{Kokeshi Dolls and more...}

I am posting this for a few reasons. 1. I am soooooo excited about this... and 2. I have a friend in Ohio that might appreciate seeing this. :) You know who you are....maybe you have a Japanese Nativity set? If you do, i would love to see a picture of it!

For Christmas , Shane surprised me with a Kokeshi Nativity Set. Kokeshi Dolls are very popular here. I have been wanting a Nativity set for YEARS and i love the kokeshi dolls. Shane happened to be in the right place at the right time to get this set for me. You will only find TWO nativity sets here on the Island. The reason for that is because Okinawa has VERY LITTLE Christians so it can be hard to find a set. You can find a 3-piece set or 9-piece set.

Shane got in touch with a girl here who has close connections to the man who makes these Nativities. She happened to still have a couple sets left. The man who designs these is Hajime Miyashita. He hand carves and hand paints these Kokeshi Designs. There isn't one set that is exactly the same. Depending on his mood for the day he will paint each set different than the one before....the difference might be very subtle, but it's different. They are soooooo cool. I just keep pulling them out of their box and staring at them. I wish i could keep it out all year long.

They each are wearing a Kimono. And the thing that is around their waste is called an Obi... The tallest one is the angel who is wearing a bright blue kimono. The angel is 8 inches tall. To the left of the angel is Joseph and then Mary. You can identify the baby Jesus, the lamb and the Shepherd. Then there are the 3 wise men. Baby Jesus is so cute. I love it.

The artist signs his name on Joseph, on the back.

Some of the other highlights on Christmas Day...

1. Shane is LOVING his remote control helicopter , and notices a big difference(a good difference) between this one and the one he had before that DIED after about three days of use.

2. Gavin's favorite gift was his LEGOS. He received TWO big boxes of them! Heaven.

3. Tanner's favorite gift is his DS....FINALLY he got one after 2 years of wanting one.

4. Jaydon loves his Rocket stomper. He stomps on a red "pedal" and it blasts air through a tube and shoots his rockets way high...in the house the rockets hit the ceiling. I am afraid of him shooting it through the ceiling.

Now i need to post about Christmas Eve and all our little festivities before that.

{Christmas cookies}

We love making sugar cookies for Christmas and LOVE to eat them even more than we love making them! :) As you can see, tanner and jaydon were having fun, in the first picture, licking their hands and spoon clean! :)

{My poor Tanner}

Tanner has gotten a fever and sore throat FIVE times within the past two months. It keeps recurring about every TWO weeks. The first time i went into the doctor, it looked like strep throat to him so the DOC prescribed a ten day prescription. He took it all. TWO weeks later he got the fever, sore throat and white patches on his throat again. I took him to the ER. I told the DOC that he had strep throat a couple weeks ago. The doctor looked at his charts and said "actually, he didn't have strep throat. ThAT culture they did for it showed a negative for strep." They did a culture, but apparently it takes them nearly TWO days to get the results. I thought it took FIVE minutes, b/c anywhere else i have ever been it takes FIVE minutes. SOOOO, when we went into the ER that time they couldn't do a culture to test for it b/c they were all out of something they needed to test for it. SOOOO we put him on a ten day antibiotic AGAIN. TWO weeks later he gets the SAME thing again. Sore throat , fever, white patches on the throat. It lasted 24 hours and went away, so i didn't even go into the doctor that time. TWO weeks later he gets all the SAME symptoms AGAIN! I take him into the doctor. She had no clue what she was doing. There is NOTHING that frustrates me MORE than a doctor who doesn't seem to know what they are doing. gggrrrrrr.... She said "we will test for strep, if it isn't strep then it could be mono." She then told me she was going to prescribe an antibiotic and to go ahead and start it EVEN THOUGH we have no idea if he REALLY needs it(i never used it). She then proceeds to go find a book....she spent about FIVE minutes looking up his age, height and weight and calculating HOW MUCH to prescribe him. I am sorry, but i have never in my life been to a doctor who had to calculate how much to give. They always know automatically what to prescribe someone.

I got the prescription but didn't use it and it went away on its own the next day. It is now BACK AGAIN. FOR THE FIFTH time. Today he is feeling a little better. He has the same symptoms, but the poor darling had a temperature yesterday of 105 degrees. That's scary. It was so jumpy. He was shaking crazily with the chills so i put him in a warm bath. Shortly after the bath he took a small nap and then he started sweating like crazy, which is when i took his temp at nearly 105. He was sooooo hot. I got him an ice pack and placed it all over his body, which helped him feel a lot better. When he was on medicine his temperature was about 101-102. It jumped to 105 when it started wearing off. Today he is doing better. But i wish i knew what was going on. AND i wish i actually had a doctor who CARED instead of throwing antibiotics at me left and right. :)

I just went into the hospital and i know that it's not strep throat. He has had two separate tests done and both have been negative. So, next time i am supposed to get a referral to an ENT doctor so he can help me figure out what is wrong and what needs to be done. :) Possibly having his tonsils taken out.

