Random December Cuties

December was such a sweet month for us.  I can't tell you how much fun it is to be the mom to these kids.  They are awesome.

And there are some beautiful eyes in the bunch.

Snuggles in the morning.

We had another "first" experience in Japan... our first Fire Department visit.  And our second, too.  The first came late one night.  I had fallen asleep already in the family room, but Ethan was still up, when we heard this crazy sound.  Then a voice came over the PA in our building saying that we needed to evacuate the building.  So we got all the kids up and ran out the fire escape.  We got outside our building and didn't really see anyone else... so we started to make our way over to the other side when someone said they'd cleared the building and it was safe to go back inside.  Jonas was exceptionally glad, he was cold, wet and barefooted.

The next fire alarm sounded just a few days later.  We had several skeptics as we made our way out of the building again, thinking it was just another drill or something like the first one... imagine our surprise when we learned that there really was a fire up on the 8th floor!  We were stuck outside the house for quite a while, but no one really complained much.

The room with the fire is the second from the top on the right side.  It was sad, a kid (college student, maybe?) had just flown in the day before to visit his mom for the holidays and his laptop/charger started the fire.  I felt so sorry for him!  And his mom was gone for an appointment at the time so he was all alone!

When we were allowed to go back inside there was water pouring out of the elevator.  I continue to be grateful that we only live on the 3rd floor.  We have two elevators in the building and one of them still doesn't work from this.  Also, we got lots and lots of fire alarms after this as they checked the system to make sure it was working correctly.  I think we're all desensitised to it!  Hopefully we don't have another fire in the building!

Also in December we excitedly made the final payment on our student loans!!! Woohoo!

Eliza and her friends decided to put on a little show for me one day.  Their baby dolls and they each turns singing songs.  It was pretty cute!

The dolls and the girls each taking a bow.

Our Christmas gift hiding place.

All month long we found some really great deals at the BX.  A few days before Christmas we were there and found they had the LEGO Advent calendars for sale with a rebate so we were able to get them for $5 each!  We came home with the City and Star Wars calendars and let each of the kids take turns opening the days that had already passed on the City calendar.  The next day we opened the Star Wars calendar.  Each calendar had at least 7 mini-figures!  Plus lots of other fun things.  It was awesome!

Elementary Band Concert

We are so happy that the kids have music in school again this year!  There are two music teachers at the elementary and one of them is ambitious enough to have two bands, beginning and advanced.  Levi started with the clarinet at the beginning of the year and I have to admit I was really worried after hearing the clarinets squeak so much at Travis last year... but he has picked up on it really well!  I've been pretty impressed with him and his excitement hasn't levelled off like we would have expected, but not dropped off completely, like we might have feared.  He is doing great!

Before Christmas break the kids got to put on a concert for us and it was so fun to see them perform!

Jonas is in the advanced band because he's been playing trumpet for a year, but he quickly realised that his experience at Travis was lacking, a lot.  He was behind the other trumpeters in advanced band, but above the level of the beginning band students.  Its weird to be in that middle ground.  But, he is doing really well.  He started working with the teacher privately once a week and working with beginning band as well as advanced band and his skill is increasing quite a bit.  I love to see him successful!  Just look at that grin!

It was so fun to hear them both play in their concert.  I love that my kids are so talented and work hard to develop skills!  They inspire me!

First Grade Christmas Program

Today, December 13, 2016 Abraham and I got to go to Bolton's school to watch him perform with the first graders several fun Christmas songs and readings.  Bolton was home sick yesterday and I wasn't sure he was going to make it today, but he wanted to go so badly and his fever had been gone for over 24 hours so he go to go!  He was so cute!

He got to say a tiny part in the "Snowballs" reader's theatre.

Singing "Jingle Bell Rock."

I love this sweet little guy so much.  He brings a smile to my face every single day.  Great job, Bolton!

Snow White Christmas

Eliza and Levi decided they wanted to participate in the children's play put on by Misawa Community Theatre, Snow White Christmas.  Eliza was cast as a Snowflake named Nippy.

