Grandma and Gigi

Gigi and Grandma were having some fun times this morning playing in the kid "library" (extra closet) this morning! I missed getting a picture of the 10 minutes of playing with one toy (There are not many people who will play that long with a baby with one toy except for a GRANDparent!), but I did get some sweet smiles of them looking at books. Gigi likes Mickey Mouse!

She was au naturale for a while because she has had a sore bottom from her antibiotics. But being naked is funny! ☺

She just lit up every time she saw Mickey and Minnie! ☺

We sure are going to miss Grandma!!!

Gigi's First Birthday Party

It was a "little" late, but we had our Grandma here and we had a super fun time! 

The base has several community rooms that you can use for free and we reserved the one that had a play gym in it. All of our favorite people were there from Iwakuni and it was quite a celebration! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves! :)

Her outfit still fit and was as sassy as it would have been 3 1/2 months prior!

I still had the most of the decorations and the cupcake toppers and favor bag ties will be good for the next party when they finally are found!

Poor little Gigi was diagnosed with a double ear infection that morning, but she was on the mend by evening!

It was such a nice room and lots to do!

Claire's best bud's Ryu's sister Kira came! She and Gigi about 3 months apart and had fun playing! This pictures CRACKS me up with Kira's nose and Gigi's nose and the slobber from her mouth. It's not a big mystery why kids this age get sick so often, is it?

Those are our new best friends Tim and Christine (on the left) and our old best friend Sophia on the right!

"What? I'm supposed to slide in the slide, not on top of it?"

Ryu now does "Hook 'em Horns!" with one hand and the peace sign on the other, just like Claire!

Claire's outfit was so CLAIRE!

Another of our best friends, Julia Goode, climbing the rock wall!

And here's Audrey and Ariele Goode on the rock wall!

When you have a zebra theme, it's pretty easy to get a cake to go with it! (And it was delicious, from Baskin Robbins.)

♪♫♪ Happy Birthday Dear Gigi! ♪♫♪

A great source of Mommy pride is how good Gigi is at playing dollies. ☺

This is Gigi's AWESOME and FABULOUS babysitter Julie. I don't have a picture of her daughter Aerin, but she was there too!

Claire and Ryu playing tea party! This was the gift from Mommy and Daddy. My fabulously talented friend Kristen made this traveling tea party and I coupled it with the Fisher Price tea set and Ryu and Kira gave her some play food. It was a HUGE hit!

We were so happy to have my Mom here!!!!! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARTY GIGI!!!!!!!!

We love you lots and lots and lots!

JanJakas

We haven't been able to get out in the big country of Japan with my Mom as much as we would like because of sickness, sickness and then more sickness...thrown in with our busy "usual" lives...it's crazy here! But I wanted to tell you about the one time we did get out to a Japanese restaurant with Mom, right when she got here! :)

It's called JanJakas and it is actually a "Korean BBQ" restaurant where they bring you the raw meat and you cook it on the stove on your table. 

All the girls liked turning the meat with the tongs. Even Claire! ☺

The seats are level with the floor, but the tables are inset in a cut-out so you have a place for your legs and feet. It is actually really comfortable! 

The girls L-O-V-E having Grandma here!!!

Look how beautiful my Mom looks as well as bright eyed! This is the second day she was here and she never looked like she had jet lag. These pictures actually make me realize how sick she is now because while still beautiful (of course) she looks sooooooo miserable right now. I ended up taking her to the doctor last night (under protest "Let's just give it one more day.") and they tested her for the flu, which was negative, thank Goodness! She has such a bad cold though and her throat was BLEEDING. I was ready to strangle her when I found that out! This was Saturday night that she told me and it had been bleeding since Friday! She is on augmentin, mucinix D and Tylenol for her 102.9 degree fever!

The Japanese high chairs are so cute and useful!

Gigi is pretty cute and useful too! ☺

All of the kids like edemame as does Mommy. 

It's funny....they'll eat it and eat it and eat it and the other day I bought some frozen edemame already out of the pods and they didn't like it. I guess part of the greatness of it is the adventure of eating it!

Gigi didn't stay in that silly high chair for long though!

Which made the dinner so much more exciting with the added level of keeping a baby off of the burning grill that was right in front of us! FUN! ☺

Olivia was our main chef, but I didn't get a picture of her cooking due to Gigi on my lap most of the dinner.

I like this picture of my cute girl because it also shows you how we are sitting level with the floor.

It was a really great dinner! I hope we can get out more and show Mom more of our town! Come on Augmentin! GET TO WORKING!

