What a party!

It was a great, if weird, party.

Midori and Lisa-chan and Hiromi's husband and Ayumu showed up right on time (3:30 -- everything in Japan seems to start on time, which would be fine in my old life, but tougher these last, oh, 3.5 years). Hiromi's husband didn't stay long, and the kids just played and snacked and we waited for Tomoko and her sons, Taiki and Keita, to arrive at 4 (she had let me know she couldn't arrive until then... it's not like she was, you know, running LATE.). It some ways it was like any party or group of kids together -- playing, running around, checking things out, even sharing. Jack, Kate and Liv really seemed to like having other kids in the house, and it was fun to see them showing their toys and things to their new friends.

In other ways, it was an odd party. It was so quiet, for one thing. So unbelievably quiet. Probably it was the language barrier, but also I suppose there was a certain shyness because all the friends were new. At one point, Jack went up to John and asked if he thought kids were having fun. They were -- it just took a while, and wasn't noisy.

But we did a Halloween project (decorating felt pumpkins) and and the kids played with toys, dressed up in crowns and scarves and bandanas and ate and were kids -- and there was lots of smiles throughout.

The moms talked about poor Hiromi (with Tomoko translating), who still hasn't had the baby but will stay in the hospital again tonight, and poor Ayumu, who misses his mom terribly and whose whole world is in the midst of changing.

Tomoko and Midori both brought cakes, and all three families came with goodie bags for all the kids, and with the treat bags we found -- well, there was A LOT of candy at the end.

At some points later that night, as John and I cleaned up and listened to the kids buzzing with excitement and sugar, I couldn't find the girls... it turns out they had taken the bowl of Doritos and camped out in the entry, munching with crowns on. Because, you know, they clearly hadn't had enough junk food in the previous 90 minutes!

A little while later, the three of them all put on rainboots and grabbed bags and went outside to ring out doorbell and shout TRICK OR TREAT. We added some more candy to their bags (by that point, why bother limiting it?) and called it a night.

These are three happy kids. They have been flying high all night (and it can't just be the sugar).

We ended up with great decorations thanks to John's good find at a grocery store with the kids today and the fortuitous arrival this morning of a care package from my dear childhood friend and her family, Susie (we shared the candy corns -- they were a HIT!). And while I don't consider myself a crafty person (at least not in the arts-and-crafts sense)... the crowns and felt pumpkins were pretty darn impressive, if I may say so myself.

Here are some more pictures of the day, including one of me with my electronic dictionary, the kids being silly in the morning earlier this week.

Happy Halloween!

Prepping for a party

Our big Halloween party is this afternoon and the kids can't wait.

It's not an easy task to prepare for a party in a country where the holiday is not really celebrated. John asked his students this week if they did anything for Halloween, or recognized the day in any way, or understood why there are a few orange and black decorations at the grocery store and mall. They had no clue except for recognizing jack-o-lanterns and such from their middle school English textbooks. I think the kids coming to the party are curious as well. We will do our best to share the joy of candy and costumes with them and probably not spend as much time, this time, talking about the undead and pagan holidays and all of that (maybe next time we're in Japan we can tackle that!).

We will have orange food (carrots, satsumas, orange juice and orange Doritos) and play Ghost in the Graveyard (I will ask Tomoko and John to translate). I couldn't find construction paper for decorations anywhere, and Hiromi volunteered to look for some for me, but instead went to the hospital last night to have her baby (Ayumu's dad, whom we haven't met, will drop him at the party, as it's all Ayumu has been talking about for a week). So we made little ghosts out of kleenix balls and dress-up crowns out of our cardboard recycling and tinfoil (they actually turned out pretty well!). I found some felt at the 100 yen store (like a dollar store) and made some felt pumpkins and different shapes the kids can put on it, and I found orange bandanas there, too, so kids can dress up as cowboys or pirates or anything else. I had wanted to make a cake or cookies, but we only have a broiler and my one attempt at making cookies was a quickly burnt disaster.

We'll take lots of pictures, of course, and let you know how it goes.

In other news -- I made the startling discovery yesterday that the bag of what I thought was white sugar (which I had just put on my plain yogurt, fruit, and granola), was actually salt. Yeah... not a good taste (especially as generously as I had "sugared" my yogurt.) I could have sworn I had picked up the same bag as I had last time at the store.

