Love youtube!!

Mendel Elementary's newest student...

Noah started kindergarten today!!! Here's one quick photo in front of the house before we left for school. I'll share more this afternoon!

The newest member of the family...

Our family addition comes in the form of a black & white fluff ball. :)

Meet Sakura...

She's a Shih Tzu... 5 months old... and so stinkin' cute it's almost too much! ;)

Noah ran & played with her all afternoon! Both of them were wiped OUT! He went to bed at 7:45 and Sakura has finally settled down & snoozing away in her little fuzzy bed.

She may only be about 5 pounds, but she thinks she's the biggest dog EVER!! She kept trying to carry around sticks that were bigger than her!

I don't think Noah stopped grinning all afternoon! He was SO happy to hold her leash while we walked to the car. He loves that she's a little dog so he can hold the retractable leash. She's not heavy enough to pull away or drag him. *giggle*

Wish me luck with this. It's been years and years since I've had a dog... much less a puppy!

How's this for drastic?!

First it was Dewayne that traded in the super long hair for a neatly trimmed 'do... and now... another drastic change! :)

Preston... May 28, 2008... 10:30am... front view

Preston... May 28, 2008... 10:30am... side view

Preston... May 28, 2008... 12:45pm... front view

Preston... May 28, 2008... 12:45pm... side view

It's about 6 inches shorter and actually cut in a "style"... and he took my suggestion on the highlights! He's got bright red streaks on the top!! He loves it... and it changed his look. The long hair covered his face so much it made him look so thin & young. This really looks great on him and makes him look like he's 14.

I'm so glad I took him to the girl that does my hair. When we walked out the door, he turned to me and said "Woah, she's good!" Guess that meant he liked it! :) And you should've seen the shocked look on Dad's face when we got home! We didn't tell him about the appointment!! He had no clue there was going to be a cut... and definitely wasn't expecting the bright red streaks!! ;)

What do ya think? Better?

Guess who's home!!!!!!!

Yup, Tom came home on Sunday!! He's all safe and sound now!

Here's the sign the boys made to hang outside the front door so he'd see it when we drove up! :)


As soon as the sign was hung up, we were off to the squadron to see Daddy!!!

Here's all of us just after he got off the plane... well, except Dewayne. He was at work.

Tom had to go back on the plane to finish up his paperwork & Noah was a little freaked out. He asked if Daddy had to leave again. That nearly broke my heart so we went right on up in the plane with Daddy! Here's Noah with his Daddy on the flight deck of the plane!

And he's finally home! Here's the boys with Daddy in front of our house... with the sign!

He took a LOT of photos over the last four and a half months. I'll be sharing some of those soon.

A little Japanese culture...

Tonight was a spouse get-together for our squadron. We do this once a month... and take turns hosting. This month's event was pretty cool. The two girls that co-hosted asked two Japanese teachers to be our special guests and teach us how to play a musical instrument... a koto (pronounced with long o's like coke and toe). It was amazing! The koto is a stringed instrument, rests on the floor, and is played with a "nail" that is similar to a guitar pick but is attached to the fingers with a fitted strap. To me, the sound of the instrument was a cross between a guitar and a harp. It was a very delicate sound. We learned a traditional Japanese song, titled "Sakura Sakura".

Here are a some photos of the evening... although you'll have to forgive me for the quick edit job on these and for not showing detailed shots. I wanted to get a few posted & also chose shots that don't show faces very clearly (except one of my friend Angela :D ) because I haven't had a chance to show the group yet. I will add more photos as they get edited.

One of our instructors demonstrating how to play the koto:

She plucked the end of the strings with one hand and pressed on the strings with the other hand to alter the sound and make the 'echo' change.

Angela & some of the other girls learning to play a Japanese koto:

The group with the two instructors:

So not ready for this...

I came home from a spouse function around 8pm Friday and Noah met me at the door. He was SO excited to show me that he had a loose tooth. Right in the front, on the bottom and VERY loose. He kept coming to me every few minutes all weekend to ask if it was ready to come out.

Well, finally yesterday, Tuesday afternoon, it came out. You wouldn't believe just how excited he was about it!! He was screaming & jumping around!! I wanted to cry... my baby is growing up too fast... but he was so happy, I couldn't be sad for long. :)

Last night he put the tooth under his pillow and after checking it a bazillion times to see if the tooth fairy snuck in while he wasn't looking, he finally drifted off to sleep. The tooth fairy brought him a shiny gold-colored 500 yen coin! That's about $5 in U.S. dollars. Later this week we'll go to the yen shop and he can get 5 little toys!