And Levi was cast as part of the Gruesome Twosome.

They worked hard and committed a LOT of time to this production.  Mom wasn't always the happiest supporter of the project since so they got jerked around a lot by the powers that be (rehearsal times and locations got changed a lot, I felt sorry for the director having to deal with it all!).  But the time finally came to perform on Decemeber 8,9, and 10!

They had so much fun and did such a great job!  These pictures are really random, some are from during the show, some are from after, and some were taken by the director back stage.  I'll share some videos on my youtube channel if you want to see their scenes.

For their Friday night performance Ethan and I went without the other kids so we spoiled the performers with pizza at the BX after the show!  Eliza's hair is pretty incredible.  Bryant says she looks like a "rebellious teenager."  Ha!

Levi had so much make-up on it was so hard to get it all off!  I think we might finally have it all scrubbed off now!

What do I do all day?

Do you ever feel like your days are made up of insignificant little things that are just undone by the time you go to bed so you get to start over the next day?  I sure do.  Here's a sampling of some of the things I've filled my days with recently.

Setting up our Christmas decorations is always a joy!  Ethan and I bought this gorgeous, sweet, cute (insert your own adjective of choice) nativity and I love it!  It makes me smile every time I look at it! 

I was busy preparing food for everyone while they put the decorations on the tree, but I love it so much.  Its like a treasure hunt trying to find all the different ornaments we've collected over the years.  I know a lot of people love to have a "theme" tree that has similar ornaments that all match a colour scheme or whatever, but I love having our random collection of ornaments on our tree.

And silly, Eliza wanted to pose under the tree.

I go to the post office every few days to check the mail and I love it when we get a little slip of yellow paper in our mailbox... that means we have a package to pick up!  Our friends in Germany sent us these little treasures just for fun!  We are so blessed to have friends all over this beautiful world!

I'm the luckiest girl around because I get to have one of the best callings in the church... Activity Days leader!  I love it!  Our first activity in December we made little advent calendars to fill with acts of service ideas each day.  I made 350 tiny little envelopes for our 17 girls to use (in the final hours my kids pitched in to help, thankfully!)

I love that I get to be in there with Eliza!  I'm not sure she'll always be so happy to have me around, so I'm enjoying every moment of it!

The girls did a great job and had so much fun!

I drove to the nearest biggish city so I could get an MRI.  I have a lipoma near my knee that they want to see placement and size of before taking it out.  I was really stressed about driving there (I have a goal to write a post all about driving in Japan-its so different and kind of scary!).  Then when I got to the hospital I didn't really know where to go--everything is in Japanese, go figure!  I was able to communicate with someone enough that they got me in the right place and my translator found me, thank goodness!  I wanted a picture with her to commemorate the big day.

Oh, yeah!  I let this guy hack off several inches of my hair.  The comments on instagram made me laugh so hard... someone said they had to look twice to confirm that it was hair in his hand and not spaghetti noodles!  Ha!

Trying to get an "after" shot was the worst!  Thankfully Jonas came to my rescue.

The next night Murphy came for a visit.  Remember our dog?  We left him in the states, he lives with my parents now.  The kids miss him like crazy (Ethan and I miss him, too, he was a good dog).  Well, Abe found the Nana costume in the costume box and came crawling out saying, "I'm Murphy!!"

Cutest little puppy dog ever.

A friend of mine asked me to do this scripture in hand lettering for her.  It was a lot of stress trying to make something good enough for someone else, but this is what I came up with.  Then I added some editing and filters and made it more artsy.

#LighttheWorld has been such a great initiative.  One day I was having a really hard time, I'd been crying all evening and so I turned to the scriptures to find some comfort.  I found this one in my notes on my phone and decided to hand letter it up and share it.  The kanji at the top are for strength and joy.  Creating and scripture two of the best things to comfort a hurting soul.  I felt so much better as I finished this and have it hanging on my fridge to remind me all day of the strength and joy that can come through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

I'm thankful for this time of year to refocus on all that is good in this world.  I'm so thankful for Christ and all He has done and continues to do for me and my family.