And good news for Katie -- she reported that she didn't spit on ANYONE at school this week. Now that's something every parent loves to hear. The school is preparing for some kind of performance which is, we now understand, a BIG DEAL. For one thing, they are practicing songs and dances all the time at school. Costumes are filling up the classrooms. And we were sent with a list of more things to buy for the kids (white tights, including for Jack, a white long sleeved t-shirt, and camisoles for the girls... Maiko from HGU had first translated the last item as singlets, which confused us... so John brought in the girls' leotards to learn they are NOT singlets... so she looked up more words and decided on camisoles.) Of course, all of these items will need to be marked with their names.

Anyway, this list took us for the first time to the underwear section of our favorite (affordable) children's department store and I have to say -- Japanese kids' underwear is AWESOME. So unbelievably soft -- like a different kind of cotton all together. And very clever. It is clear that it will get cold and snowy here and I found so many great footless tight, long underwear, tops, etc, and all of this amazingly soft cotton. I will need to head back (and check out the adult section, too). It did make me want to buy underwear for all of the kids we know in the world, which John said is just a little weird. Maybe... but it was SO soft!

OK. Off to shop for the party. Hope to be back with a good report later tonight. Happy Halloween!

Oh spit

Last night at dinner, Katie mentioned to me that she spit at a girl at school. I was surprised and mentioned something about how we don't spit at other people. Livie piped up that the girl had taken Katie's toy, and the girl wasn't even supposed to be playing with toys then, she was supposed to be coloring, and Katie tried to get her toy back and when she couldn't, she spit at the girl (nice to have a sister to come to your defense with play-by-play action). The girl, Katie added, spit right back at her.

This led me to ask Hiromi today for a couple of kid-friendly phrases that we could teach the kids so that they could tell someone "stop that" or ask someone for help (John's are all a bit long and very polite). So all night, we have been practicing "da-me" (no, stop), "bat-ten" (a more gentle form of no, stop), "tetsu dau " (help me), and "shiranai" (I don't understand). While spitting, we told Katie, is generally not an acceptable form of communication, we realized we hadn't armed her with any other way of letting the girl know of her wishes to keep playing with that toy (or anything else besides thank you, good morning, yes, and goodbye). We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I REALLY hope the teachers didn't see. I can't imagine that conversation from the teacher to the HGU people to John... it wouldn't be good from anyone's perspective.

And we're seeing an interesting side-effect from all of this language immersion (they are getting a lot of Japanese, of course, but French at home as I attempt, poorly, to keep up with Jack's schoolwork). Katie and Livie have just started making up words (and sentences and songs and stories). A lot. There are some words they use consistently (mufasa=run fast) and others that seem to change with their moods. Often, Katie will say "Sing this French song with me. If you don't know the words, you can just do the dancing" and then dive into a five minute vocal rendition of, well, something. They understand that different words can be used to talk about the same thing (the moon, hello, thank you) and are making up their own language because, I guess, they can. It's kind of fun to see.

Tomorrow I hope to post a bunch of the pictures from Jay and Judy's visit. We had a WONDERFUL time and were very sad to see them leave today. John and I got in THREE dates/dinners out (figuring we won't get any more until we're back in Lethbridge!) and the kids loved showing them the subway, their backyard, the river, and everything about our interesting life here. Katie's meltdowns, which had started to decrease just before they came, continued to decrease in number and intensity... and she just seems a lot happier in general. Hopefully, she is starting to feel a bit more settled in.

Oh -- and the big news (from the kids' perspective) -- we decided to have a Halloween party on Friday with four friends. It will be the highlight of their social season!

Language, too much and too little

So, we get lots of letters from the kids' school in Japanese and usually take them to Maiko or Kunihara, the wonderful HGU people who help us, to translate. Usually they are not very important. We got one yesterday that John read as well as he could -- it said, he thought, that each child needed to bring two rolls of toilet paper to school. Weird, but OK. Maybe things are tight and the kids are going through more TP than the school had budgeted for. So I picked up a six pack at the store last night, and John dutifully brought it to school today. They looked confused. He looked confused. Turns out, they simply were asking for two toilet paper rolls -- the cardboard ends of a roll, that is -- for a craft project.

We brought the toilet paper home, and now need to go through those six rolls as quickly as possible (at least we have seven people in the house this week to help!).

