Happy Halloween!

Mary wasn't so sure about trick or treating. She enjoyed walking down the sidewalk with her basket, but when it came to asking strangers for candy, she clung to my leg for dear life. We went to 3 neighbors houses and then came home. She was happier hanging with us on the front lawn passing out candy. Grandpa Putthoff, just wanted to let you know that Mary tried M&M's for the first time and loved them. At first she held them and didn't put them in her mouth. We had to show her they were edible. Funny you have to show a kid how to eat candy, but she puts snails, rocks, pine cones, etc in her mouth without a second's hesitation. Go figure.

Ok, no more, I promise!

Mary's friend Jessica, has a rocking chair in her room and the kids always fight over it. Yesterday, we went exploring through the thrift store and we found this chair. Mary immediately sat and started rocking. She had this big huge grin on her face and didn't want to get out. She even fussed when I was carrying it out to the car, since she wasn't sitting in it. I just had to buy it. Of course, once I got it in the car, I thought that maybe I should have waited. True, it would be sold to someone else, but Mary has a lot of stuff and she's definitely not in need. Oh well, the chair was in great shape and I told Doug, "no more, I promise!" Besides, it was a great deal. I painted her name and the flowers. Thought he couldn't return it if it was personalized ;)

What is it?

Did the rabbit get loose? Oh wait, we don't have a rabbit. It's raisins! I guess our daughter is reenacting Hansel and Gretal. A trail of raisins leading to the kitchen (or the living room, depending on the angle you're looking at). The good news is she decided that she would eat them as she was walking to the kitchen. Gross. At least she cleans up after herself? Hmm. Not sure about that.

Haloween Party

Mary's play group had it's Halloween party today. What fun! Mary didn't know what was going on last year, but this time she was checking out what everyone else was wearing and showing them how good she was at keeping on the head piece. She left it on for the entire 2 hours! On Friday, we'll have dress up time at Lapsit and we'll probably trick or treat a few houses. Brenda, the basket is perfect and she loved carrying it around.

My spider web munch dessert- chocolate and peanut butter.

All total, there were 13 children and 15 adults. What a full house!

Tagged

Thanks Brandi for tagging me. I now know how few friends I really have. I'm supposed to send this to 7 friends with blogs and I only have 3. Even that's a stretch since one of them writes on hers once every couple of months (oh you know who you are...). So instead of following the rules and sending it on, I will just list my 7 random/weird facts that people can read and hopefully enjoy.

1) I'm double jointed- toes and fingers. I can "click" my toes back and forth and it grosses Doug out. I think it's cool. Whenever I feel like annoying him, I do it. Good thing it doesn't happen too often.

2) I was obsessed with having a child of my own. Doug and I had always talked about adoption and when we couldn't get pregnant we started the paperwork. But deep down, I was so sad. Because I'm an adoptee, I missed knowing where I genetically came from. Do I have my mother's eyes, my father's nose? Who gave me the incredibly long earlobes? I always yearned for a photo of my birth parents. I had to have a baby so I could see what I passed on. Does that sound vain? I hope not. It was just something that I felt I had to do. Now I look at Mary and chuckle. I didn't mean to pass on everything. If we can't have another child, by all means I am open to adoption. We would love to offer a child a stable, supportive, loving home like my parents did for me. I am forever grateful to them.

3) I'm a terrible navigator. I can't read a map to save my life. Of course, the motion sickness doesn't help when I'm trying to figure out where we are and how to get somewhere else. We've learned over the years that I drive and Doug navigates. Thank goodness, I usually have a pretty good memory and if I've been there once, I can find my way back again.

4) I can be pretty ditsy. One of my favorite stories...When I was in college applying for the Navy and the nursing scholarship one of the questions was- Can you swim under water 50 feet? I pondered this for a long time. Finally, I called my Mom for help. I didn't know if I should say "no" or fib and say "yes". I mean, I was on the swim team as a kid, so I know how to swim. Mom said, "what's the problem?" I said, "I've never been in a pool that's deeper than 8 feet." I could literally hear her rolling her eyes. "I think they mean 50 feet across, not down." Thank goodness mother's have to love their children. Ditsy or not.

5) I LOVE food. I'm not a "foodie", since fancy food costs a lot, doesn't fill me up, and most of the time sounds a bit unappealing. However, I really enjoy eating. I remember vacations by the food we ate. I remember Doug taking me to get a crepe for dessert on our 2nd date and how on each vacation we'd look for a creperie. Even to this day, whenever I eat a crepe I remember those wonderful feelings of new love.

6) Since I love food, it's only natural that I love to cook. It doesn't extend to cleaning up, though. I used to try a new recipe every week when we were first married. It's easy to get into ruts and cook the same thing over and over, so I try to experiment. Doug doesn't seem to mind. I may not try something new every week anymore, but at least a couple of times a month.

7) I'm addicted to okinawayardsales.com. I don't buy that much, but I'm constantly on the website. It's almost like I'm afraid that someone will post something that "I just have to have" and it will be sold before I can get it. It's weird. I've never been this crazy about something. I have to make myself log off in the afternoon and not look at it again until the next day. Of course, then I scroll through and see all the things I missed and that other people bought.

Well, I hope all of you had a good laugh at my quirkiness and enjoyed this blog. Now I have to go get ready for the play group's Halloween party. I can't wait to see all the kiddos.

How quickly they change

I was looking at pictures and I'm amazed at how fast the little ones grow. Even though Mary is at such a wonderful age and we enjoy watching her learn and explore, I sometimes miss when she was so itty bitty tiny.


10 weeks old

16 months old


4 months


...and today. She's growing so fast.

