Sunday, January 27, 2019

Little ball of dough

I’m falling down on the job of taking pictures. But I did get one today. We made rolls to be hamburger buns. Emma wanted to knead, but the dough was too big, so I broke off a piece and she had her own lump of dough. She thought it was great. She make her own little rolls. 

Saturday, January 26, 2019

Daddy’s home

Steven made it home today...although not how originally planned. Their military flight was cancelled, so they found a commercial flight instead. (Their flight ended up getting delayed 48 hours.) It got in at the same time, but I had to pick them up at the airport in Tokyo. As soon as he texted me, I left and dropped Emma off at big Emma’s house, where she baked cookies and played and had lots of fun. Then I got a map since there are apparently tunnels 10 miles long that your phone loses service in, which it did...and there are exits in the tunnels. Anyway, once I figured out that my phone had been set to “avoid tolls” and it was was taking twice as long as necessary to get there, I reset it and had a very smooth ride. But I didn’t figure it out until a half hour into my drive, so I ended up being 45 minutes early. I enjoyed the silence after this busy week. I picked them up and we headed home. We missed our turnoff in the tunnel so we had to turn around, which put us in some heavy traffic due to someone having car trouble. The sun was also almost completely blinding at that time. We probably added at least a half hour more than it should have taken. Anyway, we did eventually get home. We went to Chili’s for dinner, ate the chocolate that he brought home, and played Quiddler Junior. Steven and Emma both went right to sleep after an exhausting day. I  headed there soon. I did not take any pictures today. But AmyBeth (big Emma’s mom) sent me some of Emma. 
They saved us each a cookie! 

This is Amelia, one of Emma’s little sisters. AmyBeth and her family and some of our other friends were doing lots of baking today. Good day to stop by! 

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Emma’s photography

Someone got ahold of my phone.



She was also sending poop emojis (💩) to Daddy. 

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Football and Princess movies

Monday we switched between the Chiefs game and princess movies (Cinderella, Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast). It was an interesting morning. They (Paris was here) missed good chunks of the movies, and I missed chuncks of the games. But it was ok. At one point Emma went and put on her Belle dress. 


We were sad the Chiefs lost. I have worn my Chiefs shirt out of the house since and I have been getting lots of random sympathy from strangers. 

Saturday, January 19, 2019

Doing nails

These pictures are from a while ago, but since my blog apps haven’t been cooperating, you get to see them now. 

She and Paris love the new nail light. At least she sits still for a while minute while they dry! 



Long week

Is it next weekend yet? This was a tough week. Emma was fine, although we did have a late-ish night which made for a day full of tears the next day. But mostly it was just other stuff. Things I wasn’t expecting to deal with... And I had been having trouble sleeping, so that didn’t help. But today was much better. We enjoyed having a day off. We played lots of Quiddler Junior, made lots of muffins, did lots of laundry, and did nails. Paris came over and played for most of the day. We are blessed whenever she comes to play. She loves to do nails, bake, play dolls and Quiddler Junior....you know, all the girl things that we do. Emma loves having a friend to play with, and I love it, too. 😉 Sometimes they play a lot by themselves, but today I did a lot with them.  

Steven has one more week until he comes home from his TDY in Okinawa. Emma only has 3 days of school this week. I work for Tabitha this week. I didn’t plan that very well. Please pray for this week! I know we will survive, but I would love for it to not be as stressful as this week was. We are taking a break from chores tomorrow, and are excited to watch the Chiefs of Monday morning when she doesn’t have school! 


Anybody understand this??? They are doing construction on the over runs, the roads we use to cross the flight line to get to the other/main side of base. It will go on for a year and a half. For a while only one will be open at time, one in the day, one in the night. I figure I will figure it out when I can’t get through. 


Helping Chelsea with her homework 



Thank you Aunt Faith! Chelsea loves her new dress! 


This is usually about what happens near bedtime. 

Me: “Emma, get ready for bed.”

Emma: hides, acts crazy, gets dolls ready for bed. Tonight we discussed that when it’s time for bed she needs to get ready for bed, not the dolls. 

You wouldn’t believe how long it can take to just get in pjs and brush teeth! It’s not like we haven’t had the same bed time routine her whole life. She used to be the easiest kid to put to bed. I think we are paying for it now. 


Lucky Bags

This post was from Jan 2.

