Daniel Is 21 Months Old!

Can you believe that Daniel is already 21 months old? He will be TWO in less than 3 months! We are amazed how fast the second year of his life has gone! Just for fun, look what Daniel looked like exactly a year ago... He was a cute, couldn't move around on his own, baby!




And now look at him... a cute, always on the go, toddler!


A child's growth and development is so special, such a blessing to be part of!

We have had several special times recently; some we didn't capture on camera... but for those that we did, check out the slide show below!

Starting Our Christmas Traditions... Photos and Video!

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved Christmas. But since becoming a follower of Jesus, it has grown to mean so much more, as I have gained a greater understanding of how amazing it is that God Himself came to earth as a vulnerable baby, to show us His love, how we are to live, and most importantly, to reconcile us with God through His death and give us hope for eternity through His resurrection. That is why we love to celebrate Christmas; there really is no better news!

I have always wanted to have family Christmas traditions; special things that we do every year together as a family. For different reasons, I didn't have this growing up, but it is something I have always desired... Thankfully now, having Daniel, we feel that the time has come for us to start our own family traditions. So this year, as Christmas quickly approaches and with much excitement, we have started to implement some of the traditions that we hope to do for many years to come...

The first Christmas tradition that we started this past Saturday (the weekend after Thanksgiving), was to put up our Christmas tree and other decorations together as a family, with Christmas music playing in the background. It was such a joyful time, I almost cried at times! Daniel had a great time too, it all went very smoothly (which with a toddler, I wasn't sure it was going to be that way :-))!

Have a look at the slide show of photos, which record the very first time that Daniel helped us decorate our home for Christmas...

And here is a short video of our special morning... If you listen carefully, you will hear Daniel talking, including him saying his own name - he recently started calling himself "Nani", he says it so cutely and gently!

We hope to implement several other traditions this year, so stay tuned for more on this!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful long weekend and I will be posting more blogs in the next few days with photos of several special moments that we had...

Thanksgiving was this past Thursday and we spent it with tia Nena, at the house of a very close friend of hers, Mariluce, and her 4 sons. We were not sure if Nena would be well enough to go, but she was! It was only 8 days after her surgery and we were all so thankful that she felt well enough to leave her home and even eat a little with us. Thanks again for your prayers!

Jonny and I talked a lot about what we were particularly thankful for this year and here is a quick summary of 5 things, in no particular order (I don't have as much time these days to write my usual long blogs, but I do want to keep a record!):

1. Daniel: We have really enjoyed him this past year as we have watched him develop from being a baby to a toddler; he gives us so much joy - most of the time :-)!

2. Jonny's new job: He really likes it; he is so much more motivated and excited about his new project.

3. My contentment and further healing: I have really grown to be content living here in the U.S. and am completely at peace about staying here now, until God opens a new door, which only He knows when that will be and I'm really OK with that... In terms of my continued healing after losing Jonathan David, this year we have seen even more progress and this has been evident by the increase in my energy, enjoyment of work, and participation in aerobic classes at the gym!

4. Our Church: We have been attending a new Church for almost a year now and we have grown so much this past year there, in many ways... We are also so thankful for the people we are getting to know there and what we have been learning about Fellowship.

5. Our Neighborhood: We have become closer to some of our neighbors and we just feel so blessed to live so close to them.

...And there is still so much more that we are thankful for.... including YOU dear loved ones!!!

Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us so much in so many ways this past year!

Here are some other photos taken on Thanksgiving...

Maria Helena enjoyed the dinner too! The food was so yummy, cooked by her close friend Mariluce.

Mariluce's 11 year old twins enjoying the dinner - sweet boys.

Since dinner was quite early, Daniel watched a DVD while we ate... He found this hat and wore it most of the evening (he loves hats!).



Mariluce's 4 sons have many pets: dog, cat, lizard, mice and birds! This is me showing Daniel the cute little birds...

One of the highlights of the evening for Daniel was playing chase with his papai!




Maria Helena resting after dinner, surrounded by love...

Encouraging Update With Cute Photos and Video

Hi Loved Ones! It's been a hectic time around here, but thankfully we have good news!

Maria Helena's surgery went very well last Wednesday and the news we received so far has been encouraging. The tumor that they removed from her stomach was smaller than they expected and did not appear to have spread. We will know more details later this week after more tests... In the meantime, she may be leaving the hospital either today or tomorrow and so far, she has been doing quite well. It will take some time for her to adjust to her new eating habits since they removed 2/3rds of her stomach, but she has not been experiencing much nausea or other expected complications so we are very thankful. She has also been experiencing less pain as this is now being managed well. She is expected to be back to work in 6-8 weeks so that was positive news too. Thank you for your prayers! Please continue to pray for her, in particular her healing and adjustments back at home, especially since she lives alone - though thankfully, she has so many loved ones that she is rarely alone!

We are getting excited because the end of year "holiday season" begins this week here, first with Thanksgiving this coming Thursday and then with the anticipation and preparations for Christmas. I hope to blog about all the different things we will be doing and we are particularly excited that my mother and step-father will be arriving in less than a month, followed by my sister and brother-in-law! We just can't wait for them to enjoy Daniel too!

For now, please enjoy the recent photos of Daniel enjoying the fall leaves:

And here is a cute video of Daniel running around outside after Church yesterday...

