Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween we celebrated Rachel's son's birthday with a birthday/costume party. If Japanese people did trick or treating, we would have taken Brayden to do it for the first time, but since they don't, we all had a nice Halloween/birthday/fall party all mixed into one with our team. Most all of us got dressed up. It was a great party. We had chilli, hotdogs and an assortment of desserts! Here we are in our costumes:


Since I am pregnant and getting rounder, I thought it fitting to be a pumpkin. I found a cheap orange shirt and then sewed a pumpkin face on it. Mike has been growing out his beard for a while, so we decided he could be a lumberjack. (Yes, we decided that for him-it took much convincing to get him to put any kind of costume on). And Brayden went as a little Samurai. His outfit is not really what a Samurai would wear, but we made him look Japnaese-y, gave him a sword and called it "Samurai." He had a Japanese head band tied around his forehead earlier, which made the outfit better, but he wouldn't wear it for very long. :)

Here are all of us girls at the party-


Rachel, me, our tutor, Caitlin, Rachel's neighbor, and Kacie.

Here are the guys-


They all dressed up to some degree, except at this point Jay had taken off his "robot arm."

Here is my tutor and her kids-



This was Rachel's friend's daughter, Erena. She was so cute!



Here are the boys eating their pumpkin cupcakes-



Here are all the kiddos-

Birthday and Peace Signs

My 25th birthday was a couple of days ago. It was a fun-packed day and I have some great memories from it. My tutor had invited us and a couple of other families on our team over to her house for the afternoon. 3 of us 4 girls on the team are studying with her, so we are all getting to know her and her family. All of our birthdays are in October, so she gave each of us a little gift. It was really sweet.

Here are the kids playing and getting all dirty for church!

Megumi and her students-who are all pregnant!

Settling in for a cartoon.

We had planned on going to an international church in Nagoya (where she lives) after spending the afternoon at her house, so we had invited her to come along. I was so glad that her whole family came. After church me and the girls on our team (minus one who was sick that day) found a little Mexican restaurant to eat at. I was so excited! It was a little expensive and had some weird options-like octopus mexican stew, etc. At first I was worried it wasn't going to be a good birthday dinner after all. But then we found the good stuff and it ended up being delicious. Here we are at the restaurant:



Then we went to Starbucks for dessert and hot chocolate. It was a great birthday and I had a great time!

As for the peace signs...its something new that Brayden has started! He wanted me to tie this ribbon on his head, so after I did, I went to take a picture of him. We told him to say "Cheese" and when he did he threw out the peace sign! He did it over and over again. If you did not know this already, this is a very Japanese thing to do. He must have learned it at his daycare or from one of the Japanese kids shows he watches. Most (younger) Japanese people do the peace sign in every picture. Check it out:



His peace sign might not be clearly recognizable because he's only 2 and doesn't quite have the manual dexterity yet, but, you get the idea he is aiming for!

It's a boy!

We found out today that we are going to have another boy! The doctor said he was 90% sure it was a boy. During the ultrasound, we also were able to see what looked like a boy "part", so we're pretty sure thats what its going to be. They do an ultrasound every month here, and each ultrasound is recorded onto a video for you so that at the end, you have an ultrasound video from every month of your pregnancy! Its really cool! The Dr. said he would check the sex again next month, just to be sure. We are both really excited. I'm glad we'll be able to use all of Brayden's old clothes, and I'm also glad Brayden will have a brother to be buddies with. We also found out recently that another one of our teammates is pregnant. So, out of 4 girls on our team, 3 of us are pregnant. One is due in Jan., I'm due in Feb., and the third is due in May. Mike joked and said we could write our own book on church growth...haha. It will be fun to go through our pregnancies together, and to have babies so close in age!

Yogurt MESS!

Here is Brayden after he ate some yogurt:




And here is Brayden after he found out he had to take a bath because of the yogurt mess:

August

This last month has flown by! I know it was partly because I went home to Kansas for a couple of weeks, which made the time really fly. Now, a little over a week after returning to Japan, August is coming to an end already! I can't believe it. My trip home was really really good. It was great to see the family again, and most of all for them to see and interact with Brayden. He had changed a lot, and I'm so glad they got to see more of his personality. He also got to know them more, and I know he remembers them when we talk about them now. Now that I'm back, I feel rejuvinated. I feel like the trip home was refreshing, and it has helped me to feel ready to hunker down and get back into life here once again.

Brayden did a lot swinging...he would sing, or he would say "Bid, high," (Big, high), which translates, "Push me really high!"

Helping Grandma water the flowers.

My grandmother, Mudgie, sat Brayden next to her one day as she cooked. He was very fascinated and even got to help a little.

Brayden loves his Papa.

We also did a lot of walking the dog. Brayden says "wat, dod." (Walk dog). He could have done this 5 times a day he loved it so much.

