Weekend Recap/週末報告

Usually we use our weekends to recover from a crazy week...but today we needed our Monday to recover from a crazy, yet rewarding weekend. This past weekend was the Springfield Gardens Church of Christ annual Harvest Picnic and Festival at the building on Sunday. Anna and I with two other ladies were in charge of the festival aspect so we spent Saturday setting up and then Sunday the kids went at it...Anna developed an Amazing Race game for the kids that was truly amazing...she did such a great job! There were 24 kids that competed in teams of 3, they competed in contests such as unscrambling Bible book names to reveal a secret message that told them how to get their next clue, finding gummy bears in a large bowl of flour using only chopsticks, introducing themselves to five people they don't know, setting up 25 dominos and knocking them down, building a structure with 15 playing cards, unscrambling song lyrics, shooting baskets and spotting the differences between two pictures...Anna used a picture from 80s night and made the changes using her wizardry with Photoshop...there are seven differences in all can you find them...the kids were amazing in their quickness to find five of the seven. After completing one of the activities they would have to go back to the person they got the game from to be shown a picture of the object that the person with their next game was wearing like a police badge, a purple tie, flourescent green head band, alien ears and a colorful necklace...it went really well.
いつもは忙しい週日からゆっくり休む為に使う週末ですが今週末はやる事がいっぱいで月曜日にやっとゆっくり休む事に...教会で毎年ある収穫祭を兼ねてピクニックがミサのすぐ後に予定してあってその準備で金曜日と土曜日は大忙し！僕とアンナはその時にある子供達のゲームの係も担当。アンナがとても面白いゲームを計画、こっちではテレビ番組であるゲームなんだけどチームで世界中を巡りながら各地点で貰う任務をやり遂げながら競うゲームです。子供向けの任務を７箇所で用意...下にある写真はその任務の一つで子供達は７個ある違いの５個を見つけないと次の任務のヒントが貰えないこと...見つけられるかな！？

Can you spot the differences?
違いが分かるかな？
I guess you will have to become a fan and leave a comment to let us know :-)
見つけられたらコメント残してね：）

Also as part of the Harvest festivities the congregation welcomed the four new babies that had been born this year by giving them a Child's Bible and saying a prayer that their parents will raise them in the Lord. Madison looks like she is ready for Christmas as she enjoyed her wrapping paper.
あと収穫祭に備わって教会からマディソンに子供用のバイブルをプレゼント。マディソン、クリスマスの準備ができてそう...何が中に入っているか気になっているみたい：）

Madison would also like to take this opportunity to thank Aunt Alyson for her leopard outfit which is nice and cozy as the weather cools down.
アリソンおばさんが送ってくれた可愛いヒョウ柄のパジャマのお礼をここでさせてね...

We also weren't sure if we had previously posted this picture of Madison with Barbapapa...
この写真は前に載せたか覚えてないんだけどバーバパパと一緒に...

Lastly we include a video of Madison's sister Coco playing with a toy that was sent from Japan. For the longest time Coco wouldn't have anything to do with toys...we started calling her Coco Kitty because she would just sleep and eat, but lately she has become a lot more playful so that has been fun.
そして最後にマディソンのお姉ちゃんのココがお母さんの送ってくれたおもちゃで遊んでいる様子。今まで全然おもちゃに興味が無かったココのあだ名はネコのココ(毎日ご飯食べて寝てるだけ)...でも突然いろいろと興味を示すようになって見てても面白くなりました。

P.S. Anna swears the packaging had a dog face on it, even though I thought it looked an awful lot like a cat toy which may be why Coco Kitty liked it so much :-)
P.S.ネコじゃらしに見えるけどちゃんと一緒に付いていた紙に犬の絵が書いてあったっ手アンナは言うけどどうだろう？でもだからネコのココが気に入ったのかな？：）

ゴロン出来た！/Rolling Over!

