Emma and her sisters

Emma wanted a sister for Christmas. 😳 She got an American Girl Doll instead, which she said was good enough. 😂😁 She has been taking very good care of her ‘sisters,’ dressing them and changing their clothes, taking them everywhere we let her. Sometimes they get in trouble or ask for things they can’t have. Tonight Chelsea wet her bed, so she ‘had’ to sleep with Emma. Usually we make her sleep in her own bed. 😏 Emma has been putting her to bed every night. She puts her pajamas on her, tucks her in bed and reads the Bible to her...she might also ask her lots of questions and explain the answers to her. (Emma gets a theology lesson when I read Bible stories. 🤷‍♀️)  She also sings to her. Tonight was Away in the Manger. I need to just buy her her own hymnal, I had to look up the words for her to follow along with on my phone. It was so cute, we may have let it slide that she was doing this while she was supposed to be getting ready for bed herself, which she eventually did. 

Reading Genesis to Chelsea. 

Our ‘daughters,’ Emma, Chelsea, and....Emma. Sometimes I forget the little two are my daughters andEmma  reminds me, “don’t you remember, Mom? You had them!?” 🤷‍♀️ How could I forget. (Although in my defense they always used to be her daughters.)

A Japanese Diner

Tonight I was getting cabin fever, so Steven took us our for dinner. He found an American diner across the street from base, although it wasn’t that easy to get to, it never is here. But it was fun to get out. We had hamburgers and Emma had a grilled cheese. It was the most American hamburger I have had here besides McDonalds. Emma enjoyed her ‘Carmel milk’ which is milk in ice with Carmel syrup mixed in. The whipped cream was actually very thick and not very sweet, tasted like coffee. Emma want a fan of it, but like the milk. It’s always an adventure eating here. 

Post Christmas days

We have been enjoying our presents, and Emma especially has been enjoying playing with her new toys and reading the books. We have played lots of Quiddler Junior, and have been having way more screen time than normal. I figure it’s better than us driving each other crazy. (All her friends aregone.) We still have several days left until school starts, so hope we will find some fun things to do so we survive. :)

Trying to do Chelsea’s hair while playing Quiddler Junior 

She did her best to dress like her. They are pretty much attached at the hip. 

Steven and I got her a fancy Belle dress. She loves to put it on. 

Meet Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Thank you to our families who Skyped early for us to open presents on our Christmas morning! I didn’t take very many pictures today, but it was a good day. We opened presents, watched a tiny bit of football, played Quiddler Junior, had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and steak, mashed potatoes and homemade rolls for dinner. We were too full for dessert...maybe tomorrow.

I got Emma this cute jacket ...if I had remembered to wear my green coat we would both have been in Christmas colors. And I forgot to take a picture of us all. We went light looking before the Christmas Eve service, it was so much fun to see Emma’s enjoyment of it all. Our Christmas Eve service was late, she was pretty wiggly... she brought her old lady glasses, too, apparently. They did have bags of activities for the kids, but it was still late.

Emma and Chelsea, in pajama outfit #1.

Pajama outfit #2. She loved being twins. 

Playing with her Pioneer Woman Barbie kitchen set. She loves watching her on TV, although she doesn’t know her name. Poor Daddy played Barbies today. Not his favorite thing, But he was a good sport.

Daddy and Emma took Chelsea for a walk.

Emma’s Secret Hideout

Emma made herself a fort behind the recliner. She asked to sleep there, but I said no since she has been waking up every night crying. But she enjoys playing there during the day. We have been enjoying the lazy days of winter break. 

How she left it last night when she went to bed.

She was mostly being silly. She hasn’t been super obsessed with presents this year. 

Playing opossum.

Riding a donkey

Daddy came home early today. 😁 

Tea House

We went to the Tea House today with some friends. A great way to spend time on Christmas break!

Chef Emma

I have been trying to update the blog, but it has been giving me trouble lately. I think I need to stick to short posts. 

Last week I was finishing up all the Christmas craziness of shopping, mailing, etc. I was so busy I offhandedly asked Emma to make dinner. So she did. And she was very proud of herself. And we ate it. 

I also baked about 20 dozen cookies for the cookie crunch on base. The pinwheels were Emma’s idea. 


They turned out pretty good!




All ready for her Christmas program at Church

Weekends with Daddy home!

We are all enjoying having Daddy home every day! Even if he is busy, which he has been, we know we will see him some each day...AND the next day! Before if he was busy on an off day we could go like 3 or 4 days without seeing him much at all. This weekend he had his wood working class, and Emma and I went my friend’s art sale. We also did other random things, but mostly it was nice to have him home for both days! 

Opossums. Although I think Daddy wishes he was really asleep.

See her smile?

Trying on Daddy’s fire helmet 

Someone didn’t eat her lunch and was starving for dinner. After eating all her grilled cheese and tomato soup, she shared some ramen with Daddy. With seaweed. 😝 they both love it, I do not.

Christmas tree, take 2

Well we are getting ready for the next two weeks that are filled with Christmas parties and other activities. Last night I had a PWOC event, and when I got home I saw a lovely little tree all decorated. We never did find a tree stand, and our real tree is looking sad. Steven has gotten this tree at the thrift shop on base. He also got a desk too tree for Emma. He told her she could have it when her room was clean. So they cleaned her room and she got her tree. 

