Hearts Full of Joy

christmas cozies

always in search of fun projects for our hand made (or written, or second hand) christmas, i am looking for cozy pajama projects to use with this selection of flannels from my shop:

 

i love vintage, and feel blessed because that's just about all that's available in pajama patterns now. i'm considering some of these options i found on etsy for my littlest girls:

 

it would be so fun to live closer to my mom (for many reasons! including:) so that i could raid her vintage pattern stash for the perfect nightgown, like i did for easter dresses in 2008. 

i love this idea for little man,

but i'll use my own jenbei pattern i bought in japan to make summer jammies for my little japanese babes.

cold lunch

we made the big move to sack lunches this school year. the price of lunches for 4 children who don't like the lunches (the food is not our favorite part of life in the midwest) and so don't eat much of what we pay for was very unappealing. still, i hesitated. adding one more thing to our ever chaotic morning schedule, always needing to be stocked with yummy lunch ingredients, etc, etc - seemed crazy. i believe that i have post-traumatic stress syndrome from making lunches for yochien (kindergarten) in japan - must always have a meat, vegetable, and grain. no yogurt. no peanut butter. no jelly. weiners (more healthy than peanut butter???) must be cut and fried to look like little octopi (octopuses) with seaweed neckties....i could go on. trauma. especially during early pregnancy.

pleasantly surprised! i've enjoyed our lunches and so have the kids. i feel like i'm sending them a little love from home to enjoy halfway through their day. at least for the little ones. i confess i'm not up and making lunches before early morning seminary. (if i was japanese i would - it is normal for a mother to be up at 5:00 am to prepare gourmet breakfasts and lunches for a family) but the girls have done great with it on their own. and i'm enjoying the challenge of composing healthy, yet yummy mobile meals.

mia reports that at school, lunch brought from home is "cold lunch" and she has to tell her teacher every day that she is eating "cold". doesn't that seem a little....well, cold? hopefully it doesn't feel that way to her.

the lunch in the above photo is made from felt and is from a very fun etsy shop, buggabugs. if you're feeling crafty, (or have committed to have a handmade christmas like me) hop over and buy a pattern to make your own.

"japan is one parent, and america the other parent"

brock is in japan on this 4th of july. this is the 20th 4th of july of our marriage, and for at least 13 of those, one or both of us has been in japan....a strange tradition for an american holiday. i woke up to pouring rain, and thought - no! not on the 4th of july! but a more comforting thought followed - little man's t-ball game will be cancelled, and the older girls and i won't have to juggle the question of who will watch the shop, who will work the t-ball concession stand, and who will watch the game and the little ones.

baby man sleeping in his jinbei on my 4th of july pillow (see it in the previous post), 4 july's ago in maihama.

when brock is in japan, we all wax more nostalgic for everything japanese. impossible to believe it's been over 2 years now since we left, and i have found myself wondering this week for the first time since that move, if and when we will ever move back again. last night i was up late talking with my oldest girls (who spent the vast majority of their lives in japan - all of our children have, except grace). tashi was saying how she hated it when people asked her which she liked better, japan or the u.s.... so of course i had to ask....i had to know! she gave me an icy look. but eventually admitted that she didn't know which she liked better.....she liked both countries in different ways. we all agreed. then lexi asked if i had read her facebook status from a few days ago. i hadn't. i am not making time for facebook of late. she asked me to come over to the computer and read it. too tired, i asked her to read it aloud. no! that would be weird!.... according to her.  eventually i  made my way to the computer on my way to bed, and this is what i read:

"Japan is one parent, and America the other parent for me. So I hate it when people ask me which one I like better, because that's like asking me which parent I like better. Both are part of who I am. So being away from Japan this long...it feels like I'm missing a parent. And it makes it 100 times worse when my dad IS actually in Japan for 10 days right now. I wish I could combine the 2 countries together sometimes."

....after posting this, it occurred to me how this statement much, much truer for our japanese children.....

miss mia, that same july, 4 years ago....notice lexi's lexi's sequined, high heeled flip flops on mia's feet - just as japanese as her yukata and her sweet little face.

fitness, reading, summer thoughts, remembering japan

my enduring favorite workout for the last 11 years:

life is so much better when i do my yoga every day.

recently finished reading:

a good read - insightful, well written, based on newly discovered letters & manuscripts. a little sad, but not overpoweringly so. makes one wonder what it was like for abraham to be married to her.

currently reading:

picked this up in hannibal, MO when i was there with mom & traci. promises to be good.

