January, February, March and April

Woo hoo! A blog update, just to check it off my "to do before baby list". :-) Since January we've had 2 cousins come to visit, and really enjoyed showing them both around the island. We got to do some new things with them too, so that was great. Here's Cousin R. on the roller slide. The 2 weeks she was here in January turned out to be the coldest of the season (see the short-sleeved shirts?. . . no, it really was around 45 on some of the other days). 

We went to the Butterfly Gardens with Cousin R. and walked around for half an hour trying to get them to land on us before they finally did. A. freaked out a little, but eventually she had about 5 on her hand all at one time, with a big group of tourists standing around her taking her picture because they weren't landing on any of them. We had fun. I think we'd do that again, for the cheap price! Did you know that every butterfly likes a different kind of flower? A. and I learned that in our "learning time". That's probably why there was only one kind of butterfly there at the garden, and why we don't see too many different ones in our field out back. 

 This pic is D. in mid-May. Isn't she beautiful? She's talking tons now, probably as much or more than A. did at this age. A. really loves her and is a great big sister, always looking out for her. They play well together too, which is something I hope will stick around for as long as possible. 

A. started ballet/tap class at Kadena, a 30 minute drive from our place. She goes once a week and has been absolutely loving it. We're STILL waiting on her ballet shoes from Target, though . . grrr, it's been almost 3 months! She loves her teacher, who just looks like a perfect ballerina and is really kind and gentle with them. I'm having fun watching her through the windows in her first organized activity. She has more rhythm than I do, at least! 

When Cousin C. was here in April, we took a 30 minute ferry ride out to Ie Island, where they hold a Lily festival every year. They say there are a million lilies on the island, which I guess if you count each individual blossom, could be true. There were tons of white lilies, but they also had grown lots of different colored ones. We girls all loved the colored ones, but Daddy wasn't too impressed. He said they just dye them, but the actual petals looked different on some of the colors, so I'm not convinced. 

Another park we played at with Cousin C. I can't believe what a big kid D. is becoming. She's going to seem extra big when we have a newborn in the house again in a few weeks.