This is Brayden and Micah, on Brayden's actual birthday. The day after we arrived in Kansas was Aug. 1st, and my sister Emeri made these little pastries for him. When it came time to blow out the candles, Brayden got shy again. However, this time he did manage a little puff that blew out the candles.

Emeri, Brayden and Micah. (My sister and brother). Snuggling before bedtime.

We also swam in the pool a lot. Brayden liked to use the hose to "get" people. He also at times would turn it into a guitar.

Helping Papa water the flowers.

Brayden's 2nd Birthday Party

Tonight we had a party for Brayden's 2nd birthday. We had the party a few days early (his birthday isn't until Aug. 1st) because him and I are going to America on Thursday, the 31st! (I am so excited by the way). We wanted to celebrate with our friends for his birthday before we left. We went to the park and ate banana cupcakes. The boys played ball and the kids and girls hung out and we all had a really fun time. It was a great night out too, no rain or sweltering heat. But the mosquitos were relentless! Even with our bug spray, we all got a ton of bites! A new friend of ours, (Keiko and her son Kengo) came, and later my friend Akemi showed up, but unfortunately she missed the party. Her daughter was sick, so she came late, but I was surprised that she came at all. I think she wanted to show us that she cared, and wished she could have been there. It was good to see her, if only for a minute.
So, tomorrow I leave for America! I just decided to go a couple of weeks ago. It seemed like this was a good chance for me to go, because my family won't be able to come visit before we go visit them next year. This visit will give us an opportunity to see each other before Brayden is almost 3 years old! It will be just Brayden and I going this time. I keep telling Brayden he will see PaPa soon, and while he doesn't understand, he says "Papa" and thinks about it.

Oh by the way, I'm pregnant! Due Feb. 8th!



This was so funny-previously, I had shown Brayden a little video on Youtube of a little girl blowing out her birthday candles. I even let him practice a few times at home, and each time he loved blowing out the candle. But at the party, when everyone started singing to him, his lip started quivering and he reached for my hand. He was scared! And he didn't want to blow out his candle at all. He just kept saying "No" again and again. I was so surprised! The wind ended up blowing out his candle.

This is is Keiko and her son, Kengo. They were so much fun.



We got Brayden a little toy guitar since he loves to play air guitar. He just loved it! He calls it his "Tar."

Lucille and Random Pictures.

I never ended up telling my "Lucille Ball" story. I will tel it quickly. I was paying for something at a store, and realized I left a mop that I had just bought at a different store in the back of the store I was currently in. So I tried telling the cashier that I needed to go run and get it, but she didn't understand when I was saying "Mop" in Japanese. I went ahead and grabbed it, and when I came back with it the cashier said "Oh, Mop!" in Japanese, exactly how I had been saying it!! Even when I'm saying the right word, my communication still doesn't always work! Anyways, as I was paying, she pointed at my skirt and said something I didn't understand. I looked down to see she was pointing at my zipper, which was wide open. As I went to close my zipper, I knocked over my wallet and all of the coins in my change purse went all over the floor, making lonts of noise. Cashier lady came out to help me and just as we had picked up all of the coins, Brayden decided to pour out his snack of crackers he was eating all over the floor-deliberately, not accidentally. So then we had another big mess to clean up and I was already thoroughly embarassed! I hurried up and paid and got out of there! That is embarassing in America, let alone in Japan when your not sure what people think of you. So, thus the Lucille Ball sighting, and although I have only written about two sightings so far, there have been many, many more. :)

The following pictures were taken while our friends Michael and Beth were here visiting. They were taking pictures right and left and got such good ones. I hardly ever take enough pictures (something I want to get better at) so I stole these from Beth's web album to post here on my blog. Some of her pictures also captured some of what Japan is like, so I included some of those as well.

This is at the train station, some kids are going or coming from school. Lots of kids ride the trains in groups like this, or even by themselves on a daily basis to go to school.

This is the busiest intersection in the world, in a part of Tokyo called Shibuya. Beth took this right before she left Japan. We were here in March, but I never got to a spot where I could capture a good picture like this one. This intersection is like this all day and all night long!

We had an American barbeque with some Japanese people that a teammate of ours had befriended. The girl on the left is our friend Beth who was here visiting, on the far right is Caitlin, our teammate.

This may be hard to read, but its an example of some of the wacky worded shirts we have seen here.

A picture of Brayden playing at a little play area at the mall. Its one of my favorites.

Here's a picture of Brayden and one of his teachers at the daycare where he goes a few times a week. He really likes it there, and I'm so glad he does.

This is the bike lot at the train station. I'm just amazed at how many bikes there are!

A picture from a random morning around the house.

These are my teammates and our friend Beth, when we went out for a girls lunch. It was so much fun. This restaurant is Italian, and its very yummy and plays good music. Its one of our favorites.

Eating at a ramen restaurant in Nagoya.

Michael and Beth eating ramen with us.

This is at the barbeque again. Brayden and Sterling got plenty of attention.


He's playing air guitar. He came up with this all by himself. It just cracks me up! He's so intense!