Christmas Parties

Here's our first Christmas party that we went to. Sarah, my sister, her husband invited us to his work do. It was amazing. They had a huge BBQ and a waterslide, bouncy castle, 4 wheelers, horses to ride, free Mr. Whippy ice creams, free candy floss, rides on old vintage cars, a clown with tricks and balloons, Santa.
It was funny because Santa came in at the end in a vintage car and the kids took one look and started chasing him around the field. It was the funniest thing ever. Masaru just ran after his cousins yelling 'Santa, Santa, Santa!'. He stopped and threw out lollies for them.
Masaru got a gift and had the best time ever. It was a lot of fun. I dressed Yuki up in her Christmas dress she got from a friend.
Here's pic's of my brother, Bevin, taking Masaru and Elise down the slide. They loved it and had so much fun. It had a hose at the top squirting water and dishsoap out constantly. I'll have to remember it for the next ward party in Utah!!! We've got a great hill that we could do it on!!
Again Bevin and Masaru on the 4 wheeler having fun.
And last but not least Masaru having fun on the bouncy castle. When I got this shot I was laughing out loud for ages. Actually I still laugh out loud now when I look at it. I forgot his swimming togs and so he had to wear his shorts on the slide, then he wanted to go on the bouncy castle and his pants were wet and so didn't stay on him properly! Classic!
He also went on the back of a vintage car, while it raced around the paddock and down the hills and around the trees. Probably one of the first times he's been allowed to hop in the back part of a truck and ride around.
We also had the ward Christmas party on Friday night. It was suppose to start at 6pm and started at 7:30pm. Welcome home to NZ!! Where we think an hour and a half later is fair in our country lol. My mum ended up going home. I didn't turn up till 7:15 though so it was perfect timing lol. The feed there was MASSIVE and there were items done.
Masaru got to hear the polynesian drums for the first time. They're so loud and mesmorising he just sat there and stared in amazment.
Yuki slept through it!! Who knows how she did that, but it was good for us.
Yesterday Dru and Llewellyn and I did some painting and odd jobs around his house. Llewellyn has big plans this summer for his house since Dru's home for 6 months. So by the time we leave it'll be looking great.
Things are going well. Masaru has his kindy Christmas party on Tuesday so I'll take some pic's there and it's Elise's and Tomomi's birthday as well.
It's a tough time of year for me to be trying to loose weight. So far I'm loosing nothing except the battle LOL.

What we've been up to...

Well, finals are over for me and you all know I'm relieved. I spent the rest of the morning today, after my last exam, running all over the valley to find the elusive toy that was on sale at Target this week, yet nobody had one in stock. I finally ended up in Sandy, where the employees were good enough to pull one out of eight from the back before they were on the shelves. Graham will be thrilled.

Ryan is kicking into high gear with a variety of projects. He has a number of people wanting him to do little side jobs for them, and he has some work to do at our house the next few nights to prepare for insulators that are coming to do the basement on Thurs. In addition, work has been busy for him and he has been logging a fair bit of overtime lately. The tree is up, the parties beginning (this weekend we have 3, one per night), and I have a mountain of projects to do around the house, both to get ready for the holiday, and just to get caught up in general.

Here is a peek at what's going on at our house, the tree, the boys dressed up, and the snow, snow, snow we received last weekend (from our deck). We probably got about a a foot at our house, though it has settled some since then.

Piklets

Here's a picture of Masaru making piklets with his cousins in Grandma's kitchen. Man the pile of dishes left were up to the roof lol. And when you have to do them by hand it really matters lol. I've never done so many dishes by hand since I was living in NZ last time 6 years ago.
Masaru's were red ones. They're basically small pancakes. We don't really do pancakes here in NZ it's mostly piklets. Anyway his cousins ones were green and blue.
Here's the latest pic's of Yuki all dolled up and ready to go out on the town. She's doing well and is a really good baby. She's very content and I have lots of help which is nice you know.
It's been raining the last few days so no park time. But Masaru's been to kindy though and they have loads of activities to play inside so that's good. He painted his first picture the other day and it's up on Grandma's wall. It's actually pretty good I think.
Dru and I are doing well. Plugging along. We've got 2 Christmas activities to go to this week, which will be fun. Maybe I'll get some good pic's there.
Love you guys
Dru Nakaya clan

Tah-dah...

Well, it's finally done. I have all the Christmas decorations up and everything is done except for the lights on the house. Bjorn has to do that part as he will not allow me to climb on the roof(even though he really hates getting up there.) I had hoped to have it all done by the weekend, but our weekends always go way too fast. We had a birthday party for Rachelle's Nicolas, and then a friend, Kate, from BYU days came for a visit and we had the Ward Christmas party on Saturday. I was doing good to get all the lights on the tree and get the decorations on it by 10:30 Sunday night. Now if I can figure out how to keep Yoda away from the tree and the rest of the decorations while we are gone I will be doing good.

I thought you might enjoy a few picture of Myles. These are the first smiles caught on film. I think he is getting really cute, maybe I'm a little biased. We are two days into the no night feedings. I am loving it except that my milk is still producing like I am feeding during the night. I hope it will cut down soon. Today I woke up in a puddle. Myles is doing great. I wake at 5 to see if he would like to eat. Today he didn't want to eat until 7am. That's good sleep for me, well not yet, but it will be. Right now I wake up all night long thinking he should be getting up anytime now...Why is it that mom's always get the short end of the stick when it comes to sleep. If we aren't actually up, we are thinking that we should be up.

Hope all of your holiday preparations are well underway!