Team Moses

We've been watching Prince of Egypt (Dreamworks animated film about Moses) a lot lately. Emiko told me today out of the blue: "Mom, if I lived during Moses time...I totally would have picked to be on Moses team. Definitely Moses. Not Ramses. Because Moses team beats Ramses team." Well said.

You're Invited

To all of our far away family and friends...

We know you won't be able to make it (um, for obvious reasons- like living on a different continent)...but know you would've been invited. Emiko would've been thrilled to celebrate with you!!!

Mina is 3.5

Mina turned 3.5 on Friday. She didn't get it- the 1/2 birthday concept is way over her head. That's ok. She was just excited for a reason to eat chocolate cake (as evidenced by the picture).

This girl is crazy. She drives me nuts. But I love her. That's all.

Kaiya Turns 9!

This past Wednesday Kaiya celebrated her 9th birthday. We love this girl so much. She's amazing! We're sad that Brian wasn't here to celebrate (he's in Houston for a 3 week long business trip) so the weekend before he left we sang "happy birthday"- actually, we had to sing to Kaiya, Emi, and Mina (Emi's b-day is next week and Mina celebrated her half b-day yesterday). That's why all 3 girls are blowing out the candles.

If you haven't noticed from recent pictures, Kaiya has started wearing contacts! Her eye doctor suggested trying contacts b/c of her being a gymnast. Apparently he has quite a few kid athletes that start wearing them around 8-9 years old. So about 2 weeks ago we started to trial them out. She mastered putting them in all by herself in 1 week! She loves wearing them. I'm glad we decided to let her try despite her young age. Here she is before the start of her first gymnastics meet of the season...the meet was today. This meet is more of a practice meet- it's a called a badge test b/c they are still judged on their ability to complete the necessary skills in their level (if they pass they get a badge). She did a great job on all of the events!

Happy Birthday Kaiya!

Emiko-Mina-ism

After accidentally bumping my belly into Emiko...

Me: Whoops, sorry Emi. I was trying to squeeze past you but apparently my tummy is bigger than I thought!

Mina: Let me see! (Pats my tummy) Woah, your tummy is SO BIG!

Emi: Yeah mom, it's totally bigger than daddy's now!

AMEB Exams

Kaiya just took her AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) piano exam at the beginning of the month. AMEB is a nationally recognized organization that provides a graded system of exams for the piano (& other instruments as well). It's kind of like standardized testing for music. There is a set of books for each level (Kaiya just finished the prelim level)- you perform 3 pieces for the judges...as well as testing on scales, theory, and sight reading. Each level generally takes about a year to complete (there are 9 levels in all). I really appreciate the solid, classical standard of training in this program especially since there are so many crappy piano teaching methods out there nowadays. And I love that even at the preliminary level Kaiya was learning classical pieces. Oh, and yes- she passed her exams!!! Hooray! Now it's on to Level 1...but first- mostly for the benefit of the grandparents- here is 1 of the 3 pieces she played. It's called Gavotta by James Hook (a composer from the 1700's). And yes, Mina felt the need to provide extra entertainment!

Easter 2012

I found this bright, bright yellow knit on clearance for $4/meter (amazing price for down under). I didn't have a pattern but an idea of what I wanted them to look like so I just started cutting/sewing away at the fabric until I was happy. Thus, I present to you the 2012 Easter dresses:

We Rock

This egg sums it up for us this Easter:

Good Friday

I say this every year but alas, I will say it again. I love that we get a 4-day holiday weekend for Easter! We spent today (Good Friday) doing Easter-y things...

We spent the morning at a park for our church Easter party where we had brekkie, raced paper boats, and of course hunted for chocolate eggs...

Mina did NOT want her picture taken during the egg hunt (she was in the hunting "zone") and kept her face covered. The other 2 obliged pics though!



Our ward primary (small by American standards but probably the biggest in our stake)!

After a yummy takeaway dinner of fish and chips (I think this will become our new Good Friday tradition) we decorated eggs. Not sure what Mina's doing in this pic:

Kaiya and Emi hard at work getting their eggs all pretty.

The end result:

A final pic of the girls with the decorated eggs. Emiko is upset that she didn't get to hold the eggs. 2 out of 3 kids being happy is still a majority- we consider that a success...