Easter Eggtravaganza!

We had the Easter playgroup today. Unfortunately, it was also the day mother nature decided to sprinkle and we had to move the egg hunt indoors. No worries, we just crammed 6 toddlers, 3 infants and 8 adults into Nicole's house. It was a bit loud, a bit crazy and a LOT of fun. Happy Easter!

I loved these masks from Oriental Trading Company! I was hoping to get a shot of all the kids wearing them, but you know how finicky toddlers can be. Oh well.

Mary made out with a pretty good haul of eggs. She really enjoyed opening them up to see what was inside. She asked me for more presents when she was all done.

Mmmm, candy. She loves "gummies"...she's definitely my daughter in that regard.
And of course, who doesn't LOVE finding a balloon in their egg?

What a fun playgroup!

Now, that's what I'm talking about!

Yesterday morning, I was drinking my coffee on the sofa, watching GMA and trying to wake up while Mary was pestering me about tickling her. She really wanted to be tickled on the floor, but I just wasn't up for it. She kept begging and begging. Doug walked up, crouched on the floor and said, "Is this what you want?" as he started tickling her. In between laughs she said, "Now, that's what I'm talking about!"

There are no child labor laws in Okinawa!

Thank goodness, because we put the kids to work scrubbing and washing down Dane's (Jessica's neighbor) new playhouse. It was so cute. At what age do kids wise up and realize that this is work and not fun? I guess we should enjoy it now while we can. Mary liked having control of the hose. She knew it was more fun to spray her friends than to get sprayed herself. Oops, you missed a spot, honey.

The finished produt. Now, if only we could have gotten the kids to put it together...

I painted my toeses!

My half tomboy, half girly girl is currently focused on earrings and toe nail polish. I solved the earring dilemma with tiny stickers we stick on everyday to match her outfits. I don't remember wanting my toenails painted when I was a 2 1/2 yr old. Do kids just grow up faster these days or is my memory faulty? Maybe it's because Mary's friends have theirs polished. Maybe it's because mommy goes to the salon and gets hers done. Maybe the cool trend of the wild designs is more exciting than just plain polish. Who knows. I will say that ever since my mom sent Mary a few bottles of her own nail polish, she has been fixated on it. Thanks mom. Also, now every time we go to the post office to check mail, she talks about how she's going to get a present with nail polish in it and she'll share with me. Oh boy.

Mary proudly announced this morning that she painted her toeses with flowers like mommy. She had carefully applied flower stickers. Too cute. I had to take a picture.

And now, a picture with mommy's flowers.

opposites

We've been working on opposites...hard vs. soft, rough vs. smooth, thin vs. thick, short vs.tall, etc. I think it's absolutely hysterical how Mary says something is hard. I couldn't figure out how I would describe it when it dawned on me to take a video. Perfect. Now everyone can see what a complete ham she can be.

I'll also tell you that the other week we went to the zoo, we looked at the ponies (one of her favorite animals to look at) and I said, "Mary, is the horse's fur soft or hard?" She said, "Soft! Like my girly parts...and my arm pits...and..." I will never know the ending to that sentence, since I high tailed it to the giraffes. Good thing there were mostly Japanese kids around. Hopefully, no one heard our conversation.

To suck or not suck, that is the question

Oh boy, Adam has officially found his thumb. We never had to deal with this with Mary, since she was a part time pacifier user (at naps and bedtime). I remember being nervous about her getting too dependent on it. I had heard the horror stories of kids who wouldn't part with their Binky's. However, at 15 months, we just told her she was too old for it and took it away cold turkey. 5 days later, we were pacifier free. Easy! So when Adam was born, we had no doubt we would use a pacifier. Heck, I find myself "plugging him in" frequently during non-napping hours. So here's our dilemma. Do we pull his thumb out and push the pacifier in or do we let him suck his thumb? I will say, he still likes the pacifier most of the time, so the thumb hasn't been fully incorporated into his daily schedule...yet. I've decided to list the pro's and the con's to see if that will help me decide.

THUMB:
pro: it's hand-y con: easy to remove a pacifier from his world when we want to wean him, not so much with the thumb (or at least not socially acceptable).

pro: Don't ever have to worry about losing it, having it fall on the ground or search for it in the corners of the crib in the wee hours of the night when it falls out of his mouth, he wakes up and realizes it's gone. con: He'll be the cute big eared boy in elementary school that constantly sucks his thumb (and don't even get me started on the buck teeth he'll develop). Oh, that will be one seriously funny looking kid.

Hmmm, maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Who knows, he's only 13 weeks 6 days old. He might wake up tomorrow and realize his foot tastes a whole lot better than his thumb and then this blog will be moot. Can you imagine all the teasing a kid will get sucking on his foot at school?

4 days later...

we're back to the zoo! The weather has been so nutty here. Last week was gorgeous in the 80's, hot even. Sunday, it started getting cooler. Monday, Tues and Wed were rainy, windy and cold in the 60's and finally Thurs and today were back to being gorgeous in the high 60's-70's. Unfortunately, Mary chose this week to become sick. Sick toddler's don't understand why they can't play with friends and why they can't hug & kiss and breathe all over their baby brothers. Today, I took Mary to the zoo to get her out of the house and figured she couldn't get the animals sick. I'm so glad I bought the season pass. What a fun thing to do on a beautiful day. I'm sure you're going to look at these pictures and think Mary looks perfectly healthy. I thought she was getting better, but she spiked another fever this evening. Darn. How do you get a 2 1/2 yr old to stay indoors and "take it easy" when they're sick? I would really like to know.

