breakfast

May 23rd, 2010 | By Kyoko

Immi seems to think that there’s no better breakfast than croissant and tea.

thursday

May 13th, 2010 | By Kyoko

Immi’s granddad is visiting us from VA for a few days! We are hanging out at a pasta place we like called Pastini Pastaria. Immi is totally loving the lemonade.

We are at the toy shop near the restaurant. Immi found this kitty and isn’t willing to let go.

Immi found her favorite display model bed — I’m guessing because it matches her dress?? She got the kitty on the bed, and ready to take her shoes off (I didn’t let her!)

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).

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

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

baaad

August 22nd, 2009 | By Kyoko

We were trying to shop at Costco, but got discouraged at the parking lot by too many people/cars, pouring rain, and no parking space (what were we thinking going to Costco mid-afternoon on a Saturday??). …So we decided to have a snack at the Thai restaurant right across the street instead.

We told immi to get up off the floor and put her shoes back on but she thinks that we are just being funny.

phở

August 4th, 2009 | By Kyoko

It’s the first family phở expedition with all four of us. …but immi and her brother both fell a sleep on the way and show no sign of waking up! Immi hasn’t been taking or really needing a nap lately but she tends to fall a sleep when we take her out for a drive in the evening.

blueraspberry

July 14th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Today is one of those days that can be much improved with a yummy bowl of phở, so that’s what we are doing. Immi fell asleep on the drive here and when the food came to the table, her dad sat her in the highchair. …But she fell back asleep in less than half a second!

After 20 minutes or so of snooooze, she did wake up a good appetite and had some phở and spring rolls. When she was done eating her dinner, she got out her lollipop she stashed at the doctor’s office earlier.

Our weekly appointment with the OB went fine. Everything is normal and good. I’m still at 2.5 cm-ish, so I guess the baby decided to stick around for a little while longer. The big quetion is weather he’ll be a Cancer (“grumpy, secretive, passive-agressive grudge-hoarder, with bipolar mood swings and a positive genius for pointless worrying”) or a Leo (“vain, arrogant, condescending sopipsist with imperial longings and an all-pervasive addiction to unconditional sycophancy”)! [ATTN: If you think that these descriptions are mean and unfair, complain to Stella Hyde of the Darkside Zodiac!]

phở

June 26th, 2009 | By Kyoko

It’s auntie Junko’s birthday (on monday) and we missed celebrating father’s day last weekend (we are always a week behind with every holiday these days!) and both Todd and Junko (and me too!) wanted phở so that’s what we are having. They look like they are having a serious conversation don’t they?

…and immi is engaged in her usual activity.

saturday

June 13th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd has an appointment with opthamologist and immi and I are playing at Barnes and Noble book store. Immi loves the train set here. …but as you can see, she isn’t willing to let go of her purse to play with them.

When she had enough fun with the trains, she walked around and found a Hello Kitty backpack! Immi got her off the shelf and sat the Hello Kitty on the kid-sized lawn chair nearby, and then sat in the chair next to her. They are just having a little chat. And when she was done chatting, immi put her back where she found her.

We are celebrating Todd’s birthday a week late with Chinese food! Immi is really enjoying her eggdrop soup!

Our friends Mike & Mary just had a baby boy last night. Congratulation!!! His name is Killian. And he is a super cutie.

…Which reminds me that our day is nearing too. We looked for some clothes and sleepwear for our little boy today, but couldn’t find anything:( It’s difficult to find baby boy clothes that’s not sports-themed (we really aren’t into sports…), doesn’t have stupid looking monkey on it (why do so many boy thing have monkey on them? …and Todd doesn’t like it) or navy blue in color (I HATE NAVY BLUE! I don’t even know why!).

I think that immi and her little brother are starting to get to know each other already. Immi likes to pet my belly and give him kisses sometimes. When Immi gets upset and shrieks, it seems to startle him and he jumps (…as much as anyone can in such a tight space!).

Oh, and Immi said a new Japanese word! She offered me a cracker and said “Do-u-zo!”. Which doesn’t translate very well, but roughly “please” or “by all means”. It’s something you say when you offer something (i.e. a gift) to someone.

monday

June 1st, 2009 | By Kyoko

I had another sonogram appointment today and immi’s grandmom accompanied me (This office doesn’t even allow kids in the exam room according to their info sheet. And this is unusual because other 2 places I’ve been to welcomes kids since it supposedly facilitates bonding between siblings before they are born…)

Anyway, she seems to have had fun spending time with her grandmom in the waiting area.

I found out from the sonogram the usual. Which is that he is STILL A BOY. And his colon is still dialated. And everything else looks fine. He is now 4lb 5oz. I have another one scheduled 2 weeks from now, and after that, it will be a weekly appointment. It seems a bit extravagant to go through this expensive and time consuming exam just for these little information…

After the appointment, immi’s grandmom treated us to a mani-pedi. Immi enjoyed soaking her toes and having them massaged! I don’t have photos of this fun event since I couldn’t get camera out of the bag due to wet paint:)

And when Todd came home from a long day at work with event in DC and lots of meetings, he needed a bowl phở so here we are getting some. Immi’s new favorite is a spring roll!

friday

May 22nd, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are taking the ferry to Southport NC. It’s sunny and almost too hot outside.

