Dressed in White

Akiko's baptism is just a couple weeks away. I'm starting to panic a little about all the details, but then I have to pull myself back and tell myself that the details don't matter. The ordinance itself matters. There are tons of people who get baptized without all those little details.

Anyway, a couple months ago, I took the kids back to Sunnyvale for a weekend to attend the baptism of Akiko's best friend. I meant to blog about it, but that obviously didn't happen. It was a really fun, but too short of a trip. The kids and I had a really great time seeing all our amazing friends that we had left behind. I was feeling really homesick at the time, and the trip was able to fulfill my need to be back in Sunnyvale for a bit.

Moses and his best friend.

Akiko and some of the girls from her old primary class.

These two goofy goobers are a hoot when they get together.

I was talking to my dear friend Jessica, who is Akiko's best friend's mother, about baptism dresses when we went to visit them. She said it wasn't an easy task trying to find a modest all white dress that didn't cost too much, but she was eventually able to find one on sale. I felt a little discouraged, because if Jessica was having trouble in the Bay area, it was going to be even harder finding one in Humboldt County.

Okay, I'll admit, I didn't really spend a lot of time going out to look. Clothes shopping is a bit overwhelming for me when I have to drag any number of my boys with me. They get bored and run off and it just gets too stressful for me by the end. I looked online, but all I was finding were either cheap-o ugly dresses or gorgeous but expensive communion dresses that looked more like bridal gowns.

I decided to call my mom to see if she'd be willing to look around Salt Lake for anything. She was already on the job and had come to the same conclusion I had. She had decided to make a dress and had already purchased a pattern and fabric. However, my step-father had recently undergone open heart surgery and she was too busy helping him recover to try to make one. So, we decided that she would send me everything and I would try to make it.

I felt apprehensive. I've tried making clothes from patterns before and they never quite turned out. But, since I had made that slipcover for the couch, I felt a bit more confident in my sewing abilities. I figured that if the dress doesn't turn out, I'll make a last minute purchase online.

My mom FedExed everything to me and texted me the tracking number. The morning of the delivery, I was out of the house. The delivery man called me. He couldn't find the house. My mom had accidentally written the wrong house number. I corrected him. He verified, twice. I told him I was not home and to leave the package on the porch. When I got home, there was no package on the porch... on any of our porches (we have four).

I went online and, thankful that my mom had sent me the tracking number, entered it, and was told that it had been delivered. I called FedEx and told them what happened. They said they'd look into it and gave me a case ID number. The lady had mentioned, "Maybe someone took it off your porch." I thought, This isn't the kind of town where people do that. Maybe if we still lived in West Valley. But not here. It's one of the reasons we moved here. 

A few hours later, the local office called to tell me they got the case number, that they'd talk to the driver when he was off his shift later that night, and to expect a call the next morning. All there was left to do was wait.

A few hours after that, I got a call from a lady in my ward. "Hi Yuki. Are you missing a FedEx package?" Yes. "Well, I'm over here at my sister's house and she got your package this morning. She didn't know who you were, so she didn't know what to do. I said, 'I know Yuki! I go to church with her.' Would you like me to bring it over?" Yes!! A million times, yes!!

I was so relieved. And annoyed. But mostly relieved. Living in a tiny town has its perks.

Anyway, I got started cutting out the fabric the next day. My mom actually sent me material to make an Easter dress as well as a baptism dress. I was going to start on the Easter dress first, but Joseph pointed out that even though Easter is closer, the baptism dress is higher priority.

I borrowed a serger from my friend Amy. The first time they invited us over to their house for dinner, I saw it. I was like, Lucky! (Did you read that in a Napoleon Dynamite voice? Because you were supposed to.) I'm soooooo glad she lent it to me. It was so fun to use and I didn't have to do all the trimming that I would have had to if I were only using a sewing machine. I hadn't used one since I was a teenager. Joseph said he'll buy me one someday.

Well, because the work was made so much more quickly with the serger, I was able to finish the dress in three short days.

Modest baptism dress: Check!

More importantly, IT FITS!!

Akiko is so excited. She feels so beautiful in her dress. She said she's going to save this dress for her daughter. Cue proud mommy tears.

