So glad Baaba is here!!

On July 29th, two days before Violet's arrival into this world my Mom arrived from Japan...:-) Her available dates to visit us happened to work out perfectly to cover 1 week before and 1 week after my due date but of course we were hoping that Violet arrived early to give her as much time as she could to spend with her new granddaughter... Well you know what happened:-)

We picked her up from the airport on the 29th and took that day easy to relax and enjoy all the cool things Baaba brought for Madison(mostly) and the next day we were able to introduce my Mom to Sunset Beach which is our newest go to beach here...:-) We love that this beach has waves for Dave and tons of sea shells for Madison. I haven't done much here since all the past visits has been during my big pregnant time and I've been just sitting on a blanket reading magazines and snacking:-)

I was hoping to have the baby on the 1st to match with Madison's birthday which is May 1st so I did walk a lot on the beach to try to encourage the baby to come out which I suppose really worked...:-)

Dave and I talked that in case the baby is early we need to fit in a trip to Five Guys right away which my parents really enjoyed last year... My mom does not eat meat but she gets a grilled cheese and absolutely LOVES the fries and peanuts!! So we were there for a long time working on those peanuts:-) Someone told me eating a hamburger helps induce!? I supposed this too contributed to my plan...:-)

Unfortunately for us this was the last day for us to freely go to places and enjoy what Southern California has to offer for a while since my wish came true at 8:22am the following morning...

I had originally asked my mom to take care of all the meals after the baby comes and we thought we will be okay but it wasn't the meals we needed all the help with, but instead being Madison's go to play buddy who can give 90% of attention to... We casually thought yes we can take care of the newborn and a 4 year old at the same time while sleep deprived and exhausted, but our 4 year old is so full of energy and has such a thirst for attention that we were sooooo glad my mom was there to spend lots and lots of time with her! AND we are really thankful for all the delicious meals she prepared for us of course;-)

I am very ashamed to tell you that Madison is not fluent in Japanese... She knows some key words but not much more and this I'm not ashamed of but my mom is not fluent in English either but understands much more than she can speak so it was really interesting and funny to watch them play or interact while speaking their first languages... and somehow it was working out! They even came up with a game that caused such loud happy squeals from Madison that we had to close the doors to the dance room so Violet could take her nap...:-) Mom said the rules of the game were a little tricky but she just went along with Madison and they had fun so we never clarified the rules with Madison since we didn't want to ruin the fun, but got it on film for our record...:-)

The simple rule of this game was to hit each other on the back with the ball but my mom said once in a while you get hit and Madison would tell you to go stand in the corner but then there is only two of them playing the game so I have no idea how the game could keep going... Anyhow as you can see Madison was just having a blast so none of the details matter!:-)

While my mom was here we started up a tradition of watching movies before bedtime and introduced mom to so many movies that we enjoy... We watched the 4 Shrek movies, Despicable Me, Cars1 & 2, Madagascar1 & 2, then Ice Age1... Usually finished a movie over two days so this went on for a while... My mom watched them in English of course but most of the time she understood and laughed at the right time so we knew she wasn't faking...:-) She loved all of them and is planning on watching all the movies in Japanese once home... It was really relaxing and fun, it really helped that Violet usually napped during the movies... Thank you Violet:-)

Another funny thing that happened was that since my mom loves walking she went out for walks by herself a few times and came home right when we were starting to think she was never gonna come back to us... One of the walks she went all the way to the near by playground she went with Dave and Madison last year and that's about 2 miles round trip...:-)

Anyways, it was the quickest two weeks of our lives and I was sooo glad my mom was able to be there to meet Violet from day 1 and to help us out with so many things. It was just impossible to see her off without tears running down my face like a crazy person... I partially blame my post pregnancy hormones but I just wished she could have stayed longer and didn't have to go back to work...:-( 

We made Mom read this ridiculously long book in Japanese...:-)

Mom and Madison enjoying our harvest:-)

My parents got Madison her very first LEGO blocks!! She loves them!