New Year's Preparations

Today the kids and I went to Stockton to help with our yearly New Year's Day preparations. Daddy stayed home to work on the counters - uninterrupted and unsupervised (he tells me he gets more done without my supervision!) Grandma, Uncle Frank, Mommy and even Bailey spent the day cutting, cooking and prepping for tomorrow's festivities. I think we finished in record time this year! We had our traditional bowl of soba for dinner, gave the kiddies a bath and came home.

Bailey stirring the dressing for the namasu

Granma and Uncle Frank working away

Bailey peeling carrots

More peeling and cutting

Visiting Family and Friends in LA

On Monday we drove down to LA to visit family and friends. We left around 4am to make it in time to visit the LA Zoo on the way to Mom and Dad's home. We had a short trip at the zoo and decided to have some lunch in Japan Town (a different J-Town now) and look around a bit. After lunch we hung out in Monterey Park for a bit before driving to Norwalk to check into our hotel. We all met a Sambi's restaurant for a nice family dinner and went to Auntie Lynn's for dessert and a night of Wii.

Tuesday we had lunch with Carolee and Scotty's family in Montebello and chatted away until it was time to watch Lauren play basketball! We've been looking forward to seeing Lauren play for some time and this trip we were lucky to catch her playing in a tournament. After watching the game, Daddy drove me and the kids back to the hotel and he was on his way to the Lakers game with Uncle Denis, Byron and Ted!

Wednesday Daddy let Mommy visit with Hyeyon almost all day! We chatted the day away and just couldn't believe how quickly the time passed by. When I lived in LA, I used to see Hyeyon almost every day - now we may see each other once a year...So sad to have to say goodbye... Dinner was at Mom and Dad's house and the kids entertained until it was time for us to drive home. I think we left around 9:30pm and got back to our home sweet home around 3am. Our trip was too short - we had a great time, but as with all vacations - it sure is nice to be home again!

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Ho, Ho, Ho!

Well, we've had a wonderful Christmas holiday and now all of our Christmas decorations are put away and we are trying to get our house in order (well, kind of...) We had a quiet Christmas Eve here at home. Our day started off at the park with Camryn. We came home and decorated cookies for Santa and Daddy barbecued our Christmas Eve dinner since our kitchen is in shambles - it was delicious! We opened presents, played and went to bed so Santa could come visit us.

Christmas day Mommy woke everyone up bright and early to see if Santa came! Our kids must have still been on the nice list because he made it. We opened Santa presents and headed out to Stockton so Grandma and Grandpa could watch the kids while Clark and I went to Folsom to pick up our tile for the kitchen. We had a nice dinner in Stockton - this year we had 25 people for a yummy prime rib dinner! So tasty. The kids opened more presents, had a great time playing together and fell asleep almost as soon as we hit the freeway!

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Remodel - The Counter

This break Daddy is working on a section of our counters. (UGH) Yes, I'm looking forward to new counters, but I'm just not good with chaos. Clark won't agree with me, but I'm trying my best to be flexible. It is just really hard to be without a kitchen. Especially during the holidays! Anyways, Monday he started taking off the tiles and for the last few days we've had no counter at all. He's currently in the garage cutting the plywood boards to start reconstruction. We are hoping to get the plywood and cement board in today. Tomorrow we go pick up our tiles and he'll install them this weekend.

Before shot of our counter

This is how we've been living for the last three days. Notice all the wood rot! YIKES

Injury #1 - piece of wood flew up and cut his face. Gregory got him a Diego band aid to patch him up.

Fun Day with Friends!

Today Megumi, Derek and Blake came over for a visit! Megumi and I grew up together and I haven't seen her since our girls' reunion over the summer! She has two sons - Derek and Blake - and today was the first day I met Blake! (and he's 22 months old!) We had such a fun day. I found these cute bento boxes at Daiso this weekend so we went on a picnic at the park. (Okay, it was a little chilly to go on a picnic, but the sun was out and I just had to use these cute boxes!) Anyways, we had lunch, played at the park, came home to decorate a gingerbread cookie, played and just had a really nice day. I wish we lived closer together so we could have play dates more often!

I forgot to take my camera to the park, but here are a few photos while we decorated cookies!

Derek working on his cookie

Bailey made a winking gingerbread today

Gregory made his green with one big eye

Here's Megumi and Derek! Blake is playing

Here's Bailey's winking cookie

Aren't these cute!? Imagine them filled with rice balls, shoyu weenies and grapes.

Icing

This morning we woke up, had breakfast and started icing our cookies from yesterday. We decided to make them green, orange, red and purple! Quite the festive colors, don't you think? We dipped them, sprinkled some of them and Daddy even did some outlining. I think Santa will be quite pleased.

Baking for Santa

Well, tomorrow Clark is tearing out our kitchen counters so I had to get our baking done today! This year we only made three types of cookies for Santa and we had made the gingerbread earlier in the month so we really only made two types today. We started out with our oatmeal cookies and ended with sugar cookies. Gregory loves to bake so he's always there on his stool helping me out. They both love rolling dough and cutting out cookies so we all worked together on the sugar cookies. They REALLY LOVE after we finish the cookies and they get the last chunk to just do their own thing! We had flour and cookie dough chunks all over the place, but they had a great time. Tomorrow we frost...

Mixing in the chocolate chips

We used 12 different cookie cutters this year!

Playing with the scraps

Rolling the scraps

Cocoa & Song

Today Gregory's class had their "Cocoa and Song" day. Our family was invited to the class at 11:30a and we had homemade challah bread and hot cocoa. After our tasty treat the class sang us four holiday songs. I think they were "I'm glad I'm not a rock", "Jingle Bells", "We wish you a Merry Christmas" (and "We fish you a hairy Christmas"), and "Dreidle Dreidle". Very cute! After the show we took the kids to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants and had a nice lunch.

bread and cocoa

All being a rock

Scooter did all the hand motions, but I don't think he did any singing

Omneya - Gregory's small group teacher

Jingle Bells

Daddy and Bailey at Yokohama Sushi

Scooter wasn't feeling well during lunch. (too much challah bread!)

Our Holiday Newsletter

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Camryn Turns TWO!

Today Bailey and I went to Camryn's house to celebrate her second birthday! Last night Gregory came down with a cold so he and Daddy stayed home so he wouldn't spread any germs to baby Luke. We had a yummy lunch, cake and ice cream and watched Camryn open her birthday presents. It was a fun afternoon, but we sure wish our whole family could've come!

Aunty Kristin with Bailey and Camryn

Grandma and Luke

Aunty Joey and Luke

Check out this cake!

Almost as big as Camryn!

Blow!

Bailey and Emma opening their party favor while Camryn is opening her gifts

Grandma and Grandpa with their grand kids (minus little scooter - home sick with the sniffles...)

Day at the Park

This morning Uncle Ryan sent us a message saying he was going to take Camryn to the park and if we'd like to join them. Silly question... Park? Of course, we all wanted to hit the park! I think our kids would go to the park every day if we let them. We hopped into the car and met them at Osage Park near our home. It was the first time we played at this park and we loved it! Can't wait to go again!

Gregory's favorite - the corkscrew