Trash management

Sorting out trash is a big part of life here. Everyday of the week is designated to put out different kind of trash. I basically spend almost 20minutes everyday just to sort out trash. from plastic to can, to daily produce waste. The biggest headache i have is that i have to keep all kind of carton box, candy box milk and juice carton and other paper waste in the house until the day to disposal comes. On top of 2 small trash cans i have in the house i already have 3 big cans outside in the yard for sorting and waiting for disposal day. All milk and juice carton need to be washed, dry and cut and open it flatten  and carton boxes need to be flatten and tie up nicely and same goes to paper ,newspaper and candy boxes before disposing. Paper waste disposing day only come once a week so before the day i will have all this waste laying in the already small and crowded kitchen. Just another day after disposing those waste is pilling up again and this trash work seems never ending. Japanese packaging is so beautiful and they come in layers and layers of papers or plastic wrappers. I think half of my shopping goes into the trash. It is not the work that im complaining but the trash that i have to keep in the house stress me out a little.

First visit to dentist

I cant believe that i drag this for this long. His visit to dentist was due when he was 2. Im expecting the worst but fortunately he has only 2 minor decay. The dentist did a small patch to one of his problem teeth and another due for next week visit and he will be good. Im expecting alot of crying and kicking but everything went smooth and well without sheding a single tear. what a relief.

First cooking

I am letting Yuta cook for the first time. He likes to help around in the kitchen but honestly you have to have extra time on hand to let the little one help. He also likes the kids cooking program on tv.  Today i decided is time to let him to cook with the stove with my guardian. We are cooking sweet potato cream soup today. We have been eating alot of sweet potato from the last trip to the farm. Made sweet potato mont blanc (a failure), extra sweet potato cream paste to wrap it in the pancake, stir fry sweet potato and this cream soup. After this first cooking experience he is begging me every time to let him cook.

Mount Fuji

Sunset with Mount Fuji in the background, nice. this was taken from balcony in 2nd floor. When the weather is good we could have this magnificent view. Yuta always says, "look, we can see the volcano again". Its moment like this i wish i have better photography skill.

Sweet potato digging

Another autumn harvest, sweet potato. Our first experience sweet potato digging. 

Its Autumn

Autumn leaves wreath we made from leaves and acorns collected at nearby playground. We were hoping to find some pinecones but there werent any around. so far we saw only 1 pine tree on the way to the train station and always wanted to collect those pinecones but the tree is in an unacessable location. we miss all the pinecone and squirels in our previous home.

A day to the beach

The japanese version of snow cone, "kakikoori"



 A hot summer day, we just got our new car and decided to go for a drive. A 30minutes drive from to seaside is just ideal for the husband. One of the reason we like living in yokohama is a short drive to the seaside and easy accessible to many of the sightseeing spot. Yokohama and Japan overall is foreign and new to us  so we are just like another tourist, there are so much more to discover and to see in japan for us.

A little piece of art

 Painting with rolling balls.

Ai is more intrerested in opening and close fixing the water colour cap.

When we still have not get our stuff , i found a few water colour cube in the luggage and here is a simple activity that keep them busy for a while.

The new habitat

 

This is our new habitat. Kids are excepting slowly that we are here to live here and not returning to houston but adjusting from living in an acrerage home to a 800sq ft is not easy. We always bump into stuff and furniture around us. We are so lucky to have that little backyard. We are planning to turn that into our little garden and vegetable cultivation centre. The front of the house is facing west, during the summer it was really absorbing the heat, you cant stay in without the aircond pass 10am. unlike in houston there is no central heating/cooling a/c. we only have 1 split unit in the kitchen/living area and 1 unit up in the master bedroom. you can hardly go upstair during the day, feel like you are trap in a sauna room. weather is cooling down now and we are expecting to enjoy our new cozy home more.

The trucks are here

 

Unloading the biggest problem, the husband's kayak. We are lucky to have some little space beside our car park and a small backyard. We have to just put the kayak outside at the parking space and i forsee that it wont be used for a long long time. That is the good thing here in japan, you can put almost stuff unlocked outside and they will still be there safe and untouched.

