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) 

 And then these flowers after work!!! Love him so much!! 

I am indeed one lucky lady. At least I know it right?

 So there you have it. Holidays. Done. If you made it to the end, give yourself a pat on the back! 

The things I will do for my blog book….

better late than never!

Miles FINALLY gets his first haircut

 We have made a tradition in our family of not cutting our boy's hair until they are two years old. 

For the sake of tradition (Noah's parents didn't cut his until he was two either),  and also for the basic reason that our kids are pretty bald for a long time.  It seemed to take forever for them to grow any hair at all, and so we wanted to enjoy the cute little baby wisps of hair for as long as possible. So with the older boys we cut their hair right around their 2nd birthday. I'm not sure what the deal is with the red hair, but we decided that he still had not had enough grown in, and that we were going to wait even longer. We just couldn't cut those beautiful ginger locks yet!! Thus,  Miles made it to over two and half years! We decided to cut his lovely locks right before Christmas. This also broke from tradition, because I decided to have a professional do the cut, instead of myself.  That beautiful red hair deserved some extra special attention!

 The "After" shot.

 Don't let that cuteness fool you though. 

He was not a big fan of getting his haircut.

 The "During" pics.

This face sums up how he felt about the whole situation.

He was trying so hard to be brave!!

He refused to even look in the mirror. What a stinker!

Love him anyway.

 Even though I didn't cut it this time, I still held him on my lap for most of it.  Not a great shot of me, but at least proves I didn't totally abandon him to the scissors!

M & M

Thanks for doing a great job! We loved it!

Six, pick up sticks!

and yes. we did have one more birthday boy to celebrate!

Our awesome little Ronan turned Six!

Where has the time gone?!

I went with a very basic Ninja Turtles theme this year, as I had picked up some great TMNT decor before we left the States. This little guy sure loves his Ninja Turtles!  

We of course had all the usual fare:

 cake, presents and candles, and pizza.

We did, however, decide to forgo the big party this year and 

give him something else instead that he's always dreamed of…

we rented the bouncy house that they have here at the 

Embassy Compound for him to have all to himself!!!

Bouncy houses are a special favorite of Ronan's, (and I'm sure most other little boys) but it is always torture for him when his turn is over or he has to stand in line and wait his turn.
SO, problem solved! 

I had originally intended to invite other kiddos to enjoy- but truly. This birthday was all about him, and he LOVED every single second. Plus, jumping around like a
Ninja fit right in with the theme!

Lucky brothers, who got to play too!

It was a great day, just what he wanted. Perfect. 

 Happy Birthday Buddy! We love you so much!!!

Kindergarten King -Ronan

In the great 2013 blog catch-up, next up is back to school! 

Ronan started Kindergarten!!!!!

Our cute little Kindergarten King did so great on his first official day of school! 

This was the first time he was in a mainstream regular classroom, and to say I was so nervous to see how he would do is an understatement. I was freaking out the night before, but thankfully we had made an awesome choice in school for him, and it went better than I could have imagined.  The school has been absolutely amazing to work with, and they have helped to accommodate him so much. They have bent over backwards and have truly loved our little guy! I cannot stress enough how glad I am that we found such a wonderful school to take care of our little guy!! It has truly made all the difference, and he  loves school!  

His seriously cute-as-a-button teachers!!

Miss E. and Mr. M

 On the first day of Kindergarten I make the boys a crown and they get a special little present, and their favorite dinner. I am giving myself special kudos this year though; because since we were in temporary housing still I didn't have my stash of cardstock and scrapbook paper  (and didn't know exactly where to find this stuff yet)I whipped out this baby from some washi paper and a cereal box! Pretty cute if I do say so myself! 

 (He loved his new train also!)

 Porter also went back to school of course,
so we'll give him some airtime too.

On our tour of his new school, we came across the new set of earthquake helmets for his classroom!

Welcome to Japan!

Miles also thoroughly enjoyed checking out the school library!

Now, of course I do have some more cute ones of him by the bus, but for security sake I'll leave you with this cute snap. My firstborn is ready to roll for another great school year!! 

Can't believe how fast time flies!

Cousin Time- So Cal Style

 On our way to Japan, we had to stop in LA for some meetings for Noah. Lucky for us, my brother and awesome SIL live in the area. Being that all of my side of the family still lives in "the West", it was an easy choice for several of my other family members to try and meet us in California rather than DC before we headed out. Now, of course we missed everyone who couldn't make it, but it was an awesome little family reunion for those of us who could!

We had so much fun, and we all loved being together!

We stayed in Long Beach for a few days before 

heading inland a little bit.

We partied hard on the Boardwalk!

There was so much to do, and so many delicious things to eat! 

I also loved watching these three
really play together for the first time. 

A new generation of cousins. Love these cuties.

(sorry for the bad picture-)

We stayed at the hotel that was right next to where the 

Queen Mary (the ship just like Titanic) is docked!

 I'm not into haunted adventures, so we just opted for a picture from the bridge! 

Still pretty awesome though. I can see why it was so impressive! (still is)

Eating some yummy treats for breakfast by the boats!

 Playing at the arcade by the beach- we had to tear the boys away! 

By far one of their favorite places of the trip

Miles took his fair share of naps on the go-
 but he rested hard then played hard!

This kid has only ever known life on the go it seems. 

 Eating more treats….this boardwalk had so many fun places!

 Our Submarine boy- 

We hit the Aquarium of the Pacific, which was terrific-

spent lots of quality time with the fishies!

running amuck at the aquarium (Miles' specialty)

We had pizza/swimming parties at the hotel,

always a favorite pastime!!

Of course we hit the beach too…

(and I KNOW I took some pictures, but I can't seem to find them anywhere! Aack! That's the cost of vacationing mid-move-
I might be losing my mind a bit?)

And last but not least, we spent several of our yummy meals eating at this joint! probably one of my new favorite burger places ever….

Thanks for giving us this new "Habit"
every time we come to visit G & A!

Loved it!

 It was so great to see everyone as a last sendoff!

Some good family reunion time to get us through till next time.

We miss you all!