Powder Puff Derby

Emily participated in a "Powder Puff Pinewood Derby" yesterday through church, for girls ages 8-11.  A Pinewood Derby is usually for Cub Scouts, but this time the girls got a chance!  She sanded and painted her car by herself.

Emily's car is the sparkly pink one on the right side, 5th one up, with the stack of nickels on top!

Each girl got an award for something about their car.  Emily's won "Most Artistic."

Emily's car also won first place overall for speed!  Yay, Emily!

So she got the big crown.  (She liked the little tiaras better, haha.) 
Her friend on her right got the medal for the best sportsmanship, or "Miss Congeniality."

She keeps her car and trophy on her knickknack shelf. 
She painted things on the car to represent things she loves:  pink, blue, flowers, a book, a fairy, a horse, and E for Emily.

Emily says, "I got a blue ribbon, a green glow stick, a green bracelet, and green nail polish."  She's going to be ready for St. Patty's Day!  When asked about her experience with the Derby, Emily said, "Fun...  What else am I supposed to say?"

Japanese drumming for Emily and Brandon

Emily is in Eisa Dancing Club at her school this year (a type of Japanese dancing). While dancing she drums a paranku (although a few students drum Taiko drums, which are bigger). She has practice twice per week after school and absolutely loves it. We bought her her own tabi--shoes especially for Eisa dancing that have a split toe.  She loves them.  It was so exciting to see her first performance this month! 

Obliging her mom for more pictures

Brandon is in Taiko drumming club this year.  He hasn't had a performance yet so the kids aren't in costume, but here are some pictures his teacher took during a practice.

Setsubun

We like to do some Japanese holiday traditions to educate the kids about our surrounding culture.  Feb. 3 is a holiday called Setsubun.  For this holiday you buy some roasted soybeans and throw them out of the house saying, Oni wa soto! (Demons out) and then throw some inside the house and say Fuku wa uchi! (luck in).  We like to go along with this and have fun with the soybeans.  They're sort of delicious, too.  This year the soybeans I bought had a mask attached for a family member to wear to pretend he's the demon, and you throw the soybeans at him.  It was so much more fun that way, and after a while the neighbor kids joined us and took turns dodging the soybeans.

Brandon was the first to play the demon.

Getting some soybeans.  Looks like Brandon is eating some here.

The package for the soybeans and the mask that came with it.

Jacob Turned 3 in November!

Jacob turned 3 on Nov. 28 and I never posted the pictures!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  2012 brought some changes for the kids at church.  Jacob is now in the Sunbeam class in Primary.  I taught Sharing Time on Jan. 1 so made sure to involve the new Sunbeams.  Jacob loves to participate.  He also sang as best he could with the new song the kids learned today.  Emily, Brandon, and Nathan all got new teachers at church, and Nicole started nursery today!  She's only 15 months old--not old enough to officially be in nursery (18 mos.), but since all but one nursery kid moved up to Sunbeams today, they figured Nicole might as well come in early to join him.  Yahoo, twist my arm!  She had a good time and especially loved the graham crackers. 
Jacob is growing into his big boy identity really nicely, being fully potty trained now to boot!  Acting like a big boy is so cute that it also gets him lots of positive attention from his parents!

We have a few New Year's traditions:  On New Year's Eve we have hot chocolate, and after the kids (and I) are in bed, Paul goes with friends to the shrine to ring the bell before midnight.  On New Year's Day, we hang our "Happy New Year" banner and have sparkling cider for dinner.  Sometime around then we go to the shrine as a family to buy our fortunes and hang them up there, and we buy some yummy Japanese fair-type foods from the vendors there.  This year we went on Jan. 3:

Vendors line up to sell food.

We went to see the bell by a less-busy area outside the shrine.

Eating our snacks - Nicole wasn't sure about the creamy stuff in this roll

but it sure was yummy!

The wooden beam wasn't there to ring it anymore, but this was the bell Paul rang on New Year's Eve.

We love these gooey balls (dango) made out of rice flour (mochi) with a sweet teriyaki (?) sauce.

We got fortunes to hang up on the strings by the shrine.

Year of the dragon