Everything's Coming up Rosie

One year ago today, we welcomed a new member into our family. Rosemary has filled our home with even more love, life, and laughter than we could imagine.

1 day old

Since she was born, I have felt very distinctly like our family is full and complete. Maybe I needed just a tad more noise and mayhem in my life, or a bit of pink to offset the blue, or maybe the interaction between three children just feels more natural for me having grown up in a three child household myself. Whatever the case is, Rosie was meant to be and we celebrate and cherish her. 

She has grown and changed so much in the past twelve months and we are still getting to know this little person more day by day.

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

1 Year! 

This is what we have learned about her in the past year: she is full of spunk and life and thrives when surrounded by her family, especially her doting brothers. She is very happy to be the third child, since her favorite pastime is to watch her brothers crazy antics while laughing and clapping in delight. When she is not chasing after her brothers or exploring her world, she loves being held and cuddling.

She is always trying to do what her brothers are doing, sitting, crawling, walking, and copying their sounds earlier than I would have guessed. She also has a stubborn streak and a bit of a temper. Not too sure who she got that from!

Me too!

She loves the outdoors and finding a good patch of mud or sand to get dirty in (and eat) or a plant to rip up (and eat). I can't wait until she is old enough to put that to use helping me in the garden! 

Rosemary, you are loved and we can't wait to see what the future has in store for you! 

Birthday Barbecue

The past month has been so full of visiting and traveling that now I have some major catching up to do on blog posts!

On March 20th, Dustin's parents arrived from Canada for a month long visit. Theo was so excited about their arrival and even took it pretty well when flight issues delayed them by a day. Every morning  when he woke up, he would rush down from his bedroom to make sure that they were still here and didn't leave during the night. This continued for a week or so until he was content that they were sticking around for a bit, or at least weren't going to leave without telling him first.

Going for a train ride with Grandma

Exploring the forest with Grandpa

A few days after they arrived, we had a low key barbecue with Obaasan and Ojiisan to celebrate William's birthday. Theo had decided earlier in the evening that he was a brachiosaurus and therefore was exclusively herbivorous. He would only eat the grilled vegetables and at one point asked for a bowl of spinach leaves which he proceeded to eat with his face in the bowl. When his overactive imagination causes him to eat copious amounts of vegetables, who am I to complain?

William had tons of fun puttering around the yard on the little bike that Obaasan and Ojiisan gave him for his birthday and compensating for his brother by making rounds eating everyone else's meat.

William absolutely loves trains. Even seeing a train pass by our house at least every hour doesn't stop him from running to the window or gate, pointing, and hopping up and down excitedly. So, I wasn't  surprised to find that he was absolutely overjoyed by the train cake the Dustin's mom and I hastily put together that afternoon.

Cake overload!

Afterward he opened some presents and birthday cards from his family back in Canada

Finally, an electronic card that doesn't scare him to tears!

The drum set William got from his friends here in Japan

Even Theo got a few little gifts sent over by his great-grandparents

A great way to kick off a month of spring break and visiting grandparents!

Out With The Old

Goodbye dragon and hello snake!

I know that my sister thinks it is disgraceful, but Dustin and I don't usually do anything special for New Year's Eve. We did before we had young children, and may again when they become old enough to notice or care, but for now we usually have a quiet night and go to bed at a normal time, too tired to even stay awake until midnight.

We did celebrate a bit the next day by having friends over and cooking a delicious nabe for lunch. That's about as interesting as it gets around here on New Year's Day.

On January 3rd, we went over to our Japanese grandparent's house to eat osechi ryori, or traditional Japanese New Year's food.

The children and I enjoyed it and since every food has a lucky symbolic meaning for the new year, I ate at least a piece of everything. This website has some beautiful pictures and also gives the meaning of all the foods eaten.

After our meal we were surprised by a delicious birthday cake that Obaasan had made for Theo and Ojiisan, who turned 70 on January 4th.

William then helped Obaasan whisk up some matcha

Obaasan and Ojiisan continued to thoroughly spoil our children by giving them otoshidama. This is a gift of money that is given to children in pretty envelopes on New Year's. We are so blessed to have this wonderful couple in our lives!

Birthday Boys

Over the holidays, we celebrated Dustin's 33rd birthday on December 30th and Theo's 5th birthday on January 2nd.

I just love these guys!

For Dustin's birthday, we ditched the kids with our neighbours and went out for a relaxing date night. We had intended on going to see the Hobbit, but after finding out that it would take up almost 3 hours in transit just to get to and from the only movie theatre that was showing it subtitled and not dubbed and in 2-d, we decided just to go out for supper instead and save the movie for another time. What we didn't count on is that it would be almost impossible to get a table at any nice-ish restaurant without a reservation so close to New Year's. After being turned away from 4 full restaurants we were beginning to get a bit desperate, not going to KFC or Sukiya desperate, but close.

After almost an hour of biking around, we happened on a hidden little nabe restaurant that was just what we were looking for. It was in a turn of the century traditional Japanese house with gorgeous carved furniture all inlaid with mother of pearl. There was only one other couple their for a brief time and then we had the place to ourselves. We had a very relaxing and nice time and I hope that Dustin felt loved and appreciated.

I apologize for how grainy these photos are. We took them with Dustin's phone when we realized we forgot the camera.

Meanwhile, Theo has become more and more interested in Star Wars lately and requested a lightsaber cake for his birthday. I found some pairs of lightsaber chopsticks at a novelty shop and whipped up this cake for him.

We decided to plan a little shindig for his friends and him at the mall nearby our house. In the basement of the mall they have a children's activity area in which Theo has always wanted play. Either because of lack of time, money, or the play area being closed, we had never been able to grant his wish. It worked out for the best though because this meant that it was extra special for his birthday.

First, Theo and his friends played, ran, and shouted like lunatics for an hour.

After some of their energy was burned off, everyone gathered for cake and presents. Theo was so excited about his Star Wars cake and is showing his smarmiest smile to prove it. 

He was also overjoyed about the lightsaber that he was given.

Opening presents with his friends looking on.

This is the first time that I have celebrated one of the children's birthdays outside of my home and I must say it was wonderful. It was so much less stressful and at the end I didn't have the feeling of relief that it was finally over and I survived another kid's birthday party. I also didn't have a whole house to clean up and a million dishes to wash. I am certainly going to do something like this again in the future!