Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Still waiting...

We are two days past the due date...still waiting on baby 3 to make his appearance and he shows no signs of budging. We discussed inducing today but decided to wait until my appointment on Friday and see how I am doing. The doctor was a bit hesitant to induce as he said sometimes it makes labor harder, especially if baby is not quite ready to leave the womb. So, what have we been doing...staying close to home, reading books, watching some tv and venturing to the local parks and play areas. The weather today was sunny and 50 degrees so after a morning at home, we rode the bikes to a nearby park and play area. After seeing all of the friends back in Kentucky post pictures of lots of snow, ice and cold, I am so thankful for Tokyo winters. The husband likes snow but I would rather have the more mild temperatures in the winter time. We see snow, but it does not accumulate very often (once in the five years that we have lived here has it accumulated in the city) and I am quite okay with that. It was nice to be outside today on our bikes and in fleeces. I got some pics on my phone of the kids playing while I rested on a bench. Thankful...




Friday, February 20, 2015

Rainforest Cafe

We are still waiting for baby #3 to make his appearance. We decided to rent the car share and head to Rainforest Cafe for a fun dinner as a family of four. Miss M enjoyed it for the most part, except for when they dimmed the lights and pretend to have a rain storm. The K Man loved the gorilla and elephant talking to us throughout our meal. It was a fun way to spend the evening. The restaurant is located in the mall that connects Disneyland to Disney Sea so we let the kids walk around the Disney store and show us everything in the world that they want. Now, it is time to rest up in case the littlest in utero Kawashima decides to enter the world this weekend. I love our little family of four but am excited to become a family of five.


Saturday, February 14, 2015

Scrapbook Day February 15, 2015

Today is Scrapbook day for this month - it is a Sunday. Yesterday we celebrated Valentine's Day in style...a full busy Saturday. We started with Community group in the morning and a family bike ride, then lunch afterwards at our local mall. While Daddy went out for the afternoon and evening with the guys (I figure it is his last hall pass for awhile since baby #3 is due anytime now) the kids and I went to a local park and play area. We followed up our long day with ice cream cones and warm baths and leftovers for dinner. So, since yesterday was really full being out from 9:30-5, we decided to be lazy today. The kids played nicely together all morning, which is a rare thing, and after lunch and clean up of toys, they are enjoying some TV time while I catch up on the blog. I went to the doctor on Friday and baby #3 is head down and can come anytime now. He is due on 2/23 and we are all hoping he stays in one more week to simply get more things done at work and at home. My next appointment is next Saturday and if he is still in tact then we will probably pick a date to be induced. We have agreed on a few names, finally, so when we meet him we will pick one based on what he looks like. This has been the hardest baby for us to pick a name for. The first two came so naturally and we just "knew" with both the kanji meaning in Japanese and with the phonetic pronunciation in English being easy for Americans to pronounce. This time around, even though we know it is a boy which limits what we have to research in terms of names, has been harder. Nothing has had that "wow" factor yet. We picked out a girls name that we love, but low and behold we cannot use it, so we are kind of waiting for the last minute. He has a diaper bag packed, a bed at the house with blankets and sheets, a drawer for his clothes, a bouncy seat and a play mat that we borrowed from friends. Tonight on the agenda is packing the hospital bag. I guess we are as ready as we will ever be, but if he could just give us one more week of normal activity as a family of four, we would really appreciate that. :) Miss M and the K Man are looking forward to meeting him. I do not think the K Man quite understands, but Miss M assumes she is a pro since she has done this before. :) It will be interesting to see how they respond. I calculated that Miss M and I have finished over 100 days of homeschool and only have about 53 days left to finish our school year, so starting this week we are taking a "break" from formal school. I plan to fill the days with reading out loud together, some math lessons and handwriting practice and lots of game playing and resting for mama. We have both worked really hard with not much of a long break except for two weeks at Christmas knowing that the baby was coming, so it was nice today to have a Sunday where I did not plan any lessons for the week. We signed the K Man up for youchien at our local kindergarten. He starts in April. I figure once he starts up again we can start back to formal school and finish out the year by the end of May. Here are a few recent pics of the kiddos from this month...they may have been posted already on a previous blog, but I wanted to keep track of their growth and change each month.

A Pampering Shower

Some friends from church hosted a pampering shower for me a few weeks ago. I have most everything baby that I need, so they opted to give me things that would help me feel pampered. I received some nice chocolate, tea from one of my favorite tea shops, and loads of wine. Maybe they think I am a closet alcoholic, but rest assured I am not. It was a lovely time of fellowship with some of my favorite people in Tokyo. While the moms were at the shower, the dads took the kids to a local park and dinner at Denny's and also had a nice time of fellowship. I cannot say more about our church here in Tokyo and the community we have made. In January, we crossed the five year mark of being in Tokyo. Can you believe the Super Bowl came and went and we simply read about it online. I did watch the Katie Perry half time show on an internet site post Super Bowl. But that is it! Never would I think that we would forget about the Super Bowl or not make efforts to watch it. But we simply were not interested in the teams therefore we did not worry about it. I told the husband this is a sure sign that we have been away from America for a long time. The never ending question for many of you is "when are you moving back?" and I will give our honest response - we simply do not know. But I do know we are enjoying our life here, and I had fun at a shower preparing for baby Kawashima #3.