While daddy is gone

(This is a post that I started while Rich was gone but then started having computer issues so I couldn’t finish or post it. Finishing it and posting it for memory’s sake.)

While daddy is gone we are still truckin’ along. I went to Arabella’s class Thanksgiving party and it was SO CUTE! The kids sang a couple of songs.

Arabella's Thanksgiving Program

After Thanksgiving we put up the tree.

I took a moment to remember our friends, Emily and Derek, who passed away last year the day after giving us this homemade ornament. I can’t believe it’s been a year.

I’ve had a hard time finding a place for all of our Christmas decorations because our place is so small and we have limited wall space but I found the perfect place for our shotgun shell lights.

We’ve continued our new Baker Sunday Selfie tradition.

Unfortunately, the kids asked if our elf was going to come this year. Because they asked he did *insert eye roll* They all just love him because I give him credit for all of the nice things I do, hahaha!

What a fun night I had with the Mill’s. Laura and Doug live in the building right next to mine. After finding out that I’m a yerba mate fan they both wanted to come over for some mate done right. She brought over some pan dulce and the most delicious grapefruit mate I’ve ever had. We stayed up talking and laughing until 11pm. Such a fun couple! I can’t wait for Rich to meet them when he gets back.

Last week there was a Japanese band playing at the Exchange so I started videoing and captured this awesome moment!

Aidan's Air Sax

He had no idea I video’d him until we got home and I showed him the video. He’s so cute!

So, I like to keep things real so here’s the challenging part of the 5 weeks Rich was gone. The first 3 weeks were cake. Everything was going smoothly and I was giving myself a pat on the back for keeping it together better than I had expected. Then, the *you know what* hit the fan. The kids had been having a lot of time off of school, 2-4 day weekends and 1-3 day weekend. On top of the fact that Rich was gone the kids schedule was changing a lot. Aidan never does well with change. In the past he has reacted to stress by acting out and then having tics which puts a lot of stress on me and then in turn I put more stress on him. It’s such a vicious cycle that is really hard to deal with. So, here we were, 3 weeks in with 2 weeks to go and mine and Aidan’s stress levels at an all time high. He hasn’t been diagnosed or anything but in an attempt to find a way to survive the next 2 weeks I was doing a ton of research into his symptoms. I decided that Aidan has one of two conditions- transient tic disorder or a mild case of tourettes. He always has tics but when life is “normal” and stable they are reduced to physical tics like flicking his fingers, rolling his eyes or shrugging his shoulders. These tics are so mild that I’ve come to accept them as being just a part of who he is in that they aren’t constant or consuming. Now, when there is a big change in our lives like moving, school ending or dad leaving for a few weeks, that is when the vocal tics start. This time it started as a “whoo” and morphed into a high pitched whimper that was constant, like every 3-5 seconds. This was so overwhelmingly stressful for me. Not only the sound but also just knowing that he was stressed and feeling guilty that I may have been the cause of that stress. He was also extremely sensitive. He just needed a lot of extra one-on-one time and attention and I could see a notable difference in him when he got it.

 

There, I kept it real. Rich being gone was so hard! It was hard facing trials without any support. I’m a pretty private person in that I don’t like telling everybody I know all about my problems and I don’t really like being on the recieving end of service. I know that if I would have reached out to my home teacher his wife would have taken my kids for the remainder of the 5 week TDY, she’s THAT awesome! Even without knowing our struggle she brought us many delicous meals and then had us over for FHE where we had her awesome homemade pizza and the kids decorated one of her homemade gingerbread houses.

We love the Hatt’s so much!

Some other adventures we had…Eva’s favorite place to poop is in the bathtub. I happened to notice her a little too focused and quickly stuck her on her little potty. She did it!

This sweet girl lost her front tooth!

Then she literally lost it and had to write the tooth fairy a note.

We did survive 2 more Baker Sunday Selfies!

Finally, our family was complete again.

Christmas 2015

I have to admit that I was pretty bummed with the way everything was going down this year. I blame it on the stress I let get to me with Rich being gone the 5 weeks before Christmas. It was rough and I was stressed but that’s for another post. Facebook put me in check with it’s flashback reminders by pointing out that we’ve had some pretty dang rough Christmas’!

2 years ago on Christmas Eva was really sick and I was getting next to no sleep and would eventually end up with shingles.

6 years ago on Christmas Day Arabella was in the hospital and the doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong with her.

Facebook, thanks for the reminder of how bad it has been and how I need to be grateful that everybody is home AND healthy.

So, Christmas Eve was not a fun day. The kids were being horrible and I was a grump. I was missing my family and friends and it was a gloomy, rainy day in Okinawa. Suddenly my home was just too small and messy and I just didn’t like a single thing about our lives in that very moment. I just couldn’t see any possible way that we were going to have a good Christmas.

We took this picture and got the kids to bed. Rich and I finished Christmas preparations and went to bed. While lying in bed I had a moment of peace and quiet to think and that’s when the guilt crept in. How could I be so ungrateful? Now, I’m looking at ^^that^^ picture of my kids and remembering how grouchy I was and how I could just cancel Christmas all together and I don’t understand how I couldn’t see that I’m the luckiest mom in the world! Look at how precious they are! I allowed the guilt to eat at me for a little while because I deserved it and then I just felt blessed.

