In love with LEGO

公公, this blog is from Yoshi to you. ^_^

 Yoshi really likes Lego building. At the beginning when he first try Lego, he would only follow the instruction. But after playing with Nori for a while, he could spend a bit of quiet time and create his own things. He also like "pretend play" (fireman rescuing, or policeman catching robbers...) Not only is it a good ceative thinking hobby, but it's also a great bonding activity between generations- Nori & grandpas. Hope someday we can take him to Legoland.... 

Here is a video directed and video by Yoshi himself.... (beware of headache...^_^)

Ice cream store

Kiharu's birthday

In the past, I always do birthday parties at home for the kids. But this year, we did something different. Kiharu doesn't have much close friends of her own, so it didn't make sense to do a birthday party at home. Instead, we invited few of her little friends, and went out do something special.

(the kids wonder where we are going.....)

"A birthday necklace" from the store

This store is call "Build A Bear". So basically, you pick a stuff animal (empty inside), then you go through different steps before taking your new friend home. First step after picking: "stuff it". Kiharu picked a bunny (Yoshi picked a bear). The cute part of this, you put a little red heart inside the bunny before stuffing...

Then give your new friend a shower (blow air)

then, pick an outfit (of course that's where they make money.....) Yoshi really wanted to pick either a spiderman outfit/ ironman outfit, he had never seen either movie. I wasn't so sure about it, but I thought, it's just an outfit for his friend (not himself). So he got what he want.

The only thing about the Spiderman outfit- the mask totally covered up the bear face... can't even tell if it's a bear or what... haha...funny... and he named him "Spider"

Kiharu named her new friend "Bunny-chan"

Kiharu is 3

Cannot believe Kiharu is already 3. (although sometimes I felt like she is 6...). These three years went by so fast. It's a joy to have her with us. She is a great buddy to Yoshi (most of the time), they share tons of silly laugh together. Although she is the main factor of sibling arguments, but she allows Yoshi to become a better brother.  Although she is the main reason why me & Nori have grow more white hairs, but she is also the reason why I have more eye wrinkle lines, because we laugh so much more having her around.

Unlike the past when we always did birthday parties at home with friends. Considering she has only very few of her own friends, we did a fun event outside instead (will write more about that later). And yesterday (her actual birthday), we spent some fun time together at home.

I let the kids pick out a special balloon each. Kiharu's has music when tapping; Yoshi- a spiderman one.  Then we baked cake together. I was prepared to take much longer time to do that together (and more patience too)... Then Nori came home early enough to have dinner together. It was a fun day.

THANK YOU everyone for your birthday wishes, cards, presents. I will post more photos and videos later (after this weekend big event I'm doing for my friend). THANK YOU. You have all made her birthday extra special (really, she really feel very happy and special yesterday and everyday....^_^)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone.  Wishing everyone good health and happiness this new year.

Where had the holiday gone? the10 days of Nori's vacation went by way too fast. We did a lot of gathering with friends, stay home resting, so much.... just not enough time to update blog... (LAZY).

The kids are doing well. Yoshi went thru a few days of flu right before Christmas. Now he has little bit of coughing, but he should be ok. Kiharu....everyday super energetic, being silly is her strength. ^_^ They are growing so fast, wish they could slow down, I treasure everyday with them.

 One other thing I did was learning how to make Osechi (Japanese New Year dish). I learned from one of my Japanese friend, she is amazing in cooking. She spent a week in the kitchen preparing everything. I only learned from her on one day, while Nori babysat the kids at home. It was a lot of fun. I hope to make more next year, now I just need all the right dishes and ingredient. (the funny thing about it, we made the konbu with salmon roll. I didn't realize we need to cut in half before serving... that's why you see the long roll in the photo... haha...^_^)

(everything here were prepared by ourselves, except the black beans, hope to learn that next yr... now I have a whole new appreciation of the tatsukuri- little fish. It takes a long time to remove each of their tiny stomach....)