a Mina-chan Birthday!

Let's start this blog off with some serious T.M.I. (that's "too much information" for you non-slang types).

Mina is done nursing.

She's over a year, so obviously it shouldn't be sad, but wow! I found myself simply not ready to let her go into toddlerhood. Since my dental surgery, however, I've been on a lot of pain meds, so I had no choice. I spent her entire first year complaining about what a hard baby she was, and what does she do? She grows up, and no longer remains my baby!

 Oh Mina, you know your my special girl! I love you so much.

So now that I'm full of nostaligia,

Let's get our Mina-Blog on!

Let's start from her Birthday and go backwards, shall we?

MINA TURNS ONE YEAR OLD:

Above is one tired Momma. Mina has yet to sleep through the night more than a handful of times. But what a beautiful girl it produced. She still looks 100% "Grandma Thora Youngberg"- but today in church I realized her eyes, especially her eye lashes, those must be Daddy's.

I have this weird thing if I don't want to hold an official birthday party I invite friends over for a "potluck" and half way through announce it's actually a birthday also. Ha. I'm so weird. But it's one of the only ways I can keep people from bringing presents and for me to not stress out.

Mina still got spoiled by my friend Hiroko-san though. She loves this puppy, but it dances and sings so it took the puppy a moment to gain Mina's trust. (Robots can be iffy, I don't blame her).

Above is Hiroko, her twins, 3 year-old, Marie and Marie's best "older kid" buddy.

And after everyone left we united Idaho, Alaska, and Japan in a 3-way birthday chat!

(Love that Ipad Facetime!) It was fun that my parents could talk to each other and us!

Marie was going nuts with all this technology. And I couldnt get a great picture, but Mina is excellent at Skype and Facetime. She's even training to talk on the phone. Anytime she can get her hands on a phone (toy or real) she dials, speaks, and hangs-up. She's really quick. I'm impressed constantly with how fast she picks things up. She already likes to doddle on paper. Maybe she wants to be a journalist.

One thing that she has done wonderfully is EAT. She will EAT VEGETABLES, fruits, whole grains, soups, broths, juices, shakes, and anything and everything. The best part is I don't have to stress about not giving her fruit, because she'll still eat vegetables.

I'm glad Marie was my "sleeper"

And Mina is my "eater." I like how they each chose one thing to do extremely well. I wonder if they did a paper rock scissors tournament in heaven. I wonder who lost.

Oh wait, this cake lost. Sorry cake. We peeled off the fondant for mina and let her hit it a few times, but she just wasn't too interested in it. Don't blame her, cakes are just for looks.

Well here is to more blogging about the Mina babe!

It's Genetic

She's my girl! We both rock the black toenails! You're welcome, Marie.

Mina-Chan!

Mina-Chan!

I like pizza!

Oku

Rach and I had a little skiing date yesterday. We dropped the kids off with some friends and headed to Okunakayama, or something like that. I just dumb it down to 'Oku'. The weather was awesome, the price was awesome, our skill set was mediocre.
This is Rachel....

We took a break when we needed a smork.

We liked this run that was buried off to the side. We pretty much had the mountain to ourselves over there. Can you see Rach? Hint, super tiny person at the bottom holding out her arms.

And then some treats at the end....Yah! Rach worshipped the little bean buns.

Princess Happenings

Being 3 is hard work.

Today Marie got to go to a 4 year old's Princess party. The cuteness was in illegal amounts.

And the playing of grown up games in a nonsensical, but ridiculously adorable fashion? Fantastic. Or as Marie says, "Bantastic!" 

Speaking of Marie-isms, I've wanted to list some funny quotes, but this conversation took first place.

Me, in the kitchen back turned to Marie.

Marie: (sigh) Mom, I'm done with the butter.

Me: (turn around to find 1/2 stick of butter gone and Marie with greasy hands out stretched)

Marie: (rolls her eyes) Oh, don't make that face.

classic. the girl likes butter.

The runner up is the conversation on "Making Decisions"

Dad: So I hear you learned about making decisions in Joy School today.

Marie: Yes we learned about good ones and bad ones. Like how Mina makes a bad decision when she sticks her hands in the toilet."

So true. I didn't know she could articulate the idea so well. I taught the class and was confident no one was really listening. But yes, that is true Marie.

And I know I haven't blogged in a while because I have over 400 pictures on my camera card and some are from Thanksgiving.

This gem is from me driving away from the grocery store with two very persistent passengers on my hood. Freaky.

Mina is chubby and great.

Very much my princess. But today was a little sad. So to update she's just had a hard infancy, fussy/grumpy wise. Always gassy, always mad. It turns out she has been tongue tied this whole time. I can't believe no one caught it when she was born. She's been stabbed with needles 20 times, but no one ever looked at her tongue. And neither did I. Anyways she will need to get her tongue snipped before she's three or she will not be able to talk. However, I would like to do it now but talking to the surgeon it turns out they only do it by giving her anesthesia to put her out. She cannot have a cold six weeks prior to surgery and since we live in snowy cold Misawa... yes she is sick and will be for the next 4 months. Everyone under 5 will be also. Considering her lungs will also get to develop much more substantially in 6 months I am hoping to wait until August. So Mina, I hope you survive.

My princess.

Oh and speaking of snow....

Brett went skiing here a few weeks ago. Holy Snow!

It snows A TON here.

And yesterday, we woke up to this craziness:

School and work got cancelled! Yay!... except I was to have dental surgery I've waited 2 MONTHS for! And It got rescheduled out for another 30 days. (sigh) Whatever.

In conclusion,

That is all.