Everyone we meet is amazed at how good John's Japanese is -- but it is clearly not quite fluent enough in preschool terms (those 19th century religious terms just aren't coming up very much!). I have no such problem. I am having such a hard time learning Japanese. It just isn't sticking. I don' t know if it's because of the different lettering system (romanji, or Roman letters, plus katakana, hirigana, and kanji), or because I am almost twice as old as I was when I went to France, or because I have been sleep deprived the last few years, but I am having a such a hard time. Nothing is sticking. I still forget the word for twins. ALL THE TIME. And people say it to me, and I look it up, and belatedly remember it ALL THE TIME (it's futago, by the way, but if you were to ask me that on the street I wouldn't remember 9 times out of 10). And I forget the number four, for some reason, so when ordering, I have to get 1,2,3 or 5 of whatever it is I need (good thing we don't need to buy new tires for a car!). I can get by, as most people know some English and I have my dictionary and apologies... but it hit me just how poorly I am doing when we went out to eat the other night (found a wonderful French restaurant across the street and grandparents to watch little ones) and the restaurant owner and John were working slowly through the menu in Japanese and then the owner asked if we spoke French. It turns out he did his training in Lyon, not far from where I lived when I was there. And from that point on, I was able to converse so comfortably with him then -- it all came back, and I could be funny and polite and make my needs known. It was such a pleasure talking to him, the Japanese chef, in French, about factual things (our dinner choice) and interesting things (how long he had the restaurant, where we came from and why we are there) and everything else. On the way home, I realized how many conversations I am NOT having because I am so slow in learning Japanese. There are missed conversations with teachers, with friends, with the woman checking me out at the store and the person at the coffee shop. Some of this quiet is probably good -- time to reflect and all -- but I do miss some of the more pleasant parts of human conversation!

And oh, the missed conversation with teachers... well, it turns out that we had two events at the kids' school today (observing the girls' gym class and having lunch with the moms of students in Jack's class) -- but I had sort of combined both in my head as the lunch... and so today, when I got there, I saw the girls in gym class with TONS of parents and grandparents watching and dancing and videotaping... and we had completely forgotten. I went in for the last three minutes, which was actually worse and made Katie sad to have to leave... and then found out we had missed Jack's gym day last week as well. The teacher tried to remind John this morning -- but when she talked about an event today, he said "yes, Lisa is coming" -- thinking it was the mother's lunch. Ah, confusion all around. Luckily, Jack said he didn't even know why all those people were in gym class last week, so he didn't really wonder where we were. Hopefully the girls won't be scarred permanently either.

The lunch with the other mothers was nice -- I sat with a woman who spent a year working in Banff and so she knows a lot of English (yay!). The teacher came in part way through with lots of updates that Tomoko occasionally translated for me. I was thinking how nice that kind of a thing would be at schools in Lethbridge -- a chance to talk with other parents (in this case it was all mothers) and to ask the teacher things informally.

We are heading out of town tomorrow until Saturday night with Jay and Judy -- we are going to a different water slide/ Japanese hot springs hotel in a beautiful area. It has been SO good having them here -- they are getting to see a lot of Sapporo and have been helping so much with the kids (and the dishes, and the kids, and did I mention how great it is that they have been helping with the kids, those same kids who were driving me a bit crazy?!?!)

Can't wait for the waterslides!

Overheard in our house

Kate and Liv: "Mean Doggie, where are you? Mean doggie?"
John: "Mean Doggie is in the bathroom."
Jack: "Girls," he says, exasperated, "my name is Bad Hyena!" (like, duh....)

Humor in translation, and another head wound for Katie

Just two quick stories about miscommunication. First, at the park yesterday, there were two moms with two kids playing who asked if the girls were twins and told me how old their kids were. I meant to tell them, in Japanese, that Jack was six and Kate and Liv were three. Instead, I told them Jack was six, and Kate and Liv were "third generation" -- that their grandparents were Japanese (sansei instead of sansai). John overheard me and laughed quietly as they stared, tilted their heads and tried to see the Japanese influence on these fair-haired kids.

Shortly after, we were at the grocery store. As I walked by the pizza display, I saw something that had been eluding me since I found the cheese shop -- a good cheese grater. It was a small, silver grater with four sides and sizes... just right (I have bought two graters that are really for vegetables and mangle our precious cheese). So I put it in my basket. When I was checking it, the checker scanned it and it didn't register. I get the sense that NEVER happens in Japan. She did it again, and nothing registered. Looks of horror came over her face. Someone came over and they talked and I got the sense they were asking where I found it. I mentioned, lamely, "pizza?". One said "Ah, pizza corner!" "Hai (yes)," I said. So one ran off while the other continued to ring me out. A second later, I realized I had probably plucked the grater out of a display. Meekly, I took out my dictionary, looked up the word for decoration and showed the checker. Ah-ha, she said. "Sumimasen," I said (I'm sorry -- one of the few phrases I have down pat). The first checker came back with the same discovery and apologies that I could not buy the display grater... I think she said I could get one at the big market downtown....I just repeated Sumimasen and hurried off with my groceries.