After 1.5 month waiting at last our stuff from Houston are here. Kids are so excited to get back all their toys and books. We can only 30% of our space in Houston and all the boxes are all overflowing the whole house. We spent 2 weeks figure out how to organise stuff and we are about 50% done. Of course there are still alot of unopened boxes laying in one of the room. I was a abit upset with losing the space for our classroom but after alot of moving and rearrange stuff around at last we made a small space in a room for classroom. I guess i will have to give up putting out work the montessori way and figure out what are the best way to keep our classroom working. I will at least take another 2-3 months  to finish with our unpacking and organising of stuff.

Earthquake

We had a quick but strong quake the other day. It was the 7th tremor we felt since we moved back. Tremor is becoming part of our daily life. I dont remember we had this much quake when we lived here 3 years ago. I only experienced one after shock tremor in 1.5years living in Chiba last time. For the first time Yuta witnessed what actually were going on. He saw his Thomas train track moving around on the floor. He still call earthquake tsunami after watching all the news about tsunami 6 months ago. Though buildings here are very well quake proof but  thinking of when he big one will be here and when one will really hit us scare me. With all these aftershock and tremor, i cant stop feeling that a big one will be here in near future. Just saw the news today that Yokohama has a very high chance of getting hit by a big tsunami next. Pray hard and better get ourselves all well prepare.

We are home!

finding treasure in the ice block. hours of fun.

It has been 1 month since we are back. Feel that we are really home now except that our stuff from Houston is not here yet so we are living with minimal tools, furniture and alot of mess in the house. Kids have hard time adusting to new environment and lifestyle  for the first 2 weeks but they are starting to like it here. Yuta loves everythig about trains here. He likes that it is automated here he is fascinated about pressing button, elevator button, toilet flushing button, bus bell, vending machines. We go out to play one or two times a week. Most of the play places are for babies to 1 year old until we found the log house. There are so many things to play in the log house from pre walker to grade school kids. With minimal tools i have now we can only do simple activities when we are stuck at home like sand box, coloring, water transfering, clearing the yard and the best thing is studying cricket. Summer is the season for beetle and cricket.

We just got our car last weekend, that at least makes going around easier at least on weekend. I need to get my japanese driving license which everyone said is "difficult" and expensive. but i know i need to get that.

Here we come Yokohama!!

We are ready to go. We just got everything moved out yesterday and it feels so quiet in this house suddenly. the only thing i have is 2  matresses, some dishes and this computer to keep us here till monday when we move to a hotel. 

After the months long preparation, farewell party with friends and in school, alot of explanation I think Yuta understand and acknowledged well of our moving by now. he didnt cry or feeling frustrated anymore when the mover came and take away all our stuff yesterday. but he still asked where is our big car.

We will be moving to Yokohama after all the consideration of facts and matters. It seems like a good place and more foreigner friendly place to live.

Few days to living houston, we have a rally of get to gather playdate, good bye party and luncheon. I think the kids are already worn out with the running around and not eating proper meal. After 3 years here yuta still doesnt eat french fries, eat burger and doesnt drink soda, which is definitely a good thing but is difficult when you go out.

im so looking forward to board on the plane by now. hectic months ahead before we can settle down again.

The Seven Continents

The seven continent!! We have sing the continents song alot and Yuta is getting quite familiar with names of the continent. I made him a place mat with the map earlier and wanted to make this for so long until last week. Instruction to make this from here. I used the remaining foam board i have from making the sandpaper letter. make a few flags with name of continents. I also make extra flag for Japan, Malaysia and Houston. This is also to explain about our up coming moving, to give him an idea that we are moving from 1 place to another destination. He remember name of continent by their colours. With the extra flag he can see, Japan and Malaysia is in Asia, the yellow zone. Later im going to introduce, who (friends and family) is is which continents

Beginnig Sound

The classroom is officially closed. For now most of the work will be done in the kitchen either on the dining table or on the kitchen floor. We are concentrating on working with language for the past month. I see Yuta is resisting on Math so i have stop working on mathematic for a while. We are working on beginning sound and a little bit of CVC words. I pick up books like cat in a hat for him to read. He is happy that he could actually read words from books. Im not an english native speaker and i do not remember i learn english by phonic system, infact i dont even remember how i learned english. i remember we were asked to read and do alot of comprehension. Teachers will get us to read aloud in the classroom. Now that i have to teach my kids english, i have to depend alot on reference book for guideline. After CVC words, what should i go next etc. Living in a basically monolingual country, im worry that he will lost his english once he goes to public school so, determination comes along way. It is also a fun thing for me to "relearn" the language. 