Waiting in line to go in. I guess everyone else liked the weather and wanted to go too. I just love all the Japanese school children in their matching hats. Mary said, "those are pretty hats!" I wish there was a special line where we could flash our season pass and walk right in.




We had a great time looking at the animals. I just love how small this zoo is. Perfect for little ones.




For those of you that don't know, this is my new stroller and I absolutely LOVE it! It's called a sit and stand. Adam rides in the front (once he's big enough he can turn around and actually sit in it like a regular stroller) and Mary can either stand on the ledge in back and hold on to hand rails or if she gets tired, can pull out a jump seat and sit down facing me. She loves it almost as much as I do. It's even so easy to steer, I can do it one handed! Have I mentioned that I love this stroller?

And what zoo trip would be complete without a ride on the choo-choo train. Mary had a blast, of course. Adam wasn't so sure. He cried every time the conductor came over the loud speaker. I guess it was too loud. Oh, and this was the ONLY time Adam was awake.




And last, but not least, some of my favorite photos to end the day. Notice how she put her head all the way through the cutout? I was afraid she was going to get stuck. Bye-bye for now! Stay turned for more exciting adventures!

He better have a great personality

Well it's official, according to the ENT doctor, Adam has a mild case of "goofy ears." Ok, he didn't say it exactly like that, but it was the definite message. For those of you that don't know, Adam was born with ears that stick out like satellite dishes from his head. Adorable on an infant, yes, but will probably get him teased in school. The doctors and nurses at the hospital (after he was born) kept telling us it was probably due to his placement in my uterus and they would bounce back in place after a while. We're still waiting for that bounce. At his 2 month check up, the doc noticed that his right ear sticks out even more than his left and it's missing that ridge on the inside. Great. Now she was worried it might be something more than just cosmetic. She consulted the ENT doctor, who in turn decided he would take a look for himself. Today was that appointment. So the doctor takes one look at him and says everything is fine. You know, 1 in 5 children in Japan are born with ears that stick out just like this and they don't do anything about it because it's so common. Dude, I'm not Japanese. Hmmm, awkward. Long story short, there's nothing that can be done until he's at least 4 and even then, if they tack back that right ear, the ear lobe will stick out even more looking even goofier. The doc actually said that maybe he'll be one of those kids who's totally unaffected by teasing. Maybe. All I can say is he better have a great personality.

The wonder-ful wonder museum!

I'm always looking for an indoor place to take Mary for rainy days or during the summer when it's too hot to even breathe here. Well, today we discovered the wonder museum at the Okinawa zoo. The zoo is tiny and the perfect size for a toddler. Lots of areas to run around and not too many animals, so their attention doesn't waiver. It's also pretty cheap...roughly $5 for me and free for kids under 4. I've noticed the museum, but never thought about going there. I've been hearing great things about it lately since it's all "hands-on" (good for my kid who has to touch everything in sight). Not only is that a great thing, but so is the price...I bought the zoo's season pass $20 (which is good for a full year) and it came with 5 free passes to the museum. After I use those, it's only approx $2 each time. What a cheap and fun way to spend a few hours!

4 mommies and 7 kids met this morning. All of us have one thing in common, our husbands are away on trips and we needed some camaraderie. Of course, if you've been reading my blog lately, you'll notice we haven't been stuck at home. Getting out helps me keep my sanity. But I regress, so back to today...Here are a couple of photos while we were waiting for Janelle, Adelle and Maggie to arrive. Adam looked so stinking cute in his reindeer coat one piece thing (whatever those are called). Jacqueline wasn't so sure she wanted to be photographed with Mary and Jessica.

This huge chair was hilarious. The kids were so excited to sit on it, that the mommies decided we needed a turn.

They even had a tiny chair right next to the big one!

Next we moved on to the cool children's reading room. Unfortunately, all the books were in Japanese (go figure), but there were kid friendly areas to lounge and read and just get comfy.

There was also a play area to dress up in animal costumes.

The last stop was the science room. They're too young to understand the science behind all the activities (and none of us could read the Japanese to explain it to them), but they enjoyed getting to touch, explore, play and best of all, not hearing us yell, "don't touch that!"

What a great morning adventure. Now that I have the season pass, I promised Mary as soon as the weather clears up, we'll come back and see the animals. Coming soon to a blog near you...

Happy 3 month b-day!

3 months old today. My how the time flies. Adam is starting to finally get a routine and is becoming a better sleeper at night. We were so spoiled with Mary and her wonderful sleeping patterns as a newborn, that this time around has taken a bit of an adjustment. I've learned many new tricks to getting my baby to sleep...like making sure he has a full belly before bed, establishing a routine so he knows it's bed time and most importantly, moving him down the hallway to his OWN bedroom. Here are a few up to date photos and a video that only the grandparents will probably enjoy since they don't get to see him. 3 months old might be pretty exciting for me, but he's still pretty much a lump that doesn't do much. I know that will change too quickly.

He loves shoving those fists into his mouth. Unfortunately, he also gags himself a lot.