Anyway.

In other news -- Jay and Judy safely arrived last night, and the kids actually let them sleep til 8:30 this morning. They are SO excited to see them (as are we all... but John and I tend not to squeal quite as much.) The kids and I took them to Odori Park downtown (John has to submit the book tonight) where we had a great time... until Katie ran out of the bathroom straight into the path of a bike. None of us actually saw it happen, but I came out of the bathroom to find Katie with a VERY bloody nose, a new knot between her eyes and lots of sobs. The woman on the bike had a child with her and was mopping Katie's nose along with Judy when I saw her. At first, I thought she was just stopping to help but then I figured out that she had run into Katie (or Katie had run into her). Poor babe. She seems OK... with my dictionary, I was able to figure out what happened (sort of... she and her kid are OK, and she said Katie didn't hit her head when she fell. There was much apologizing from everyone.). Katie said it's a "medium hurt." As we continued on after snacks, cuddles, and a bit of washing up, Liv ran off in front of her. Katie screamed out "Careful Wiv... that bike is coming! Slow down!" Thankfully, sister heard sister and all was well.

Here are some pictures of the last few days -- Jack getting 100 yen from the tooth fairy, cleaning for Grandma and Grandpa, and our day at the park. The last one, sadly, is another head wound for Katie.

Saturday with the kids

John has a book deadline on Monday morning, plus the usual class prep, so I took the kids by myself downtown to Sapporo Station to the cheese stop (two small bags of cheddar and a small package of goat cheese... $20. The pleasure... priceless) and on a few other errands. I had the stroller and three kids by myself -- a challenge for sure. I carried the stroller down the two flights of stairs of our subway stop, and Jack held his sisters' hands. Then when we got to the escalator, I took Liv's hand (and had the double stroller folded up on my shoulder) and Jack took Kate's hand and we made it safely down. Coming home was another story... we had two escalators and this time I had to carry Katie and the stroller, so Jack took Liv's hand. Each time, Liv stepped on a crack/new step and fell over. Each time I had visions of one of those horrible-death-by-escalator stories I have read about over the years (OK, maybe horrible for a foot or hand or hair... but nightmares all the same). But each time, Liv and Jack were calm, and Liv just sat down, got her bearings, and stood up. Whew.

There are elevators at various places, but they are not always easy to get up, and it seems that most people ride the subway with strollers folded up unless it isn't very busy. Anyway -- we made it, and had grilled cheese for dinner to celebrate.

Yesterday, we went to the English preschool Ayumu goes to. The kids LOVED it. There were just three kids in the Friday class, and two teachers (nice ratio!). We are thinking of maybe having the kids go on Fridays... it is just two hours and the ease they showed there -- the way they played and talked to the teachers -- it was great to see. If not formally, we might just drop in from time to time, too.

And here are a few more photos from an earlier bike trip to a new park earlier this week. Olivia was wearing her SuperGirl Olivia cape (made by Maya for Liv's 2nd birthday)... she wears it all over Sapporo, and I do wonder what people think...















Jack is very at ease on two wheels, starting and stopping.



You might also notice another bandage on Katie's head... on one of our park trips, she was running quickly and just tripped, embedding a tiny rock in her head (which I was able to remove with little fuss, thankfully).














































Oh, and I had been meaning to write that some people have said they are having trouble posting comments. I am not sure what that is about, but it has happened with several different people. You can just email me or John at any of the usual addresses and we will get the message. Also -- if you want to blow these photos up, you can just double click on them.

That's all for now -- goodnight!

End of the week update

Another week has flown by (John doesn't teach Friday, so it's like our weekend begins early here). Fall is definitely here with what I think of as East Coast colors -- reds, oranges, and yellows (like the leaf falling in this photo at Nakajima Park this week).