{Orphanage, and Itoman}

Yesterday I took the boys to the Orphanage along with some other women in our Branch. We provided a gift for one of the children and Santa came and delivered all the gifts to the children. The kids here were age 2-5. They were PRECIOUS. They are so well mannered and behaved and just so darn cute. My heart was so full the second we arrived. SO FULL. These poor little children are in the orphanage either b/c their parents are in jail or on drugs. They have 50 kids in the orphanage. These kids are not allowed to be adopted, BUT majority will be in there until age 18. I wanted to take a couple of girls home with us. I wanted to rescue them and give them a loving home. :) These kids were not adoptable, but there are other orphanages around here where they are adoptable. The Japanese government used to not allow these kids to be adopted, but changed that recently so that they could go to a loving home. The kids played with the Japanese kids. They taught us THEIR version of red light, green light and we taught them our version of it. Then we sang some Christmas songs to them in Japanese. The little Japanese kids performed a dance for us, which was too cute. Santa came, they played with their presents for awhile. It was so fun.

After the Orphanage i drove with three other friends down to Itoman, which is the very south tip of the island. We let the kids play on a playground for awhile. I went to the Peace Memorial to see everything they had. There was lots and LOTS to see about the war that happened here. We will come back soon to actually read all the history and grow through the museums. The history here is incredible, in many ways. We waited at the playground for all of our husbands to show up. They all got off work about the same time so they drove down together. We met up at our Branch President's friends japanese restaurant. It was such a cute , small quaint restaurant. It was so nice. They didn't speak much english, but we they knew enough english words and we knew enough japanese words to be able to at least communicate. :) It was fun talking to the Japanese family that owned this place. They were soooooo nice and gave us a HUGE discount on the food. I can't wait to go back and see them and eat their YUMMY food again.

Then we went to see the Christmas lights. It's the only display of lights on Okinawa. We only had to pay 200 yen a person for anyone over 16 years old. So it cost us a total of 400 yen. When we walked in they had tables set up just like at a carnival, as you can see in this pic above. That seemed funny to me, but it was fun. They were frying up corn dogs, churros(which were half the size of the usual churro), yakisoba, and other fried foods. They had carnival games that you could play and win something. It was funny. THEN after we got through that first part we got to the lights. It was a fun display. In this picture below, you can see all the dome and cone shapes. They had an opening where you could go inside each of them. The boys loved running in and out. They had little fishing boats that they decorated with lights and they had fish statues that they decorated with lights as well. There was a fire show, and there was other live music. It was so fun.

They also had a display of many different Shisa's. Shisa is ONE variation of a few different guardian dogs. The chinese have their own version as well(fu dogs), but they look very similiar. I took a picture of this pair b/c i liked it so much. Here you will see shisa's everywhere, whereas on mainland japan you won't see them AS much. If you don't know what they are, let me tell you. Some places only have one shisa and other places have two. They are guardians. If their mouths are open that means they are warding off evil spirits. If the mouth is closed that means they are keeping good spirits in. In Okinawa they just say it keeps out bad and brings in good. The Okinawans have a few different stories about how Shisa's have protected them from bad in this area. During the war here, there is a Shisa(as tall as a person) that' still standing and many of the Japanese soldiers stood by that Shisa while bombs were going off all around them because they believed it would protect them. The history here is so intriguing and i will have to dedicate a long post telling you about the history...maybe in a few months.

It was a really fun night for us. We didn't get home until 10 pm and the kids all fell asleep in the car...well, except for Gavin. He never falls asleep in the car. :) They had a LONG busy fun-filled day. Today we are going to have more christmas festivities...we are going to watch christmas movies and make all kinds of christmas goodies for friends.

Tomorrow we have our ward christmas party AND in the morning we are going over to our friends house to make gingerbread houses. REAL one's. I am excited for that b/c i don't remember the last time i made one. For our church christmas party we are going to go caroling to all the houses around our branch house, which is off base. We will be singing to japanese people. I can't wait. Then we will go back to the church and have hot chocolate and christmas goodies. It is getting chilly here in the evenings...enough to where you want to wear a sweater. :)

Shane gets Friday off of work, and then he gets the whole next week off. We plan to go camping the day after Christmas with some friends. I am excited to go camping b/c it's been too long since we have been. Anyway, i will try my best to take MORE pics. I have been pretty bad about taking pictures lately!