It was weird for Emma to help with a fake tree. I don’t think she knew they existed. She told me they had to put it together. And told her friend she had a fake Christmas tree....I don’t think he understood. Most people have fake ones here, so not sure he knew what a real one was. 

Here is the front of her from the last post. 

New schedule

Today Steven started his new schedule. He is on 8 hours, which means he will be home every night. I don’t think he has been home every night for dinner for at least 3 years, maybe more. We are all excited. He woke up early this morning, so he went in early...and came home early. He did homework with Emma, and I made pfeffernusse while Emma did some crafting. Then we all ate dinner together. I think this will be a good change. 

We had a good earthquake this morning. Neither Steven nor Emma felt it, but I did. More things wiggled than normal, too. Probably because we were so close to the epicenter.

I have been making pfeffernusse for like 12 years. I have never had so much trouble with it as I have had this year. First my dough was too dry and crumbled, I couldn’t even pick up the cookies to move them without them crumbling. So we added water and chilled it again. Well, I added too much water and now they are sticky and spread when baked. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️ if you get pfeffernusse this year, I’m sorry it’s weird.

I am still working on my French braiding skills. Aunt Grace game me some tips, but I think I’m still making some mistakes. For starters I think I’m puking I’m too much hair each time? I will keep trying. And I should have taken a picture of the front of her! We got this cute nightgown at the thrift shop! 

Last days of Fall

I have been trying for days to upload another post, but I still can’t get it to work. I will try something different tomorrow. But for now..

I have some pictures from Friday. We had planned on going down to Yokosuka overnight, but then Steven had to work on Saturday. And he didn’t sleep well Friday night, so instead of a one-day trip down there, we looked up where else we could get a real tree: IKEA. It’s only 20-30 minutes away, instead of 2 hours. We left early, and arrived before they opened, so we headed to Showa Park, which is only a block away. Apparently it was a Japanese holiday, so it was packed...everything was. But we still enjoyed seeing the last changing leaves. And someone got her wiggles out. We did get a tree at IKEA. It is about the size of last years....everything is smaller here. But it is real. We did come home to discover that I put the tree stand in storage...or else we just can’t find it. I had no idea there would be real trees here! It is currently sitting in a cup of water propped up in the living room. We will probably have to order a stand, I can’t find any here so far. So there has been no actual decorating yet. But when we do there will be pictures!

Emma’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree that Connie sent Steven last year. 

I’m a terrible photographer. 

There were so many photographers taking pictures!

She wanted to run through the grass.

She was full of giggles!

Jumping on the bouncy thing. A lot more kids this time!

They had lots of vendors there for the Fall Leaves Featival. And fireworks at night. I was impressed with the ketchup and mustard in the same packet!

It was a long walk back to the car, so we got her a Churro to eat on the way.

She fell asleep on the way home, so we stopped by the wood shop for Steven to sign up for a class. She woke up while he was in there. I tried to get a picture of her sleeping, but got one of her waking up instead. 

DDdy took a nap and we watched Mary Poppins on tv. She really is magic: She got Emma to sit still (no cartwheels for 2 hours)! 

Emma and I went to Joyful Honda by ourselves today while Daddy worked. We also made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, but I have no pictures of that. Corn is a side dish here (at McDonalds). And she loved her toy! She did not love shopping at Joyful Honda the Saturday after a Friday Japanese holiday. 🤷‍♀️ I never seem to mind shopping. 

Busy week

This has been a busy week! The kids had no school on Monday for Veterans Day, so we did some Christmas shopping. The Vice President came Monday night and left on Tuesday. They had to cancel the last half of school because of the flight line shutting down...so they just had their Walk/Jog-a-thon that morning. Tuesday night we baked like maniacs. And Wednesday was PWOC...and we were exhausted. Today was more baking and tomorrow is the memorial for an airman who died on base. I am helping at chapel for that...which was part of the baking. 

We really liked her hair on Sunday!

I’m thinking she may have some sort of allergy. This is from the bandaid from her flu shot. Bandaids have tended to do this to her....which is unfortunate because she loves them.

We stopped at McDonalds for lunch in the middle of our shopping on Monday. Honestly it is so much more stressful to do anything here (foreign country and all) and I just haven’t been doing much since my surgery, we should have just come home after lunch. We were tired. From now on we will just do one store at a time.

They posted this on the base FB page. Some of my friends got to meet them! 

Johnny is one of four fire fighters that San Angelo sent up to CA to fight the fires. They are really bad right now. 

This is from my friends FB page. This is Beale. It is so bad they cancelled school for the rest of the week.

walking at the walk/jog a thon. This was before she saw me.

Making pfeffernusse. She was in charge of dumping the flour in the mixer. 

She wanted to make something. She got out sour cream, lime juice and something else. I told her no. I said that from now on if she wants to cook something she has to have a recipe. I even showed her how to get on Pinterest to look up recipes. Well, while I was making dinner she found one...cookies. And I did tell her she had to have a recipe, which she did.  So we made cookies. We must not make cookies very often, because when they came out of the oven she said, “they look like cookies!” So we had milk and cookies for a bed time snack.

Oh, Polly. She was throwing up tonight. 

She is currently sleeping on Emma’s couch in the living room. She has 2 blankets and some “tea” right beside her. Hopefully she feels better in the morning.