She had her baptism interview with the bishop the other day. She passed. This girl is so ready. I'm really impressed with the knowledge she has gained, especially within the last year or so. She's a shining example to everyone around her. I'm so very blessed to be her mother.

One more detail checked off the list. I think we'll be ready for the baptism.

Because You've Been Patient: An Update

I'm sure you are all willing to forgive my lack of posting. Being a mother of a 10 month old who has been going through separation anxiety for the last four months, a 2 year old burst of energy who has suddenly decided to potty train, a 5 year old who's obsession with video games has become a struggle for me to limit his tube time, and a 7 year old school age girl who has a knack for turning a fifteen minute homework assignment into an hour long assignment... well, you know how it goes. Or maybe you don't, but bear with me.

I feel like I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but in reality I do. I just haven't been able to carve out time for it. So, while the baby sleeps and the big boys are distracted, I'm taking my opportunity to finally sit down and write.

We haven't been going on a bunch of outings like we did when we lived in Sunnyvale. The winter here is colder and rainier, but on the occasion that we do have a gorgeous day when the sun is out, we do head over to the park around the corner, go hiking at a nearby preserve, or drive to the beach.

Oh, the beach. My kids love the beach. But the beaches around here are not like the beaches we are used to. They are cold and the water is treacherous. And there are lots more sharks. Not little reef sharks like you find on Maui. Big sharks. The kind that will eat you. So, now when we go to the beach, we wear our galoshes and sweaters. The kids are not allowed to play in the water, though they can play with the sea foam, but it's become a game now to run away from the waves when you see one coming.

We go rock hunting at the beach now. We've found lots of gorgeous rocks whose shades cover all the colors of the rainbow. We're working on a rock collection and we'd like to get a rock polishing kit so we can really show them off. At the beach we also build silly little structures with driftwood and kelp. The sand is too coarse for building castles.

I haven't been taking many pictures of our outings lately. The baby needs to be carried which means that Asher also wants to be carried, so bringing the camera along has become awkward. But we've been having fun. Free fun. It doesn't get any better than free.

Akiko continues to flourish at school. Her teacher went on maternity leave a couple weeks ago (she had her baby yesterday!), so now she has a sub for the rest of the year. Akiko has made lots of friends, so I hope she's finding lots of missionary opportunities. She's become a voracious reader. She read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in less than 24 hours. She's got three or four books that she's actively reading in addition to any books that she has to read for school. Her favorite book is Matilda. She's read that about a half dozen times.

Moses is mister smarty pants. He's reading on about the same level that Akiko was when she was in first grade. His math skills are incredible. I wish I'd known about transitional kindergarten. Oh well, it's too late. He was in the preschool here for a few months. He made a few good friends, but wasn't actually learning anything new. We had to pull him out, which will be explained in a bit. He was sad, but he'll see all his friends in a few months when they start kindergarten, so it's not that big a deal. He loves videos games and is really good at them. He likes to tell us all about ideas for new videos games that he'd like to create. I kind of hope he keeps that up because it would be a fun career to be part of.

Asher is... crazy, but really fun and silly and sweet. He's taken the initiative to potty train. I think I mentioned that in a previous post. He'll tell me he needs to go potty, so we'll take off his pants and diaper and he'll go. He insists on wearing a diaper still, rather than big boy briefs, so if his diaper is still clean when we take it off, we just put it back on when he's done. Saves a little money, right? Asher is the goofiest, silliest, jokiest, and loudest kid we've got. He's also super sweet and dotes on Simon and Sparky. Actually, he kind of tortures Sparky, but in a playful way. If it becomes too much for the cat, he just runs away and hides.

Simon is the happiest baby in the world. He loves to smile and laugh and giggles at the funniest things. He only gets grumpy when he's really tired or hungry. Asher can get him to giggle like no other. He crawls everywhere and his favorite mess to make is of the cat's food and water dishes. He's recently started standing on his own, which means walking is not far away. He's still bald as ever and still just as cute. We're crazy about this kid.