今日初めてゴロンで来た訳じゃないんだけど今日初めてビデオに撮る事に成功しました。ちょっと無理矢理かもしれないけどね：）気づいたと思うけど夏服をまだ着せてまーす!　可愛いしもったいないからいっぱい重ね着で...多分この考えは岩井家から代々伝わってるんだと思うけど、杏奈はただ安いからと言ってすぐ壊れちゃいそうな物を買うよりも、少し値段が高くても長持ちしたり本当に自分の気に入った物を買わないと意味がないと信じてます。だからデイブになんでそんな高い物買ったのー？って聞かれるといっぱい着たり使ったりする度に値段が安くなる考えを使って説得したりします。いきなり変な事を話し始めちゃいました...
マディソンの事に戻りまーす！乳歯も順調に出て来ているし毎日ご機嫌で笑顔ばっかり...泣いているとき以外はね；）

Today wasn't her first day to roll over but I finally got to record it to put on the blog...It's also not her best work since it's not a nice graceful roll over but good enough:-) You may also notice that she is in somewhat summery clothing and you may think "Hello!? Does Anna know it's November and not September??" and the answer is yes! but I want to give those cute summer clothes more chances to be worn as long as Madison can fit into them... and she still can! So I've been doing a lot of layering lately to stretch these clothes' life expectancies... and this is helping my PPW(Price Per Wear) theory... Not sure if I should call it a theory or motto but I use PPW theory a lot to convince Dave to buy things that are not neccesarily cheap, and if it's not something you can wear then I use PPU(Price Per Usage)! and it works! I'd rather pay a bit more for something that I know I would use for a long time or many times than buy something just because it's cheaper and for them to be broken right away or for them to not work good enough and be added to our useless junk pile... Okay I went off the subject once again and that yellow tank-shorts wasn't that expensive but I think I wanted to defend my purchasing of other cute clothes that Madison has...

それと、ハロウィーンの時に撮ったエリーとココの写真を載せ忘れてたので今日載せまーす！あすかが買ってくれた蜂のコスチュームだよ：）後マディソンとココの遊んでいる姿...というか杏奈がココを押さえてるからマディソンがココをおもちゃみたいに扱っている様子...今日もそんな嫌な事が遭った事も忘れているのかマディソンの近くに寄りすぎて思い切り髪を引っ張られて泣いてました。おバカちゃん！

Anyways, I found a cute picture of our Beans dressed up as Bees(Asuka got them the costumes last year!) and pictures of Madison and Coco playing together AKA I'm holding Coco so that Madison can pull at Coco's hair and call it a Play time! Today Madison was sitting up and Coco happened to walk by and got close enough for Madison to reach(I guess Coco didn't learn her lesson the last time!) and Madison grabbed her hair pretty good and cried out for help so let's see if she learned the lesson this time:-)

Mommy's Birthday Dinner/ママの誕生日ご飯

As you should be well aware, yesterday was election day, what you may not know is that it is also a day off for students in New York City...for teachers it is a day of meetings which is usually worse than having the kids in school...but it does mean I get to escape right as the 2:50 bell rings so I had planned to meet Anna and Madison in Union Square for a 3:45 reservation at Max Brenner, Chocolate by the Bald Man, a restaurant that had been featured on a Food Network show entitled "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" for its chocolate pizza...so we had to give it a try...we actually had a real pizza and a chocolate pizza to go with our Strawberry smoothie with White Chocolate...
みんな知っている通り、昨日は選挙の日で学校はお休み...って言っても生徒だけで先生達は一日中会議って言うつまらない日...でも２時５０分丁度に学校から飛び出して３時４５分に杏奈とマディソンとユニオンスクエアで待ち合わせをしました。チョコレートピザでテレビでも有名になったマックスブレナーって言うチョコレートのレストラントに予約を取って杏奈たちを連れて行く事に...普通のピザと有名はチョコレートピザ、そしてホワイトチョコを使った苺のスムージーを注文してみる事に：）



While the chocolate pizza wasn't the best thing we ever ate, it was pretty fun...Anna liked watching everything everyone else was ordering and we are looking forward to going back to try the crepes and other yummy desserts!
チョコピザはおいしかったんだけどあま〜い！でも本当にチョコレートの味がおいしい：）杏奈は他のお客さんが頼んだ品物の飾り付けが綺麗で観ていて楽しかったみたい。また今度はクレープを食べに戻って来るつもりです：）

Happy Birthday to Mommy, teeth, funny avocado face and sippy cup!/ママの誕生日、乳歯、アボカド食べてる変な顔、シッピーカップ

