Valentine Cookies…

After dinner, Jack helped Grandma make sugar cookies in the shape of hearts in lieu of Valentine’s Day.  

After Jack rolled out the dough he used the cookie cutter to cut the hearts.

 

After he cut out the hearts and baked them in the oven, it was time to put candy sprinkles on the cookies.   Obviously Jack isn’t skilled in the fine ways of decorating cookies so he was just plopping all the sprinkles in one giant lump on the cookies. 

Aya:  Jack, you need to gently sprinkle out the sugar on the cookies.

Jack:  No mommy.  Boys dump and girls sprinkle.

Ha!  Score another victory for the dudes!

Valentine’s Day…

This year Jack made out like a bandit for Valentine’s Day.   I think he got more candy for Valentine’s Day then he got at Halloween.

Jack got Aya some flowers via my Mom.   I didn’t realize it was Valentine’s Day until it was actually Valentine’s Day!  I knew Valentine’s was coming because I supervised Jack doing his Valentine’s cards, I just forgot to get something for Aya.  Oops.  Better luck next year.

Dinner Conversation...

With Valentine's Day approaching there have been more commercials for Hershey Kisses on tv. Jack was asking what are those candies wrapped up in the 'paper'? I said they are Hershey Kisses...it is chocolate. I told Jack that we could buy some at the market on Sunday.

The other day we were all having dinner and the Hershey Kiss commercial was on tv again.

Jack: What's that?
Miles: That is the same commercial we have seen. It's chocolate.
Jack: Oh.
Miles: Do you remember the name?
Jack: Umm.
Miles: Hershey....

Aya then interjects: "I do this to you every night...."

Jack: Oh, you curse at me.

Miles: Hahahahhahahahhahahaa!!!

Aya: NO!! I kiss you.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAA!! How awesome is that? I didn't even know Jack knew the word, "curse" and then to use it in a sentence. HAHAHAHHAHA.

So apparently every night at storytime, Aya has been cursing at Jack!! Awe-some.

Happy Face…

Okay did you really think that I didn’t get any pictures of Stacy smiling??  Although rare, Stacy does smile!!

Faces…

So one of the big differences between Jack and Stacy is that Stacy does not smile as much as Jack smiled.  Whenever Stacy does smile I don’t have the camera around or I can’t take the picture fast enough.  Without further ado here are the many faces of Stacy that I do capture!

The “Blahhh” face:

Laugh face:

Small mouth serious face:

 

The smirk face or popeye face:

 

Tongue face:

Yawn:

Visitors…

Sunday was the day Stacy got to meet her Aunty’s and cousin’s. 

Aunty Nora:

Aunty Paul:

Cousin Laura who was in town from Chicago:

 

Cousin Melissa:

Of course the guys didn’t want to take pictures as there were more important things going on like the Laker-Boston game.  Jack and Scott cheering on their main man Kobe!

Blastoff…

We headed to the park over the weekend to launch Jack’s rocket.  Jack setting up his rocket for blast off:

Ready, Set…

Blast off!!!

Here is some video:

New Survey…

Okay the answer to last week survey is the stuffed animal is a giraffe!   Jeff and Melanie bought the giraffe for Stacy and Jenny thought it was a goat.  G-O-A-T.  I have no clue how it looks like a goat…granted it doesn’t quite look like a giraffe either but it looks more like a giraffe than a goat!

So on to this weeks survey / comment:

Last week I was headed to the market to get a few items from the market and I asked Aya if she needed anything.  Aya said she wanted carrots and celery in the container.  No problem.  I go to the market and I can get it.

A week later the carrots and celery is still in the fridge and I asked Aya when she is going to eat all of it.  Aya tells me that it isn’t that good and she ate over half of the container.  (picture of the container as of today)

Umm, no, I don’t think Aya half of the container.   See, this is my thing.  If you ask for something then you should eat it.   In addition, Aya loves to get foods that only SHE likes.  Hence no one else is going to eat it.   Heck if she bought a container of pickles then at least I could eat some of it.  I told Aya that as a penalty she should eat the entire container of carrots and celery.  What do you think?  Should Aya eat all the veggies?  Leave your thoughts….

Guess this animal...

Okay, it's time for some reader feedback via the comments section.

Can you guess what type of stuffed animal this is suppose to be?

(I knew what it was, but someone who shall remain nameless at this time thought it was something completely different)

Thugster…

It’s hard to look like a thug with a girlie looking Easter rabbit shirt but I liked Jack’s small mouth and ‘mean’ look when he was 21 weeks old.

 

I guess Stacy wanted to copy Jacks “thug appeal” and she had to do her small mouth mean pose.

Wii Resort…

It all started with the Leapster video game, then it migrated to the PSP and now Jack is playing Wii.  I bought Jack Wii Resort for Christmas and Jack really enjoys playing some of the games…more specifically Sword Fighting!

Jack plays the games by himself but he always wants either Aya or I to watch him play.   I just tune him out and read and pretend like I am watching him play so I have no idea what is going on.  All I know is that it looks easy.  One day Jack was having problems and asked if I would help him.  I figured how hard could it be?? 

Umm, let me say it is harder than it looks.  At first I didn’t want to look stupid by standing and playing so I just sat and flicked my wrist around trying to be cool.  Nope…I got destroyed.  I started to stand and get into it, but I still sucked.    Jack usually challenges Aya and I to a swordfight duel but it is pure torture because he beats us so quick.  I have no idea how he does it either.

