week of 02-03 thru 02-10

This week was very.. interesting.(let me just put it that way)
See this picture of Kyle, it shows you how this week was for him meaning for me as well.

 

Wednesday: Morning-both boys had an appointment to check their growth.

A lady who checked Kyle's growth chart asked " Are you feeding him junk?"

I said "WHAT?! you mean junk food? NO!" 

The reason why she asked that ridiculous question was that Kyle gained 5lb in 4months, which was a lot for his age. Well, I guess he is hitting his growth spurt. 

Speaking of food, these are some of the things I cooked this week.

Ika-Meshi (stuffed squid)作ってみたかったけどなかなかできてなかった一品！

やっとできたー

Miso soup, fried rice, homemade dumplings and kim-chee

vegetarian tomato and veggie stew, basil artichoke pizza and fish roe spaghetti.

Ok, so Wednesday, appointment went wild just because I had two of my monsters on me and they fought for the whole entire 1.5hrs appointment. Never again!

Come home and Kyle peed on the floor.

While I was cleaning that up, he spilled a jar candle's melted was on countertop. (yes, he CLIMBED up! such a waste of energy!!)

Sean come home from school and broke a ball pointed pen and the ink splashed all over our favorite leather couch and himself. By the time I noticed, I could see his foot steps and finger prints all over the place! I quickly washed Sean in the bath tub but as I was doing it, I got the ink all over my cloth! Taaaaaaa!!!! I was about to kill myself that day.

Saturday, Ian had to go for a training for the whole day. Kyle woke up screaming around 4a.m. and he was loud enough that it woke all of us up. Sean who can't go back to sleep once he is up stayed up since then. What can you think of doing on early Saturday morning? garage sale! 

I drugged them in the car and drove to a couple of different garage sales. I got them some toys for 10 cent each. I think that was my best investment for that day.

Sean with his new toys: blow-up dino and transformer.

took them to walk(or run)) with their new toys. there was no better solution than this for the crazy kids!

Kyle got a fire man hat and a transformer.

They didn't take any nap at home so I drove them around to make them fall asleep. And here they were!

week of 01-28 thru 02-03

 Ian came back to life after having a debilitating 24hrs flu on Monday.

月曜日、イアンが魔の２４時間の病から復帰

I was hoping that no one else would get it..

他の人に移らないといいけど。。と思っていた矢先

Tuesday, I got it and was dead for 24hrs.

火曜日、私に移って２４時間死にました

Watch out everyone, it's really contagious!

Saturday, we went to a big festival here called "cherry blossom festival".

It was a Hawaiian version of a Japanese traditional festival.

We went there with our friends who dressed up in their "yukata".

They were very cute!

The picture below is "mochi tsuki(rice cake pounding)".

It's always interesting for me as a Japanese to find some random Japanese traditional things being carried over to later generations here in Hawaii.

土曜日、ここワイメアで”桜祭り”と呼ばれる大きなお祭りがありました。

ここの日本人のお友達と一緒に行きました。浴衣姿、かわいかったです。

日本のお祭りなのですが、やっぱりハワイの文化が混じっていて、

どっちかというと日系のお祭り？！でした。

下の写真は餅つきの写真。

ここハワイに来て、とってもランダムに日本の文化が受け継がれているのを見て、面白いなあ、とちょっと微笑んでしまう私。

餅つきが見れるとは思いませんでした。

 

week of 01-21 thru 01-28

 I have a friend who sends out their updated email every Sunday night.

That made me realize how rarely I get to talk to my parents nowadays.

I'm such a slacker that I'm so bad at keeping the blog updated regularly..

But I will try this year to be better with this.

I promise!

OK, this week, I went to "PECS trainings" on the 22nd and 23rd.

PECS is a way to communicate with children who are non-verbal using pictures.

I've known this method but didn't know exactly how to use them.

A guy who invented this method came from Baltimore and trained all the teachers in Bid Island.

I was invited to join them as a parent and I learned a lot.

Friday, we all went to Kona Temple where the kids had childcare by our ward member family so Ian and I got to go there by ourselves.  We were able to sit together and pray/meditate. Had a wonderful time.

Saturday, we went to few garage sales and spend half of the day at a beach called "A-Bay".

This beach's ocean has a pretty light greenish blueish color. I love the contrast of that color and the black lava color. Beautiful. 

At night, we went to our friends' house for dinner. We all had a great day.

Today, Ian got sick. He had nausea, chill and fever! 

Hope he gets well soon.

おじいさん訪問 Papa's visit

Ian's dad is teaching in "semester at sea" this year again.

He is going around the world which I am very jealous with!

His ship ported in Hilo for two days so we had him over to our place.

It was a lot of fun (you can see in the boys' faces)

It was too bad that we had to concentrate everything in two days!

Hope he could come stay with us longer next time.

Have a nice trip, papa!

食！Food Food Food!!!

Since my profession was changed in to "say at home mom",

I've been learning how to cook.(not just how to cook, how to cook things to taste/look better!)

I wasn't enjoying it at first but I had to do it in order to live within our budget.

Now, I realized that I actually enjoy cooking more than before.

I even noticed that I'm becoming more and more critical to restaurant dishes etc that aren't tasty or healthy enough for us to pay for it! haha

This year, we are trying to eat less meat. (except fish)

I set a goal that I plan at least two days in a week that I don't cook any meat.

We've been feeling a lot better with our new diet so far.

If any of you have some good recipes for vegetarian, let me know!

ニット Knitting Project

I was taking a break from my knitting project for a while.

Since we were moving to Hawaii, I wasn't thinking that I would be knitting in Hawaii.

Well, we moved to a part of an island that gets pretty cold and that makes me want to knit!

This is my first project here.

She is adorable!

感謝祭 Thanksgiving

Thanks to my creative husband who came up with this idea

In order to prep ourselves for Thanksgiving, we started to write something that we are thankful for 

everyday after dinner.

"Count Your Blessings!"

It is true. It helped us to realize how blessed we are and how we should ALWAYS have something to be thankful for.

ショーン４歳に Sean 4th B-day

This year, we decided to hold his party at home.

We only invited his classmates and close friends so that he could handle the noise etc.

He enjoyed it. 

I baked tons of cupcakes and made a dinosaur:) 

Happy Birthday, Sean!

追加写真 Additional Pics

広島で七五三の前撮りをしたときの写真追加

Some additional pictures of the boys from this summer in Hiroshima

 Well, someone was such a bum that day so this is his only portrait:P

 A photo studio with mickey mouse.. well business oriented.

go go disney!

This is the picture that drove the photographers nuts since they were not cooperating with anything.

You can tell from their faces. haha