So Today is Anna's Birthday...and yesterday was Madison's half-birthday (although I think I am going to start a national petition to get a baby's birthday changed to the date of conception, so Madison is actually 15 months old because I do not feel we should discredit the growth in the womb, so all you who missed Madison's 1 year birthday on August 1st gifts are being accepted at your leisure), anywho, if we go by societies count then Madison and Anna's birthdays could basically not be further apart...pretty cool huh...well we started the birthday with a card from Madison that said she hoped her day was as special as the day that she gave birth to her and then work got in the way and then I came home with an ice cream cake and a card of my own after my basketball practice...tomorrow the kids don't come to school due to election day so I will be meeting Anna and Madison in Union Square at 3:30pm to begin our fun-filled secret evening that you will find out about in a future post...also in a feat of perfect timing a package from Japan arrived today, so at least Anna had one thing to open on her birthday!
今日は杏奈の誕生日、そして昨日はマディソンの半誕生日...まず朝起きたらマディソンからの誕生日カード(私が生まれた日のようにに記念に成る日でありますようにって：）僕がバスケの練習の後家に帰りがけにアイスクリームケーキを買ってカードと一緒にプレゼント...明日は選挙の日だから学校には生徒が来ない予定なので３時半にママとマディソンとユニオンスクエアで待ち合わせです。何をするかは明日まで内緒なんだけどちょうどタイミング良く、日本から荷物が届いたから杏奈が誕生日にプレゼントを一つでも開ける事が出来て良かったー。

In other news, here is proof of Madison's teething...for months she has been putting everything in her mouth, but now when she puts our fingers in there it hurts! We tried to capture the protruding teeth so click and look closely and you can decide whether you see anything or not.
そしてここに乳歯が生えて来ている証拠...もう最近ずっと何でもかんでも口に入れているマディソン、今指を入れると少ししか出ていない乳歯でもイターイ！！写真を撮ってみたんだけどまだちょっと分かりづらいかなー？探してみてください：）

We have also included this bonus video of Madison making funny faces when she eats Avocado but come on! Wouldn't we all?
そしてこのビデオはマディソンがアボカドを食べるたびに凄い変な顔をしている様子！何となく気持ちがわかるよね？



And we also introduced Madison to her first sippy cup tonight:-)
マディソンの初めてのシッピーカップのビデオもどうぞ：）

And the Winners Are.../そして優勝は...

I think I forgot to mention that there was also a costume contest as part of 80s night...everyone who went and wasn't dressed up put their vote in a bucket and this morning after worship they announced the winner...there was a tie for 2nd place between Leon/Flavor Flav who had the giant clock around his neck and Olivia Newton John and her aerobics baby!! That's right...Anna heard Olivia tied for second and exclaimed in a stunned voice..."that's me!" and Anna and Madison went up to collect their prize...a coffin with a frankenstein and candy...my type of coffin!
昨日書くの忘れてたんだけど８０年代パーティーでは仮装コンテストもあって、パーティーに来たけど変装しなかった人達が一番いい格好をしている人に投票。今日の朝ミサが終わった後優勝者を発表...２位に来たのは２人(リオンとオリビアとエアロビックス赤ちゃん)!!その通り...杏奈がオリビアって聞くなり”それ私!!”って：）マディソンを連れて２等賞を貰いにステージへ...賞品の棺の中に入っていたのはフランケンシュタインの人形とおかし！

Then came the announcement we had all been waiting for...the grand champion...in what our host described as a landslide...the winner was...Richard Simmons!!! Like any nominee for an award I had thought about my acceptance walk and gave a hearty leg kick and jumping jacks that would have made Richard proud...my reward however would not have made him proud...it was a gigantic basket filled with all the best junk food the 80s had to offer...Twinkies...Yodels...Ding Dongs...Jujy Fruits...Pringles...Cracker Jacks...Coke in tiny glass bottles and numerous other goodies!
そしてとうとう待っていた１等賞の発表が...圧倒的な投票が入ったらしい優勝者は...リチャード
シモンズ!!!　計画通り体操をしながら賞品を受け取りにいったデイブ、リチャードも誇らしいでしょう...大きなバスケットの中にはもちろん８０年代に出て来たお菓子の数々！
Much of the credit must go to my lovely wife who did all the shopping for our costumes, but none of the spoils...those are all mine :-)
でも感謝しなきゃいけないのは妻の杏奈...衣装を用意してくれたからね...でもお菓子は全部僕の！