On a side note, i made that set of sandpaper letter. This is one of my earliest montessori homemade. It took me 3 months to complete this. unbelieveable. The sourcing for material is the most time consuming. I tried a few material and dont find it quite suitable and at last i settle for foam board. I dont even sure what i made is correct. I first started making them with instruction from Teaching montessori in the home by Elizabeth G. Hainstock and later when i read Basic montessori learning activities for under five by david.gettman, it says thre is no letter "q" in the sandpaper letter.I should go check in Yuta's classroom of the real thing.

With all the time spent and the cost of material were not as cheap as i though i dont know how justifiable is making montessori material at home but they work well so far and im happy with my accomplishment.



Sweeping

Sweeping object to the designated area. This is the classic montessori practical life activity. Yuta decided he wants to try with the real broom after a few times trying with the toddler size one. He let Ai to have her chance to work with the toddler size broom this time.

montessori method

I immediately wanted to blog about this after i watch this video. It is an awesome video explaning how montessori method is different from conventional school education system. It brought alot of insight for a person who do not know alot about montessori method but would like to practise montessori method with her children. I can see a whole lot of difference and impact montessori method has on yuta after attending montessori school for 2 years. I quickly spotted these differences and improvement just after 3 months he attended the school. From then on i have a very strong urge to read and know more about montessori system. I remember i read from an article saying that parents should practise montessori method at home and not only sending them to montessori school. and so i want to supplement my children with this system eventhough they will be going to the public school later on. A comment in this video made me sad that i can no longer to afford sending my children to a montessori school. Im not saying that conventional school is all bad and kids dont find success in public school but is sad that you have to let go the which best system that worked well for your kids. I did a few search about montessori school in japan but i found only a handful of result and it just shocked me that one of the montessori school is a international school and there will be no way that we can afford the fee. Most of other schools dont use the name montessori but "international" or english school but even that it cost a bomb to us. When financially not allowed i will have to go back to work , and im not sure if i can even supplement them with just 1 hour of home education. I have asked a friend of mine why home schooling is getting so popular in recent years in america and she told me many parents dont agree and dont trust the school system anymore and prefer to educate their child by themselves but again, she said not all family can afford to homeschool due to the costly homeschool material and level of education of the parent(s). Im not crazy about montessori method but im using it as a guideline to help me help my kids learn but i have many friends and people that dont really agree with me. A friend said "you dont have to teach them shape, discrimination of size, colours, they will sure know them later on, so what is the fuss". All in all, i like montessori method and think it works well for me and my children.

Volcano

Thought this is not a successful volcano model. I have limited vinegar in hand. Could have made a more impresive one next time.

In the kitchen

Making onigiri

Roll sushi



cutting with butter knife

Yuta has been wanting to help in the kitchen alot now. He would offer to cut and clean vegetables and wash dishes. I showed him how to make onigiri (japanese rice ball) and basically now he can make them by himself but is not allowed to scoop rice direct from the rice jar. We make makisushi(roll sushi) and he thought that we fun and thats a good way to get him to eat more and have some fun.

I dont remember where i saw post of this activity. Ai likes it so much and she will do it again and again. I first show her how to put each pom pom in the pallet well, she didnt seem interested at all but were shouting ball, ball and tossed those pom pom around. Then gave her a spoon to scoop and she is liking it. I have been doing quite abit with Ai but didnt take any picture of her working because everytime i take picture she will stop working and want to grab and play around with the camera.

July 4th

Hunting for Mr.Frog

Have some marshmallow left from last christmas

This is our 3rd July 4th here. Didnt do much because it was just too hot to go out so we decided to do some American thing. BBQ! WE got our tent set up days before the holiday weekend. Swim in the pool, BBQ, later jump in the tent and found our friend Mr. Frog were in there, star gazing for 5 minutes. I was alittle upset about how Yuta didnt like the idea of start gazing but as usual he ussually will say no to new activities. He were more happy to go around looking for Mr. Frog. and later we did some marshmallow grilling. Yuta actually requested for a bonfire but unfortunately due to the drought the burn ban were in effect so we cant do the bonfire and no fireworks as well.