speaking of lincoln, we were treated to a sunday sociable on "lincoln in hancock county" by a research historian at the lincoln library in springfield, IL (one of my favorite places, and an added benefit of living here). it was very good. tourist season is here, and we have gone from living in a near ghost town to a summer resort. the perks are back, like the ahuna family polynesian dancers last night for family home evening. a family of 6 children, their 4 spouses, and 7 grandchildren. the fire dance was very impressive. even more impressive was the number of missions served, two law degrees, and dental school (and they can stil dance). even more impressive was that the grandma sat with the 7 grandchildren, ages 6 weeks to 4, and they were perfectly behaved, not a peep, not a cry, no problems whatsoever. if only my 5 & 8 year olds could be so well behaved, and my 2 year old....*sigh*

humidity is back (and fireflies too), and i love it. it feels life-giving and nurturing to me. it floods me with memories of summers in japan, and makes me want to go here:

tokyo disney sea resort, walking distance from our home in maihama (along with tokyo disneyland), and where we spent every minute that we could during our last summer in japan. noah has stopped asking almost daily when we are going to disney sea, but my heart still yearns for it on warm humid days. do i sound spoiled & bratty? let me just add that life as a foreign family in japan was a daily challenge (all 12 years of it - we loved it, but it wasn't ever remotely easy), and disney sea was a soothing balm. i am not a huge disney fan. but i do love disney sea: the one disney theme park designed for adults, lots of ambiance, and plenty of fun for the kids too.

noah is a just two months older in these photos than gracie is now ~ *sigh* again - how have three years gone by in a blink?

no problems growing hair for him :)

today is the last full day of school. summer vacation keeps sneaking up on me here in the u.s. we're used to six weeks of summer vacation from july 20th to sept 1st.

another note on humidity: many friends from the western u.s. are of the opinion that nauvoo is the most humid place on earth - impossible for anywhere to be more humid....it's not. every june in tokyo when the serious humidity arrived, (we never had central air conditioning) i would  wonder if it were possible to drown or suffocate from humidity, because it felt like a serious possibility.

little graduate

noah is a preschool graduate. his graduation was so adorable. they sang a song about a rainbow world, with lots of different kinds of people, as they waved their rainbow streamers, and he was the only ethnic child out of 35. he was also singing the loudest. so cute! we have adored preschool this year. noah has loved every minute of it, and was so disappointed when he was too sick to go, or school was cancelled. he has really blossomed during the year and moved from being a little behind, to a little ahead. and it was almost too good to be true to have the bus pick him up and drop him off in our front yard every day.

it is bitter-sweet that he will be miving on to all day kindergarten at the end of the summer. I have enjoyed my mornings with my little man. i enjoy having my children home, and don't like letting them go. although i do enjoy quiet alone time. gracie will be incharge of filling up my mornings next year.

shingo

we have been treated to a 5 day visit by one of our most favorite of people in the world, shingo.

the first time i saw shingo, he was a missionary, singing a musical number in church with a large group of young missionaries. when i saw him, i knew that our plans to move back to the u.s. after receiving mia's visa from the u.s. government needed to change. the spirit told me strongly that i had a son like shingo coming, and i needed to stay in japan and find him. it was an overwhelming experience, unlike any i had ever had, and it changed everything. shingo was serving as a missionary in the ward that shared our building, and so we had the opportunity to get to know him. he loved mia, who was 17 months old, and we discovered that his family was best friends with dr. samejima's family (the doctor who gave us mia). shingo had left medical school to serve his mission and planned to work with dr. samejima after he graduated (medical school begins right after high school in japan).

after this experience, and a few others i won't take the space to list, we called dr. samejima, and although we felt tremendously selfish and brazen in asking for another baby when so many other families were waiting, we found the courage to say that if he ever had a baby that he couldn't place for any reason (racial mix, handicaps, etc) to please let us know. he laughed and said there was another baby for us, a boy, and he would find him.

if we were to adopt again, and pass the u.s. home studies required, we needed to move out of our one bedroom home in tokyo. we felt guided to move to maihama, just outside of tokyo, and walking distance from tokyo disneyland and disney sea. and we did so about a month and a half after meeting shingo. and to our surprise, in our new japanese ward (we had spent the last 7 1/2 years in an english ward), we met shingo's family who lived just blocks away from our new home. we loved them immediately.

