Wednesday, June 06, 2007

picture I've been meaning to share

I started writing a post about the last few days but honestly it was starting to sound like a bunch of blah, blah, blah, so I gave up. I will say that I have noticed a big change in our lives since June has begun. Maybe it's just a mental thing since I thought it would get slower but I don't think so. On Wednesday, I went around the house, gathered up all the piles of paper, organized and filed said paper until every last piece was in the right place. There weren't as many surprises lurking in the piles as I had anticipated so that was a great relief. Today I went around the house and picked up all the piles of clothes and spent some time organizing them. I put all the girl's winter clothes away and found places for their summer clothes. I did leave out one pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater but it's starting to get hot so although I don't think we'll need them, it's better to be safe than sorry.

I've had some pictures that I've been meaning to post but none of them were interesting enough to be able to stand alone by themselves as a story (I know, I'm overthinking this!). Now I have enough little bits to be able to put together. Woo-hoo!

First up is Emi and her bug-collecting. My girls, in general, are scared of bugs. If there is a something as small as a tiny fruit fly in the house, they all freak out and try to run away from it until Chikara or I kill it for them. Honestly, it's a little pathetic, but I'm not really wild about bugs in the house so I'm have not made any plans to teach them that some bugs are harmless. But, for some unknown reason, dango-mushi (dung beetles?) are okay and Misaki and Emi will spend hours searching for them in a dirt patch on our street.

This is a picture of Emi with her bottle full of bugs. She's so proud.













A close-up, just in case you couldn't see in the last picture. I tried to get her to put some dirt or food in there for them but she was pretty sure they'd be fine just like that. Poor bugs...

Another thing I'm working on recently is potty-training Sakura. Yes, she turns 3 this month but I've been a little busy this year. Also, I trained Emi & Misaki around the time they turned 3 and I found that it was so easy. Within a month or two they were fully-trained, even at night! I always thought I'd be the type of mom that had my kids potty-trained right after they turned two, but my life has not turned out like that. Emi was scared of the toilet and Misaki couldn't have cared less. My mom always says that "they'll be potty-trained by the time they graduate from high school, so don't worry". You can put any skill in the place of "potty-trained" and the sentence is still true. Misaki will learn to eat with her mouth closed before she graduates from high school. See. It works. I feel better already...

This is Sakura's potty chart. It's on the wall in the bathroom. I started with her on May 15th and she pee'd and pooped in the toilet on May 18th. I was really surprised and I wondered if her potty-training would go as easily as her older sisters. A few days later, she pee'd and pooped again. Yeah! Then a few days after that, she got sick and every since that day, there has been no further progress. She doesn't want to sit on the potty and when she finally agrees, a millisecond after her bum touches the seat, she says she's done. I can see that this is going to take awhile.


These are the onions that Misaki picked during her onion-picking-field-trip at her preschool. Look at her face. What a monkey!


The next three pictures are pretty self-explanatory. Emi has discovered tree-climbing and she tries it any chance she gets.











Misaki is my girlie-girl. She loves hats, sunglasses, high-heels, skirts, make-up and nail polish and will try any of the above on if she gets a chance. Sometimes it's really cute and other times, it's more like this, which is still cute but is not necessarily making her look like a lady!

So now I've shared. I feel better already. It's almost like I've taken care of one more cluttered area in the house. I hope you enjoyed these little moments from the last few weeks.
COMMENT:
Sorry that the spacing on this post is really weird. Blogger can be a pain when you add pictures.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sarah i always love seeing pictures of your girls even when they're with gross bugs! Dad and i were talking about the shinnesses the other day. We saw a commercial for baywatch and i told him my first memory of it. We came to portland to visit you when you lived in my FAVORITE house, the one that was 3 stories and had a room that was painted with clouds! And we walked in and none of you were there? Your mum said that you were all downstairs so we walked downstairs and all i saw was 4 of you sitting on a couch infront of a tv watching baywatch i think that one of you might have been on a bean bag chair as well and i was so excited to see you so we all squished in and watched it together. I know it has nothing to do with your blog but i just thought i'd share that!!! MISS YOU!!!
Love Kim!

Heidi said...

Lovely photo stories. Thanks for sharing!

Gina said...

I love that your girls like danomushi/rollie pollies. Branden likes them too. As for me, I dislike all bugs. But the dango mushi aren't so bad. Ha ha ha : )

And you got a tree climber on your hands? Oh I love that even more! I was a tree climbing girl myself! I had my own tree in the front yard that I used to always climb and hang in and watch people from down below.

As for potty training Sakura. Don't even sweat it! Kids will get it, when they get it! With Branden, I bought him a training potty when he was age 2, however he wasn't interested in it. And didn't want to do it, so we didn't stress about it. My aunt on the otherhand kept saying. Branden isn't potty trained yet? Trying to guilt me or what. I just said, nope not yet. And I shrugged it off. I love my aunt but, they will get it when they get it. B was potty trained by the time he was 2 years and 9 or 10 month's. But that is just because it was his time. Even Noah, I wasn't even gonna think about starting him. But then he is different too and he wants to pee on the potty. So go figure. All kids have their own time. There will always be that one person in the world, who swears their kid potty trained by age 1 or whatever and to them we can just say.... Good for you. Congratulations. ha ha ha. But you just tell Sakura, I think she is doing great! : )

Misaki got to pick onions on her field trip? Ohh, I love how in Japan most schools go picking something each year. Last year Branden's school went grape picking and sweet potato digging. It was at one place. It was so much fun! I baked the sweet potatoes and we munched the grapes.

And about the spacing on the pics when posting thing you mentioned. That hapens to me all the time too. Sometimes the space is really huge and weird and sometimes it's normal. Ha ha ha.: )