I am really glad the tooth fairy left a note saying the first tooth is worth a LOT because it's special. Not so sure she could keep up with that price for EVERY tooth. ;)

My new hair do...

I got my hair cut & colored on Thursday (7 Feb). It's quite a bit lighter than I've had my hair recently. Sort of a light reddish brown with some dark blonde highlights. The cut was just a trim since I'm trying to grow the back out from a very short cut. Now it's almost even all the way around so the next time the cut will be a little more noticeable.

This photo shows the color a little more accurately... and it's sharper... but I took it late at night, with no make-up & wearing jammies. I figured it isn't that bad, but I had to put the other photo first. :)

And more snow!!

We've had snow 4 times over the last few weeks. This is what we woke up to last Sunday (3 Feb) and, of course we played outside most of the day!!

The view out our front door...

... a little further left out the front door :)

Noah... just before I got smacked with a face full of snow.

... and just before I got smacked again...

Snow makes the slide LOTS of fun!
And apparently snow makes a broken skateboard lots of fun too. Preston was soaking wet from falling in the snow when he tried to "skate".

Andrew didn't expect to be the next victim of Noah's wrath with the snowballs. heehee

They had so much fun playing with all the kids in our neighborhood. I think there was 30 kids out there... and snow was flying everywhere! And Noah was right in the middle of it all.... literally! That's him in the blue jacket with white stripes on the sleeves... smack dab in the middle of the snowball war!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!

It's snowing a LOT today. I'd say there's probably about 3 to 4" on the ground right now... and still snowing big fluffy flakes! We played outside for about an hour... and had a great time!!

It looked so pretty on the big trees by the fence of the base. It's illegal to stop in this area so I had to stick the camera out the window while I was driving in the snow. I don't recommend this little trick but a girl's gotta do whatever it takes to get the photo. ;)

This is the view from Noah's bedroom window... and it snowed another 2 hours after this photo. The roads & sidewalks are so slushy... and temps are supposed to drop overnight. I hope it's not all ice by morning.

Noah also recorded a video message for Daddy since he's not here to see the snow & play with us. As a matter of a fact, there is a snowball for Daddy in a baggie in my freezer as I type. He insisted that we save some snow for Daddy. Let's just hope I can keep it frozen until May. :)

I have two videos that I'll add here as soon as I figure out how to do that.

Built Ford Tough...

Santa knew what he was doing! This boy LOVES his Ford truck!

He was a little nervous about driving to begin with but after a few seconds he was all over the yard like a pro! He had so much fun driving over the pile of leaves in the backyard and trying his best to run over me while I was taking photos! :)

And just to prove my children are little snot heads...

That's what Noah & Preston gave me when I asked for nice smiles. *sigh* Gotta love boys!! ;)

Merry Christmas from Japan!!

Santa has come & gone here in Japan!!! He completely overestimated the amount of space in our house! ;) NO idea where we're putting all of this stuff!

Here are a few quick photos for now... I'll add more after things settle down a bit.

Someone needs to figure out where we're going to put this truck!!! The thing is MASSIVE! The load limit is 150 pounds!! He can haul two friends along! For reference, that's a 32" tv in the entertainment center. The truck is the same size as the whole cabinet width.

And Santa wasn't thinking... Tinker Toys, Legos, K'nex... just how many small pieces parts does this kid need?!?! Noah loves to build stuff so all the little tiny things were a big hit!!

Just LOOK at that face!! Now THAT's my boy!!!! He was super excited by the digital camera!

And who would've thunk it?! The biggest hit of the entire haul was these $6 Nerf guns! All 4 boys got one... and a full-on war insued! I'll be purchasing my own gun as soon as possible! These boys are brutal!!! :)

25 Days Of Christmas

These 25 questions were asked on ScrapFreak.com and I'm going to take a few minutes to answer. I've been insanely busy the last few weeks and I haven't been online much. I miss everyone at ScrapFreak...

