Iron Chef Melissa

Did you know that I'm an Iron Chef winner! O.k. so not from the show Iron Chef. Our Branch had a ward activity and there was an Iron Chef competition. We had 3 different secret ingredients to choose from and then it was either side, main or dessert. Our choices were apples, cranberries or pumpkin. I chose to do an apple side dish. I made Salpicao, it's a Brazilian dish. It is shredded chicken with ham strips, peas, carrots, palm hearts and apples mixed with mayo and topped with potato sticks. It is probably my favorite Brazilian dish. It is typically eaten as a side at bbq's but can be for any time. Well, there were several other dishes in my category, but I was the Iron Chef winner for apple side dish! I was so proud! Everyone loved it and I had none left over to bring home. Yeah me! Just thought I'd share.

She didn't even care!

Today was a big day at church for our family. Samuel had the Primary Program and he actually went up and did his part this year! That was a big step for him. Last year he refused to go and do it. He was a little reluctant to go and Juanpablo had to walk with him up to the front. But he stayed up there and didn't cry. He almost cried, but then he was with the other kids in his class and his teacher and he was fine. He did a really good job! He sang the songs and did his part which he had memorized. He didn't get up and play around, he just sat there and did so good! We are very proud of him!

Today was also Bella's first time at Nursery! I was a little worried because Sam didn't want anything to do with Nursery! We took her in and she was grabbing hold of my leg and I had flashbacks to Sam's entire Nursery experience. I was worried! Then Juanpablo got her a puzzle, she wouldn't go get any toys on her own. And she started playing with the puzzle and Juanpablo left. Then as she was still looking to see if I was there I stayed a little longer. I started backing for the door and was worried how she would do when I left. She turned around and looked at me as I was backing out the door. She didn't cry. She just watched me leave and then I waited outside the door to see if she would start crying and after a few minutes someone opened the door and I peeked in and she was still happily playing with the puzzle. I left and went to class happy but strangely sad at the same time. I was happy because she didn't have a melt down, but part of me was sad that she didn't have a melt down! Do you know what I mean? Well, I was in the hall between classes and one of the nursery workers was carrying Arabella to take the older nursery kids to their other class and I thought oh no she's gonna see me and that's it. Well, I tried to not let her see me, but it didn't work. She looked right at me and said Mama! But the nursery worker kept walking and Bella watched me but didn't cry at all. So, I went on to Relief Society and it was so weird to not have Bella in there with me. I'm used to having her sleeping on my lap throughout Relief Society or trying to get her to stay quiet so I can hear the lesson. It was nice to be able to pay attention to the lesson without having to worry about a little one. So, it was a great day! Everyone is happy and everything worked out great!

For all you Austen fans....

There is a great book that I kinda just finished, but actually I can keep going back and reading it again and it's a whole different story. Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books that they had when we were little? It's a book like that but it takes you through all of Jane Austen's most popular books, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. You are Elizabeth Bennett and it starts out in Pride and Prejudice. But then you have to make choices as you are going about the story. And you might just end up with Mr. Knightly from Emma instead of Mr. Darcy. Or maybe you believe Mr. Wickham and never learn the truth about him and end up with him. Or what if you said yes to Mr. Collins! Or maybe you meet Edward Ferrars or Henry Tilney. It's so much fun! If you don't like Jane Austen or have never read her novels, then you just won't get it. But, if you are like me and love them, it's a must read! It's just a fun adventure in Jane Austen's make believe world. You may even get to run into Mr. Lefroy from Jane's own life. I highly recommend it! I got it at Amazon.com and it was only $3.99! So, go get it and enjoy! It's called Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster.

Crazy Day...but fun....

On Saturday we had a fun crazy day! We went to a baptism at the beach in the morning. Sam is excited about the fact that we will be here when he turns 8 so he can be baptised at the beach. Then we came home and got ready to head out to another beach to try snorkeling for the first time. It was so much fun! Bella wasn't as unhappy at the beach this time. She hated standing in the sand and she wouldn't let go of Juanpablo or I when in the water. We found this really cool swimsuit for her. It has was looks like a tire attached to it! So, she floats in the water. But it's kinda hard holding her and stuff. We had to blow it up with a bicycle pump, like a real tire.

She even played in the sand a little, but only as long as it didn't get on her feet! She didn't mind it on her hands, she just couldn't stand it if it was on her feet! She is so funny! Sam really enjoyed the snorkeling! He has a superman swimsuit with a built in life jacket. So, that helped him to float and he would kick his feet and hold our hand so that he could follow us. Juanpablo and I took turns snorkeling with Sam or trying to help Bella enjoy the water and sand. She has changed her complete hatred for the beach, so that's good! I think she really did enjoy it some this time!

Here Sam and Juanpablo are snorkeling. You can see Sam the best in the picture. Juanpablo is behind Sam and you can pretty much just see the top of his head and his snorkel.
Bella and I enjoyed playing on the beach while Juanpablo and Samuel were snorkeling.

The water here is so beautiful! It's so clear! We decided that we are gonna have to get an underwater camera!

After spending a couple of hours at the beach we went to the Air Force Base and went to the Chilli's Festival. Sam had fun playing games and winning stuff. It was a long but fun day! We'll definitely be going snorkeling again!

Halloween!

