birthday party the other day at a local skate link.  It's the same place we went to when Sean and Aly's school had a Halloween roller skate event.  It was therefore Saya's second time skating and she had lots of fun.  She is a careful type and prefers to hang on to the railing until she feels confident.  She did not cry nor get frustrated even though she fell countless times.  I remember sort of throwing myself out there when I was little, but I may have been much older than her.  She was sweating from all the falling and balancing, and she was so tired by the time they had cake.  The birthday girl was so cute in her pink fluffy dress and looked very content.  Next up is Saya.  She is going to be five this coming Friday!!  I've decided to not do a party for her but instead take the kids to the Great Wolves Lodge.  I will still make a My Little Pet Shop cake for her on her birthday.  I can't believe my baby is going to be five! 

Botanical Garden and Baseball Game

April is another busy month with birthdays and spring break.  We have been fully packed with parties and outings every weekend and by the end of the day, I am too tired to do anything but slump on the couch.  I wish my body can recharge quickly like my cell phone but I feel sluggish everyday.  There gotta be something I am doing wrong -- like going to bed too late and not exercising.  Humph!!

The first batch of pictures are from when the girls and I took Grandma to Bellevue Botanical Garden.  The daffodils were pretty but the main attractions were the bright baby leaves on the trees.  They were lighting up the garden with gentle baby breath green.  My girls were so happy they were running around the garden.

 

 

The second batch is from when I took Sean to his first Mariner's game on Friday during the spring break.  The tickets for Sean and I were the birthday gift for me from Mike.  He totally surprised me about it.  I thought all along he had attempted to buy me my dream professional level camera without consulting with me.  That would be a big disaster if that had been the case since I only did a brief research about which camera to buy.   Like a wedding ring, the right fit has to be carefully selected when buying a dream camera, you know! 

 

We had a great time at the game.  Mariner's won 6 - 4 and we got to see a great play by Felix Hernandez, our ace pitcher and our new expensive guy, Robinson Cano.  Cano was a much talked about addition to Mariner's this year and a quite costly one, too.  He was paid $240 million to join Seattle and that amount is beyond understanding to Sean or even me.  He played well but we didn't get to see a powerhouse home run from him.  Sean was enjoying himself by cheering the team loudly and doing a little dance here and there.  Only one lament was having obnoxious drunk people behind us.  They were loud, full off adult languages, and didn't care about others at all.  The good thing was Sean didn't notice that at all, except for the lady scream bloody murder every 10 minutes for the fun of it.

 

 



 There they are!  It feels good to put these pictures up here.  It's been bugging me that I hadn't shared.  I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at photos!

My Birthday

I was fortunate this year to be able to celebrate my birthday with my Mom.  I am her 42 year-old baby and I feel quite ancient.  It's hard to believe so many years had past by even from my college days.  I swear I still remember those days just like yesterday.  I was telling my Mom that we used to have a typewriter lab in my college and it took me hours to type up a report since the whole process involved a lot of manual labors such as looking up correct spelling in the dictionary.   My first car was 1980 Honda Civic station wagon, table tennis green.  I was compared to Kristie Yamaguchi since she was the only Asian woman most people around me knew.  I once called my Mom and told her that I want to quit college because I wanted to become a race queen (a model for F-1 racing in Japan).  Even the fashion in 90s are made fun of these days and I lived my teenage years in 80s.  How cool is that!?  I recently tried to watch MTV for a background music while cleaning, but the music and video were nothing exciting.  There used to be a storyline in songs and videos in 80s like with Bon Jovi, Tom Petty, Boy George and A-ha.  It was a very exciting time also because the world was still very new to me.  It's a very different world compared to the high tech, convenience oriented age like today and I am glad I grew up in a slower paced world.  Enough about my mumbling!  In a nutshell, I am a very happy brand new 42-year-old who is surrounded by people I love.  That is all I can ask for!