I sometimes ‘practice’ when he is in school or when he goes to sleep but I just can’t beat him.  Luckily, I am not his only victim.   Jack has been challenging people who come to the house and I know they think the game is easy AND how hard could it be to beat a 4 year old.   Ha!  Joke’s on them when Jack beats them:

Uncle Susu getting beat down!

Aaron didn’t want to play but couldn’t say, “No” to Jack and Jack easily beat his cousin.

Bryan tried my tactic and just sat down trying to be cool until Jack beat Bryan in record time!

 

Aunty Dawn gave it a go but she came up empty handed as well.

Word of the wise, when Jack challenges you to a game of Swordfight be prepared to play!!

Weekend Conversations...

This weekend Aya and I were changing one of Stacy's diaper and I happened to notice a smudge on Aya's sleeve.

Miles: Is that poop on your arm?
Aya: Where?
Miles: Right there on your sleeve.
Aya: Hmm, I dunno.
Miles: Smell it.

Aya then raises her arm sleeve to her face.

Miles: Eww, dude! I said smell it, NOT lick it!!

I dunno what made Aya taste her sleeve but it was nasty!

-----

On Sunday, I was getting ready to take Jack to the park for a play date. I was debating if I should do a load of laundry because I knew I could start it before I left but it wouldn't be done before I left.

Miles: I am going to start the laundry. Can you put the clothes in the dryer when it is done?
Aya: Yes.
Miles: Are you sure?
Aya: Yes.
Miles: You won't forget will you?
Aya: Yes, I will not forget.
Miles: Okay, cya in an a few hours.

After Jack and I go to the park, we went to the mall to return one of Stacy's outfit and then we went to get lunch for Aya. As we sit down to eat, it dawned on me:

Miles: Did you finish the laundry.
Aya: Oh no! I forgot.
Miles: One thing. You only had one lousy thing to do. I knew it. I knew better to ask you for help.

And that in a nut shell is why I will probably die early.

Stacy and the cricket…

Why did we pick the name Stacy?  For some reason Jack’s name came very easy for us but we had such a hard time thinking of a girls name once we found out Aya was having a girl this time around.   We searched social security for the top names of the past few years.  We didn’t like any of the ‘popular’ names.   Naturally I was still rooting for the name Jill but that wasn’t going to happen.

Since Stacy’s due date was 1/4 and my Mom’s birthday was 1/5 and my mother in-laws birthday was 1/6, Aya and I decided to try to think of a name that used both the first letter of both our moms first name…S for Susan and Y for Yoko.  We thought, Stacy.   We weren’t 100% sure we would go with that name.  We thought about Shirley, Sally and Shelly…but those for mostly after thoughts for other names with S and Y.

As you all know, Stacy was not born on her 1/4 due date.   We did get another ‘visitor’…a cricket.  I hate crickets and for the past 6-7 months we have had a ton of crickets around our house.  They get into the garage and sometimes the house and it just drives me crazy.  This time a cricket got behind the dishwasher and behind the cabinet so there was no way for me to kill it.  I figured I would be tortured one night but it would move along the next night and I would kill it.

The next night the cricket was the in the EXACT same spot making the annoying cricket noise again!  Grr.  I tried to ‘scare’ the cricket out but since I wasn’t 100% sure where the cricket was I was just blindly poking around.  No luck.  Crap bag.

The next night the cricket was there…AGAIN.  I mean this cricket doesn’t go anywhere during the day and doesn’t make any noise until I go downstairs to watch tv from at night.  Stupid, stupid cricket.  I finally went online to check for cricket poison, cricket traps and then I saw two urban legends related to crickets:

1. Crickets in the house brings good luck

2. For a cricket to choose to come into your home signifies something good is on the way. Sometimes it's a child, a monetary gain, good news of some sort. And to kill it is not good! It will leave on its own shortly before the good news

I happened to mention this to Aya and then Aya told me not to kill the cricket because Stacy was due any day now so why ‘jinx’ any of our chances.   Ugh.

For 2 more nights the cricket chirped away but it got less annoying.  I still wanted to buy cricket poison but I decided to ‘test’ the cricket myth. 

After Aya gave birth I came home one night to take a shower and no cricket noise.  Since we have been home no cricket noise either.   Aya had a super easy delivery (relative to Jack’s delivery) and Stacy is a-ok.  No jaundice like Jack, no ailments thus far and Stacy sleeps A LOT.   So maybe, just maybe the cricket was good luck for us!

Stacy Emiko Yoshioka Part 3…

Welcome home!!   Stacy finally got to meet Grandma and Jack:

Jack was neither here nor there about Stacy being home but he was very sweet with her.

First family photo:

  

We have more pictures but this was actually our best one…except for Jack making his ‘mean’ face. 

I suppose this one was a better but I like the mean face better.

Stacy Emiko Yoshioka Part 2…

Stacy’s first visitors to the hospital was Uncle and Obachan:

Aunty Dawn and Brian:

 

Grandpa.  (Grandma was a little sick so she was in the car with Jack since Jack couldn’t visit)

 

Jeff & Melanie:

Jenny:

SaMANtha: