Archive for December, 2009

last day of 2009!

December 29th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Happy End of the Year! We are having sushi at immi’s favorite place. She is no longer really cheap here though since she wants to look at the menu, and then grab whatever she pleases from the conveyor belt… She wanted blueberries and strawberries and creampuff along with her usual cucumber roll and miso-soup.

At the beginning of dinner, immi tried to order a glass of water from the waitress! She had the right idea, when the waitress came around to see how we were doing, immi made good eye contact and made pointing gesture to get noticed and said …something. I knew she wanted water, so water she got :)

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snow

December 29th, 2009 | By Kyoko

First snow is Portland!

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market

December 26th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We went out for a drive (<– is my new blog! Todd built it for me, and I’ve been modifying the wordpress .php and .css and it’s not done but nonetheless — I won’t have to crowd immi blog with non-immi photos!) to Multinomah Falls and on the way back, we stopped by the international grocery store that we had yet to try. Immi is pushing the cart!

This store is probably the strangest grocery store we’ve ever been in. When they said ‘international’ they meant middle eastern …as opposed to asian or mexican which was more common sort of international grocery store in NoVA. So they had all sorts of things we had no idea what they were. That and they had a lot of organic and natural items we usually get from WholeFoods at better prices…Also, lots of wine from everywhere (see, weird combo no?). Immi of course found her familiar item Annie’s Mac&Cheese and wants to put it in the cart.

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winter holiday!

December 24th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi and I are decorating gingerbread cookies (I got inspired by my friend who was building the most amazing gingerbread house. Hi Allie!! I didn’t bake these though, and they are person shaped because they were sold out of gingerbread house kits…). Immi is not much help, she just wants to eat the cookies.

Here Immi looks like she is being a perfect little holiday cheers (photo deception!), but actually just picking off frosty candies off the cookies as I try to replace them as fast as I can :|

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buttons

December 23rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd’s friend is in town for the holidays and we met up in Stumptown Coffee in downtown. The super nice barista offered immi a cup of whipped cream (lucky immi!) she even sprinkled cocoa powder on top!

After the coffee we went to the Button Emporium and Ribbonry. The shop looks like it would be the kind of place unfriendly to kids, but the ladies who work there adore them (they even had couch area with toys to keep them occupied…). They let immi scoop out a grab bag full of buttons (She always gets free things, life is so unfair like that isn’t it??). Anyway, she is in love with the colorful and interestingly shaped buttons and she is still playing with them a few hours later (I confiscated a few…ok maybe a bit more than a few…for my stash).

Random immi news is that immi has fallen in love with …receipts! She loves them so much that she even says “receipts” and wants to look at it, roll it up and put it in her purse. It seems that receipts are longer the better, according to immi (like the ones from grocery store). We think that this obsessin of immi’s is funny, except for when we get a receipt and then have to give it back (merchant copy!) and she gets really mad.

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saturday

December 19th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are having sushi at Sushi Hana, the conveyor belt sushi place. Immi loves this place because it’s fun to watch colorful plates of sushi endlessly roll on by. Immi is a cheap date here costing $2 ($1 for soup and $1 for cucumber rolls).

sushiimmi

We stopped in for bubble tea nearby Trader Joes. Immi is drinking a lot of her daddy’s drink (blueberry with pearls).

bubbleteaimmi

We are grocery shopping now, Immi is enamored with her green balloon she just got.

cheeseimmi

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fruit tart

December 17th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd brought me home a fruit tart! …and immi is dismantling the prettiness by picking off all the blueberries.

fruittart

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December 13th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi drivig the WholeFoods bus. She was having so much fun at the grocery store that for the first time, she got mad when had to leave!

wholefoodsbus

I just left the table for half a minute, and when I came back, Immi had gotten up on the chair, grabbed a banana, managed to peel it by herself, and was eating it!

banana

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french toast

December 12th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are having Saturday coffee at Beveland once again. Immi is doing stickers.

bevelandstickers

She is having French Toast!

bevelandfrenchtoast

She’s been unusually temperamental the past few days. When I asked her not to wipe maple syrupy hands on her clothes, she got upset (I wasn’t trying to take grumpy immi picture, this happened as I happen to snap it, I swear!).

reallymad

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going glass :)

December 11th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is having rice with kastuobushi and soy sauce for snack (it’s her favorite food!!).

dishes

Over past few years, we’ve been trying to gradually reduce the amount of plastic we ‘consume’. We’ve replaced all our plastic tupperwares for glass ones, minimized drinking plastic bottled water etc. etc. but immi’s dinnerwares remained plastic. Now, there’s obvious reason for this (accident prone toddler!) but seeing that immi almost never drops her plastic bowls/cups/plates, we decided to just let her use our regular ones (I’ve seen special pyrex-ware for kids that are supposedly drop tested, but considering the price, it would makes sense to buy these only if she’ll be breaking like 10 bowls in a few months!). We’ll save those plasticware for immi’s brother for when he starts feeding himself (…until he learns not to throw them!). We have yet to have broken items :)

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immi says…

December 10th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I haven’t metioned immi’s linguistic developement much partly because there’s really no photo that would go with it, and other part because it’s been much the same for a long time. Shes been saying a whole lot of words, mostly just important ones — ice cream, pickles, tea, popcorn, rice, cookie, balloon — but not sentences or phrases. She also have made up words that she uses consistantly that sounds nothing like the actual word like “ishkie” for music, “kudrukudru” for salt (she wants to put salt on everything, we just pretend sprinkle!) “chukumaichukudai” for want. How she came up with those I have no idea! There’s been some evindences that suggest she can either read numbers or recognize the shapes of them and anyhow be able to tell them apart.

One interesting thing is that she immitates sounds at least as much as (probably more, actually) saying words (sound of spray bottle, sound effects in movies etc.). When she sings (which she is getting better at!), sometimes she sing vocal part, but a lot of the time she immitates drum or synth sound. She just might be a beatboxer:)

I’ve never heard immi mention anyone by name…until just a few days ago. The very first and luckiest person who got called by name by immi is Ashland! Immi had been calling him “baby”. Ashland is still too little to appreciate how special this is (though he seems to really like his sister a whole lot) but see, even Oskar is just a “meow” just like billion other cats in the world who are also a “meow”.

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big book

December 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is looking at photographical book about cats.

catbook

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tree

December 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is decorating her not-christmas tree:)

tree

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sunday

December 6th, 2009 | By Kyoko

It’s cold out today!! We are going to the bakery to get some bread.

car

At the bakery immi desperately wanted cookies and cookies she got! These cookies with sprinkles are so yummy!

cookie

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saturday

December 5th, 2009 | By Kyoko

…As it turns out, we live basically right across from (but hidden behind trees and such, and we couldn’t see it until recently) a really nice cafe (a total dream come true!!) called Beveland St Bistro and Coffee House. It’s really nice here, yummy sandwich and soup, and coffee is good too. Immi really liked the french toast.

beveland

We are grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. This location has little immi-size shopping carts!

grocerycart

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tuesday

December 3rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

First thing immi wanted when she woke up was music!

morning

Immi is painting after breakfast.

painting

Immi found these little plastic bags (they are diaper disposal bags actually! we keep them is diaper  bags for when we go out) and decided that they were immi sized grocery bags. She is now playing grocery store.

grocery

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