Kate bravely got her stitches out on Wednesday morning and then John rushed her back to school where her class was taking a field trip to a park -- thankfully she made it in time. Again, no tears, even as the doctor pulled on the strings and it looked like it was hurting. They also made John get some tape that she is to wear on it for the next THREE months. I think it is to ensure the most minimal of scars! And the final bill was not the super-expensive one we had preparing ourselves for -- less than $200 total and it should be reimbursed by our Blue Cross in Canada. So that was good news.

Also, Jack lost a second tooth today! We asked Hiromi if anything special happens when a child loses a tooth in Japan. She said that if it is a lower tooth, you throw it off a roof. If it is an upper tooth... well, the word she showed me in the dictionary was "to do a thankless task", but she motioned as if throwing it under something -- under a bridge, or somewhere low. Anyway, if you do both of these things, apparently it guarantees "strong adult teeth." I tried to explain the tooth fairy to her... and I think something was lost in my translation as well! The second photo here shows him looking at his newly exposed gums in the bathroom mirror -- where he spends a lot of time these days with his teeth.

The kids are getting excited about Halloween, which is not really celebrated here. There are a few decorations out at some stores, but not much, and people don't really go door to door. Ayumu (Hiromi's son) WILL go to a Halloween party and had to get a costume, though, as he goes to an English immersion preschool, which we are invited to visit tomorrow. This, of course, was confusing to the kids ("but you said no one dresses up here!"). We probably should make some plans soon...

The other big event of the week was a fancy lunch we had with the university president and some of John's colleagues on Wednesday. No one fell asleep under the table this time (mostly because the kids were at school and you can pretty much count on me and John to stay awake when delicious food is around!). It was held at a "western" restaurant in a private (very fancy) room at a newly renovated hotel and the food was incredible! Mostly Italian-ish, although with a definite Japanese flair (the fish and some seasonings, I think). But there was... homemade BREAD! Delicious, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside homemade bread with cold butter. Sigh... it could have ended there and I would have been in heaven! The administrative people were very worried to have heard (after the fact) about Katie's doctor visit and sort of surprised that we didn't call them to accompany us and translate. I think if we had known we would end up at the hospital, we would have... but we really thought we could have taken care of it with superglue at the first doctor's office!

Most of the rest of the week was wonderfully routine...
bike rides, grocery shopping, meals (we had mac-and-cheese, number seven, on Wednesday night but not out of desperation... just a fun thing to have after having been at school), playing at the park, John's classes, some editing on my end, and getting ready for a visit from Jay and Judy starting Sunday. We were invited to have coffee and play at Hiromi and Ayumu's on Tuesday -- their house (soon to be home for four) is SO small! It makes ours here in Sapporo look enormous and I don't even want to think about how it compares to our house in Lethbridge. But it was full of toys -- pretty comparable to what a kid in North America would have, I'd say... lots of puzzles and games and noisy things, too.

We've been amazed at how well Jack and Olivia have settled in -- Jack is so at ease in the classroom and even finding his way on the subway, up and down the escalators, and Livie has been in great spirits, ready for whatever the next adventure might be. Katie has defintely been having a harder time, though. She was tough as nails when it came to the head wound, but pretty emotionally fragile about little things lately. She has always been a bit cautious -- not eager to leave me when ballet class started back in Lethbridge, nervous about playing soccer without John right there at the summer camp -- and she REALLY likes her routines and familiar faces. So I think just coming to Japan (and starting Japanese preschool) has been especially challenging for her. The last week or two, she has just started melting down at the littlest thing... for example, she likes to have her hair combed and put in TWO ponytails BEFORE she puts a shirt on. If, for some reason, you put her shirt on first, it's the end of the world and tears flow for 20 minutes. If all three kids are talking to me at once (which they often do, especially when we pick them up at school) and I don't understand what she's saying, she just literally collapses and starts sobbing. We have been just trying to accommodate her needs/wants/obsessions when possible, figuring that she just needs extra control and attention and love when so much seems out of control (or something like that). And we tell ourselves that it IS a lot to ask a little person -- especially a naturally cautious little person -- to be plunked down in a new country, with a new language, and new food and people and routines. But we also feel a bit like we are negotiating with a terrorist sometimes too! And it's kind of hard for Jack and Liv, who see that their sister is struggling, but are finding that the same whining and demands are not dealt with in the same way (which they are actually fine with). And my other worry is about the twin thing -- I don't think her meltdowns would seem so dramatic if we didn't have someone of the same age handling it all just fine in the house... I mean, I don't remember what Jack was exactly like at three years and five months. So I wonder if we have higher expectations of her because Olivia is doing so well. Does that make sense? Anyway... maybe the bigger story is how remarkable it is that Jack and Livie already seem so at ease here, and not as much that Katie is having a harder time. But sending good vibes her way wouldn't hurt, either, so if you have them, send them along!

