week of 02-17 thru 02-24

 It's been really wet and cold here in Waimea.
I know I shouldn't complain about it since we can still drive down to beach and have nice weather but I just don't like being super cold in our house!! (for those of you who are wondering why I say I'm feeling cold in Hawaii- we live 2500ft above sea level, on the bottom of Mt.Mauna Kea which is covered with snow now!)
最近ここワイメアはとても寒くて雨が多いです。
少し運転したらビーチに快晴！という恵まれたところにいるのだから文句は言えないはずなのですが、ただ家の中にいるのに寒いのが嫌いな私。（ちなみに、なんでハワイなのに寒いの？と思っていらっしゃる方、ここは標高約８００メートル、世界一（水面から数えたら）高いマウナケア山の麓にあります。そして今頂上は雪で覆われている〜サブッ）


So, we've been working on some projects and the kids have been stuck in the house with their dinosaurs, dvds etc. I do have to admit that I've been a bad mom to let the dvds babysit my children!

ということで私たちは家に閉じこもることが多く、色んなプロジェクトをしてみました。子供たちは恐竜。DVDなどなど。。ただ正直な告白をさせてもらいますと、私、母親失格です。ついつい子供たちの守りをDVDに任せてしまっています。

Here is Ian's gundam figure.

 a healthy Japanese/Korean meal. I just bought a bag of 12grain mixed rice to add to our white&brown rice. It gave a nice pink color to it and got some nice texture to our "normal" rice.

 Speaking of healthy meal.. This guy found a jar full of m&m's that I accidentally left in his room right before he fell a sleep for his nap. It seems like that he ate a whole bunch and happily fell asleep and still holding the jar making sure no one else takes it! So Kyle. He is obsessed with food!!!

 The boys and the baby sitter(dvd). Look how well they behave!

 Ian's been a wonderful gardener planting some veggies and herbs in our little back yard space.

 my knitting project for Kyle. I've been wanting to buy a cute sweater from my favorite kids brands like GAP etc.. but can never afford them! So I knitted it. Almost done. cost $3.50 for the yarn! really, that's it!!!

week of 02-10 thru 02-17

 Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, everyone!

This week's post again starts with our mischievous child's photo.

Neither Ian and I remember taking a photo like this with our devices..

So, yes, this is really a suspicious photo of someone who took his own.

今週も彼の写真で幕開けです

イアンもワタシもこんな写真撮った覚えない

ということで、犯人、バレバレ

少しは隠れろよー

I wonder what he might have dreamed of..

何の夢を見たのやら。。

 Valentine's "bento(lunch box)" for Sean

日本の凝ったキャラ弁に比べ物にならないくらい

地味ですが。。気持ちだけ。。

Sean and I made this tissue pouch for his teachers and aids in his classroom

. I got the idea form Martha Stuart:)

Both boys helped baking the cookies with me. And look closer.. Sean is on the tag! Again, this cute idea is from Martha Stuart. Thanks for her website! I'm loving it!

ショーンの学校の先生やお世話になっている人たちにギフトを作りました。こっちで有名なマーサ スチュア—トさんのアイディアから色々作ってみました。ショーンはティッシュカバーのボタン付け（ホットグルーで）坊主二人でクッキーの上にチョコ乗せ、手伝ってもらいました。まあ、ほぼワタシがしたんですけどね。はい

 EVERYONE here is getting sick except my family(yet).

I quickly went to a store here to get an echnicea herbal tea and made a tea called "flu fighting tea".

Well, I named it.. haha

If you want to try it, here is the recipe I created,

ingredients -2 large ginger roots peeled and chopped

-water

-honey

-2 echnicea tea bags

In a pot, add ginger and water and bring them to boil

simmer for at least 10mins

add honey till it reaches the sweetness you'd like

drop tea bags and put the lid on for another 10mins

DONE!

Have a nice week!

 

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!