Family Photos 2010

We had our family pictures taken by the same photographer as last year; once again, we were very happy with the results:




You can almost tell I'm Asian in this picture:


Dane kind of looks like a ventriloquist dummy in this one:

It's Never Too Late for Christmas

We drove to Oklahoma this year, and we were grateful the drive was fairly easy and uneventful. Luckily, we got there early enough to catch a couple of days with Rika and Brady, who ended up spending Christmas in Utah. Boo.
So Rika and I worked on the impossible Nutcracker duets together:

And Dane enjoyed a few pre-Christmas bike rides with Jiichan in the Dane-mobile.

They can be pretty tiring.
Finally, it was Christmas Eve.
Dane extracted the final treat from his advent calendar,

and got to open one special present:

Christmas pajamas!
But we hit a few snags trying to get the pajamas on:

We finally got them on, but Dane didn't want to pose for me. He did, however, yawn and show us he was ready for bed so Santa could come!

On Christmas morning, we have a tradition of playing instruments as loudly and annoyingly as possible to wake our parents. So, of course, the impossible Nutcracker duets are in order. This year, it was me and Mika, and we got video!

This is what Dane thought of it all:

Finally, it was time to see what Santa brought!
Unfortunately, our camera battery died. What terrible timing! So I have no documentation of the wonder of Santa presents and opening the Christmas bounty. Sad.
But Dane still had plenty of adventures in the POWER WHEELS LIGHTNING MCQUEEN HE GOT FROM SANTA!!!
He was so excited.
My dad even had extra presents so Dane could go on a little treasure hunt in his car every night after Christmas.


Dane is such a lucky boy.
One day, we had some unseasonably warm weather, so we rode our bikes around Lake Hefner. Kenji and my dad were unquestionably in the best shape, but the rest of us struggled a bit more. Nevertheless, we made it all ten miles, riding against the wind most of the time (and, lest you forget, Oklahoma is where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, so it was pretty strong wind).
Kenji, in good form:

Dane, ready in the Dane-mobile, which Daddy pulled:


About a mile into the ride, we came upon my favorite fake lighthouse:


I had been riding the tandem bike with my dad, but Mom was having a hard time, so we traded.
Mom spent much of the rest of the ride with her feet propped up, Mr. Burns style, while my dad did all the work. I regret I did not get a picture, but this will give you an idea:

We stopped about halfway through for a sushi lunch at a little park

And then finished the picturesque ride.
I didn't get any action shots of me, but I looked awesome.

And I didn't fly off my bike a single time.
Afterward, Dane enjoyed the wonder of a sunroof:

On New Year's Eve, we took a little trip to Pops, which is always fun. And this time, Mika discovered Leninade!

The bottle was full of funny phrases, like "Get hammered and sickled," and "A soda worth standing in line for." The soda itself wasn't that great, but the bottle was worth it.
Then, we had our traditional Japanese osechi.

It was Michael's first time, so we of course made him try everything. Here, he has just enjoyed the anchovy wrapped in kelp:

Joel had some, too.

We found some trainer chopsticks for Dane, so he picked up his own chicken. Quite deftly, I might add:

Overall, it is very delicious.
Also delicious are my dad's chocolate milkshakes, which Dane thoroughly enjoyed:

Then, we whisked Dane off to bed and ended 2010 watching Japanese Kohaku and playing Presidents.

(Presidents, or Scum, is a card game. But we add the silly hats to denote ranking. Totoro is president, and the lampshade hat my mom made is scum. Joel was scum in this picture, and Michael was president.)

At one point, Joel noticed that there were some old dried flowers hanging on the curtain rod. They are the flowers he sent me for my 20th birthday, back when we first started dating and he was living in Connecticut while I was home for the summer. Isn't it so romantic that I've kept them these seven-and-a-half years?
Except these roses were diseased; they started turning brown within 24 hours. I tried to salvage some and dried them, but then they just dried into these lacy skeletons of petals. Now, seven-and-a-half years later, they were super dusty and gross. So we said goodbye.

