happy birthday

February 10th, 2010 | By Kyoko

Immi is THREE! How amazing is that!? She wanted sushi of course, so that’s what we got on her birthday eve. She was excited about the spring roll.

We had quite ordinary (though still special!) day for her birthday since we can’t really top going to the beach! Immi had the bestest time with her ice cream factory. She always says “nununununu” when she squeezes out “ice cream” — she is totally into onomatopoeias (of her own creations), she uses them about as much as a Japanese person would speaking in Japanese.

…And then she took a nap with her Hello Kitties

And then after that we went to ToysRus (when we drove past by the other day, she wanted to go in) and she got to pick which ever toy she wanted. After walking every aisle, she picked out Strawberry-Shortcake-mobile. Actually she’s wanted this several times at Target but we never got it, so I’m glad she finally got exactly what she wanted (and I’m glad she picked an reasonable item what I didn’t need to veto!). She has been obsessed with this thing since then and still playing with it this morning.

beach

February 7th, 2010 | By Kyoko

We are on our way to the beach because it’s almost immi’s birthday and she loves the beach. It’s afternoon, and the drive lulled immi to sleep.

It’s a really beautiful beach, and it’s a beautiful day! We don’t even need a jacket.

Immi is splashing about at the edge of the ocean. I had no idea that rain boots had such use!

Immi’s dad took off his shoes to cross the river to take photos, and immi is pleading him to let her take off hers. (The answer is “NO!”, it’s nice out, but the water is cold. Really cold.)

beach

Immi was splashing about so much and the bigger wave came in and the cold water got in her boots. So I offered immi her jacket thinking she might be cold, but then she got really mad! As it turns out, she was upset at the sight of jacket because she thought that it means we are leaving, and she didn’t want to leave the beach!

first coffee time of the year :)

January 1st, 2010 | By Kyoko

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

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

tree

December 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is decorating her not-christmas tree:)

happy halloween!

October 31st, 2009 | By Kyoko

Happy Halloween!

We are going to the market.

Immi is trying out some pickles!

Immi’s tutu, witch’s hat, bag, and the black kitty all came in the box packed by her grandmom in Reston (Hi!!! She really loves the Meow!). I’m not exactly sure what her costume is with the sweatshirt and pink legwarmers (cute witch? 80′s inspired witch?) but no one was about to deny her candies:D

We managed to forget to eat breakfast so we are grabbing sandwich at a cafe nearby the market. Immi is of course primarily interested in the pickles.

Immi is patting her brother to make him feel better about being stuck in the car seat (he really hates his car seat!).

Happy Mother’s Day

May 10th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I just wanted wish Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are a mom, a mom-to-be, or thinking-about-becoming-a-mom.

It’s a strange thing that having immi made me *entitled* to an extra holiday:D

Immi got me a “happy mother’s day” balloon a few days ago when she went grocery shopping with her dad. Todd insists she wanted it for me, but I have a suspicion that she just wanted a balloon.

Today, immi gave me lots of hugs, kisses, and giggles, and shared with me her animal crackers (except for the cat shaped one, she took that one back when I said that it was a ‘meow’). Of course she does these things all the time. …And makes me feel special every day regardless of the holiday.

eggs

April 10th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are decorating eggs at immi’s Grandmom’s.

Immi doodled on the eggs with white crayon and then they all went into the color baths. Two of them got dropped and cracked in the process.

Immi got really mad when there were no more eggs left to dye!

Now she is prettifying the eggs with Hello Kitty stickers.

…and then peeling the stickers off eggs and decorating herself and her monkey instead!

monday

March 30th, 2009 | By Kyoko

It’s my birthday today. The BIG one in which I turn 30! When Todd asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said “go yarn shopping in Alexandria!” (there is a cute little yarn shop called Knit Happens which I’ve never been to). Unfortunately, they are CLOSED on mondays! …so I picked Vienna instead which isn’t exactly my favorite town but it also has a fancy yarn store which I’ve never been to.

…so our day started with coffee and very very very delicious sandwich at Jammin Java. Immi and her dad are having ice water while we wait for the sandwich.

Then we found Uniquities which was located in a hidden area. For such an obscure location, there were quite many people shopping for yarn there! This was really fun for me (I crochet, and I’m very mediocre at it, but I’ve always loved pretty yarn!) but Immi was not pleased that we wouldn’t let her touch any of the pretty fluffy yarns so Todd took her out for a walk (very nice day out!), and then this is what I found them doing in the parking lot when I found them — driving immi!

happy valentine’s day!

February 14th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I never really cared for Valentine’s day much. The first very memorable one is actually the one shortly after immi was born. Immi was born a day after her due date, but if she wasn’t willing, she was scheduled to be born on the February 14th (I’m happy she decided to join us on her own!). Todd and I always say that everyday is like a Valentine’s day anyhow, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the opportunity to do something fun!

…so we headed out to Leesburg, since it’s the place we like to get away to when even Charlottesville is a bit too far away. We are at a little Italian cafe for lunch. Immi absolutely loved their bread and now sharing some with her dad.

We stopped by Lola for a cupcake and a cookie and went to our usual coffee shop in town. Here’s immi picking frosting off my cupcake!

It was really quite nice out today. We are getting some sunshine, just outside the coffee house.

In the evening, immi’s grandmom stopped by to be her Valentine:) She brought her a pink giraffe that dances to a silly song — immi loved it of course!

fondue

February 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi’s grandparents wanted to take us out for dinner to celebrate immi’s birthday. So here we are at The MeltingPot. We are waiting for her grandparents at the entrance.

