A Quick Visit Back in Time

Happy Thanksgiving!

It may seem like we missed Thanksgiving, but we squeezed it in the day after the actual holiday (which is a Japanese holiday we had off).  We didn't have the energy to put together a nice homey Thanksgiving at our house, but luckily, some great teachers at our school hosted a pot luck Thanksgiving - complete with a play, great food, company and a Christmas video for the kids.

Here are some photos:

Little Pilgrims

Dessert!

Turkey and Trimmings

Yum!

Some Holiday Spice

 We've been enjoying the Christmas Countdown Calendar, but I'll be honest, I'm glad he can't read yet.  I've been lazy with some activities after a long day of work or I have flipped cards around as I get them for him, because I need something a little more "hands-off" for me.

Anyhow, he's having fun with it. 

Here are a few things we've done this week:

 I don't even know what to call this activity:

Roll the dice  & glue the marshmallow 

on the corresponding number in Santa's beard game

 Buying  - a good idea in theory - except everything he wanted for Lola was over 6000¥! - a present for Lola at Toys 'R Us, wrapping it, and then creating a cute card - with balloons!

 Writing our name - but running out of room, so heck, why not throw the 'Mo on top

 Posing with Rudolph board books - Today's activity - Thanks Nana!

 This was originally in the Christmas Calendar, but this boy has been jacked up on Holiday Sweets a lot the past week, so I decided to make Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese frosting after he went to bed tonight.  Twenty will go to Yume Club tomorrow with Lola and we'll have a few after dinner tomorrow at home!

I tried.

Starting this month, Max is going to daycare part time. We couldn't justify sending him full time with me at home. We think it's important he still goes so he gets to play with his friends and so I get a little break. With the rules at his daycare, we had two part time options (with no exceptions or deviations from these options).
1. Part time until 12:30 pm everyday OR
2. 10 days per month

Before we talked with the main sensei about our part time plans, we were planning on putting him in Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, but no go.

So, I randomly picked ten days for the month of February, trying to give him consecutive days when he did go so he was following some sort of routine.

Unfortunately at the time, I didn't really think about any special days or to ask the daycare about any trips or upcoming fun events, so today, Max missed Setsubun at daycare. I wrote about it last year here. Last year he was petrified of the "oni" (ogre) and almost every kid was screaming when I went to pick him up that day. This year he's more into it. Yesterday he told me, "Mommy, I'm not scared of the oni."

Anyhow, with a "buy at the grocery store packet" I tried to do it at home.

Mame - beans to throw at the oni

I really, really hope none of my Japanese neighbors saw or heard us. I couldn't remember what the kids said to the oni and I definitely don't know the Japanese, so Max pretty much just pelted me with beans while Lola slept today. Then we ate little mochi cakes.

Eating mochi cakes - chewy and good!

Mochi cakes wrapped (above) and naked (below)

We had fun and did it in the confines of our little backyard so we didn't offend any Japanese or their culture (or become the neighborhood laughing-stock).

Max's homemade oni mask from school with fangs and stickers

Side note: In making the link to my last year's post, I noticed the Japanese and translation of what the kids are supposed to yell at the oni. Too late now!

I'm kind of embarrassed (of my pathetic attempts, of my oni growls, of our dead grass, of our laundry) to post this, but, here is the video...

2010 in Review

Here's a selection of my favorite pictures of the year in chronological order.

Please disregard the bad audio - I was too lazy to go back and change the sound track and it just automatically assigned one.

2010 was an exciting year for Los Lemleys. It was actually really good to go through the pictures from this year to see all the different things we did. It's easy to get into the daily grind of work and raising kids and to forget about the "cool" things.

The highlights of the year were:
- Transitioning from a crib to a bed!
- Potty training
- Cambodia
- The Pregnancy - it wasn't always lovely, but the end product is quite fantastic!
- Nana's visit to Japan
- Disneyland Tokyo & DisneySea (and of course the Shinkansen ride)
- Max's 3rd birthday party

And 2010, the year of our little Tiger - LOLA!

Happy New Year!
2011 should bring more adventures for Los Lemleys and we hope the best for all of you!

Lazy Days

We haven't been doing a whole lot these past few days. We've had some lazy mornings, that involved TWO cups of coffee, not the boring, regular one, and staying in our pajamas until almost lunch time.Max "helping" John put together MORE Ikea furniture

We had a nice quiet New Year's Eve here, just the three of us. We put together a seafood spread - fish and chips, sushi, cocktail shrimp, edamame and Maximo was in heaven. John and I had to fight him for the shrimp and sushi.NYE Spread

Here are a couple of pictures from the past week... Bridget came over yesterday to watch Max, so we could go over to a friend's house for brunch. She took some cute pictures of Maximo too which was nice!

On top of the slide!


Cheese!

Here's the completed Dec 2009 photo gallery.


And here's the beginnings of the January 2010 photo gallery.

Santa, Baby

On Sunday, some of the teachers and their kids had a brunch and Santa stopped by for a visit with big bags of loot! Max was a bit scared of Santa, but bravely fought back tears and sat in his lap after he got his present.

Denis & Max

Playing with his dinosaur puzzle from Santa and DD's trucks too!