there is so much i could write, but to keep it simpler, 18 months after meeting shingo, i received a phone call that woke me early on a sunday morning. brock was gone, already at early church meetings. dr. smaejima's voice said "omedeto" (congratulations), "i've found your baby". it was march 7, 2004, the day of shingo's mission homecoming. we celebrated that day for two joyful reasons. and at shingo's openhouse that evening, sister samejima met with us and told us all about noah's birth mother. in april shingo went back to medical school and noah was born. these two (noah & shingo) are intricately tied together, and although i don't completely understand it, i know that it is significant. the spirit tells me so. we've seen very little of shingo since, as his medical school was in tokushima, shikoku, far away from tokyo...and nauvoo. i was thrilled to answer the phone in early december and hear shingo's voice. he would be graduating from med school in march, and would like to come and visit us then. we've been eagerly anticipating his visit, and it was even more enjoyable than hoped. he is amazing, and brought a wonderful spirit to our home. we hope that noah will be as much like him (as the spirit whispered to me) as possible....they look remarkably alike.

noah following where shingo leads....

it was a painful farewell when we put shingo on the train back to chicago. but he promises to visit before too long with his "new family" (the family he plans to have). we'll be waiting.

saturday we realized that it was the 5 year aniversary of the day of shingo's homecoming, and we were all together again.

update....shingo's dad just sent me this link.   (shingo flew to utah from chicago to visit his mission president, mission companions, and the university of utah med school)

who am i?

if you are my friend on facebook, you may have had the time and interest to read this already, or not - which i completely understand. this is a "note" which is circulating on facebook, and i enjoyed the challenge of coming up with 25 items to post.

1. I have put off making this list for a very long time.

2. I LOVE living in Nauvoo.

3. My favorite thing in the world is being married to Brock, second favorite is being a mommy to my kids.

4. I have lived in Japan 3 different times, for a total of almost 12 years, but am still not fluent in Japanese. My two oldest caucasian daughters can speak, read & write Japanese almost natively. My Japanese children can't.

5. I LOVE babies, and want to have more....will I ever stop feeling that way? 14 years of infertility can do that to a person. But I have always loved babies. My favorite job ever was working as a nurses' aid in a newborn nursery.

6. I am emotional and very passionate...about almost everything.

7. I don't get very excited about food....so you would think that I would be thinner.

8. I have been to nine countries, one territory and one protectorate, but never to Hawaii, and I have been to thirty-nine states, but never to Florida, Alaska, (or Hawaii)

9. Two of my brothers married girls named Nancy.

10. I have an addiction to chocolate, and it's not a good thing (explains number 7)

11. I love yoga

12. I love to read, but am a very picky reader...it needs to be intelligently written, great plot, believable characters, uplifting, and clean.

13. I love history, antiques, and quilting...so antique quilts are a passion.

14. I have a degree from BYU in a department that no longer exists: clothing & textiles.

15. I don't really like ice cream. really.

16. I can be very competitive, but I don't enjoy participating in or watching competitive sports.

17. I have felt a connection/fascination with Japan since I was about 5 years old, and always wanted a Japanese baby. Now I have two.

18. I have over 40 cousins on each side of my family...for a total of over 80. Second cousins are innumerable, but I am in touch with many.

19. Both of my grandmothers are on facebook.

20. I am very driven...to the point of being unhealthy (explains the need for number 11). I am learning not to be.

21. 4 of my 5 children are extremely intense.....must get it from Brock ;)
I am an oldest child, so is Brock. Alexa is obviously oldest, and after an 8 year space, Mia basically is too. Noah is an oldest boy. So, 5 people in our family have oldest personalities....yikes! It explains a lot. Gracie is just intense because she wants to be. Tashi has a big job balancing the rest of us out.

22. I prefer humid over dry climates and love a change in seasons. But I did love living in Phoenix. I have loved everywhere we have lived.

23. I am a runner, but no good at sports - I am completely pathetic at volleyball.

24. I play the piano, but can't sing.

25. My newest passion is studying and re-creating 1840s clothing.

all is calm, all is bright

i love this space between christmas & new years. it may be my favorite time of year. the rush and hustle are over, all is calm, all is bright. time isn't over scheduled. kids are at home and relaxed. there are new games to play and new puzzles to put together, and new books to read as a family. the warm glow of christmas lingers the newness of a new year beckons.
i learned to love this time during our life in japan when everything would shut down for a week or more before and after new years. our first year there, '95/'96, we were shocked to find that everything was closed: banks - including atm's!, grocery stores,post offices, every type of store, absolutely everything. we were shocked, and we liked it. we spent time together as a fmaily, without any outside pressures. msot of our american and foriegn friends went back home for the chrismtas season. our japanese friends went to their grandparents' inteh countryside. we were left alone in tokyo. and we learned to treasure it. the pollution subsided, because there were no delivery trucks on the roads. we could see glorious views of "mountain fuji", as tiny tashi called it, without the pollution clouding our way.