Immi seems to enjoy eating assortment of things here. She is having broccoli with yummy dips now.

Around immi’s bedtime, our friend Jessica came over to work on some stuff with Todd, and she brought immi a HUGE hello kitty coloring book. She is waking around in her PJ with the coloring book and the birthday balloon which the very nice waiter at the MeltingPot gave her on our way out.

Immi figured out how to buckle herself into her car seat (5-point harness!!)! We had the car seat laying about indoors for several days while our car was being inspected. It takes her a bit of time but she eventually gets it done correctly. It’s a very good thing that she can’t unbuckle (her hands are too small and not strong enough) herself yet!

birthday cake video

February 9th, 2009 | By Todd

Mmmmmm the first taste of Immi’s 2nd birthday cake ever!

happy birthday!

February 9th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Happy Birthday Immi!!

It’s hard for me to believe that immi is already 2! How amazing is that? She really isn’t a baby anymore. She can dress herself, knows of many songs that she loves to dance to, and recycles just like any other responsible citizen of our planet earth.

Immi used her potty yesterday! …well, sort of. She sat on it with her clothes and diaper on, made a funny face and made some poop. I’m glad she seems to understand its purpose, I’m sure our kitties appreciate this too:D

New addition to the food words  immi says is “cookie!!”.

…and we had the 2nd-year health check-up. Not exactly the funnest activity for the birthday-princess. Immi absolutely HATES going to the pediatrician and she freaks out the moment we step into the private office. She is now 32&3/4 inches tall and 20lb 9 oz. She was screaming nearly the entire time even though she didn’t even have to get any shots. According to the pediatrician, she is doing great except for 2 things. One being her low weight. He tried to make a fuss over it, so I had to stare into him and say “YOU MEAN YOU ARE CONCERED ABOUT IT NOW EVEN THOUGH SHE HAS BEEN BELOW AVERAGE IN WEIGHT FOR TWO ENTIRE YEARS???”. Well, that got him to say nothing more. However, he gave me phone number for Early Intervention for speech delay and an audiologist for hearing test (to rule out speech delay due to poor hearing). We really aren’t worried at all about it since immi can hear me open a candy jar from another room(!), understands most of what we are saying, follows directions, her dad was a late-talker, she is very social and communicative, and clearly intelligent, happy and well-adjusted.  We will make the apointments shortly (I’d be curious to see what the specialist would say anyhow), but needless to say I’m annoyed that there is absolute no room for individual uniquness in western medicine.

party time

February 8th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are celbrating immi’s birthday about 12 hours early this year (Sunday is a good day for party, don’t you think?). Here is immi digging right in to her cake by pulling the pony off and licking the whipped cream!

I didn’t bake the cake, we got it from a really cute and very tasty bakery in DC. …but I did decorate it:) This is what the cake looked like before:

Immi is playing with her Grandmom with the new wooden cake decorating set she was just gifted.

Immi is having more cake…

Auntie Junko got her a beautiful wooden alphabet blocks. Immi is enjoying organizing and reorganizing.

Immi just rescued her super-sized pony from the factory box.

Immi and her pony are having a little snack of  raspberries after post-party-nap-time.

hope + immi obamicons

January 20th, 2009 | By Todd

When Barack Obama officially became our 44th President, Immi clapped her hands (she always does when other people are cheering).

2009!

January 1st, 2009 | By Kyoko

First nap of the year.

First bath of the year! …immi is having bath time tea party.

…washing her toes under running water,

happy new year!

January 1st, 2009 | By Kyoko

At the very end of year 2008, immi was doing play-doh.

…and when 2009 happened, Immi was stretching out on a comfy chair having munchies.

What were you doing?

happy holidays!

December 25th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We are at immi’s grandmom’s and we just finished brunch. We are hanging out in the living room and Immi is opening gifts.

We are now in the kitchen having some cookies. Immi is playing with her new baby doll from her grandmom, sort of. At the moment she is busy washing her own face with plastic pretend soap for her baby doll.

Immi is modeling her new faux fur her jacket. She seems to like it a lot.

Immi also got a big pretend kitchen (and huge amount of accessories for it) and an entire nursery for her baby doll from her grandmom. We have to build them though before she can play with them. Tired from running around all afternoon (powered by sugar!), immi fell a sleep and her dad joined her too.

In the evening, we headed over to immi’s grandparents for dinner. For some reason, I didn’t take any photos here! You’ll just have to take my word that we had a very nice time. Immi spent the entire evening after dinner organizing and reorganizing her big box of new crayons (she got a big tub full of art supplies, stickers and activity books from her grandparents).

eve

December 24th, 2008 | By Kyoko

We are at ToysRus to get some diapers and to watch people do last minute holiday shopping. It’s really crowded here even though the store is closing early in less than an hour. Immi fell in LOVE when spotted this big plushie My Little Pony on the shelf. She dragged her off the shelf and zoomed around the store gleefully. Several customers asked us where in the store we found it (immi-dvertisement!). …And, no, we didn’t buy it.

When we got back home, there were three huge packages waiting for immi from her Great Aunt Marla,Great Uncle Charlie, and second cousin Alisa (It’s already been two summers since we last visited them!). In it, immi found some musical toys, Clifford the Dog, and wooden play center.

For some reason Immi really really loved this red doggie (even though he is a dog!) and spend the rest of the evening carry him around, giving him many squeezes and saying “wruuuuuf!”.