Emma went back to school today. She said she had and an amazing and weird day. She couldn’t tell me why. I think it’s because she had a great day, but was feeling silly and goofy at bedtime. 😏 She felt like the day went by fast. I had a board meeting this morning, and then went shopping with one of my friends. New Years in Japan is a big holiday. They do lots of things at shrines, but also it’s like their Black Friday...except their deals are actually deals! I didn’t want to deal with the crowds and a tired child on New Years, so I stayed home. But I heard that some stores still. Have some Lucky Bags. Basically on New Years it’s Lucky Bag Day, and the stores mark everything down, too. A Lucky Bag is a bag that they put random stuff from their store in, and you pay a set price for, generally without knowing what’s inside, although today there were signs that showed what was in them. Whatever is in the bag is worth more than what you pay. I wasn’t really expecting to save money, but thought it would be fun to try. I heard the tea store still had bags/bixes, so that’s where we went. I also got a bag at the bakery and an accessory shop. And let me tell you, they are serious about deals here. It’s not like the stated where you get the stuff no one wants and it’s not really marked down. They put good stuff in and it’s super marked down. In the tea box I paid ¥3260 ($30) and got at least $60 worth of tea. The accessory bag was ¥1000, and it was probably worth $60 (¥6000) at least. The bargain shopper in me was very excited. 


The loot from my Lucky Bags: a box full of tea (at least 9 different kinds), bracelets, necklaces, clips, earrings, headband, hair ties, barrettes, scunci, and lots of pastries!


The inside of our chocolate bread pig thing. 


Doing handstands with Chelsea 



Technical issues

I just found several posts that I thought had uploaded but apparently had not. 🤦‍♀️ I have been trying to figure out how to get them up, but it’s taking a while. None of my apps are working, so I’m going to ha e to be creative.

Rest day 

This post  was from Jan 10. 

Emma and I needed a rest day. We have been super busy and tired and not eating great. So today we laid around a lot, Skyped, did a couple small, but necessary chores, and relaxed. We are feeling much better. 




She set up shop yesterday morning. I shopped, but Daddy was a much better sport than I was. 




We finally figured out how her cup works! She was pretty excited. We got this cup at a festival here a while back. 

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Growth spurt

Emma had a growth spurt sometime this holiday season. We got out a bunch of clothes from her “too big box” because her pants were too small or had holes in them. Then we gave away some of her small ones, and conveniently replenished her too big box with two large trash bags full of size 7-8 that I got on the Yokota Swap page. I also noticed while brushing her teeth that her 6 year molars were coming in. (I didn’t this was a thing, but all the first graders talk about it, so Emma has been sure for a while she was getting them.) 

See the back one starting to come in?

This is the only other new picture I have. Looking at her math booklet that she brought home from school. He was being silly and looking at it up side down.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Always an adventure

Living in Japan means any time we leave base will alway be an adventure. We never know where the GPS will actually take us, or how it will get us there. Or if it will be open. Or what we will actually find when we get there. Or if we brought enough yen or if they take card. Or if we made a wrong turn if we will be able to turn around for a half hour and how much it will cost in tolls. Or if we will even find something to eat that we know what it is and it’s not octopus balls. Sigh. This is why it toook me 6 months to adjust to living here. But I am used to all that uncertainty now. So now it’s just an ‘adventure.’ Tonight Steven tried to take us to an Owl Cafe. It took an hour to get there by train, then it was closed . ☹️ Google said it was open. Oh well. We found the zoo on the GPS so we headed in that direction and found a park for Emma to get all her wiggles out. (It’s hard to be quiet and still on the train.) On the way we found some fun shops on a different street, so we went and checked them out. We will have to go back to the zoo (it was too late in the day to go), and check out the stores. We did eat at the Pancake House. I was itching to have Japanese fluffy pancakes. So we are and then took the train home. On the way back to our car Emma begged for McDonalds....an hour after we had eaten. But you don’t have to twist Daddy’s arm for McDonalds, so we ate their , too. 

He got some sort of coffee, and let Emma try a sip. She liked it.

Seriously that is like $6 worth of strawberries! At least. She ate them all.




Yum!



Eggs Benedict. They were looking at him. 

My fluffy pancakes. They taste about like they look. Sugar and air. Steven was not a fan. I liked them, but Japanese pastries give me a headache if I eat too much. So I also had an omelet.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

The silliness of Emma


You know, just opening the door with her feet.

We went out to eat with my friend Shannon and her daughter, Bella. They were taking pictures of each other.

And herself apparently 

And me apparently 

And Shannon and the sign of their meat special that is now over.

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Late night

Last night I went to a PWOC sign-making night. It was fun. While I was gone Emma and Steven cleaned the house! It was a nice surprise to come home to. But we all stayed up very late, so we will probably be going to bed early tonight. 
Updated to add that we did not go to bed early the next night! Getting ready for PWOC Kickoff! Maybe tomorrow?

This is what Emma did when she got up yesterday. 

We had a great turnout! 
Side note: I did not take any of these pictures. 

I opted for the Japan design. Emma lectured me on how the first letter in country name should be capitalized.

This is one of our chaplains wives with the second design, she painted her’s for her 4 year old daughter’s room. The pink has glitter on it!

Obviously I didn’t take this picture...they had me do a devo.

Emma is trying out the new Japanese hair stuff I got in the Lucky Bag. This is what she wore today.