Well, it was a fun halloween! The kids had a blast. We went around the base and trick or treated. Bella walked for a good amount of time but then she got tired and was just done with trick or treating. She wouldn't go to any more houses. So then she got to ride on Daddy's shoulders or in his arms. Then she was happy and let Sam keep going. Arabella was Tinkerbell, that's probably not a surpise to anyone who has seen her room...there's Tink and her fairy friends all over Bella's room! Samuel has a ton of costumes and couldn't decide who he wanted to be. We just figured that he would pick one of the many costumes that he already had. Then about 4 days ago he decided that he just had to be Ben 10! So, we had to figure out something because we didn't have time for anything to be mailed here. So, I got a white shirt and sewed the black on the front and then used a fabric pen to do the neck and arms, I just didn't have time to do everything. Then we had to find some green pants, luckily we found some at the base thrift store that were perfect! Except that they were size 8, so we just stuck a belt on him and they actually weren't that long with the shoes on and so it worked out. I was surprised that so many of the kids that we passed by knew that Sam was Ben 10. I didn't realize how popular it was. One girl even knew that Sam was Ben 10 from behind! They had so much fun and now Sam is handing out candy when trick or treaters come to the door and he is having just as much fun, if not more, giving the candy away then he did getting his own! He is so cute! Here are some pictures.

Our Pretty little Tinkerbell!

Ben 10 becoming one of the monsters he changes into.

Tinkerbell Trick or Treating

Ben 10 getting ready to change. (that's what Sam told me was happening when I took the picture)

My husband is awesome!

He has the most amazing ideas! He's just so creative. We all get so excited when family home evening comes around and dad is in charge of the games! We know that it won't be some board game or hide and go seek, not that there's anything wrong with those, that's what I think of. No, daddy figures out some crazy fun thing that we have to do and he puts so much work into it! Since we've come to Japan we have been trying to be better about having Family Home Evening every week. We have been doing pretty good, I don't think we've missed a week! We have it split into four sections, lesson, games, snack and conducting, since there are four of us. So, Juanpablo has only had games twice. I'm gonna post pictures of those 2 times so you can see. One day a couple of months ago I asked Sam what he would want to do if he could do anything in the world, he could win all the toys he's ever wanted, go to space on a rocket ship, anything. Without even pausing for a minute he said that he would want to be on American Gladiators! I was a bit surprised by that, since he could have anything in the world. But that's just Sam. Well, the first time that Juanpablo had games for family home evening he, all by himself because he wouldn't even tell me what he was doing, set up American Gladiators in our apartment! We have a door that shuts off the living room from the bedrooms so he shut the door and wouldn't let any of us in while he set up. This is what we did....

Sam got to do most of what they do on the show, at least a home version of what they do on the show and some stuff that they don't. He started out having to go through a maze under the table then had to run as fast as he could through a tunnel. He had to throw balls into the laundry basket while avoiding being hit by balls that the gladiator(dad) was throwing at him.

He had to force his way through 2 big gladiators to get to his next challenge.

He had to do the joust with a gladiator (that would be me) and then battle the 2 gladiators again and finally break through the final barrier, like they do on the show, but not into a pool!
Even Bella got to do it, though she was a more careful about it than Sam!

We had so much fun! And when it was done Sam was so excited he wanted to do it again. After doing some of it again he told me, "Daddy made my dream come true!" It was so cool!

Then this past week he had games again. Again he didn't let me in on the secret of what he had planned. Some of Sams toys (batman, spiderman and superman) were kidnapped!

And we had to follow the clues to find them. It was fun.

Juanpablo made up all the clues and hid them all over the house.

Sam would get more and more excited every time that he found a new clue.

We had to get some help from daddy on some of the clues because we couldn't figure them out, but we had so much fun! And of course we rescued the superheros!

Bella had fun running around with us and trying to help. It was so cute!

It was just a really creative and fun game. I can't wait to see what he will come up with the next time he has games! I'm sure it will be amazing!

Kids are funny...

We were at the 100 yen store (it's the Japanese version of the dollar store, but it's way better than any dollar store in the states!) on Sat. and we found these masks. Sam loves to play superhero so he just had to have one. There were 4 types in different colors. Sam, of course, chose green, his favorite color. A little while later Sam and Juanpablo found me and they had gotten the other 3 colors of masks too. They decided it would be fun for each of us to have a mask. Sam said I should have blue since it's my favorite color and so that left Juanpablo with red or yellow, he chose red so Bella got yellow. When we got home we took this picture.

It's kinda funny that it's got numbers on the top, so we decided to get in numerical order for the picture. Surprisingly Bella kept the mask on and let us take the picture.

Then today we were sitting around and Sam was telling me that it was time for him to take a rest, he has to do that everyday at kindergarten and I guess he just felt it was necessary today. He got some paper and wrote stop stop rest and showed me then he wrote M D A (for mommy, daddy and Arabella) He said that those were the people who shouldn't bother him while he was resting because and I quote "you don't wanna get any of this"...he then proceded to show me some of his Karate moves. He's never taken a karate lesson so it was just a bunch of kicks and stuff, but oh my goodness! He made me laugh so hard! He looked at me like I was crazy or something because he didn't see anything funny about what he had said or did. He is just such a cool kid! I don't know where he comes up with some of the stuff that he does, but you can't be upset or sad around him. It's a great quality that he has! Sometimes I just stand it awe listening to him. If you haven't heard one of his stories then you're really missing out! I'll have to have him tell me a story to post on here. Then you'll see what I mean. He's awesome! Can you tell I love this little guy? But then again how could you not love this face?!