I've been doing better. I had some pretty severe homesickness for a while after we moved here. I missed my family in Utah and my friends in Sunnyvale. I was having a hard time getting things done around the house. I still don't have a whole lot of friends here yet, but the ones I've made so far are amazing. I got called back into the Primary presidency about a month after we moved. Joseph and I laughed. I've been in Primary in 5 of the 7 wards we've been in since we got married. Twice as the chorister and now twice in the presidency. My role is smaller, Asst. Secretary, so the break from all the work is rather nice. I'm in charge of Faith in God tracking, getting the monthly newsletter put together, and whatever random thing needs to be done. Personal exciting news is that I'm back down to my pre-Asher weight. I guess all that stair climbing, Asher chasing, and baby lifting is paying off. The skinny jeans that I bought a few months ago are saggy on me and now just look like normal jeans. I know you're all sarcastically thinking, Oh, poor Yuki is too skinny for her skinny jeans! I never thought I'd get back to pre-Asher. I was just happy being pre-Simon. Now I just need to tone up some more.

Joseph, I suppose, has the biggest news of all. He's no longer working for Justin.tv. The initial news was scary, but after we prayed about it and thought about the circumstances that led to his departure from the company we realized that it needed to happen in order for Joseph to move forward and how much the Lord's hand had to do with it all. It's kind of scary to know that there's not a regular flow of income right now, but we've felt peace about our situation and we know we'll be taken care of, financially and temporally. I've felt a strange calm about the whole thing, so I haven't really panicked, except for a little bit after Joseph told me. It's been three weeks or so now. Joseph's been getting lots of recruiter emails from various companies, but right now the Lord does not want him to take any of those jobs. So, we're going on faith and Joseph is following promptings about what to do next. I'm so grateful for personal revelation. This has been a testimony building experience.

So, even though I ended up writing a lot more than I thought I'd write in one session, that's the short version. An even shorter version would be: We're all happy and healthy, but I think that people want a bit more detail than that. If I could ask you all to pray for us as we go through this transition of unknown, we would all greatly appreciate it. I hope that I can blog more than once a month, but I'm not making any promises, especially since Akiko's baptism is coming up next month. I'll be scrambling to get everything done for that. Maybe I'll show you my progress as I go, but we'll see. No promises.

I do promise to blog about her baptism, though, within the week that it happens.

But for now, you can enjoy pictures from our latest rock hunting beach outing when Grandma Char was here to visit us.

We bring the carrier for the baby, but Asher insists on getting a turn.

Asher wanted to carry a stick and insisted on the largest one he could carry.
I talked him into a smaller one later on.

The beginnings of a driftwood cabin for the bugs.

Oh, whoops, looks like you get a cute picture of Simon in his church clothes.

Someone else built this cool driftwood hut. It must have taken a long time.

Valentine's Day - Edition 2013

Ugh. Already halfway through February and this is the first post I've done all year. How sad.

Anyway, this year's Valentines was a Pinerest idea. I was surprised at the lack of adorable ideas that the kids could help me with. There were tons of cute things, but most of them were too advanced for my young ones. So, we did these, and they turned out nice:

I really, really wish I had a Cricut or a Silhouette. Cutting out all those little hearts by hand was rather tedious, but Akiko was really into it. Moses had no interest in helping, but he did write his name on most of his Valentines.

So, I worked on these mostly on Monday and Tuesday. But then Wednesday morning I realized that Moses was having his party that day at school, since he doesn't attend on Thursdays. So, I had to rush to finish his after I made the kids' lunches. He was late for school, but only by about ten minutes.

Akiko was funny. Instead of just going straight down her list (thank heavens their teachers provided us with lists!), she did people in order of her most favorite friends to the people she wasn't such good friends with.

The kids had a lot of fun traipsing to school with their little basket full of goodies. And they came back with a motherload of candy. I was glad to see that I, for once, was not the only one who made homemade Valentines this year.

I don't have a whole lot to add for now. Today has been a crazy day. So, I'll just leave you with some cute pictures of my babies taking a bath. That will cheer anyone up, right?

Simon loves bath time.

Asher also loves baths again after a period of hating them.
His favorite thing to do is turn Simon into a bubble monster.

Oh, one last thing. Asher saw Akiko and me cutting hearts and he wanted to help, so I got the "child safety" scissors and some junk mail and let him go to town. He did really well until he cut Simon's finger. Safety scissors my eye. He also almost cut a big chunk out of my hair. Needless to say, he won't be cutting anything with scissors for quite a while.

That's Entertainment

I feel bad for December and I couldn't leave it with one measly blog post. So, with 2 hours and 17 minutes left, I give you the final blog post of 2012.

