Randomosities of January

The next handful of pictures are completely unrelated to each other, but give a glimpse into our lives this past month.

 

I had a birthday party to attend with the littlest two and that meant Ken was left home with the olders.  He (being the awesome, random father that he is) decided to take the boys kayaking. It was cold, but of course they all had a blast. Ken is such a fantastic dad!

 

 

This little one continues to be my bright spot.  He picks out his own outfits and does his own thing all day.  One day last week, he decided he wanted to do my hair. It was awesome! I've never had a kid brush my hair and it was so relaxing.

 

This little one makes mischief most every day. She's thrilled with her new height that allows her to reach most everywhere. I'm a little less than thrilled, but it is still fun to watch her explore her world. Grey was helping clean up this particular mess.

 

I snapped this candid shot in the middle of putting away laundry. Their relationship is so tender and sweet. Grey tells me he wants the baby to be a girl so Pepper can have a sister. He is so good to her. I love watching how they develop together.

 

The kids had so many days off of school this month. On one of the days, we forced ourselves out of the house to get some fresh air. They found a washed up jellyfish that they were super excited about. The bottom picture shows the massive amounts of snow we get here. At least we have a lovely view!

 

My newest fashion accessory.  I'm so lovely!

 

This man. This man! I love him so much. While I've been busy with appointments or on the couch in pain, he has kept us well-fed. I snapped this in the midst of one of his latest grilling sessions. Take note of the headlamp. 

Spelling bee mania!

This year, the boys' school sponsored a spelling bee.  Ollie was selected to go straight to the school level (I'm guessing not many first-graders spell the way he does).  Stone had to start at the classroom level.  Stone got second-place in his classroom and then second-place at the grade-level bee. That meant he had qualified for the school bee! They ended up doing just a participation bee for first- and second-graders with only two rounds.  Ollie did great and didn't make any mistakes. The school bee for third- through sixth-grade was held at night. Stone did a fantastic job and ended up coming in second-place!  He beat out everyone but one sixth-grader.  The word he missed was gnarled. He will probably never misspell that word again! Both kids did a great job and we were so proud of them. For me it was one of those "pat-yourself-on-the-back", parent payday moments. I've tried so hard to teach them to read and spell and excel and it was so fun to watch them succeed on their own.

 

 

 

 

 

A broken toe and emergency visit

A little over a week ago, Stone and Ollie were running around and somehow Ollie ended up kicking the back of Stone's heel and seriously injuring his toe. After observing the misshapen toe, we decided we should probably call the clinic to see if we needed to bring Ollie in. It was late at night on a weekend and we really didn't want to make the trip. We told the doctor that Ollie's toe was crooked and asked if we required medical assistance.  I was just planning to buddy-tape the toe. Since I broke my toe a couple of months ago, I'm kind of an expert buddy-taper. The doctor laughed at us (and marveled at Ken's calm demeanor) and said that yes indeed we needed to come in. They took a handful of x-rays and declared the toe displaced and fractured. After some shots to numb the area, the doctor popped it back into place and NOW I get to buddy-tape it every day. Ollie really enjoyed the ride in the wheelchair and the table that moved up and down in the x-ray room.  We were in and out and home two hours later and he will be good as new in a couple more weeks. Brave kid. 

 

We found snow!

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, some friends invited us to go sledding. We hesitantly agreed.  You see, we haven't seen any "real" snow for over five years.  In that time we have added a handful of kids and thus don't have warm gear for everyone.  We decided to bite the bullet and make it work.  We didn't believe that Japan actually got "real" snow, so when we committed to go sledding, we honestly thought there was going to be 2-3 inches of manmade snow on this little hill.  When I got a text from our friends who were about 30 minutes ahead of us saying they hadn't chained up yet but the roads were getting bad, we realized how wrong we were. We drive a little Japanese van with tiny tires. We have no chains.  Imagine our surprise when, not more that an hour from our house, we run into this:

 

 

And that was before it got bad. Thank goodness for Ken's mad snow-driving abilities and prayer.  We got stuck a couple of times, but eventually made it up to the Megahiro Ski Resort. There looked to be at least 18 inches of fresh snow on top of the base that was already there. It was gorgeous! I didn't realize how much I had missed being in the mountains after a good snow. We all had a blast. The kids were in heaven sledding and throwing snowballs and playing whatever snow games they created. One thing that was really great about the resort is that they had a room just dedicated to relaxing.  You take off your boots and can rest, sleep, or eat. You'd never find something like that in the States.  It was a super fun excursion and was worth every ounce of stress trying to outfit everyone and get up the mountain.

 

 



New Year Bowling

When I was growing up, we went bowling with my dad's side of the family every year on New Year's Day.  I have such fond memories of those activities.  Even though we live in Japan, we have tried to carry on that tradition.  We all look forward to it.



Peps is too little to bowl, but she did a "bowling dance" for us the whole time!

 

Grey just grinned the whole time.

 

Grover was super-focused.

Ollie just had fun running from as far away as possible.

Stone's getting pretty good at chucking the ball down the lane.

Grey liked the jalapeno poppers.

Peps and I enjoyed the loaded fries!

My favorite part of the bowling alley here is the kids play area.  If you look close, you can see parts of all five of my critters!