1. The kids watched Home Alone for the first time this week and were rolling on the ground with laughter. They are the perfect age for that kind of humor. It was hilarious!
2. Ryan is in Chicago for 10 days on business. I am trying not to be jealous that he's in a country that actually celebrates Christmas. The lights, the food, the Christmas spirit! But thinking about all the candy, presents and food he's bringing back for me soothes my troubled heart. (almost)
3. my right eye is not taking contacts so great anymore. Even with eye drops I have started wearing contacts only when I'm going out or I know I'm going to see someone. I have always said that I would never do laser eye surgery because it scares me to death, but if contacts become not an option I might have to get brave because I HATE wearing glasses!
4. This weekend I saw a bus stop mom out at the school fundraiser event. She didn't recognize me (at the bus in the morning I am in pajamas and no hair or makeup) and then came up and apologized for not recognizing me and told me how young and pretty I looked. note to self: wear makeup more often!
5. next week I'm hosting my first neighborhood luncheon! Our expat community is big on luncheons and in the 3 years we've lived here I've never volunteered to host one, mainly b/c I've felt intimated. I've been introduced to a whole new expat world. I don't have a huge georgeous home for everyone to oohh and awww over, which seems to be one of the reasons people enjoy hosting, and also don't have luncheon plates or flatwear for 40 like so many women have over here. But I do like to have people over and am going to break out the paper plates and suck in my pride. It's going to be a great Christmas party. And I'll even put on makeup and do my hair for my bus stop friend.
6. I'm on another washi egg kick. just finished a Christmas set. Also bought a few perfect eggs from "the professional washi lady" to compare them to mine. It's outrageous what she charges for one egg, but I am determined to make mine as good as hers. $6-$10 per egg depending on the complexity of the pattern.
7. if you're wondering why this post has no pictures it's because I don't know how to load the pictures onto our computer. We got a new computer in Sept. and I still haven't figured it out. I've just been relying on Ryan. so no pictures till he gets back. I think this will be an early New Years Resolution for myself.
8. I love, love, love, my primary presidency! We had a meeting today and I was reminded of how thankful I am for wonderful friends who make me laugh.
9. I'm excited to go to pack meeting this Friday because I have a new awesome Mount Fuji patch I got for climbing Mt. Fuji back in September. (I'm a dork, I know!)
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
soccer
soccer is finally over. Trent really loves soccer. he is constantly showing me new moves, and kicking anything that even remotely resembles a ball. I love all his different soccer faces!
Monday, November 23, 2009
a visit home (or the next best thing!)
last Saturday was cub scout fun day for 4 different English speaking cub scout packs. and it was hosted by the Yokota Airforce base cub scouts which means, we got to go to the base!!! and it was better than I'd even imagined. it was like we were back in the United States! so nice we were trying to figure out how we could get Ryan to work for the government so we could always have base access.
Even though we weren't allowed to shop in any of the stores or do stuff...like a movie theater actually playing the real movies that are playing back home! and a really huge american grocery store!!! which was actually kind of like cruel torture to be able to stand in the door and look around and know that you can't buy anything. what I would have done for one box of cold cereal... we could eat in the food court. a real food court with all the regular restaurants. Burger King, Taco bell, Cinnabon, I could go on and on and on. it was heaven. we weren't really even hungry b/c they had fed us hot dogs and chips at the cub scout thing, but eat we did. a ton. and then we brought some home too! It was one of the best days we've had in a long time.
they made and raced their boats.
the firemen set up a smoke house where you're up on the second story and they fill it with fake smoke so you can't see anything and you have to feel your way out. Trent is standing in the door, going in and he LOVED it!
Ryan is giddy with joy eating his bean burrito with Taco Bell in the background. We panicked at first when we realized that we forgot to bring dollars. We only had yen with us. but luckily, Ryan had a credit card with him.
and there was even a Chili's! Did you hear me???? A CHILI'S!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy cow.
Even though we weren't allowed to shop in any of the stores or do stuff...like a movie theater actually playing the real movies that are playing back home! and a really huge american grocery store!!! which was actually kind of like cruel torture to be able to stand in the door and look around and know that you can't buy anything. what I would have done for one box of cold cereal... we could eat in the food court. a real food court with all the regular restaurants. Burger King, Taco bell, Cinnabon, I could go on and on and on. it was heaven. we weren't really even hungry b/c they had fed us hot dogs and chips at the cub scout thing, but eat we did. a ton. and then we brought some home too! It was one of the best days we've had in a long time.
they made and raced their boats.
the firemen set up a smoke house where you're up on the second story and they fill it with fake smoke so you can't see anything and you have to feel your way out. Trent is standing in the door, going in and he LOVED it!
Ryan is giddy with joy eating his bean burrito with Taco Bell in the background. We panicked at first when we realized that we forgot to bring dollars. We only had yen with us. but luckily, Ryan had a credit card with him.
and there was even a Chili's! Did you hear me???? A CHILI'S!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy cow.sewing up a storm
I've been on a sewing kick lately. I go in phases. September was washi eggs, October somehow whizzed by and I have no idea what I did and now I'm ready to sew. Although everytime I quilt something it never comes out exactly even, I still love to make stuff. We had 2 sewing classes this month in Relief Society. Christmas table toppers and flirty aprons. I love the apron!
