Ikea Dinner Date

Recently the kids and I were on our own on a Friday night so we headed to Ikea for dinner & play.  It is one of the few places where I can sit back and relax while the kids enjoy their meal and play a bit.  It is also a place to get great ideas for improving our home... and pick up items for class.

It is also a place to go to see how much the kids have grown!

Boxes...

Yepp, boxes make great toys!

This is a simple recipe for an hour of fun :-)

Valentin's Time

Valentine's Day is a welcome celebration in our home.  The kids love to share the love!

One evening they took over the living room table to make cards.  

We have a hard time working at the regular table winter in because even with the heater on it is so cold in that room!  Thus is life without insulation... ;-)

 A little Valentine's making while waiting for breakfast...

 We've started using chalk to leave messages by the front gate.

A special "love-love" bento for Zilla as he had school on the 14th.  Usually my husband and I take turns making bentos but on this day we teamed up to "show our love"!

Zilla did try to convince me that because it is Valentine's Day he should stay home with his family, who he loves, instead of go to class.  Perhaps next year?

We've also been reading a lot of Valentine's books!  Here is a link to some of our favorites!

Kotoba & Sign Amazon.co.jp Valentine's Store

Busy January

We've slipped through January and landed in February!
I've been busy working on things with Kotoba & Sign and ベビー・サイニングタイム.
While the kids have not been neglected my blogs have been!  When life gets busy something has to give and this time it was blogging.  However, I've still been taking pictures and have many moments worth remembering so here are some of them in no particular order:

 Tea Time during home school

Mega "helping" Zilla ride his bike 

Working hard and loving it! 

Valentine's factory - love can be messy! 

Stickers snowmen 

A bit of quiet time while working with the "Quiet Book" 

A special yummy bento made by Daddy to eat between Mommy's classes

snow angels - and discovering that big snowflakes tickle! 

A 2-person bike inside a tent 

Teeter-totter time with Daddy

Zoo Trip

Zilla is 5 yrs. old

Mega is 2 yrs. old

This week Zilla ended up having just 1 1/2 days of school.
Monday - national holiday 
Tuesday - snow day
Wednesday - 1/2 day as the preschool had something for next year's new students in the afternoon
Thursday - regular full day
Friday - 5 yr. old class to Disneyland 
The 3 yr. old and 4 yr. old classes were cancelled so the teachers can help with the class trip.  Each "grade" at Zilla's school has about 70 kids divided into 3 classes.


Since Zilla had so much "free" time this week I knew Friday he needed to get out of the house.  It was cold - about 5 deg. C with a cold wind - but the kids don't seem to notice the temperature when there is something fun to do!

So, we headed to the zoo. We haven't been there in a while but judging by how well the kids did on this trip we'll probably be going more often!

 As preparation before going we watched the Signing Time Leah's Farm and Zoo Train DVDs.  I also made up a new set of animal flashcards from the Classroom Edition.  The refresher course (for me and Zilla) was a great help as Mega was really on top of her animal signs!

I have a bit more about the signing aspect of our visit over at the Kotoba & Sign blog.

We were able to see the pandas.  Since the zoo wasn't crowded we were able to stand around and watch for as long as we liked. 

 When your 2 yr old can "read" and animal pictures on the map she somehow ends up being the tour guide...

Zilla and Mega both really enjoyed the new polar bear exhibit.  It has been "fixed up" nicely since our last visit and we arrived at feeding time! 

 Signing "turtle" on a turtle.

The petting zoo ended up being their favorite part of the day.  Neither kids wanted to touch the animals at first but they were very careful and warmed up to the animals pretty quickly!