We all would drink to that! Melon soda for everybody!

Hooray for Grandma being here!

GET WELL SOON!

Mick's Exciting Book!

I like to read fluff. The fluffier the better. And preferably set in England or Ireland. Shopaholic books and anything else by Sophie Kinsella, which is the pseudonym of Madeleine Wickham, who I will read as well.... anything by Maeve Binchy....there's more, but I'm trying to hurry.

And Mick reads history and military stuff. Military history. World history. Current military stuff. Always learning. I've been relentlessly teasing him about this book that he just finished reading. He checked it out of our base library, which still uses the date stamp method.

He is the 7th person to have checked it out....since 1975. The last time it had been checked out was 1998.

It was about India gaining its independence from England and then at the same time India splitting into Pakistan and modern day India. At least that what I think he just said when I asked. 

☺

Rehearsal for Music Festival (Happyokai)

This morning, all of the parents from the Tamago class were invited to a rehearsal for Kawashimo's Music Festival. It is a rather large production, where the kids need to arrive by 9:00, they perform for a few hours, take a break (bring your own) for lunch and then resume performing until around 2:00, so they wanted to make sure us parents were prepared for all of our tasks.

(Saint) Sensei Ai prepared an extensive handout for us on what to do and what costumes to wear, etc.

I was very glad that my Mom was able to come to this event and will also be here for the Festival on Sunday!

Gigi is happy Grandma is here too! ☺

Aren't my eyes pretty? And that's chocolate milk on the right side of my face! ☺

There are four songs and they are really long. Sensei Ai must practice with them all of the time because all of the kids did really well!

The other little girl in Claire's class is gone right now, so Claire had the starring role in one of the songs. She did great!

This is Claire and Ko-chan. His parents seem very sweet.

This is where the boys come out and then Claire comes back and they chase after each other.

They got her!

Repetitive, I know, but I love the skip in her step here!

Claire was WAY more involved in the singing and dancing than she has been the last few times, but she still took the time to wave a few times!

And to make funny faces at her sister!

This song was in English. "The Colors of the Rainbow."

 One of the more experienced Moms told me that this is her favorite thing the Yochien does and while long and cold (no heat in the gym), the time passes quickly and it is very enjoyable. We'll tell you all about it after Sunday!

Peek-a-boo with the Littles

We have been having fun with Grandma!  But the other day, we were sitting at our dining room table when all of a sudden, Gigi disappeared!

Where did she go?!?!?

THERE SHE IS!!!

She sure tricked us! :-D

Then Tinker-Claire joined in the hiding fun!

She's gone, but there's a trace of beefaroni left behind!

HA!!!!!!

She tricked us too! ☺

Uh oh! Now I can't hear Gigi!!!!

Hello? Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?!?!?!?

Well, it's time to ride off into the sunset!

Blog at you later cowboys and cowgirls!

Audrey's Spelling Bee

Audrey was the winner of her class spelling bee a few weeks ago. We were very happy for her and went out and rented Spellbound, a very entertaining documentary about eight kids who competed at the 1999 National Spelling Bee. And let me just say...we never would make that kind of commitment. To say the least.

Today was the school spelling bee and Grandma, Daddy and I were in the audience. (So nice Grandma was able to be here!)

Her super sweet teacher, Mrs. Walker, had the kids make signs for the two class participants. Audrey on one side of the poster board, Kaede on the other. I love those pictures of Audrey! ☺

She went out on the word "Clearance" (ence at the end) and I teased her that she obviously needed to go shopping with Mommy more!!!!

Spelling bees are so nerve wracking and hard to do. I think it was a great experience for her to do it though and I'm really proud of her! ☺

The school's gifted teacher, the fabulous Mrs. Garner, ran it and had all of the kids sit down with the other kids after they were done spelling the word, regardless if they spelled it right or wrong. Then she had all of the kids who missed the word come up to get clapped off the stage. Such a kindler and gentler way of doing it instead of the "ding" and then leave the stage of the Scripps Spelling Bee!

Audrey kept a smile on the whole time. She may have felt disappointed, but she never ever lets anybody see that.

It was a fun experience! Two fifth graders were the top two who battled it out for first place and the second place girl (a friend of mine's daughter) missed on "versatile." The first place girl won on "Salary." Not sure if just the first place winner or both of them are now off to Tokyo for the Department of Defense "All Pacific Schools" Spelling Bee. The winner of that will go to the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. 

Audrey and her best bud, Shaina

I'm proud of you Audrey!!!!!!