{Funny}

We were out for 4 1/2 hours with some friends the other night. Shane asked me how much i was going to pay the babysitter. I just rounded up to 5 hours to give her a five hour pay instead of 4 1/2 hours. It was 11:00 p.m. at night when we arrived back home. Shane, who likes to get the most for his money, said to me in an urgent serious voice, "Wait! If you are paying her for five hours then we still have 30 minutes. Let's do something. Let's go make out somewhere for 30 minutes." bahaha! He definitely keeps the marriage alive by treating it like we are still dating! :)

{Pic}

Somehow these boys always end up wearing the same kind of shirt. People ask me if i plan what they are wearing b/c they always match. I don't plan it. Somehow they often end up dressing in the same color shirt or in the same HERO shirt as the other. :)

{Recents}

1. Lighting of the tree- They have a large tree by the Schilling building. They had a huge party for the family that night to celebrate the lighting of the tree. Santa was there in his little house by the tree. There was a snow maker area where real snow was flying into the air and falling down on the kids. They could make snowballs, and they were. They kept throwing their snowballs at the adults. That kind of snow is my kind of snow(enjoy it for a few minutes and be done). They had lots of bouncy houses and a few rides. They had lots of different performances, such as caroling, Eisa Drummers, dancing, and a fire show. The fire show was the best. It was a japanese guy who came and performed it. It was hilarious. It was the BEST show we have seen in forever. His name was Kenji and we will never forget him.

2. Dental Christmas Party- Shane and I attended the Dental Christmas Party. We had free babysitting from 5 until 10 pm. which was awesome. They had dinner for us, gave away TONS of prizes. Shane won on Xbox! There was lots of dancing too. Everyone thought our mormon table didn't know how to get down...well, we all decided to get out on the dance floor, then more people came and before we knew it we had the dance line going on, where the guys were lined up on one side and the girls on the other and we took turns dancing down the center. Shane got his groove on baby. I have never really seen him like that, so i thoroughly ENJOYED watching HIM. It was the best. We were dancin the night away. Our friend, who is the branch president is about our age and he is an orthodontist. He got out there and showed us some dance moves i would never have guessed he had in him. It was awesome! haha! While the table next to us kept clanking their glasses together before they took a shot, we would follow and cheers with our water glasses. :) haha...It was the best night. The kids had tons of fun too. The airmen were babysitting all the kids in a big room at the clinic. They had a section for xbox playing, another with a movie going, and another station with Ipads. The lights were off and they were having a good time. They ordered pizza for them too. There were a lot of kids in there.

3. Time off- Shane's been taking advantage of taking some time off of work. He took off the week before thanksgiving. He worked a three day week the week of thanksgiving. Last week he only worked a three day week. This next week he only works a 4 day week. For christmas break he gets about a week and a half off. It's sooooo nice. I am telling you, this life is so different. And i am not complaining. :)

4. Gavin's report card- His teacher had nothing but good things to say. He is doing excellent all around. I think she felt like she needed to tell me something to raise a concern, so she told me to have a dentist check him to see if he has an underbite. haha! okie dokie.

5. Jaydon- I think next year in September i am going to put Jaydon in a Japanese preschool. Friends who have done it say they love it and so do their kids. It's a good way to help him learn two languages too. :) I think he would really love it. I think i will put him in for about 3 hours a day. I could do it all day long, BUT i just can't do that. He is still too young and i want him here with me. :)

6. Fish market and fresh produce market- We went to a fish market and fresh produce market yesterday. It was really cool. They have tons of stuff that i have no clue what it is. I really wish i had someone with me who knew what all that stuff was. The fresh produce market was awesome. The veggies and fruit were soooooooo colorful and sooooo fresh. It looked like everything was picked ten minutes ago. I can't wait to go there more often to buy my produce, which is cheaper than the commissary on base. We are going to start eating more fish as well. The fish market had everything! They had filet fish for you, then had bins of whole fish and you could choose which fish you wanted and then bring it to them to filet it up for you. They had squid, octopus, shrimp, sardines, every kind of fish. It was awesome. I could go there everyday b/c i just like the atmosphere of the fresh food. yum yum!

{Tis the Season}

When i think of the phrase "Tis the Season" I think of the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That was ONE of my FAVORITE christmas movies all growing up and still is. I love it.