I have a lot to say and catch up on, but I will have to do that next year. I simply have not had time to blog lately. And sometimes, when I feel like writing, nothing comes to mind. I get writer's block. So when I sit down, the only thing that comes to mind for me to write to you all goes something like, "Well, today was another uneventful day. Dropped Akiko and Moses off at school and did three loads of laundry. Now I'm off to figure out dinner."

Most of the busyness that takes up my time is mundane homemaking stuff. And Christmas. I haven't even had much time to craft. It took me a good three weeks just to knit Simon a stocking, a project that would normally take me two or three days. Sparky's stocking got put on the back burner and will have to wait till next year.

I suppose this would be a good time to throw in a word or two, and maybe a picture, about Christmas. It was fun and relaxing. Our new place is a lot more fun to decorate than our house in Sunnyvale.

The banister in the front hall.

The 3rd graders in Akiko's class sold real mistletoe for a fund raiser.  It was full of nargles.

We even got lights to decorate the outside, something we've never done before.

I did cookies again this year (no pictures). We did the snowmen, minty candy canes and cocoa ginger crisps. I only had to do 13 plates this year, the smallest number I've ever done. I don't have a visiting teacher (that I know of) or anybody to visit teach, so we only had to make plates for the kids' teachers at church and school and Joseph's home teaching list.

We got a real tree again this year. I put the lights and tinsel on and let the kids decorate the rest. I think it turned out beautifully.

Proud of their work.

Making sure everything is in order.

Oh, I probably ought to mention that Simon is crawling now. He only scooted for about two weeks before he was up on all fours one day. He also pulls himself up to stand at furniture.

Akiko and I spent a couple Sundays cutting out 60 snowflakes to put up on the french doors that lead from the parlor to the formal dining room. They looked beautiful. We took them all down the other day and will be sending them to Connecticut for the Snowflakes for Sandy Hook project.

Christmas morning was just like it ought to be: the kids woke up way too early for us and pestered us to get out of bed so they could open presents. I neglected to take many pictures this year. I was too involved with Christmas morning chaos. I did manage to snap a few pictures, but they aren't very good.

Santa's helper stayed up till 4am blowing up this giant inflatable gerbil ball for the kids.

Simon received some refurbished toys that Santa "found".

Simon mostly crawled around and ate wrapping paper while the older kids ripped it off with gusto.

Asher got a bunch of new Thomas loot, including, but not limited to, new galoshes and a four chamber whistle.

The kids were really pleased with their haul. They mostly got what they asked for. Akiko, Moses and Asher got new galoshes. Akiko and Moses got new umbrellas to match their galoshes. Akiko got pants, socks, lots of clothes, and books. Moses got a Nerf gun. Asher got a shark Air Swimmer. Simon got one of his two front teeth. The other one is on its way.

Once we opened up presents, I had to get to work on dinner. We invited some of our new friends over for Christmas dinner and I had a lot of cooking to do. Akiko was a big help in the kitchen. I made roast beef, gravy, rolls, cream puffs (puffs and pastry cream from scratch), bacon wrapped asparagus, and Christmas cake. The other families brought the mashed potatoes and salads. And let it be known that I did all this with only one oven. That double oven in Sunnyvale is about the only thing I miss about that gross old kitchen.

I love that our new house is so great for entertaining. We pulled our tiny dining table into the formal dining room for the adults and set up folding tables in the kitchen dining room for the kids. It's nice because we can see and hear the kids without actually seeing and hearing the kids. We also have a cool buffet that can be accessed from either room. It also provides me with a nice place to store and show off some of my nicer pieces of dinnerware.

This afternoon, for New Year's Eve, we were supposed to do a progressive dinner between our house and two other houses. Our's was the first stop, with the salad. However, at house number two, the husband got really sick and at house number three, their furnace went out and nobody is willing to come repair it till Wednesday. So we just had everyone bring their food to our house and ate here.

It's nice to have a place where we can entertain like that. We couldn't really do that in Sunnyvale. That house just wasn't built for entertaining.

I'm sorry this post is so discombobulated. I guess I'm trying to throw everything in at once and the clock  is ticking. 52 minutes left (got distracted watching BLR on Youtube). I better proof read now and post.

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well.

