My Nathan is FOUR!

He wanted cupcakes with chocolate frosting. We had some leftover custard so Paul poked a hole and put some custard in the middle. YUM!

After cake, Grandma Winterton called to talk to Nathan!

First present opened: a guitar made by Emily!


"My tools!" (It almost sounded like he'd seen them before, maybe when he was shopping with me...)

He already knew the names of these "Thomas & Friends" characters: Troublesome Trucks! One of them giggles when you press the button. He played with these the most after opening presents, I think. Jacob is going to love them, too. He loves Nathan's other trains and loves to push buttons to make noise! Maybe it helped that he was taking a nap during present time.


Big fan of Thomas.


Matchbox truck that he can load his little cars into. He loves this. I knew he would, which made it so much fun to get for him.


The final present was for both Brandon and Nathan: a hot wheels race car track (Thrift Store find!). Brandon's birthday is on Friday.

Emily enjoys the race car set and the tools, too. She asked why the boys get a different kind of toys than she does. Specifically, she's never gotten anything like that race car set before. She just got pretty things for her birthday that don't really do anything. (She loved them, though!) I said, hmm... yeah, people give boys and girls different types of things, but girls are lucky to have brothers and brothers are lucky to have sisters so they can play with each other's toys! Would Brandon and Nathan play with Barbies and My Little Ponies if they didn't have a sister? She smiled. I always figured my brother was lucky he had sisters so he could get away with watching Little House on the Prairie with us! (But I don't think he ever played Barbies--did you, Dan?) And I had a ball playing with his electric train set with him, and his race car set, walkie talkies, etc. If I had kids of all one gender, I hope I'd get my girls some cars and trains, or my boys some dress-up clothes.

As a four-year-old, Nathan graduates to a simpler booster car seat, and today at lunch he asked me to take his booster seat off his chair. I asked him why, and he said, "Because I'm four!"

Summer is here!

School ended June 17. Yay!

Brandon got a kindergarten diploma and graduate's cap on the last day of school.

The day after that, we headed for the beach!

The next day was really hot, too, so the kids cooled off in the back yard.

Emily asked me to help her decorate her scripture case to look more girly. Think we succeeded?

Baby GIRL Campbell

So, I never posted on this blog that our new baby is a GIRL. We found out on May 12. Emily and Brandon were pretty excited to hear the news. They'd both been praying that it would be a girl--especially Brandon, who said there were already too many boys and that Emily needed a sister. :)

Since we found out it was a girl, we've begun the task of searching for a name. I got a bigger baby name book this time--The Complete Book of Baby Names. It claims to have the "100,001 best baby names." Well, it seems to me that a bigger book of baby names just has that many more RIDICULOUS names for a child! I think choosing another girl name is a harder task than I'd assumed! If you have any good name ideas, feel free to comment.

For a while after I got pregnant, I felt pretty nervous to have another baby. I thought, if only I had boundless energy and never needed any sleep, I'd do fine! I wouldn't be cranky, I'd meet all my kids' needs... but alas, I'm human. It comforted me a bit to read in my 2008 journal that I was scared before I had Jacob. I didn't know how I'd handle four kids. (And now look at what a pro I've become! Eh, heh...) I do remember being really tired sometimes when Jacob was still really little.

But back to the more recent past. My nervousness mounted and I really wanted relief. I knew if I talked to Paul about my fears that I would be strengthened. So, the other night I told him all about how worried I was that I would be irritable with the kids and be generally unhappy for a while, and I didn't know how I'd get them all ready for the bus stop in the morning, etc. And he did strengthen me. In fact, from then on, I've felt really different about it all. Now I feel I can just wait and see how it'll be without stressing over it beforehand; I feel even more grateful for this amazing gift of another child that God is giving to us; I trust that God is the best helper and that if I ask, He will help me do this! I know that things will be okay. And who knows how many more babies, if any, we'll be blessed with after this. So after she's born, I want to try to relax and soak in the joy of having a newborn. And another GIRL! (I'm so glad I saved a few of Emily's baby clothes! It'll be so fun to use them again!)

Negative!

From time to time, Jacob still gets liquid-filled bumps. When he was 12 months, the doc assumed they were still MRSA. She figured he was a constant carrier of the bacteria. But at his 18-month checkup, the doctor (a different lady) took three skin tests to see if Jacob was a MRSA carrier, and all came back NEGATIVE. Now that is good news!

More Spring Happenings

Jacob signs "more" over and over when he sees food on the dinner table. It's a definite improvement over the screaming he used to do when he wanted food!


June 5, Paul made this lovely Japanese ensemble called mosubi: rice, fried spam, and eggs wrapped in seaweed. Everyone liked it.

On April 10, Paul ran the Ie Island half marathon. What a stud.


On May 25, Emily's 2nd grade class performed a hula dance for the Asian Pacific Heritage Month assembly. She's on the right. They made their own yarn leis in class.

For the past few months, Emily has participated in Taiko drum club (see last month's post). The girls in the club also learned a Japanese girls' dance and performed it at the Asian-Pacific Heritiage Month assembly. They were so cute in their kimonos!

Emily also participated in Music Club this year. Here she is during a performance for parents.

Nathan's preschool class had an end-of-year program. They sang songs and received certificates. He didn't feel like singing the songs for the parents, but he didn't mind posing for this picture with his teacher, Ms. Melina (right), and Ryoko-san, the teacher's assistant, who also taught them monthly lessons on Japanese culture.

The kids love seeing big bugs.

On Saturday, June 5, Brandon lost his second front tooth!

The same day, I gave Brandon a shorter haircut than he's had before. He initially was asking me to shave his head (no need to comb!). I showed him pictures online of kids with really short buzz cuts to be sure he knew what he was getting into, and he changed his mind and asked me just to give him a trim, but Paul and I talked him into getting a shorter cut. We all love it, including Brandon. (And it is easier for him to comb.)