i did get to some of my sugar plum sewing, finishing two projects up after christmas, so they well be ready to be enjoyed next year.
i have wanted to make this little gingerbread guy since i first saw the pattern in American Patchwork & Quilting, dec 2004. i did make one last year, but gave it away. this one stays with us. just as with the pillows, the felted wool works up to quick and easy. the red heart was a wool skirt that someone gave me and i felted in the washer & dryer. all but one of the fabrics in the patchwork border were in the big bag of fabric that landed on my porch. i love that. the eyes are tiny antique bone buttons - i collected some of the funnest things while i was running my antique quilt business.

the quilt is a printed panel, cheater cloth. this isn't me preferred method of making quilt, but it is fast and easy. and i can assuage my conscience by remembering that cheater cloth existed even in the mid 1800s. i love that this panel focuses on christ, not santa or snowmen (or gingerbread men). i made and sold two of these last year. and cut one apart to make christmas pillows. this one stays with us, for now.

thunderstorms that shook & rattled our cupboards like an earthquake on saturday washed away all of the snow and ice, leaving green grass and clear blue skies. it is difficult to believe it is the same landscape we looked out on and photographed last week. i went for a walk today, and felt like it was early spring. but i'm not fooled... the ice and snow won't stay away for long.

this & that

i absolutely love my friend crystal's idea for christmas this year. it makes me happy.
100 provident living points for crystal! i want to be like her.

brock & i finally made the trip to carthage yesterday and gave up our arizona licenses for the illinois version. painful! we have had our arizona licenses since '94, brock's grad school days. the same licenses, not renewed. in arizona they issue life-long licenses, good until your 60th birthday when you need to start getting regular vision checks. my license still had 22 years left on it.....good until 2030. i had hoped to keep it until then. but we decided to comply with the law. we were so grateful to have these licenses through our japan years so we never had to worry about getting them renewed from overseas.

and speaking of japan, as much as we didn't like getting our illinois licenses, it was completely painless compared to getting our japanese licenses.....i could write numerous posts on the process of getting our japanese licenses (i only know 1 person who passed the driving test on the first try, and know many people who had to take it 5, 6, 7, even 12 times.....and driving education classes cost upwards of $3000 - not offered in high school, because you must be 18 to drive in japan, which really isn't a bad idea), and which we promised ourselves we would never allow to expire...but they will, as we aren't living there, and have to be there to renew them. such a shame. as i write, i realize that mine probably just expired a few weeks ago on my birthday....alas.

flashback: i just remembered having to go back to the testing center (45 minutes away) when my license was 2 years old and take a 2 hour driving class in order to keep my license. this was mandatory for all drivers. it was excruciatingly boring, in japanese, and included a horrible video of every type of accident it was possible to have, with reminders that in japan, the larger vehicle is always the responsible party in an accident. so if a motorcycle cuts you off, a bicycle darts in front of you, or a pedestrian jay-walks, you are responsible. (we drove a van, one of the biggest on the road, because a family with 4 kids is monster-sized there, and so this was a stressful point, as we were bigger than most everyone else..... one of many, many aspects that made driving in japan a stress-fest.) i fell asleep and then was humiliated by the teacher in front of the class for doing so. at least that was her intent. but i had long since grown a thick enough skin to prevent this kind of humiliation, so that i could manage my life in japan. and i don't think any of the the other students cared either. they all wished that they were asleep too.

i love japan, i really, really do. but i don't miss experiences like these. and don't even get me going on the japanese postal service.....really, don't.

asumi

i am filled with happiness for my japanese friend naomi who welcomed this angel baby on october 14th.

naomi had her first two babies in her early 30s and was told by doctors that she would be risking her life by having any more. at 41, when her first two children were 8 & 10, she had baby kouki, born on christmas day. she was terrified that something would go wrong at his birth, but it didn't. and at 43, she just had baby asumi, whose name means 'love is pure".

she sent this photo of asumi to me to show the quilt she had made, using vintage fabrics that lexi, tashi, & i had given her - lots of fun feedsacks included. she was my best sewing/quilting friend in japan, and an inspiration to me in many ways. knowing naomi, she probably pieced this quilt by hand, and definitely hand quilted it.

this news makes me happy for naomi & her family for so many reasons and in so many ways. it warms my heart and gives me hope. hope for the church in japan. hope for women who are courageous enough to have babies, even against the odds. hope for new beginnings.