Quick Update - Pictures to come

I finally feel like we're settling back into things after being in California for so long.  I thought I'd post a quick hello and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!   We made it through Kelsie's birthday weekend (more on that in a little bit) and now are preparing to host a growing Thanksgiving dinner at our apartment.  My friend Haruyo was able to buy a big turkey at one of the military bases so she invited us to join their family.  However, their dining room area is small, so I suggested we eat at our place.  Then we decided to invite a couple young single adults from our ward, who then asked if they could bring roommates...and then my friend also invited some sister missionaries to join us.  SO, what was going to be two semi-small families is now 10 adults and 5 (6 counting Avri) kids!  It should be fun, but definitely more work that I was originally planning on!

Yesterday Kelsie turned the big "4".  She's been so excited about her birthday.  We invited 6 little girls over for a Minnie Mouse party.  Four of the little girls were from her yochien (school) and only speak Japanese.  I told their mothers that they were welcome to attend with their daughters, but it was not required.  They were all super excited to come and see what an "American" birthday party was like. lol  I definitely felt some extra pressure, but things ended up turning out great.  We played "Pin the Bow on Minnie", made beaded bracelets, played dress-up, and had a little lunch which included Mickey Mouse shaped ham sandwiches, Mickey nuggets, and Minnie cupcakes.  The moms now all want to come over again so I can teach them how to make hair bows and flowers (I guess Logan showed them Kelsie & Avri's stash in the bathroom).

In other news, Avri is still our lightweight but seems to be growing fast.  She's almost 6 months!  While in California we started giving her rice cereal and she loves it!  Since being home she scarfs a big bowl down every night.  She seems to be very interested in food, so I need to start her on the real stuff soon.  At her doctor appointment in the US she was in the 1st percentile for weight and 67th percentile for height.  She isn't crawling yet, but she rolls and spins all the time.  With my luck she'll figure out the whole crawling thing as soon as I decide to start putting Christmas presents out.  She also is loving her exersaucer, which is nice for me.  She is my biggest cuddler out of all three of the kids, which I love, but it makes it harder to get things done. Logan and Kelsie are still doing some modeling.  It seems to have slowed down a little bit which I am totally ok with.

Kurt has been working with the kids a lot lately (especially Logan) on their Japanese.  We discovered that the kids have very different learning styles.  Kelsie is very much a verbal learner - so yochien is great for her.  She repeats what she hears and picks things up that way.  Logan is a visual/book learner like me.  So Kurt has been having him use flash cards and write out the different alphabets.  It seems to be helping a lot!  We are considering getting him a tutor to get his skill levels up for 1st grade in April, but so far Kurt has had the time to help him.

Kurt's work load has been pretty busy lately, but they are finally starting to hire people to help and eventually replace him.  We have dreams on him training a team quickly and having us move back to the US next summer, but I doubt that will happen. :(  We're still here for another 25-26 months, unless they decide to send us back early.

I better go, so I can get some things done before the kids get home from school!