Baking

Chinese egg tart Japanese bacon and cheese bread (never seen had this in while in Japan though)

Green tea and red bean bun kolache style sausage bun

Recently i have been crazy about baking. Was so addicted to recipes on this food blog. It has alot of nice asian pastry and cooking recipes which calls for only very basic ingredient so i can just make them anytime that i like without any hassle looking for ingredients. This is my first time making bread and pastry. Not that im a big fan of egg tart and bread but just want to try them out and they turned out surprisingly good and got very good welcome by all in the family.

The five bottles of life

Recently a friend posted this picture on fb. I think this is so true. It also reminds me when i was in my early 20's i used to jokingly said to my friends " in teens we would talk about our friends boyfriends, in 20's would talk about who is getting married, in 30's about kids and in mid 30's who is getting divorce, 40's who has gotten sick,50's whos has passed away". It makes me reflect alot of life in these past 3 years where i got the news of 2 friends passed away at early age, friend in coma, friends that husband cheated on them, divorce.
Today is another bad day that i heard of a friend's husband cheating. Cheating dont surprise me anymore, maybe i watched too much Steve wilko show. For some reason i like Steve. Watching the show also make me realise how different american value and asian value. Its always good and bad about both. Im always the explosive type and i know im in no good position to give any advise or comment but seeing friends getting hurt is not easy as well. I was asked will you take and forgive your husband if he cheated on you? I said a big NO, that was when yuta were still a baby, when i had Ai , i thought that over i thought i would say "i will probably" for the kids sake. I dont know what my answer would be if it really happens to me. Of course i pray that days like this wont come. good luck.

Counting the days

In less than a month we will be moving back to Japan. It feels like just months before i first landed in Houston Airport with a 14month old toddler and now we will fly back with our big boy and little princess. Not bad at all, came with 3 leave with 4. With the radiation issues still going on in Japan we cant really decide which area we will be moving to. Have heard and asked many friends in Japan and many assured me the situation is not that bad and infact life is back to normal but for the panic-king husband, he would want to take any precaution and measure to at least live in a minimal exposure area. I havent started to pack, looking around the house is like im going to live here forever. Getting rid of stuff is hard, especially you love them but just have to give them up because of down sizing. Talking about houses space, houstonian (at least that i know) are really blessed with it. We are looking for a house that is just 2 times our swimming pool in our backyard now. Another thing i will sure miss about living in Houston will definitely be shopping. No questions asked, just return it. you dont need to have alot ofmoney in your pocket to have a shopping spree, just buy to satisfy the impulse and return them haha, what fun.

Im not sure how well yuta understand about the moving but he is definitely excited about going to disneyland. He has been telling everyone that he is going to disneyland next month including all in the class and teachers. He said " ok after we are done with disneyland then we can come back".

It is always hard to say goodbye but is really looking forward to meet up with old friends in Japan.

She is 17 Month Old

Ai is 17 Month old. Didnt post much of her activities since her work is mostly redundant. she still like spooning and transfering water with sponge. She is a better reader than Yuta. At this age she will pull out books and asked to be read. She only says a few words which Yuta were obviously a earlier speaker. She says, mama, appu (apple), sometimes fish but she is good at making sounds of animal. She recognises animal by sound. She likes pretend play. Ransacking my bag and wallet is her favourite pass time. Many a time spotted her cleaning baby doll's face and feeding them. Is the girl thing.

Fish Tank

With the summer holiday started, and the goodbye get together rally, we havent been doing much on classroom for he past month. Yuta is asking to go back working with his classroom again so we are slowly picking up the momentum again. However we still continue with our reading routine. We have been reading alot about food chain, bugs life cycle and solar system. This is simple fish tank that i made out of the packing box from a baby doll i bought for Ai. The size and design just perfect for a fish tank, no further cutting required. Cut out some fish pictures and stick fishing thread at the back of fish picture then tape it onto the carton box. We collected those broken shell and coral from the beach when we visited cancun last time. I think the crawfish is not suppose to be there but Yuta just wanted to put him in the tank. We use this fish tank model to explain of food chain in the sea. Sharks eat medium size fish, and medium size fish eat smaller fish then small fish eat plankton/plant.

