Birthday Girls!!

For Kristen and Chelsie:

Happy Birthday to two lovely, smart, amazing sisters. We love you so much and miss you. Before I post your birthday messages from the kids, let's go back in time to three years ago.

Akiko was two-and-a-half. Moses was not quite born.

Kristen's 2007 Birthday Message

Chelsie's 2007 Birthday Message

Wasn't Akiko the most adorable little girl you've ever laid eyes on?

Still is.

Then we've got some outtakes, but just my favorite ones.

And now we return to the present.

Here's what Akiko has to say to her aunties:

I'm having trouble uploading Moses' birthday message. The file may be too large. I've been trying for about two hours now. It's super cute though. I'll figure out a way to get it to you girls. The outtake is also having trouble loading. I'm super frustrated now.

Anyway, we hope you both had a wonderful day today. We miss being near you, but we're glad we are able to stay in touch with you. Happy Birthday Kristen and Chelsie!!

Second First Day of School!

Lucky little Moses gets two posts in a row!

Just last year, we celebrated Akiko's first day of preschool.

She actually got two first days of preschool when we moved in the middle of her school year and started attending preschool out here.

I never imagined that in just one year, Moses would be old enough to attend preschool, too. Here's why: in Utah, the cutoff is generally August 31 for the school year. Here in the South Bay, at least, the cutoff is November 30. Moses' birthday is early November, so he makes the cutoff though this means that he'll be the youngest in his class. But being the youngest in the class doesn't mean that he's knows any less than the older kids.

Moses already knows most of his shapes, colors and letters and can decipher the difference between a letter and a number (though he doesn't know all his numbers yet). He can carry on a pretty intelligent conversation and uses complex sentences, that is, if you can understand what he's saying. When he started talking, he was using simple sentences right off the bat. So when I found out he was old enough to enroll in preschool, I figured, "Why not?"

So, today he embarked on his educational career.

Here he is all dressed and ready to go.

When we got there, we walked through the familiar gate,

said "Good morning" to Big Bird,

and waited for the classroom doors to open.

 

Moses got signed in, got his nametag,

 

 

and went straight to work coloring.

When I picked him up, I was told he did very well, had a lot of fun and is really smart.

I can't believe I've got two in school already. These kids are growing way too fast. I guess I better get their college savings accounts started this week.

The Fortune Cookie was Correct!

Last night we ordered Chinese food for dinner. Moses was a little grumpy. He had just woken up from a long nap. He didn't really want to eat his food. He really wanted his fortune cookie though. I mean, it was just sitting there in front of him enticing him the whole time.

We kept telling him, "You can eat your cookie after you eat your dinner."

Every time he would whine and reply, "I just want to eat mine cookie!"

This went on for, oh, about fifteen minutes or so.

It was finally decided that perhaps he just wasn't hungry. Perhaps we just gave up because it had been a long tiring day for us too. Joseph and I had driven two hours to Sonoma and back earlier that afternoon, hence the take-out for dinner.

Well, the rest of us had finished eating and we were all eyeing our own fortune cookies. We relented and let Moses have his. It read:

People find it difficult to resist 

your persuasive manner.

We just laughed. Then laughed some more.

You see, we try really hard to not give in to tantrums and the like and we do a pretty good job at it these days. Moses certainly was not throwing anything like a tantrum. He was just tired. A little whiny, perhaps, but nothing terribly stressful. 

He was just our tired, sweet little guy. Very persuasive indeed. 

Besides, how could you say "No" to a face like that?

Asher's Blessing Weekend

Our Labor Day weekend wasn't spent celebrating the last remnants of summer in any traditional way whatsoever (i.e. camping, boating, etc.). It was more focused on the little guy I pushed out during labor two months ago. Asher received his baby blessing!

My dad came out.

My mom came out. (Larry, we missed you! Hope you're feeling better!)

And Joseph's brother, Sam, moved in with us. Sorry, no pic.

But we finally did get a picture of the five of us together. It only took two months.

Special occasions always warrant special dinners so we made gyoza and agedashi tofu. Yum! Chelsie (my brother's wife) sent down some awesome handmade presents for us all. Akiko's was a really super cute apron, which she LOVES! (Moses is holding his marshmallow gun and modeling Asher's hat. Goofy kid!)

She said to me, "I'm so glad Chelsie made this for me. It's so beautiful, I'm going to keep it forever. I'm going to give it to my little girl someday so that she can help me cook just like how I help you!"

Growing up, the rule was: if you don't help wrap gyoza, you don't get to eat any. Being five years old, Akiko is plenty old enough to wrap and, therefore, was schooled in the art of gyoza wrapping. Sam also got a lesson. He was hungry. I mean, it was Fast Sunday.

I showed her once and let her take over. She learns fast! They look great!

Look at that spread!

Yep. Joseph's at the kids' table. Akiko really wanted to sit next to Grandpa Fred.

I love gyoza! We hardly ever eat it. It's very time consuming to make and the frozen ones just gross me out. I was planning on cooking it, but my mom kind of took everything over. For that, I'm grateful because I know they turned out better than if I would have done it. Thanks Mama!

In Hebrew, Asher means "happy."  He is aptly named. He smiles and coos all the time when he is awake. He is so happy in the early morning that we take him in to wake Akiko up for school, which makes her happy (and also makes for a less stressful morning).

We waited a long time and went through a lot of stress and heartbreak before we got this little angel. He was extremely active in utero, which was comforting throughout the entire pregnancy (but a bit uncomfortable at the end). His labor was longer and harder than the other two and things got a bit scary near the end. I'm not going to go into details, but my doctor called in the NICU nurse to be on standby and I came thisclose to having an emergency c-sec. 

I thank Heavenly Father every day for giving us this wonderful little boy. 

I love all my children dearly.

Being their mother is the greatest blessing in the world!