Birthday Party and Hagi Walk

Yesterday, we celebrated our friend Michiko daughter's first birthday. I made her a photo picture book. I hope she liked it. :-)




Today, we went on a walk. I decided to take along my camera because I've been wanting to get some certain pictures of Hagi before we leave. We plan on taking a walk to different parts of Hagi every time we have a nice day - so you'll probably be seeing a lot more pictures of our town in the coming weeks!

Coming home

Sooo... it looks like we'll be flying to Ohio sometime in the first week of May!! Jeremy will be technically finished with work on Saturday, April 23rd so we will be free to leave any time after that, though we may end up staying until May 8th or 9th due to Japanese holidays and flight schedules. We are still planning to take a week-long vacation to visit Kyoto and Tokyo before flying home, however the first week of May is Golden Week, the busiest, most popular holiday week in Japan...

I'm still working on another post related to leaving/returning, and hope to have that up soon.

In preparation for moving, we ask for your continued prayers. There is SO much to be done! We still need to get Aeris' visa... make travel arrangements, deep clean the house, pack and send boxes home, close out accounts, take more photos, and say good-bye to our dear friends. We just ordered Aeris an American car seat, the Combi Coccoro, after having it recommended for being the best to travel with. Unfortunately, Aeris will out grow that seat quickly, and we plan to have her rear-facing in the car for an extended period of time, so she will need another seat soon enough. We are looking at the Evenflo Triumph Advance 65 LX/DLX, Evenflo Momentum 65, or the Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL seat for her - so if anyone or anyone you know has one of them that they will be willing to sell please let us know! We are also looking at getting the Fisher Price Space Saver high chair and the DaVinci 4-in-1 Emily crib for her, so again, if anyone has one we could borrow or buy, that would be wonderful! We'll be buying her a crib mattress soon.

Also, Bell School needs your prayers. They are going through some tough, crazy times right now and it will only get crazier in the coming months. A lot of big changes are going on, specifically for the staff and teachers. Thank you!

Yesterday (3/4)

Yesterday, we took pictures of Aeris with her hina doll (hina means girl or princess in Japanese) to celebrate the Hina Matsuri (doll festival). We actually did a "bad" thing by doing this the day AFTER the festival, which traditionally is bad luck for the girl and means she'll marry late in life, but as much as Jeremy may wish it, we don't hold to that superstition. ;-)

Aeris and I had dinner plans with our friend, Yoshiko, so we hitched a ride with Jeremy to Nagato.

Jeremy playing with Eri before class: notice Aeris still has that patch of white/blonde hair - I think it's going to stay!

Our delicious Japanese dinner: sushi, tempura, soba noodles, chirashi zushi, and miso soup with fruit yogurt.

Sadly, I didn't get any photos with Yoshiko! :-(
*ETA - She sent this photo of us in email!*

And this is for you, Jeanette:


This weekend will be busy and there should be even more pictures coming soon! The next few days will be busy cooking and storing Aeris' menu for the next week: brown rice, chicken/apple, green peas/onion, peaches/oatmeal, broccoli/potato/cheddar, and carrots. Tomorrow night we'll spend with the O'briens. On Monday there will be a birthday party for our friend Michiko's daughter, Nanaha, and I still need to finish up her birthday present! And on Tuesday Aeris has her 6-7 month check up (yes, she's 8 months...) and last immunization in Japan.

Jeremy's birthday and Aeris' first crawl

Yesterday was Jeremy's 29th birthday! He will now be 30 in less than a year... he doesn't seem to mind, but I know it'll be big for me when it comes my turn next month! We hardly feel like we've reached another decade. I bought him another game, of course, Le Havre. :-) The day was absolutely gorgeous! Perfect blue sky and temperatures in the mid-60s - I went to the park with Aeris and some friends while Jeremy was working and Aeris experienced grass and dirt for the first time. She loved pulling the grass up and raking her fingers in the dirt, ew. :-) Today was even warmer! No jackets needed! Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to turn sour later tonight with lots of rain the rest of the week. Anyway, I finally got some room on my camera and took this video of Aeris' first "crawl" at church this morning (which she's been doing for a couple of days now): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlY4LUnQX_I It isn't much yet, but at least she can get from point A to point B! And some pictures, of course:





Then we celebrated Jeremy and Carl's birthday together (they are one day apart)! Elizabeth made a delicious pasta and pumpkin side and I made a chocolate pie for dessert - and it was actually good! The birthday boys:

Pictures and Stuff

And 25 wipes later, we have one giddy girl and a big mess - at least it wasn't the whole bag...