We are having lunch at a little cafe called Baked With Love. Everyone who works here is so nice and they brought for immi a toy tea set to play with!

We are back at the beach house. There’s fireworks at the boardwalk near by and we can see it from our balcony!

charlottesville!

April 25th, 2009 | By Kyoko

We are in Cville this weekend because my lovely friends are having baby shower for us for the baby No.2. We got in late last night and crashing Jordan’s place. We are having breakfast now at Bodo’s Bagel, our favorite bagel place! Immi is busy decorating her pink cat.

Immi and decorated kitty.

light is on!

April 23rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

We got the electricity working! We are having new circuit added next week to keep microwave separate from the other stuff, but everything else works:) Here’s what immi’s been up to in the past days:

Apr. 16, 2009

Immi is serving a cheese plate (I’m assuming that’s what it is, she really enjoyed it at her grandmom’s on Easter).

Immi is playing with sea shells we keep in the little black box. We are totally looking forward to going to the beach in May!

April 18, 2009

Immi is in there…somewhere.

We are having Mexican brunch. Immi is feeding her dad.

April. 22, 2009

Immi is being a mermaid (and flicking her fin!) on the kitching floor (a dirty kitchen floor…in my sweatshirt I just washed…).

…and what have I been doing without my usual computer and internet? Well, I got to spend a bit more time spinning yarn on a drop spindle (which I got for my birthday!) than I would have otherwise. When I figured out how to spin more or less evenly spun single and 2-ply yarn (…more or less being the key word here, and also very very slowly!), I delved right into novelty techniques (I wanted to see if it can be done on a spindle — simply out of curiosity! — since most instructions for them are for spinning wheel!) and made this:

It has sequins and beads spun into a core-spun thick&thin yarn with bits and pieces of lace sometimes spun around and other times wedged into it. I think that it looks kinda like the way my music sounds. Anyway, it’s only as long as my attention span, which is apparently 3 yards.

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!

sunday

March 29th, 2009 | By Kyoko

I’m making breakfast in the kitchen and immi is already making a mess with play-doh with Auntie Junko. She plays with play-doh  several times a day these days.

Auntie Junko took us out to Melting Pot for fondue for my birthday (which is tomorrow!). She had been wanting fondue since she missed it for immi’s birthday and I wasn’t about to say ‘no’ to fondue fun:) Thank you for dinner Auntie Junko!!

Unfortunately immi was totally and uncharacteristically grumpy…and then fell a sleep (I guess she was tired!) shortly after we got there, which is totally fine by me. We got to have fondue in peace with out immi grumbles.

Immi is having a second round of the day with the play-doh. I left her alone with it for just a few minutes, and this is what she did with it:

saturday

March 28th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd is at an all day event yesterday and today but Auntie Junko, Immi and I are having fun time having strange assortment of food at home today! One of the things we made is oden and here’s immi trying out quail egg. She didn’t like the egg much, but she really liked other stuff in oden (especially the fluffy white ball thingie).

When Todd got home, we went to get phở. Today, immi insisted on using chopsticks today. She was actually quite good (despite that these ones are really big!) and she managed to get the noodles between the two sticks and then into her mouth occasionally.

…though quite often she resorted to placing noodles on the chopsticks by hand or using them one stick at a time.

friday

March 13th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Immi is scooping rice crackers in and out of the container.

Immi discovered the canopy I put up a few weeks ago in her room (…which is still not really done!).

It makes her hair really staticky.

We got the canopy for $5 and I decorated it a bit, it looks like this on top.

It’s finally friday evening and we are getting phở to celebrate end of Todd’s first week at his new and much better job:) Immi didn’t nap earleier today (too busy playing!) and fell a sleep in the car and hasn’t woken up yet. I’m sure she will wake up once she sees shrimp chips and noodles!

treats

March 3rd, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd had a craving for ice cream (he is having more pregnancy symptoms than me!) and we came to a bizarre realization that we don’t know of any ice cream place in or near Reston! After few minutes of googling, I discovered 3 places all located in the Reston Town Center. I picked Iceberry for our first in-town ice cream excursion because it’s all natural frozen yogurt (more or less healthy!).

Immi is picking sprinkles off Todd’s plain yogurt. Immi didn’t even want to try mine (honeydew melon yogurt with fresh mangos!) because it didn’t have any candy toppings.

My mom sent me a goodie parcel from Japan (thank you!!!)! Immi found a package of arare and she wouldn’t let go of it since it was in a pretty pink packaging (immi thinks that everything pink and/or has Hello Kitty on it is her’s). Arare is a sweet rice crackers for Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day festival in Japan) which is very timously  today!

cravings

February 18th, 2009 | By Kyoko

Todd said to me quite late in the evening “You know, only thing I wanna eat is Indian food!”. This was so very funny to me because we hardly ever eat Indian food (I over-dosed on Indian during college years, and Todd’s stomach doesn’t really like it) AND I just had microwave Chicken Tikka Masala from WholeFoods for lunch (Todd didn’t know this) for the first time in…I don’t know how long!

Todd and I are synchronized in our cravings, it’s really funny, uncanny and happens quite often. And it’s even worse during pregnancy!

…anyway, you can’t ignore a craving so here we are at a local Indian restaurant. Of course Todd ordered Chicken Tikka Masala:D

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!