I've decided that I would like each of my children to have a "Japan" quilt to remember their time here and I'm finally starting. The boys will have Shinkansen quilts. They picked out their own fabric. Hopefully you'll be seeing great things in the upcoming months from this fabric...Below is Jake's fabric.
and this is Trent's. I've been working all week and Trent's is almost done! They want minky on the back. did I spell that right?
I've decided that I would like each of my children to have a "Japan" quilt to remember their time here and I'm finally starting. The boys will have Shinkansen quilts. They picked out their own fabric. Hopefully you'll be seeing great things in the upcoming months from this fabric...Below is Jake's fabric.
and this is Trent's. I've been working all week and Trent's is almost done! They want minky on the back. did I spell that right?
cute idea
My mom made this really cute summer fan style collage for Emily. She also did it with her Young Women in the ward. I loved it so much I thought I'd do a blog about it. I love the flip flops on the ends. it sits on Emily's dresser and has all her favorite summer pictures.
Monday, November 9, 2009
a tween party
When Emily said she wanted a tie dye themed party I'll admit, I was not thrilled. But this is the perfect age for tie dying. (she'll be 10 tomorrow!!) It was a blast! The girls really put a lot of thought into their designs and rubber band placement. Ryan and I agreed that this was one of our better birthday parties we've thrown. And it was also a plus that Ryan was in charge of all the tie dying in the kitchen. He even did all the clean up!
soaking our shirts. We had three colors to choose from. blue, purple and pink
the finished products! the marble pattern was the most popular.
I'm a little embarrassed to let my mom see this cake. I am NOT a cake decorator, although I'd love to someday take classes at Michaels. In theory, it was a great cake. I read online that if you swirled around a few drops of food coloring it would look like tie dye. not true. it ended up looking like brown mush. yuck! but Emily thought it was great. right before the party I thought I'd spruce up the sides with stars or something and couldn't find any of my frosting tips. (I only had 3 or 4) then I remembered that the last time I frosted something it was a disaster and I threw away all my tips in a rage, vowing to never frost again. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. so I had to settle for snipping off the corner of a plastic baggie and making little circles.
After the tie dying we made these clay mini magnet tees. I thought my example (the tee shirt in the middle) was darling, but the girls had other things in mind. sigh...not a single tiny tie dye tee was made. But there were plenty of stars, hearts and alphabet letters. They could have sat at the table for an hour doing this project. But I had to hurry them along b/c they had to bake for 30 minutes and I wanted to make sure each girl got to take hers home that day. After the party, Trent and Emily used up all the leftover clay making about 30 magnets!!
Jake and Trent loved making their shirts too!
soaking our shirts. We had three colors to choose from. blue, purple and pink
the finished products! the marble pattern was the most popular.
I'm a little embarrassed to let my mom see this cake. I am NOT a cake decorator, although I'd love to someday take classes at Michaels. In theory, it was a great cake. I read online that if you swirled around a few drops of food coloring it would look like tie dye. not true. it ended up looking like brown mush. yuck! but Emily thought it was great. right before the party I thought I'd spruce up the sides with stars or something and couldn't find any of my frosting tips. (I only had 3 or 4) then I remembered that the last time I frosted something it was a disaster and I threw away all my tips in a rage, vowing to never frost again. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. so I had to settle for snipping off the corner of a plastic baggie and making little circles.
After the tie dying we made these clay mini magnet tees. I thought my example (the tee shirt in the middle) was darling, but the girls had other things in mind. sigh...not a single tiny tie dye tee was made. But there were plenty of stars, hearts and alphabet letters. They could have sat at the table for an hour doing this project. But I had to hurry them along b/c they had to bake for 30 minutes and I wanted to make sure each girl got to take hers home that day. After the party, Trent and Emily used up all the leftover clay making about 30 magnets!!
Jake and Trent loved making their shirts too!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Halloween
I've had a great time the past 2 days reading everyone's Halloween posts so I guess it's time to post mine. We had a witch, Obiwan kenobi and a dinosaur. lots of fun with the usual school parade and carnival, church party and trick or treating.
this was the only picture I got of Jake with his "head" on. he's holding a dinosaur egg.
Trent with friends trick or treating
loved the little belly on Jake's costume. Also, see what's at the top of his candy pile? yes that's rice crackers. no good stuff over here. the kids got rice crackers, marshmallows and hard candy. a few precious pieces of chocolate that would definitely be missed if I raided their stash. so I guess the good thing about all this is that I will NOT have to worry about gaining weight this Halloween season. 
after trick or treating the adults were all standing around talking and realized that all of our kids had disappeared. we found them in the lobby of our apartment building admiring each other's loot.
school parade--the principal and other office workers as the blue man group. they really get into it every year and I always look forward to seeing what they have come up with each year.
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