Happy Halloween!

The videos wouldn't upload to Blogger so check them out here and here. Our first YouTube videos! Now that I know how to upload them there, I'll try to always use YouTube for viewing viedos. You can also find our first home video here. There are more, of course, but I'll have to sort through them and make a post later with the links. If these links don't work, please let me know. :-)

Here's my "costume" as an aquarium (taken AFTER wearing it all afternoon so it's missing two fish and about six bubbles thanks to rain and baby holding :-p) just because it took me 3 or so hours to make. Thanks for the idea, Jeanette!

Warning: TMI for some!

Exactly one year ago today we learned our lives were going to change. Aeris was a very welcomed blessing! Not many people know this, but she was planned. We tried for three months. I'm not so shy about it anymore... I've become a big advocate of FA (fertility awareness), also known as NFP (natural family planning) and love to talk about it. If anyone's interested, check out this book:
We decided before getting married that that would be the way we'd go. It's also a pretty neat benefit to know the exact day her life began. (Would it be weird to celebrate that every year?) So that bring us to today. What a year it has been! We could have never known how much our lives would change with her presence. Good and bad, but all a blessing for sure. Thank you, Lord, for placing her in our lives!

It's hard to get her to smile for the camera while I'm holding it. :-)

Home

I want to come home.

I don't know how many times I've thought this over the past few months... and I never thought I would. I guess the Lord is preparing me to go back. While I do love living here, it seems my active circle of friends has gone down to 0 since Aeris was born, and it's really taking a toll on me. I love being able to stay at home with Aeris, but only seeing her and only her (and Jeremy too, of course) each and every day is lonesome. I am lonely. It seems all of my friends here have either moved away or are too busy for socializing. And I lost my students a long time ago. I should have learned Japanese, perhaps I could have broadened my network, but I didn't, so now I am stuck at home all day, every day, like a prisoner. I want out. I miss my social life. I get energy from being around people. I'm so sad here at home. And poor Jeremy... whenever he gets back from work I crave his attention like there's no tomorrow, when all he wants to do is veg alone at the computer. I think I need to come home for my own sanity; at least there I could see friends and family often, and I could join a gym again (still need to work on losing the extra weight!), or a mom's group, and a church!! And since I spend ALL of my free time (aside from online networking) researching and planning out our future, and have for over a year now, I'm ready to stop day dreaming about it and make it a reality. So now I just can't wait for the time to say goodbye to this land I love and go back to the people that make America my home.

First we said at the end of our "contract" (Jeremy never signed a new one, to his knowledge) in mid-July. Then we said mid-June to be back before her 1st birthday. Now, I'm thinking mid-May, to be back before Memorial Day (save money on some sales to get settled in, or if early-May, we could be back for Mother's Day, lol!) The excuses keep coming. Ha, we shall see... We'd still have to find Jeremy's replacement, and that was no easy task for Carla's... pray for us, and me.

*edit* And lately, like just now, perhaps some friends are finally returning my phone calls, but I keep missing it!! The phone only rings a few times, and I can never get to it in time. Sigh. :-(

Rolling

Soo... Aeris started rolling over exactly a week ago today (Oct. 11!), and since has LOVED to make use of her new talent. Jeremy jokes we're going to need to start tying her down, especially during diaper changes, oh boy! But there's a slight problem... she's only rolling from back to front and hasn't figured out the way back yet, which creates a lot of calls for us to come flip her back over. We hope she figures it out soon!! Is there any way to help teach her how? :-p

Yes, another picture!

She's in that stage when anything and everything that is within reach (toys, clothes, diaper wipes, my hair...) is instantly grabbed and pulled into her mouth. I turned around for 5 seconds this morning to grab a diaper and saw her like this (all of the clothes were behind her head in the corner):


Apparently, I've been a little picture/post happy... three days in a row, wow. Probably won't happen again for a while, unless I get a good picture of that pouty lip she's been perfecting...

Sleep Play

Because she's just too cute, there's more...


Sorry for the poor quality video... I know I really need to figure out our video camera and start posting videos from there!

Kindergarten Undokai and... more of baby :-)

On the 3rd we went to Koen's kindergarten Undokai (Sport's Day) to see our friend Akiko's daughter Akari and some of our students perform. It was a rainy day, but fortunately, it was just moved indoors to the high school gym.

This one of the common events in which the kids compete against another group of kids, or in this case, their grandparents, to see which team can get the most balls into the basket before the time runs out.

It was quite noisy in the gym, as you could tell, but apparently babies can sleep through anything. :-)

This is a race for the kids' older siblings... because they're there too, AND they get a can of sports drink at the end, so why not? Ha.

Akari and one of our students, Ayane playing the drums. (Ayane and Akari are 3rd and 4th from the left)

For some reason, superheros in rainbow colors always appear at undokai... this is each of their introductions.

And of course every school has a parachute...

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In other news, Aeris had her first shot on Tuesday at her 3rd month appointment. It was so sad watching someone intentionally hurt your baby and having to soothe her because of it, but we trust we are making a good decision for her. Unfortunately, she may hate us later, as she is currently scheduled for one shot every week or two until she's 6 months old. Poor girl! There are only three different kinds of vaccinations, but all three are a series of 3 or 4. Ouch. She did well enough for her first time, and praise the Lord that she didn't have any kind of reaction or side effect from it. She is also 11lbs 13oz and 23 3/4" long.

We have a tall, thin baby! Here she is all cramped up in Aya's car on the way to her appointment. The carseat wouldn't fit facing backwards, otherwise, it would have been Jeremy that wouldn't have fit!

On Monday, we went to Yamaguchi to do some shopping for her. I wanted to shop for some more toys for her, and I think I had success! She enjoys all of them. We played a little with them this afternoon...

before she discovered my camera...


This is what I saw, hence, not very condusive for photo taking.

Then this evening, she fell asleep cuddling one of them. :-)