Janet and Brian . Info

We all got to do our first Christmas celebration of 2011. It was very mild, not very “Christmasy” when you look at it. No presents or big feasts, but we had good company of family and friends, and good times, so that’s what matters!

We went to Auburn to celebrate with my Uncle Don, to hang out a bit and eat lunch; then we went to visit my Dad’s old friends (from his High School days!), Tom and his wife Denise. We had a nice big dinner with them. Then we came home and girl passed out in the car!

In exciting news, Brian is FINALLY home, and Maiya will be so thrilled to see him tomorrow morning!! I am a bit worried that she will be mad at him, maybe even just running to me instead of him, but she will get over it quickly, I’m sure. She gets mad at me when I leave, too! Ah, the joys of toddlerhood…

My pretty Christmas princess

Click read more to see a few more pics from today!

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Today, Maiya and I went out to dinner and then to “Crippsmas Place” with Grandma Carolyn, Grandpa Keith, and Grandma Leann! Dinner at Olive Garden was delicious as ever, and Crippsmas Place was a lot of fun. From what I can tell, “Crippsmas Place” is a neighborhood thing, where a really, really large percentage of the houses in a neighborhood in Fremont all spruce their houses up as Christmas-y as possible. Since it attracts a lot of visitors, they also accept donations to… I forget the name, but it’s a foundation that is trying to care for or cure kids with Leukemia, so a very good cause! They call it “Crippsmas Place”, from what I can tell, because it started with a house on a street called “Cripps Place”, and since grown and grown!

Click read more below to see more pics of Maiya loving the “hot”s at Crippsmas Place!

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Maiya is SUCH a ham. As in, she LOVES to be in the spotlight, and loves her picture being taken. I know this is one of the many many many things about her that is very likely to change, so I am taking full advantage of it while I can! Plus, I like lots of pics of her. <3

Take a look at some of these cute pictures of her hamming it up while doing one of her favorite things lately- “cheese!”ing!

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Maiya is insanely in love with lights- particularly pretty Christmas lights. She calls them “hot”, and is totally enthralled with them. So, I really wanted to get her to the Oakland Zoo’s Zoo Lights a few times this season. After failing miserably 3 times in 10 days, we finally made it! And we didn’t even freeze to death.

It ended up being a really great night, and while I don’t think we’ll make it 4 times, I hope we make it back again soon!

Click “read more” below to see lots more Zoo Lights pics, and a few random ones!

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Well, here I go, I’m going to try to catch up a bit from what I’ve missed! I thought I’d do this in a few posts- and I have the Okaasan / Halloween one, and the first Christmas one, so this makes 3… But I fear this will be the last! Who knows, though, maybe I’ll get another in before Christmas! Because after Christmas, I don’t think I’m gonna pop back to November…

A cute pic from before the nasty weather… At a park with some just-met friends!

Click read more below to see pics and read a few captions about our last month!

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Now that Thanksgiving is over, I can officially start getting ready for Christmas!! Though, I proudly admit we did put up our tiny Christmas tree even before Thanksgiving…

Along with a few pictures of Maiya getting ready for Christmas, I am going to write out our Christmas wish list. I am not ASKING for these, so please don’t feel like this is me begging or anything. I just usually have so many people asking me what to get for Maiya and us, that I figure, if nothing else, this will help me to keep the ideas straight in my head, so I don’t forget! Plus, after Christmas, I’ll have some ideas of what I need to buy ourselves…

Click read more below to see more pics and read the details of our Christmas wish list!

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Ok, I’m like a month behind in my posting! I said I would do small stories to keep up better, but with everything with Peach, I fell behind. Plus, I felt I should leave her story up as the most recent for a while, in her honor. And, my host mom (Okaasan) was here, so that kept me busy. Then then then… And now it’s now!

I still want to keep this short, and we’ll do one short catch up story every few nights or so for a bit. This one is about my okaasan! Okaasan is Japanese for mom, she is my host mother, Tokuko, from when I was an exchange student in Japan in 1999, when I was 17 / 18. She finally got to meet Maiya! Since I got pregnant I’ve been trying to get her to come out, and she was finally able to. We LOVED having her here, and miss her a lot already. Can’t wait for next time she can come out, or when we can bring Maiya there!

Since she came the week before Halloween, we decided to make it kind of fall / harvest / Halloween themed for the things we did. So, this will be a few of our okaasan and Halloween pics.

Enjoy!

My little Raggedy Ann and her Baba (Grandma, or more like Nana, in Japanese)!

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The thing about living is that it’s a privledge, not a right. And it’s a temporary privledge. A lot of people forget that- and when you forget, you fear death as some horrible scary thing that will end everything.

Instead, death is just a part of life. It’s the one and only thing gauranteed to every living being from the time the egg and sperm first meet. Really, death doesn’t matter at all, except to the living. And, the point is, to LIVE. Instead of forgetting that life is a privledge, forget about death. Live life to the fullest, so that when the end comes, you can look back and smile instead of cry.

That’s what my sweet Peaches and Cream did- she lived. And so, now that her life is complete, I will remember with joy just how full and happy her life was. Though I will talk about how she died here, I will remember how she lived. And smile.

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We had a great day today! Well, Peach is even worse yet, and Maiya had a MAJOR melt down today, worse than I’ve seen her have in a few months, because her Daddy left without her. But other than those two things, it was a great day!

The bad news is, I FORGOT MY CAMERA!! I missed about 87654356789908765456789 excellent photo ops, and I may never forgive myself… And, I’m really tired toinght, so while I have a lot to say, I will save it for another night.

Tonight, you get the short version! Few words, few pictures…

We started at the Village, and Maiya made a million friends. We walked around a bit while we drank our Blenzers, and seriously every few minutes I was getting “hi Maiya!”, all from people we’d never met before today.

Then we went to the Greek Festival with Grandma Carolyn. Last year it was pretty… Boring isn’t the right word, because it insinutates negative feelings, and it was as good of a way to spend the time as any way. Maiya didn’t get much out of it at barely 6 months old, but us adults had a decent time. This year, however, Maiya got to walk around and PLAY. She found a box of used toys for sale, and played with each of the toys a bit. Then we found older kids! She spent a good amount of time running around like a crazy child, and loved it! This was another place I felt like a celebrity. When we left, we had to go around and say good bye to our friends, as usual- which, in this case, was about 90% of the families there- again all people we’d just met today! Gosh, she is a social butterfly…

We left when she was so tired that she started laying down on the grass in the middle of playing, so I carried her home. But then, we ran in to her friend Madelyn that lives just a few houses down, who is about 2. And we just happened to meet up with her on top of a huge gathering of dry fallen leaves- a young girl’s dream come true!! The two of them played, just picking up and throwing leaves, for half an hour. They were having a ton of fun! And man, did I miss some super cute perfectly autumn themed pics with that…

Oh well, on to the pics I do have!

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