Asking For Your Prayers For Tia Nena

In the past few weeks, we have been walking closely with different loved ones through several different trials... It has been a difficult season for many. Please know that you are in our prayers often...

There is one particular trial, however, that I wanted to share with you and ask for your prayers. Our dear family friend Maria Helena (she has given me permission to share this with you), our only "family" here in the U.S. (she has known my family for over 35 years), will be having major surgery this coming Wednesday, to remove a large tumor in her stomach. The doctor's believe it is cancer, but we will not know for sure until after the surgery. Even if it's not cancer, this surgery will affect her quality of life since they will have to remove a large part of her stomach. She is expected to lose a lot of weight and will have to adjust her eating habits tremendously...

She is very much at peace; her faith in Jesus is so strong. She has a very strong network of friends and she is very loved. Even though she is a single woman living on her own, she is not feeling lonely and is getting a lot of support.

We feel blessed that we are able to be here to supoort tia Nena (as Daniel calls her and we have adopted) through this. In fact, we now can see that one of the reasons why we were meant to stay in this country (remember we tried hard to move?) was to be here for Nena. We love her dearly and with God's help, will support her through this as much as we can.

Please pray for her; for her surgery on Wednesday, her recovery, the diagnosis, her healing... I will keep you updated.

**********

Here are some recent photos of the boy wonder... He brings us so much joy every day! And we are thankful that he too will continue to bring tia Nena much joy through this difficult time in her life...

Daniel having a snack...

He just sat quietly in this chair and ate his biscuit like a big boy!

We had some of Jonny's colleagues from his previous job over for dinner on Saturday. Daniel loved Moira because she read books to him - one of his favorite activities!


If you ask him to show you things in the book, he often gets it right!

Daniel enjoyed playing with Yoichiro too.... Daniel has recently started to really like to play with legos and build tall towers...

This is Daniel this evening playing with his friend Enya's train...

Isn't he such a big boy?

Recent photos of Daniel at 20 months

I have been so busy at work recently that I've had to work quite a few evenings and so have not been able to blog this past week. I still have to finish some work tonight, but I thought I would quickly post some recent photos of Daniel at 20 months (which he recently turned). Thanks for those of you who let me know that you have been missing the blog; I hope to blog again soon!

We have been enjoying the fall. As long as Daniel is wrapped up, we can still have fun outside...

Some days though have been a bit too cold, so we have been trying new indoor places. We discovered that IKEA is such a fun place to go to during the week! It's not too busy and there are lots of things Daniel can play with in the children's section...

I think we will be visiting IKEA often these next few months...

And we love having lunch there too - it's cheap and yummy! The last time we went Daniel used his fork for most of the meal which surprised me (he still prefers to eat with his hands most of the time).

Daniel has been warming up to his potty given by my friend Kristen... I love him in his cute pyjamas.

This past Saturday we discovered a fantastic Japanese restaurant in our town. And Daniel loved the sushi and is obsessed by bean sprouts!

We just came back from a dinner play date with our neighbors and Daniel and Devesh played so well together! As Daniel gets older, they are interacting more and more and it's so cute and fun to watch! Thanks Heather and Parin for a wonderful evening!

Much love to you all! Hope you have a great week!

Our First Halloween

This evening, we experienced for the first time as a family the American tradition: Halloween. We invited some of our neighbors for a pot luck dinner at our house and then we all went out "trick-or-treating" together.

Our Japanese neighbor lent us a costume for Daniel and he was a cute little dragon! He wasn't too thrilled about the hat but he wore it for photos and when we went out. Thankfully, it was actually quite warm outside so the kids were comfortable in their costumes - though for Daniel, it was even too hot! It was so cute seeing the kids together dressed up... We are just so thankful that Daniel (and us) has such great friends living close by to share this experience with!

After dinner and before we went out, the kids in the neighborhood started knocking on our door and said "trick or treat!" This was the first time Jonny and I had ever given the kids sweets and I got so excited about it when they came! However, I did wish I wasn't giving them candy...I felt so bad about it that I even told some of them to make sure to brush their teeth! Uhm...I think they may skip our house next year! :-)

In all this experience however, there was something that really struck me: When we went outside, it was like our street was a different place. There were lots of people walking outside, homes had their doors open and lights on, people were greeting each other and were happy. We actually got to see for the first time some of our neighbors whom we had never seen before! So in a way, I could see one great benefit of this tradition: it is a time for people to connect with one another, however briefly. And at the same time, I felt sad. Sad that it takes a tradition like this, and in particular candy, to get people who live so close to one another to come out of their "shells." For just a few minutes though it was different... and it made me wish that it was the norm rather than the exception...

The cute little dragon.

Waiting for his little friends to arrive.

The three of them looking so cute dressed up: a dragon, a fairy and a fireman.

With our special neighbors: Irena (Justyna's mother), Justyna, Heather and Devesh.



Little dragon having dinner - the tail didn't bother him!


Our first time trick-or-treating! Daniel had no idea what was happening, but he went with the flow....



The three of them outside the most decorated house on our street.



We then went to Justyna's house and Irena, who is Polish, gave us candy too - this was the first time for her too! And Daniel walked straight into her house - he loves to play there!



Walking with Papai... This was the first time Daniel walked outside in the dark!


And with Mamae at the last home we visited...





Memorable times!