Well, there you have it. We had to head out on New Year's Day, and we were very sad to leave. Mom and Dad and Mika and Michael showed us a wonderful time, and we definitely miss them.
We got to stay at Allen and Monique's house in Albuquerque one night, and then we caught Rika and Brady in Springville as we pulled in. So all in all, we got to see a lot of family. We missed Kenta and Kendall and Thomas, but they were waiting patiently in New Hampshire for the arrival of baby Abigail Hiromi!

And I'm serious when I say they were waiting patiently, because she was due on December 29th and didn't want to be born until January 6th.

So that's it. Oh, except for the picture of Dane looking through binoculars the wrong way.


P.S. Did anyone notice that I cut my hair? I'd been planning on getting it trimmed, but my mom thought it was obscenely long and offered to pay for a hair cut. Then we found out the haircut would be free if I donated my hair to Locks of Love. So, twelve inches later, I have shoulder length hair. I actually kind of hate it, but oh well. My hair grows quickly.

A Mishmash* of Stuff

I know, I know, all three of you have been waiting, pleading with the cosmos, checking daily for an update. I don't know how so much time has gone by.

First, here are the pumpkin carving pictures I promised a long time ago:
Scoopin' out the GUTS!

Dane designed the "face" himself.



Because Dane has shown little interest in potty-training, we decided to go ahead a buy a little potty chair (instead of the toilet seat thing that I preferred so I wouldn't have to wipe poo out of a container). He did really well with number one, but he simply would not do number two. He'd wait until we put on a diaper at night and then let loose. To be continued...

We've also had lots of snow:


Following one particularly enjoyable snow outing, Dane told us he needed to go potty:


Soon, it became apparent that he was not just going potty...

He pooped! Hooray!
Dane could finally take down the Henry engine that has been hanging in our bathroom as poop incentive for probably five months.

Then we celebrated at Chick-fil-A! What a big boy!
We've had very few problems since then. I realize that every kid is different, and that the fact that Dane is still an only child makes a difference, but I think being patient and just waiting until Dane was willing (even if he's a little older than average) made the process quite easy. Hooray for Dane!

We had a great Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle/cousins, my grandpa, and Joel's mom. The food was delicious, the company was fun, and we almost had enough pies for every adult to have one all to themselves.
The next day, Joel's mom took us to Chick-fil-A again! It is our favorite place.

And, we saw Santa!

I was also really excited to discover that a grown up Ginny Weasley was eating lunch in the next booth:


The following day was Joel's birthday. If I were a better wife, I would have had some profound, hilarious tribute to him on the special day...but I'm not, so here's what I got:
He is so excited about this present (he asked for it, I promise)

Dane loved singing to Daddy and helping him open his presents.

Yes, Joel is wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches.
Mom also took us out to the Braza Grill, a Brazilian Churrascaria, which was a big treat. We ate a lot.

We were also able to get a Four Generations of Hoods picture:

It's not a totally direct line of four generations, since Becky had to sit in for my Dad, but it is nice nonetheless. We're glad we got to spend time with Grand Pa again; Dane hasn't seen him since he was 9 months old!



And just today, this very day, (see, now I'm all caught up), we converted Dane's crib into a toddler "big boy" bed. He is almost 39 months old. Again, not having another child who needs a crib allowed us to keep him in a bed from which he could not escape. But now that he's getting up at night to go to the bathroom, we decided it was time for him to gain some independence.

There are a lot of cuter bedding sets out there, but how could I pass up the opportunity to fill Dane with joy with the assurance of sleeping with his best toy buds every night?


He has already noiselessly come out, used the bathroom, and returned to bed once tonight.
'sigh' He is so grown up.

Finally, I want to give you even more evidence of how cute Dane is:
I was practicing my violin, and Dane figured out how he could practice violin, too.

That is a ukulele and a tube for extra violin strings. Heehee.

*There is a family in our ward named Mismash. Also, a family named Bollwinkel.