A ragtag picture of my kids with Santa at the ward party. Didn't have my camera on me, so this year's picture is a crappy phone picture. Akiko and Asher need their hair brushed. Moses has a big bruise on his forehead. Simon's not looking. It's a keeper!

So Much To Do, So Little Time

Well, the good news is that we haven't dropped off the face of the earth. The bad news is that even though blogging and keeping you all updated since the move is high on my priority list, it is low on the "things-that-require-brainpower" list.

So, I think for this post I'm going to have to randomly bullet list what has happened in the last month as they come to mind. Maybe I'll throw in a quick picture or two if they're readily available.

• Simon turned 7 months old yesterday (the 6th, in case I don't get this done and posted tonight). He officially began scooting forward. This is in addition to his being able to scoot backwards, being able to turn in circles on his belly, and rolling. His moving has motivation now. Will I ever be able to keep the floor clear of chokeable objects? That talk at conference last October kinda freaked me out.


• TMI alert! Asher went on the potty today!! He's not quite 2.5 years old, but has been showing interest in the potty lately. I, for one, am not feeling ready to train. I mean, it's only been a year since Moses won the potty battle. I'm still kind of reeling from that. But today, as I was finishing up in there, Asher was adamant that he needed to go potty on the toilet, so I set him up and told him to tell me when he was done. A couple minutes later, I hear him yell, "Mommy! I all done!" Sure enough, he had gone. He even used a tiny piece of toilet paper to wipe himself. I was thoroughly surprised and proud. So, next time Asher tells me he wants to sit on the potty... well, you know...
  
  

  

  My kids have a knack for falling asleep in chairs.






Any chair.



• We drove up to Portland and had Thanksgiving with Mike, Chelsie, Liam, and the twins, Luke and Jude. It was fun to finally meet the babies, who were almost 11 months old already. Our kids had a ton of fun playing with Liam.
  
  I had fun cooking Thanksgiving dinner with Chelsie. I totally nailed the pies. I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a pastry mat, a pastry blender, and some crust shields. It totally made a difference in how my pies turned out. Wish I had bought those utensils five years ago.
  
  

  

  Chelsie and the three baldies: Luke, Simon, and Jude.

  

  I'm so proud of these pie crusts. The pie filling that went in them was superb, too. But aren't the crusts pretty?

  

  One side of the spread.

  

  The other side of the spread. Those pumpkin rolls in the front that Chelsie  whipped up at the last minute were sooo tasty. 

  

  The Thanksgiving chefs. Akiko helped with the turkey and the crescent rolls. Jude only helped eat.

  

  I love my brother and his family!



• Akiko and Moses are enjoying their new schools.
  
  Akiko was put into the 2nd/3rd split class. There are too many 2nd graders for one class, but not enough for two. Same with the 3rd graders. I really like Akiko's teacher. She's really sweet and has helped make the transition to a new school easy for Akiko. She told me that Akiko is capble of doing 3rd grade work (though she has to keep her with the rest of the 2nd graders) and is obviously beyond some of the 3rd graders, but I just had to throw that in there to brag.
  
  Moses just barely finished his first week of preschool today. He seems to enjoy it. He didn't want to leave today when I came to pick him up, so I think he likes it. He can't seem to recall what he learned on any given day, but I learned with Akiko, that it's just an age/developmental thing. He's the kind of kid who will just start talking to you and you just realize he's been talking to you for the last several minutes, so by the time you start listening, you have no idea what he's talking about. So, if he's been telling me about what happened at school, chances are, I missed hearing him say so.


• Our new house is really cool. A lot bigger than our old house. That translates into a lot more to clean. My routine for getting things done has totally been thrown for a loop. I'm trying to figure out where things should go and some of the stuff we have just doesn't fit.
  
  This was a stressful move for me. We have twice as many kids as last time and, it seems, twice as much stuff. But now we're here and I can take my time unpacking and organizing. The laundry schedule has been totally messed up. And having bedrooms upstairs and downstairs has me going up and down and up and down all day because I forgot something or other. At least I'm getting my exercise.


• Originally, Akiko and Moses had their own rooms downstairs, while the little kids were upstairs with Joseph and me. We had to move Asher downstairs with Moses. Asher, like his sister at age two, has a hard time going to bed, and he kept waking up the baby with late night tantrums. He also liked to climb into the crib and yell, "Good morning, baby!! Wake up!!" So, he's back to sharing a room with his big brother, who happens to sleep like a rock.
  
