Sunday = a day of rest

NOT!!! At least not for me today... It was quite chAotIc today.

Usually on Sundays, I get to sleep in a little while Jordan wakes up with Yuki and makes pancake breakfast. Then after the church, I take a nap while kids are napping, and Jordan cooks dinner for us.

Since Jordan was gone, I had to do it all alone. I managed to get kids ready and left the house at 10:35, but we were still 10 minutes late to church. The chapel was pretty packed and the only seats available were up front. As we walked in, it was ward business. Yuki ran up the isle. That was embarrassing enough for me, but to make the matter worse, he kept running, passed the empty seats and circled the whole chapel. When he finally came back and ran passed me, I yanked his arm and made him sit. Then the sacrament started. He sat there quietly. He knew that as soon as the sacrament was over, he'd get to eat his fruit snacks. So, he behaved very well till the sacrament was over, but as soon as he ate his fruit snacks, he started to ran around again!! I chased him, and that made the running more fun for him. So, he was laughing and screaming. I yanked his arm once again and dragged him down the isle. I was so embarrassed... This was happening in front of EVERYBODY since I was sitting in the front row. I took him out and sat in the very back seat for the rest of the meeting, but he kept running around and screaming at times. I sometimes don't know what to do with my cRazY little boy... I've never felt this much frustration during church!

At home, things weren't too bad. But then when I was making dinner, he started to pull water bottles off the shelf. He made big noises and kept yelling, "Bang! Crash!" Then, I heard him say, "Sorry, Mama. Sorry, Mama." I turned around. I saw RICE all over the kitchen floor. UGH...iendiowpw&oeo%j*kwi#wend3oe%enm!!!! Since he apologized, I couldn't get mad. All I could say was, "It's okay. We'll clean up." At least it was uncooked rice, so it wasn't sticky...

Then, I took him upstairs to bathe him, and I saw that every inch of his room was covered with toys, toys, and more toys. Is it just Yuki or does every little kid LOVES to damp everything?

I just felt like cHaoS followed me everywhere today. I'm just happy to be writing this in complete silence and peace right now while trying to ignore the fact that I still have to go and face the chaotic kitchen sink overflowing with dishes. Sigh...

*Pictures have nothing to do with the post, but I thought I'd insert them since the post itself is so boring!

First of many lasts

Last Wednesday, Yuki attended his last music time. Last two years, we've enjoyed Cherubs music time a lot. He mostly just observes while at the music time. But, at home he sings along and dances when I sing the song we learned at the music time. Some of his favorites songs are(I'm writing this as a note to myself):

• Where is ....
• The world outside my window...
• Ice cream songs
• Once there was a snowman
• Chicken dance
• Shake, shake, shake your bean bags
• Tooti tata

It's been so much fun to learn different songs together with Yuki. We'll miss music a lot.

One of Yuki's favorite parts of the music time-performing the La La song with a puppet

It's sad, but there will be a lot more lasts coming...last trip to the zoo, last walk at the garden, last hanging out with the neighbors, etc. Even though I'm so excited to go back to Japan, I'll miss it here tremendously.

Dried rice

This is the beginning of our family blog. We've had many challenging and fun experiences together. Recently we have returned from living in rural Nebraska. We lived in a small bungalow apartment and enjoyed the quiet lifestyle. When we returned back to the city, life again became fast-paced and busy. Jordan spends many hours at the hospital and clinic. One day Jordan bumped into his colleague who had just returned from our old bungalow apartment in rural Nebraska. Jordan asked his colleague how he liked the job there. His colleague replied, "The work is great, but the apartment is awful." Jordan asked, "Why?" thinking to himself, "I thought when we left the apartment we did our best to clean it." His colleague replied, "There's dried rice everywhere! I wouldn't be surprised to see rice on the kitchen floor, but to see a rice trail in the living room to the bathroom is really odd. And how the heck did rice get in the bedroom?" Later that night Jordan told the story to me and we laughed and laughed as we remembered Yuki eating his rice as he ran around the house. I thought to myself, "Follow the trail of rice and you'll find us."

P.S. Just to clarify....so you won't think we are the biggest slobs who don't even clean up after themselves. The flooring at the apartment was carpet, even in the kitchen and bathroom(Yikes!). Why didn't we just vacuum the apartment before we left? We tried, but the vacuum was broken. I tried so hard to sweep up, but obviously it didn't work...