Crawfish

Perhaps cajun style crawfish is the only food that i will miss after i left Houston. I had more than 30lb of crawfish in 2 months time and still craving.

Blueberry picking

This is our first blueberry picking or shall i say, my first time seeing blueberry tree. My image of a blueberry plant is shrub like bushes but they are quite tall tree and we saw a really big oak tree size matured blueberry tree. The berry were not fully ripen yet so we actually have to really work on picking those ripe one. 1 hour, just managed 1lb. Made a blueberry cheesecake, still have some left and thinking of a blueberry tart

Summer is Here

Summer is here. Summer like weather starts early in Houston. We have been playing alot in wadding pool and splash. Yuta has always fear of water, he didnt want to get near the big pool. At last, last saturday we managed to convince him to go to the big pool and with a swim float he is playing around by himself now. It doesnt sound like a big deal but it tooks us 2 years to get him to just try on the swim float and we are glad he achieve another mile stone. Ai is a water baby. She has no fear for the water and wants to play with water any opportunity she has. she will splash herself up when i water the lawn.

Friday lunch box

Still learning hard about character bento making. After a few times making kid bento it shorten the preparation time but i still dont get the catch of bento making. What do you do with all the small pieces left over after all the shape cutting? do you put in food that he didnt like or wont even eat just to make up the character nice bento? there are so many questions in trying to become creative. I dont want to waste food and i dont want left over in the bento. The hardest part is everytime i ask Yuta what do you like in the lunch box, he will say exactly the same thing, onigiri, tamago yaki, pasta, fruits and put it in the race car lunch box. So i actually have to play around with only this 4 item. This is a little exception that i put in sausages. Learning in process...

gentle heart

I borrowed a documentary dvd about bugs from the library and Yuta likes it. There were a scene where a mantis ate up a butterfly. He shouted for me everytime that scene came out. "mommy, look the mantis just ate the butterfly"!. The third time he shouted for me again and insisted i sit next beside him. "look he is going to eat up the butterfly". silence.. and we waited for that scene. "he just ate the butterfly, can you see that"! Me : OH NO!! poor butterfly.

when i realised how silence it became for a while, i turned to him and he was crying. I asked "are you scared"? "No,i dont want the mantis to eat the butterfly". Gave him a big hug and he never asked to watch that dvd again.

Penguin

I like to do work that both of them can do together. Put some ice cold water, some ice cube and some small figurines and they have all the fun. We all love penguins and have been reading alot about penguin. We talked about where penguins live, different type of penguin, their food etc. Later Yuta decided to pull out some fish from the fishing toy set and creating his own story about penguins and fish.

Im slowing down on math with Yuta for now. We are still working on teen numbers. For some reasons he is not so fond of me using the teen bead set. I used 2 dice to work with him. 1 dice with number 10 on all side and number 1-6 on each side for the other dice. He roll the dice and match up with number cards.

Eggs

The husband requested to have oden (braised various kind of fish cakes, hard boiled egg in soup stock) or i call it japanese version of yong tau foo. I had Yuta to peel the egg shell and wondered what i can do with those egg shell. So, i the crushed egg shell in food coloring and make a card. I guess is time to start making thank you cards for friends for our moving now. I guess it will be much easier if you dye the egg first before crushing them.

Who will be luck enough to get this thank you card

The we talked about eggs and animal that hatch from eggs. so we make our nest with plastercine, went collect some pine needle, eggs on it and all set. Yuta then make some chicks, put them in the shell and waiting for them to hatch. While we enjoy making and pretend Ai were more interested in those "Chick-ling"and shouted "quak, quak". Also make some snakes to go in those eggs.

they hatched. They are "chick-ling"


He wants to cover with them with those eggs because it was chilly that morning.

With the left over food coloring, we did colours mixing again. I didnt have red but pink, works well. By placing yellow infront of the blue filled glass, we can see the reflection of green. Sorry for the blury picture but result was good.

The result