I was sitting here thinking about the Christmas Season. I am sick right now and when i am sick i am forced to slow down, i am calmer, and i think a lot. So, i was listening to Christmas music just thinking about Christmas Past. I have some of the MOST WONDERFUL memories of Christmas time. It was the ONE time of the year i knew i could count on MUCH JOY and happiness. My heart was always filled with gratitude. Not only Gratitude for my Savior, but so much gratitude for FAMILY.

Growing up, we OFTEN spent Christmas with my Dad's family. We would make the drive to Illinois either from Oklahoma or South Carolina. We always knew when we were close to Grandma's house b/c there was a white picket fence that we would come upon on the right side of the road. When i knew we were close to the white picket fence, i would anxiously watch for it. AND once we came upon it we all got REALLY excited! Almost couldn't contain myself, and when i think about it now i almost can't contain myself! :) They lived in a neighborhood out in the country. We turned left into the neighborhood and drove a minute or two and then turned left to go down a hill. They lived at the bottom of the hill. There was ONE other house at the bottom of the hill that my Aunt Donna and Uncle Zip and three cousins lived in for awhile. They moved often during that time. We would pull up to Grandma's and OOHHHH the excitement! I loved being there. I loved the feeling. Especially the Christmas feeling. I loved the smell of her home. I loved the carefree attitude in the home. It was so welcoming. AND during the evenings each night, ALL my dad's siblings and kids came over. That house was jampacked with people. My aunt donna, uncle zip and there three kids. My aunt sandy, her husband and three kids. My aunt nelly , her husband and her two boys. (When i say "her husband"...that's b/c i don't remember their names. That's b/c they weren't around much and ended up divorcing them.) My grandma was a HOSTESS! She loved hosting. In the evenings all the adults would sit around and play cards. We had to go to bed. They would all sit around my grandma's table, smoke, laugh, bet on their cards with small amounts of money(i think they used pennies)....we would sneak out of our rooms and spy on them. My grandma had a LOUD and contagious laugh! I would always hear her laugh in the back room when we weren't spying on them. :)

Christmas at grandma's house was awesome. I remember going to my other grandparent's house a couple times, maybe. BUT they lived so far away(california) that my paren't couldn't afford to visit them as often as they would have liked.

In my home...
AND when we spent christmas in our own home...aahhhh, that was the best. I loved when we put up our tree....we never put it up until about ten days before christmas. We always went and bought a fresh christmas tree. I LOVED sitting in the formal living room where the tree was placed right in front of a big window facing the front. At night, sitting in that room, with the tree all lit up was the best feeling. I loved laying under the tree, by the tree, etc. My parents made christmas feel so good. My dad told us a few christmas stories every christmas eve. My mom made us a yummy christmas eve dinner. It always varied. Sometimes it was ham, one time it was chicken cordon bleu, etc. We had christmas music playing all night. We had candles lit that filled the air with yummy christmas smells. We just enjoyed being together. My sister and i and two brothers ALWAYS slept in the same room on christmas eve. It was tradition for us, all the way up until we left home. Holly and I always slept in the same bed so it wasn't new for us. We had our own rooms, but i NEVER liked sleeping alone and i always ended up in her bed at night. The boys would just make a bed on the floor of my room or holly's room on christmas eve. It was so fun and took awhile for us to get to sleep, but we eventually got tired. We would talk about all kinds of stuff and tease each other. It was so fun. AND every christmas morning, before we were allowed to run down the stairs, my dad would turn on the tree lights, turn on BING CROSBY christmas music, and get the camera out. THEN we were allowed to RUN down the stairs! My dad really got into making it feel GOOD for us. I could tell he LOVED it b/c i can still picture his face and the excitement that comes with being a parent and watching the excitement on your kids faces. He loved bringing the FEELING for us. AND he was the ONE every christmas who would pass out presents to each person and tell us when we could open our gifts. We took turns and did it one at a time. THEN my parents made a HUGE breakfast. We didn't get a home cooked breakfast that often, so a HUGE homecooked breakfast on christmas morning was like ANOTHER HUGE present for us! It was awesome. Bacon, sausage, pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, and cinnamon rolls. We had it all. AND while my parents cooked and filled the HOUSE with the smell of food, the christmas music was playing and we were enjoying our gifts together. BING CROSBY was only played on special occasions...christmas eve, and christmas day. He was our tradition. AND we didn't want to overplay him, so we saved him for special times and that made it REALLY special.