Christmas morning the kids were so excited to tell us that Santa had come. Then, Arabella told us that Aidan already tore into his stocking…and dad’s! That’s when I remembered why I wanted to cancel Christmas in the first place. We didn’t let that ruin everybody’s morning though. Santa had come and Rich and I loved sitting and watching the kids open all of their presents. It was fun feeling connected to our family members in Missouri while opening such kind and thoughtful gifts. We love and miss them so much!

Santa was pretty awesome this year. He got each of the kids a plaque with their name in Japanese.

Santa doesn’t only know our kids really well, he also knows Rich really well. The main gift he got them was a Wii U which totally made the kids AND Rich super happy. Funny how that works out Here they are enjoying their favorite Christmas present.

Eva got a Little People Clippity Clop princess toy.

Once she decided she liked it she quickly marked her territory with one of her usual utensils of choice, a black crayon.

We had the best lazy day with minimal fighting. Yes, it was a Christmas miracle. We finally decided we would head to the Aeon mall to get out of the house and get some dinner.

We each picked what we wanted. Rich had steak.

Aidan had his usual, spaghetti.

The girls and I shared a big bowl of Ramen and dumplings.

After dinner family selfie

Inspite of my “Scroogy” attitude on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day was one filled with love and family.

Happy 6th Birthday Arabella!

It seems like just yesterday my kids were 1,2 & 3. Now they are 6,7 & 8! When I look back on Arabella’s birthday’s I can remember those days so clearly that it’s hard to believe that so many years have passed and that my sweet little girl is 6 YEARS OLD! 

 

She talks about what kind of cake and party she wants all year long. The theme always changes. This year Rich is gone and since we are fairly new here I didn’t want to go all out with a big party. My goal was to make her feel special all day long and I think I accomplished my goal.

Arabella LOVES unicorns. She recently found out that they are not real and thankfully wasn’t too devastated. I think that her imaginative mind won’t completely let her believe that they don’t exist because she will still say stuff like, “I wish I could see a real unicorn even though they aren’t real.” I just love that about her. She is the type of girl that really truly believes in fairy tails. So anyway, I thought it would be magical for her to have her very own unicorn horn so I made her one.

I was right, it was magical.

For breakfast we had cinnamon rolls

Then it was off to school!

I took cupcakes with pink frosting for her to celebrate with her class.

Right when she got home from school the phone rang…it was daddy!!!

I ordered pizza from Banyan Tree and then we sang happy birthday and she blew out the candles on her pink ice cream cake!

It was her perfect day! One year older and she is still just as sweet as she was when she was 2. That little feisty personality that began to peak out when she was 2 is now very well expressed in the way that only a 6 year old could express it. She is definitely feisty but she is also so incredibly loving and affectionate. She is the most affectionate of all of our kids and has a heart of pure gold. She is our social butterfly who makes friends literally everywhere she goes. Sitting here writing about her and thinking about all of her amazing qualities my heart is swelling with pride. I’m so lucky to be her mom!

Memorial Day/Okinawa World

Memorial day morning Rich called me while he was on his run and said, “Get the kids ready! We are going to the parade that starts in an hour!” We rushed and got ready and headed to the parade. It was our first military parade and it did not disappoint! The cool thing about Okinawa is that there are bases of every branch here so there were many men and women in different uniforms representing their branch.

She doesn’t realize how big she is.

Here they come!

The service members didn’t throw out candy, instead they came by and handed them right to the kids.

Lots of cool military vehicles that Rich made sure I got a picture of

Aidan was so excited about the boy scouts.

This thing was huge! I couldn’t get the whole thing in the frame.

Rich’s favorite, the motorcycle guys.

My little patriot!

So much candy.

After the parade we went straight to Café Late for breakfast and that is where Rich mentioned going to Okinawa World. I guess this was going to be an all day thing! So, after breakfast we went to Okinawa World!

It was a really cool place and I so wish I had been feeling better that day but I had the most horrible migraine. I did my best to suck it up but I definitely look forward to going back another time when I can really enjoy it. Rich and the kids had a great time though!

Eva got a close look at a Habu snake which is a very dangerous and poisonous snake that inhabits Okinawa. Lucky us! In fact, the trail we have made a tradition of walking on on Sunday’s is called the Habu Trail. Hmmmm…

Another something we noticed pretty shortly after arriving on island is that when you think you saw a bird, it was probably a bat, especially at night. Sometimes they are HUGE! These little guys were super cute and sleepy though.

This one woke up and was watching us watch him.

We also hit up the cave. This cave was sooooo big! They took our picture before we entered.

There were so many beautiful sections in there to take pictures of but by that point my head was pounding so I didn’t get many at all.

We finished our cave tour and continued on thinking we had almost seen everything Okinawa World had to offer. We were so wrong. The gardens, where we saw many of the things that grow in Okinawa like mandarin oranges, pineapples, star fruit, bananas…

My shisa kids.

This place just kept getting better and better! We got to the Ryukyu glass section which Okinawa is really well known for. You can pay to make your own cup! We got there just in time to see this lady make hers.

Then, we got to every parents worst nightmare…the Ryukyu glass store.

We threatened our kids upon entering and by some small miracle, not a single thing was broken. They had some really cute stuff but Ryukyu glass is expensive.

Okinawa World reminded us so much of Silver Dollar City…the Japanese version

We continued on and came to the Shisa museum. If there is anything that Okinawa has no shortage of is Shisa in many different designs.

Stuffed animal shisa, paper shisa, you name it they had it.

There were so many things going on and I feel like we just scratched the surface of what Okinawa World has to offer. We will definitely be back.