And on that note -- I will leave you with a few pictures of the inside of our house. We rarely close the shoji screens (because I am sure one of the kids is going to put a hand through the paper screen) but Jack asked for it to be closed tonight. It's very pretty...

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in Canada! It is some sort of holiday here today (we aren't sure what) and we have been thinking of turkey (and Columbus) all day today. We had a nice, relaxing weekend -- the highlight was going to a puppet show at Nakajima Park on Saturday. They did three little plays, including the Three Billy Goats Gruff (I didn't remember that the third Billy Goat poked out the troll's eyes with his horn and threw him off the bridge... is that what happened when we heard it as kids?). We also heard a folk tale that had to do with a farmer trying to pull a plant -- an onion? or really big garlic? a turnip! -- out of the ground. By some wonderful coincidence (or maybe not... it could be called "The October Folktale" in Japan for all we know), the girls had heard and then performed the same folktale at school last week. So they recognized it (and, since I was there, I did too and was able to say "See, it's just like the one at school!"). So even though they didn't understand the words or refrain that everyone sang (John couldn't make sense of it either... it was probably something like "Heave-ho-out you go" that makes sense to a 3 year old but not a foreign speaker), it was pretty great for them to see it in both places and know what to expect.

This afternoon I had a couple of kid free hours and so did a little shopping. What an experience. I literally tried on 23 pairs of pants to find some that fit. Apparently, I am shaped like a Japanese boyfriend, as the only jeans that fit were called, in English, "Boyfriend pants". The khakis I found didn't have an English name, but I am pretty sure the Japanese letters were "really dowdy pants for women who have had children and aren't 15". Most of the pants were just SOOOOOO small, and in places you would expect as well as those you might not. Like, in the knees. And, well, the ankles. Places that I didn't even know *could* not fit a person. And the shirts all fit oddly -- I apparently have much broader shoulders than most Japanese women, as all sizes were too tight in the shoulders (although they fit OK in the arms and torso... a victory!). Anyway, it was a bit disappointing. I had already given up hope of finding many fabulous shoes that fit my size-nines (and there are SO many cool shoes here), but I did harbor hope of coming home with many cool big-city clothes. I'll keep looking and trying (and my boyfriend jeans are pretty great), but I won't be spending all of our money at the mall.

And I had a bit of an ephiphany today about money. The two other times we lived abroad, I (and then we) had so very little of it. In my mind, traveling in a foreign country means never having enough money, and looking for the cheapest motel by the rail station even though it probably isn't entirely safe, and eating on the street instead of in a cafe. I just figured that's what happens when you leave the comforts of home. And I had been kind of operating in that same way here, to a certain degree (like not looking at pants for me because even though two of the four pants I brought from Lethbridge now have frayed bottoms and tons of food stains and kid goo and soon will have holes in the knees, it wasn't *really* a necessity because I still have two others, and worrying about how much groceries were costing (not cheese, though... I'll pay anything for cheese.) But because this is a teaching exchange, John is still getting his salary at the UofL. I am still doing some editing. And HGU pays a stipend to help offset some of the costs of living in Japan (and provides housing). So really, we're actually doing OK -- and in some ways, better. We're not driving our minivan around and so don't have to pay for gas (and are healthier for walking everywhere, too). Lori, our housesitter, uses far less water and electricity than the five of us did. And since you pretty much only use cash here, we have no credit card debt, and we are MUCH more aware of what things cost and what we are spending. It's all kind of interesting. And it was also nice to realize I could get the pants and not worry about keeping apples off our table.

Enough babbling for tonight. I still have to upload Lake Toya pix and Nakajima Park pix. Sheesh. Such a demanding job I have here!

Loose tooth/no tooth!

Jack's excitement for the day:


Loose...












Wiggle...







Wiggle...





Pull!












Smile!

Just a few more fun pictures

Here are just a few random and fun pictures of the kids the last week or so.

Sleeping sisters and working on a loose tooth...















Reading Olivia's favorite book, Olivia.

Katie's head

We took some photos of Katie's head today as proof of what a fine job the plastic surgeon did.




With the stitches,she really would make an excellent pirate.