Five Backpacks: Celebrate! Holiday! (sing it in your mind as you read)

So essentially I'm behind as usual.
BUT. I'm about to clear that up in one fell swoop!

We did indeed celebrate with the best of them this last holiday season! We had a great time with all of our traditions from Halloween 'til Valentines! How's that for covering four months at one time. Boom. Holidays. Here you go!

I'll give some commentary, but mostly the pictures for you to decipher. This is mostly for my children's benefit, so they can never accuse me of not keeping up with our traditions! ha!

Not a chance in this family!

We had a great time this year, and kept everything pretty low key but fun.

I sure love my little family!

Trunk or Treat at the LDS Church Building-

Notice Miles' cute robot costume? I actually got him to wear the bulk of it, minus the awesome hat to this event.

Actual Halloween night went a little more like this….

Also, I had other costume plans for Ronan in mind, but he insisted on these pajamas and mask.

Whatever makes him happy, huh?!

The two agreeable ones out trick-or-treating

Porter and one of his very best buddies here! We sure love this kid and his family!

So happy Porter has good friends.

Then we had some great friends from work over for Turkey Day.

It was delicious. Thanks again to Noah for rockin' it!

I want the kiddos to know that this one day of the year Daddy seriously does most of the work!

He is so great at organizing and timing all the cooking prep just right! One lucky lady I am right here!

Then December hit and Japan lit up with "illuminations"! They were beautiful and everywhere! This is one sparkly city around December! I swear their lights are like diamonds. Now, if only they had Christmas music instead of Techno to go along with the light shows, it would have been perfect! Oh well, we will definitely take what we can get!!

Trimming the tree. "Look at the bootiful lights mom!"

Christmas sweaters on handsome boys.

My loves.

Then the highlight of every holiday season when we are overseas is the Embassy Christmas Party at the Ambassador's Residence. In Tokyo, this residence happens to be historical and stunning. Our favorite tree, (there were multiple) was this awesome Origami Christmas Tree. This picture was also taken in the same spot as THIS famous picture from 1945. As the Ambassador's current residence was serving as the US Embassy at the time of WWII. This was the first meeting of the two men after the Japanese surrender. I have truly loved all of the living history we have been privileged to see here in Japan. With our new Ambassador, who I will not name here just to keep excess blog traffic away- (you can google if you don't know who it is), but they had one of the biggest turnouts ever for the party (700+), not surprisingly. Everyone was so excited to meet her! We arrived early to enjoy it before the crowds got to big (really good call on our part, self high-five). We had a great time!

There are big beautiful gardens that the boys loved to run in! Santa even made an early visit!

Running races with Daddy!

AND….Drumroll please…

My favorite Santa picture to date of Porter!

The Library is absolutely beautiful to begin with, but to add to the mood I am in love with the portrait of George Washington coupled with Santa's bunny ears- (totally screams Japan). This is just such a perfect blend of memories for him I think, and what his life has been about. Being a FS kid is an experience all it's own. I love American Christmas traditional Santa's lap picture, but with patriotism and world travel mixed in.

Of course we couldn't forget to include this year's gingerbread adventures as well!

We went much more simple this year, and decided on a basic Dojo.

Next year, maybe we'll tackle the Imperial Palace?

The boys each did their own little graham cracker house too!

Although, they ate more than they put on the house as usual.

Licorice Tatami Mat.

Noah can even do Kanji in frosting. Rockstar indeed.

Our Dojo- complete with Ninjabread Men.

Watching Christmas movies and sleeping by the tree on
"Christmas Eve Eve"!

Love this tradition of ours! Miles even stayed in the middle of them for a little while. One day he won't be so wiggly. Maybe….

A little sugar cookie action. Hope you liked them Santa!

Christmas Even Jammies!!!!

Cute boys in said jammies.

Don't know what's going on with my camera though?!

These boys were VERY excited for Santa to come….

Thankfully he did! I must admit though, it was really strange to not track Santa on NORAD this year. There was no real point, since here in the Land of the Rising Sun is pretty close to where Santa starts! But hey, isn't that what I always wished for when I was kid?

Thank goodness Santa didn't forget the begged for Skylanders!

I absolutely love Christmas Chaos! It is my favorite. Truly.

Toy inspection

Santa did great this year, and everyone was very happy!

As for New Years, we are lucky enough to live pretty close to the Tokyo Tower. By pure happenstance we happened to drive down the road it's on on New Year's Eve. I got this shot out the car window with my phone. Not too shabby! Too bad we opted not to go back the next night for the 2014 shot! Oh well, goodbye 2013, you were good to us!

Finally, I'll wind it up with V-Day! I have no idea where the other pictures with my kids actually in them are? But we once again had a great breakfast and fun Valentine treats! In Japan it is traditionally a holiday for Men only, and you must give them chocolate. Check. Check.

Don't worry though, even though we live in Japan- we are still American and Noah knows how to spoil me right! ha! He was a Valentine Ninja this year, coming home with this at lunch time (LOVE THIS)