Happy Days B.A.D.

Here are some pictures of fun things we did BAD (Before Ai-chan Died):

In the New Year, making mochi is a Japanese tradition. This is how it's made: put a bunch of especially sticky rice in a wooden barrel and then hammer it with a wooden mallet until it turns into a sticky blob. Divide the sticky blob and dust the pieces with a little (rice?) flour. Garnish with soy sauce or sweet beans and then go to it, unless you're me. I dislike mochi very much! So this mochi-making party at Koji's school on January 5th was not my favorite function. But Koji was a model mochi manufacturer!
One of the highlights of the evening was this koto performance by one of Koji's teachers, Masako-sensei, and her friend.
So the kids are shaping their own mochi, I think? It's so hard for me to take interest in mochi...
January 6th, at home: Izumi's so versatile, though she loves her Christmas stroller and giving her "babies" a ride, she doesn't mind helping out a Power Ranger either.
Here's the gingerbread house that I made out of a kit I bought, thinking it would be a fun, Christmas tradition thing to do with Koji and eventually with both kids when Izumi's older. We'll see about that. I couldn't overcome my perfectionism (not that I have much of it, but the little I do seems to come out on these kind of projects) and let Koji stick the candy on haphazardly, so he soon lost interest, especially when I wouldn't let him eat it. Not to mention, he found it boring that we had to wait at least 30 minutes to let the icing that held it together dry before we could actually decorate it. Frankly, I got bored with it too, and that's why I finished things up real quick by writing the kids' names on the roof! We'll just see if this "tradition" is around next year or not...
Obviously, this side of the house was dedicated to Izumi, though I couldn't quite get her to pose.
January 7th was a crazy, fluke, 50 something degree day so the kids and I played outside in the yard at Koji's school. After that, I took him to the doctor and found out he had strep throat. Oops!
On January 12th, some friends joined us with their kids for an outing to the new Veggie Tales movie, "Pirates Who Don't Do Any*thing". It was cute, and I think the kids liked it, although I'm sure that many of the parts that were hilarious to me went right over their heads!
Mari and Izumi settled right into their theatre booster seats like they go to the movies all the time. And as I experienced when I took Koji and Izumi to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" on Christmas Eve, Izumi was a model movie watcher as long as she had a constant supply of popcorn. Note how she's got her eye on Mari's stash in this photo...
January 13th: the night before I went to my fateful doctor appointment, we enjoyed a blissful evening of celebration; Joelle's fourth birthday party. One of the main activities was painting birdhouses. Yes, Jon and MJ (Joelle's parents) are very brave! Koji loved it, for a few days he couldn't stop asking me when we were going to put some birdseed in the birdhouse and hang it on the tree in the back yard. Oh yeah, I guess I still need to work on that.
Izumi's best mean face: admit it, you're intimidated.
Not having Ai join our family after all is heart wrenching for me, of course, but almost more so when I think of what Izumi will be missing. She LOVES babies: it was her idea to "hold" our little friend Amelia at the birthday party, and she didn't want to put her down.
It's no accident that Koji is right next to the birthday girl, Joelle; after all, she's right next to the cupcakes!