Two teeth. (taken a week or so ago)

She's a pro at turning pages, and I need to get a video of her with her favorite books soon. :-) Jeremy and I joke about her "introduction" (we do basic intros with our students every class): "Hello. My name is Aeris. I'm 7 months old. My hobby is turning pages." (or "standing", which she loves more than anything).

In regards to standing, she's taken to walking pretty good (with support). She's even daring enough to take steps while only holding on to us or an object with just one hand, and she's tried to take a step all on her own to go between the table and the couch several times. Often, she'll stand up and stand there just to stand, with no real purpose. She can bend down to sit and grab objects fairly easily, so thankfully, there haven't been too many falls yet. I also need to take a video of her practice "walking". And there's still hope for her to crawl first! The past three days she's been making lots of good attempts to get up on her hands and knees, sort of... she gets up on her hands and feet - but at least she's getting her belly off the ground.

She has also started saying "Mom mom" only when she needs something, usually food. Jeremy and I can't decide if she's trying to say "Mama/Mommy" or if she's trying to say "milk" instead, heh. She talks a LOT and she's still a little socialite. She's eating about 2 meals a day now, or 1 meal and two 1/2 meals. We've just recently started introducing finger foods. She's had broccoli, banana, bread, peaches, and pumpkin "puffs" - the kind that melt in your mouth. She does really well and has a good pincer grasp.

She still has to sleep with something on or near her face, for this reason, we bought her a "blanket friend" to snuggle with, and she loves it. :-)

Here we are yesterday with the Mitsubishi Minica. It was taken away to the trash compact yesterday. It was just old and never serviced properly, but still sad to see it go, so we took a picture with it for memory's sake, both the good and bad (funny).

Eye color

I've been a bit obsessed lately over what color Aeris' eyes will end up. Here are Jeremy's, mine, and Aeris' eyes at 7 months. We both have blue and green eyes in our families, and I believe, only brown on my mom's side. She still has the blue/grey she was born with but also I'm noticing some brown or hazel specks around the center. Any guesses?

Prayer requests

This was taken last night. She was doing her "ya ya ya" face. I couldn't resist NOT posting it, lol. She also has two teeth now, her second just broke through yesterday.


I've been busy making baby food lately. It's nice to have something in the freezer for her when we get a bento at the store for our lunch. So far, I have cooked more for her than I have for us all week! She currently has a chunky carrot/apple mix, banana/avocado pudding, applesauce, and pumpkin/raisin puree. Next up will be a sweet potato/pea or green bean puree. I'm disappointed about not going gung ho on the BLW as I had originally planned, but until I start cooking every day, I'm not sure how that's going to work out. :-( She does probably get more finger foods than most kids her age though, so it's still a mix. Jeremy is at the end of Sankambi week - when parents are invited to come watch their child's class. Next weekend, we have another Open School day, and currently only have 1-3 students signed up to attend this promotion. Pray we get more students to sign up for the new school year! I worry about the fate of Bell School.

Also, please pray for Courtney and her mom (Courtney is the teacher we are hiring to replace Jeremy). We just got word the other day that her mom has been in the hospital for a while with complications related to a relatively minor condition (a hernia?) and Courtney has been there with her. They now think her complications are potentially life threatening, and they have also found a tumor in her uterus. It sounds like Courtney still wants to come teach with us, but we're not sure how this situation will affect her arrival and/or our departure. Please pray for her mom's healing and guidance for all of us. Thank you!