While i LOVE that i can now create those feelings for my kids and make it so special for them too, i also miss those times. I want my kids to look back on christmas the way i look back on it...CHERISHED memories that bring so much joy. I try my best to bring the feeling in the air and i know i am doing good when the kids run around the house playing happily. I love that. I love cooking, playing christmas music in my clean house, candles lit and smelling up the house and listening to the boys laugh. The best! Anyway, as much as i love it, i also miss my family and wish i could have my parents and siblings here with us. I love having the WHOLE family. It's not the same when even ONE person is missing. I love having LOTS of family together, even if it does get crazy. It's nice just being together. I think i am like my grandma seifert. I like hosting. I love when family visit and i like to help them feel welcome while they are here. I am not as good as her, but i try to make it welcoming. My aunt donna is the same way. She is amazing. HER home is soooo darn welcoming. She puts so much preparation into getting ready. She has containers for chip dip prepared, containers with fruit all ready to be eaten, all the food ready for lunch so you just pull it out. She prepares man. And when we wake in the morning she had put out Jaydon's bowl and spoon ready and waiting for him on his highchair. And she left a note telling us where to find stuff. They are just so thoughtful. I love it. I miss my grandma and my aunt donna. They create a space where I , along with anyone else who enters, wants to be.

Anyway, i am sure most people didn't make it through reading all this. BUT i know maybe my parents and Shane's parents probably did. I love you all. Merry Christmas! Bob and Janet...you should do something crazy and just come here for Christmas. I know you don't have kids at home this year and so it would be perfect to just come and spend it with us. :) There is nothing better than being with family. :)

{Of all the places we have lived, the things that truly make a home never change.}

I am sorry it has taken so long to post some pics of the house. I know a few of you have been waiting awhile for me to do this.
This is our dining room. The walls look blueish, but they are actually Grey. I can't tell you how much i LOVE the color GREY right now. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. :) And if you look to the left you can see my kitchen. The walls are green, BUT they aren't finished. I never finished them b/c i am not so sure i want that color in there. I want to paint it different. I just can't decide what color. I almost want to make it GREY. haha. :)

I would LOVE to paint this room, but it's soooo much wall. AND i am not ready for that challenge yet. AND i can't decide what color i would want to paint it. I was thinking a soft light blue-greyish color. haha! I can't make my whole house grey so i just can't figure out what color to do it, therefore i am keeping it creamy like it is. Anyway, this is our office area, located directly behind our couch in the TV area. Can you see Shane's Dental Graduation diploma on the wall? I had that custom framed for him for his birthday last year. I was so proud of myself for actually being able to SURPRISE him with a gift. I have only been able to surprise him TWICE in our marriage. That's b/c nothing gets past him. He checks our accounts twice a day. I don't have cash, so i can't surprise him! ggrrrrr. :)
Here i am standing back by the computer, which gives you a view of the other part of this room. Directly to the right is our large sliding glass doors that go out to the patio. That wall NEEDS something. I have PLANS. We are getting family pics done soon and i plan to get a LARGE family picture up on that wall. You see our cute little humble christmas tree?

Here's another view . I am standing b/w the sofa and the tv to get this view. On the right is a doorway to the bathroom. The other entry goes to the kitchen.

Anyway, that's part of it for you. This week i will try to post a few more pics of our home...like the rest of the downstairs.

It's smaller than what we lived in IN Texas, but it's a lot better than i expected we were going to get. I had visions of old and ugly. We ended up getting a home that was newly updated just a year ago. There are only three bedrooms, but gavin and tanner fit nicely into a room together. Jaydon's room is big enough for him. Our room is big enough for our large king and a couple dressers, plus we have a bathroom connected to our room, which is always wonderful. Anyway, our small home is all we need. It's about 1500 square feet, I THINK. Which leads me to another thing....

Japanese have everything small. Their furniture looks MINI. ALL OF IT. It looks like its children furniture. Seriously. When walking through their stores i was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the smallness of it all. Our stuff looks huge compared to their stuff. They don't believe in taking up more than their fair share. Their cars are mini. They don't have extravagant homes. In fact most homes here are apartment buildings. AND they all hang up their clothes to dry on their apartment patio deck. They think about "WE" rather than "I". There is so much to learn about from the japanese. They recycle everything, so the garbage cans that they use for their homes are smaller than HALF the size of our garbage cans we have in America. They are mini garbage cans. Walking around their stores and seeing the way they live is really humbling and puts things in perspective. In America it's a lot more about "I" and trying to have bigger and better.... and to think of all that we waste. It's CRAZY. There is so much to learn from this country and these people. I love it here.