Halloween Fun!!

Matthew in his construction worker costume. So tough!!

Matthew and Anna at our church Halloween party
Matthew won a cupcake and Anna freaked out so we had to take her (halfway) out of her bear costume

Here's Anna after being emergency de-bear-ified. :(

By the end of the party I ended up with the hat...

Carving pumpkins and eating candy. Can life get better?

Scott, Emily, Anna and Matthew's (HAPPY!) pumpkins

This is what candy does to him. Scary!!

Waiting for the Roll

Capturing those special milestones on camera can be tricky. Here I am trying to capture one such moment with mixed results. This is some real riveting footage!!

If one is good...

I ate some of Matthew's quesadilla and apparently he wasn't ok with that. He didn't cry or throw a tantrum. He just picked up the rest of the quesadilla and ran off. Then he stacked them all together and took a bite of every piece, thus marking his territory. It worked. I didn't want anymore after that.

Some Halloween Fun

Here are some Halloween activities we have tried recently...

Going on a "pumpkin hunt." Go here for video.

We made pumpkin puppets and decorated them with Jack-o-lantern faces. We also used them to do the rhyme Five Little Pumpkins, which Matthew liked. The most fun was letting the pumpkins dance on the table.

Some of these faces are designed by Matthew and quite Picasso-esque.

We used watercolors to paint over a crayon spiderweb. He didn't like this one too much. He doesn't love painting that much, since I restrict him to painting on the paper. Also he wanted to drink the paint water and I wouldn't let him do that either.

And here we decorated some wooden jack-o-lanterns. We started out with just orange paint but Matthew insisted on having more colors (and who could blame him). Mine looks quite boring compared to his. The whole time we were painting these Matthew kept telling me his pumpkin was "happy."

The Many Moods of Anna

Wonderment

Anna rolled over today for the first time. She is growing so fast. We think we might be starting to see glimpses of her little personality. Mostly she is easy going, but every now and then I think I see a stubborn streak. When she is hungry she usually has to finish being mad about it (five more minutes of angry shrieky crying) before she can eat. It is not so fun, especially out in public. But she is usually happy, smiley and calm...she saves the angry up, and then uses it all at once. It's more efficient that way.

Silly

Surprised

Not amused

Crying - stage 1
Seek a secure location like a doorway or under a table. Cover head and neck.

Crying - stage 2
Pray for deliverance.

Three Years

...and counting

Pumpkin Hunt

Here is Matthew hunting for "hidden" pumpkins in the house. This is an activity we've been doing a lot lately, and even though he usually follows me around while I hide them he still seems to have a lot of fun finding the pumpkins...and only sometimes requires hints. Pay no attention to the piles of laundry in the background. :)

Yoron Island

Scott and I went to Yoron Island this weekend for our anniversary, and of course, we took Matthew and Anna with us. As you can imagine, with all four of us, it was quite the romantic getaway. :)

The trip started with a drive up north to Nago to catch the ferry to Yoron. Yoron is about 26 miles north of Okinawa (or was it 26 km?). In any case you can see Okinawa from the high points on Yoron. We took a ferry from Nago which is kind of in the middle of Okinawa, so it still took about two and a half hours by ferry to get there. The ferry boat was BIG...the size of a small cruise ship.

This was our room on the ferry to Yoron. It was all open with a mat, blanket and leather pillow for everyone to sit or lay on.

The Pricia Resort in Yoron

Anna screams as we walk around the resort. Our room was in one of these blue buildings.

Anna screams at the resort marina. Be glad this picture doesn't have audio.

Anna SCREAMED most of the first day. I don't think she liked being in the baby bjorn so much. She screamed before, during and after the ferry trip. She screamed while we waited for our room to be ready (we got there too soon!!), she screamed while we tried to eat lunch, as we tried to walk around and explore the property and while we tried to eat dinner. By the end of the first day we were ready to get right back on the ferry and go home. Luckily she felt better after a good night sleep and we were able to spend two more nice days on the island. Here she smiles it up with Scott. :)

At a botanical garden in Yoron

Matthew on the loose at a traditional Yoron village

Eating pickled papaya, sugar from sugar cane, tea and some kind of pancake at Yoron Village. The pickled papaya tasted so much unlike fresh papaya that we thought it was fish. Matthew loved the little pancake/crepe like things.