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? hot chocolate
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? wrap except for LARGE things... those get a big red bow!
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I prefer white, but my prelit tree has colored. Outside is all white.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Yes!
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually around the 1st of December.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Sweet Potato Souffle. My mom made it every year!
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Getting a horse! My parents wrapped a container of horse food & it took me a few minutes to figure out what it meant!
8. Do you collect anything for your Christmas decor? Not intentionally, but I've got a lot of snowmen now. :)
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes... usually jammies & a book.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It's a complete mix since we buy a new ornament every year for the 4 boys!
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it... but didn't have it growing up!
12. Can you ice skate? Never tried. I'm from Florida!
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes. Last year my hubby sent me pearls... while he was deployed.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Having my family together.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Pumpkin Cheesecake
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Watching holiday movies with the boys & baking cookies for Santa together.
17. What tops your tree? A German tree topper... not a star or angel. It's a pointy thing... blue with a handpainted winter scene on it. :)
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving. Love to see the boys' faces!!
19. What is your favorite Christmas song? None really. I love to hear the music when we're opening gifts, but I hate getting the songs stuck in my head for DAYS!! I was the Christmas tree for "O Christmas Tree" in a school play (4th grade) so that one isn't my favorite!!!
20. Do you send Christmas cards? If so, handmade, store bought, or photo cards? Some handmade, some store bought
21. Favorite Christmas movie? The Charlie Brown Christmas one!!!
22. What do you leave for Santa? milk & homemade cookies
23. Have you ever shopped on Christmas Eve? Yes... for last minute guests that decided to show up unannounced!
24. Red or green? Green! (and I didn't plan for this answer to be GREEN either!!) heehee
25. Do you get ready before opening presents on Christmas morning or do you go straight to the tree PJs, bedhead, and all? Tom & I get dressed. The boys are usually still in jammies, but I do ask everyone to brush hair & teeth! The older boys are ok with that... Noah, not so much!! :)

Noah isn't the only one that got something new...

It may have been Noah's 5th birthday, but Dewayne got the biggest present!!!

He sold the black Toyota Supra a week ago & used that money along with his first full paycheck and some Christmas money (Thanks Grandma and Granny & Papa!) to get this new car & pay for his insurance! It's a Nissan "One-via".... it's a limited edition... something about the front end body style of some car & the rear end body style of some other car... I don't know... but it's a very pretty deep blue and it's in MUCH better shape than the Supra. He LOVES it!!! And I love that it's not a fixer-upper... because it won't cost a small fortune to fix it every other week! ;)

He wants to take more photos to show Grandma and Granny & Papa but he was busy with school and work yesterday. Maybe this afternoon we'll get some that show the great blue color and the engine. (Apparently it's important to show Papa the engine!) :)

New photos added. Here's the engine Papa!

Has it really been 5 years?!?!

It just doesn't seem like Noah should be 5 already. The time has flown by and I'm just not ready for him to be this old yet! I guess I have to accept it eventually... but for now I'm going to pretend it just isn't true. ;)

The birthday boy had a good day. We had our traditional "mom & birthday boy" breakfast, just me & Noah early this morning, then we talked on the phone with Grammy & Papa so they could wish him a Happy Birthday. We had one rough pillow fight (I lost!) and watched about 2 hours of mind-numbing cartoons. Lunch was the usual peanut butter sandwiches... his choice! Then it was time to get our cook on!!

My little chef helped make his own birthday cake! He certainly enjoys using the kitchen gadgets. I think the electric mixer is his new favorite! We had loads of fun with the decorating spray color for the cake! That stuff goes EVERYWHERE!! Noah wanted to try all of the tips to the decorating tube. We have flowers, leaves, some basket weave & something that is supposed to be a star but didn't turn out all that great... all on one cake! I think it officially got out of control when he got the sprinkles!!! And his masterpiece: After hearing "Can we have cake now?!" a bazillion times throughout the afternoon, it was finally time! We brought out the cake as soon as dinner was done. Noah reminded us all that we had to sing to him before the cake was even on the table!

And then it was time for presents! Legos from Mom & Dad... (not sure WHAT we were thinking... 550 tiny little pieces!), a book with cars & a road mat from Grammy & Papa in Florida, Transformers from the brothers and a ClickStart keyboard game from Grandma in Ohio. I love how excited he was with every present! He had to play with it all... and I'm not sure when... or if... we'll ever go to bed tonight!