  

  

  Asher looks so innocent, doesn't he?



• I cut my hair short. Just a bob, not a pixie. I've been at odds with my hair ever since I was pregnant with Asher. I've also sported the same haircut, more or less, since high school. I needed a change. I also needed a way to better camouflage the horribly frizzy new growth from Simon's pregnancy. This is just one small victory in my war with my hair. Now that I've bored you all to death with hair talk...


• I can't think of anything else right now, so I'm leaving the biggest news for last. We got  Joseph got us a cat!! His name is Sparky. Joseph was trying to get the kids to name him Jiji, but they didn't catch on to his hints. Akiko's first choice was "Snowflake", but since he's a black kitty... So, Sparky it is. He's a sweet kitty. Just a few days younger than Simon.
  
  The kids are nuts about him. My favorite thing so far is Asher going around the house looking for him, or else walking up to him while he's napping and yelling, "CAT! CAAAAAAT!" Asher does a lot of yelling, if you hadn't noticed.
  
  

  

  Meow.

This kitty gets no alone time. Then when he does, like at night when we're all asleep, he gets lonely. Silly kitty.

And as promised, here are some pictures of our new town. I apologize about the Main Street pictures. They were taken from the dashboard as we drove down it. The other pictures are from the baby's window.

Quick Post - No Pictures

I love our new house! There is still a ton of work to do, so I may not have time to post much, but if you have my contact info, I'd be glad to text, email, or talk to you individually about it.

The older kids love having their own rooms. I love my kitchen and laundry room. (How domestic of me. Tee hee!) I love our new town. Everyone has been super helpful and really friendly.

Well, I've got to go unpack now. We have so much stuff, it's ridiculous.

Will post beautiful pictures later!!

Moses' Birthday Party

Guess who turns 5 on Tuesday?

I took a cue from Andy's mom from Toy Story and threw him an early birthday party before we move.

Moses wanted a Lego party, but me being the sneaky mom, I convinced him that a Halloween cookie decorating party would be way more fun (and much less planning for me). And it was!

When I was done inputing all the email addresses for the evite, I realized I had invited almost 20 families! All I wanted to do was invite the kids from Moses' CTR and preschool classes, but his preschool class consists of almost all the sunbeams in our ward, too. They're both huge classes.

I did have the brilliant idea to invite parents and siblings, too, so even though that meant more kids, it also meant more adults to help out. Sometimes I have really awesome ideas, and that was one of them. All in all we had 10 adults and 24 kids at the party.

Big crowd. Little table.

A bird's eye view of the cookie madness.

I made all the cookies and frosting, but I asked everyone to bring a bag of small candies or sprinkles for decoration. Everyone stepped up. It was a ton of fun.

Working hard.

Check out that concentration.

I decided at the last minute to make certificates and have a contest for most creative cookies. I have six cutters, so I did six certificates: Beastly Bat, Creative Cat, Silliest Skeleton, Tastiest Tombstone, Punniest Pumpkin, and Goopiest Ghost. These kids were the winners:

The Hallow-winners!

I didn't want to give my kids prizes, because I would rather have given them to the guests, but after careful consideration, I just had to give "Punniest Pumpkin" to Akiko.

Check out those white chocolate fangs!

After we did prizes and presents, we did cake. My amazing friend, Kim, and her daughter weren't able to make it to the party, but she still offered to make Moses' cake for me. I was sooo glad she did, because I was trying to figure out how I was going to bake 120+ cookies and make a cake at the same time.

I asked her to make a Lego cake for Moses, since that's what he really wanted, so I drew out a plan for Kim, and she produced this perfectly adorable masterpiece:

The nubs are Oreos covered in fondant.

This party ended up a huge success. Moses had tons of fun, got to be with all his friends, and got lots of fun presents. The kids' cookies were all super adorable. Clean up wasn't as daunting a task as I imagined either.

I'm glad I was able to do this for Moses. He's such a special little man in my life. I love him so much. I'm probably not going to be able to do the traditional birthday blog on his actual birthday. We move on Wednesday.

So, Moses, my wonderful biggest boy, Happy 5th Birthday. I love you to the end of the universe and back!