A view of the ocean at Yoron
It looks a lot like Okinawa

More of Pricia

Matthew LOVED swimming
We took turns taking him in the water so one of us could sit with Anna

Matthew also loved seeing these little kittens that lived on the property

And he wanted to hold them (hold...hold...hold!)

No kitties were harmed during the taking of these pictures

Our second night we had an outdoor barbecue for dinner. We got to cook our own food on this hot grill in the middle of the table. We weren't really sure what to do, but we did our best.

Here I am trying to cook dinner on the grill. I think I overcooked most everything (that grill was HOT!!), but it was still fun. Notice Matthew is NOT sitting at the table for this meal...much too scary.

There was all kind of stuff to cook; squid, sausages, spam!!, clams, chicken, pork, beef, veggies, fish and big prawns. We tried everything. My fave: eggplant, least favorite: spam. Matthew loved the sausages. I think Scott liked the corn on the cob and beef best.

Matthew and our bus driver from our tour of the island. He loved Matthew and carried him around at all our different stops. Matthew was a little shy, but he liked being carried around.

Here are Matthew and Anna hanging out on the ferry ride back to Okinawa (steerage class) - Matthew is making his funny faces. :O Even though there were some very screamy moments, we still had a good time.

Two Months Old!

Anna is two months old today and she had her two month check up. All is well and she weighed in at 13 pounds 3 ounces. She's about 95th percentile for her weight, 75th for height. Nice and healthy. She had to get shots, so of course, the whole affair ended in screaming. Matthew came along and was greatly relieved to learn he was not the one getting shots that day.

Matthew and Anna having a non eye-poking moment. Matthew is very interested in Anna these days. He always asks to hold her ("hold...hold...hold") so I support her head while she sits on his lap. He'll pat her hair, tickle her toes, try to poke her in the eye (yikes!) and try to feed her goldfish crackers (also yikes!). But he's doing it out of kindness. For right now, he likes her. It's sweet.

Our mellow girl

This picture kind of reminds me of my brother Will when he was a baby. I also thought Matthew looked like Will as a baby. This must mean Will and I look alike. :) Here is a picture of Will again.

This was just a mess up picture at the end of our "photo shoot" (when the situation really deteriorated) but it seemed to capture the chaos of the moment pretty well. You can't see me 'cause I'm trying to crawl under the table and hide. Happy Two-Month Birthday Anna!

Happy...Sad

Kadena Town Festival

This weekend we went to the Kadena Town Festival - a little neighborhood festival in our community. There was lots of food, carnival games, local produce vendors, a martial arts competition, a stage with lots of Okinawan music and dancing and in the evening, fireworks. There was even a dragon, which I failed to get a picture of because we were eating Okinawan soba and yakitori at the time...which I also failed to get a picture of. I think I am going to be fired from my family photographer duties. Oh well. We had a lot of fun.

They had a potato hunt...or dig for the kids. They buried all these sweet potatoes (a locally grown variety) and had the kids get in there and dig them up. It looked like fun.

Anna was very good and was happy to ride quietly in her stroller for most of the trip. She even wore her sun hat without complaint, unlike her big brother.

They had lots of performers...dancers, musicians, the aforementioned dragon and some stylized dancing/fighting that involved long poles...did this require bow staff skills?? I don't know. :)

They were having some kind of martial arts competition. I don't know what kind. I just know it was over when one of them threw the other onto the sand. It was very impressive.

Mostly Matthew walked around, but he got tired after a little while. Here are Matthew and Anna hanging out in the double stroller. After he was done with his sippy cup he gave (or perhaps threw) it to Anna. So nice.

Here's a view of one of the roads leading up to the festival, and the road we took to walk home. I think this guy thought I was taking his picture. Sorry! This is also where we stopped to buy some very over priced corn on a stick from a (non-"Kadena Town Festival" approved) vendor. I think we got the special gai-jin (foreigner) price. :) We had a good time.