Zoo

One of the Shisa dogs at the entrance of the zoo. It's a protector from evil spirits.

What do you wear when you go to the zoo for the first time? Why, a giraffe dress of course. I remembered I had this dress and thought it was perfect. She looked so cute. What a great day for the Zoo. We left after Mary's nap, so she was well rested and most of the people had left for the day. I think we got there around 2:45pm. The Okinawa Zoo is perfect for little ones (not too big) and it has a children's park connected to it, so there's lots of room to run around. It only cost 500 yen ($5) for adults and under 4 yrs old are free. I have a feeling we'll be going there a lot.

Looking at the animals

Hey! They look like my dress.

Watching the elephant show from the balcony. It was playing basketball. Why didn't anyone else think of this? We were the only ones up there and we had a perfect view.

Just monkeying around.

I kid you not, this was posted outside the tiger cage. Do tigers do that?

Goodbye Mr. Pig. See you next time!

tempting fate

What do you do when you're eating a food that causes the majority of people (ok, everybody) in your household gas? You feed it to the baby, of course! Mary was loving the re-fried beans. I'll be curious to see how it reacts to her system...or how we react to her. Good thing Doug will be home soon and can change diapers!

Mmmmm. Beef and cheese quesedillas and re-fried beans!

Burp. Excuse me.

Mastering the spoon is hard work. She keeps flipping it upside down. Good thing the beans are thick.

All done. She always hands us the plate when she's finished.

She's not spoiled

Ok, maybe I've gone a bit overboard with the "stuff". I tell you, this yard sale shopping is addictive. Doug mentions that Mary needs a basketball hoop (actually he said he wants to buy her a new one for Christmas) and I found one on the local yard sale website for $2! Who can pass that up? He said he really wanted something "new" for her under the tree (I guess he forgot the presents he bought for her when he was in the States and I put in the storage closet). I told him that this is one of the few years that Mary won't care if it's new or not. It will be new to her. Before we know it, she'll be demanding name brand expensive toys/clothes and we'll have to tell her "no". He agreed, but mentioned that she is acquiring a lot of "stuff". Yeah, I know. I'll take a break for a while. It's just so hard when you see a great deal and you know it will be snatched up by some other buyer soon. I also bought her this big wheel for $4. It's a bit too big for her now, but Mary was busy trying to ride it yesterday. The seat flips up so she was having fun sticking her hand in it. I put it in the storage closet to save for later. I can't imagine that I could have gotten that for any cheaper anywhere else. At least now I know she's going to love it when it magically reappears. So now I'm only window shopping, sigh. Oh wait! I have to buy a ball for the basketball hoop! To the 100 yen ($1) store I go......

Oh! One more thing...

I can't believe I forgot to mention that they weighed my fries at McDonald's yesterday. They scooped them into the normal french fry container, then placed it on a scale. She actually removed some before putting it on my tray. I wanted to shout, "No! I want those." But then I realized that hey, I don't need the extra ones. If they're on my tray, I'll eat them all. I just thought that was a funny difference between the two countries. Good thing they only weighed the fries and not the customer.

Exploring Jusco

Jusco is sort of like a big department store, but it has a bunch of little stores in it as well as a grocery section, restaurants/food court, and a big game area. Today, I had to go to the hospital for a check-up and Mary got to go to the Children's waiting room. It's a free service that watches your kids while you go to your appointment for a maximum of 2 hours. How wonderful is that? There were tons of toys and a couple of other kids for her to play with. Because she was so good (didn't cry at all), I took her to Jusco for McDonald's. Mary loved the little ketchup tub. Dipped everything in it and when she got tired of that, she decided to just put it up to her mouth and stick her tongue in it. Good thing I was done. The food court is right next to the game area. We had always walked by it, but never really checked it out. Since it was practically deserted today, we explored and found some interesting things.

A big mac combo and a cheeseburger cost about $7.50.

I was planning on playing a game to win her a prize, but nothing really jumped out at me. Mostly, there was food or really small toys that she could choke on. I did see one game with cute rubber ducks, but it looked too confusing. She didn't seem to mind and I figure there will be plenty of times in the future that she's begging for a prize.

This is once of those "claw" games, but look at the choices of prizes. Ritz crackers?

This "claw" machine had ice cream treats. Yummy, but definitely different. Honestly, I was a bit tempted when I saw the Hagen Das, but I've never been good at those games.

Mary had a great time playing in the bus. Good thing it wasn't busy or the employees might have made me put in money. As it was, she had fun just touching the buttons and sitting in the seat. I was supposed to put in 100 yen (approx $1) in the slot. Maybe it moved and made noise. Maybe next time. Glad she doesn't know any better.

All tuckered out. It's nap time.

We just don't bounce back like we used to

I remember sleepless nights in college (usually due to studying since I wasn't a party kind of girl). I also remember doing ok the following day even though I might have been a bit tired. Coffee is the miracle drug. Anyway, Saturday night was the Navy Ball. Mel came over to babysit and Doug and I got all gussied up for a night out. We had a good time. It's always fun getting to talk with your friends and not have to worry about where the baby is, what she's putting in her mouth and what she's crawling on. We stayed out later than we have in years. Scratch that, we stayed up later than we have in years. We made it home around midnight, talked with Mel for a while, talked with each other for a while and then I finally turned in around 1:30am. Doug was still awake and I have no idea what time he came to bed. Thankfully, Mary slept until 7:30, but we were dragging all day. When she took her nap, we all took a nap. We had thought about going to a pottery festival, but soon realized we were too pooped to do more than go for a walk around the neighborhood. Good thing we don't do this often. I think we're getting too old.