Month of birthdays

After celebrating 3 birthdays in January, we are a little bit tired of cake! I almost talked Cailey into cheesecake, but she couldn't pass up the pink frosting. Here are a few pics from Bryant's 3rd birthday on the 18th and Cailey's 5th birthday on the 30th.

Isaac's Blessing

Yesterday was Isaac's blessing. Since we live on the other side of the world and no one could be here, we thought we would at least snap some photos. We are standing outside of our church at the Yamate ward building. There is a monument in front of it because this is where the first Elders dedicated Japan for missionary work.

Fuji Birthday celebration

Mt. Fuji at Lake Kawaguchiko

Shane did a great job surprising me for my birthday this year. He took us to see Mt. Fuji. We hear that this is the best time of the year to see it. Most of the year it rains so often that there is seldom a day that the clouds don't cover it. We went to a lake called Kawaguchiko and the view from there was amazing. It really was beautiful, these pictures don't do it justice. We were surprised at how close it was to us. It only took us about an hour and a half to drive there.
We spent the day there and drove home in the late afternoon.

Around 5:30 pm our friends from Sendai, Katie Shepard and her daughter Grace (Cailey's friend) came to stay the night with us. They had to drop off family at the airport that day and so it was fun to be able to see them. Katie gave me a great present. She watched all of the kids while Shane and I went out to eat. We went to find a restaurant by the Yokohama eki (train station) where there are hundreds of shops and restaurants, but because it was New Years day(the biggest holiday of the year in Japan), almost everything was closed. It was so weird to see it like that! We finally did find some that were open and ended up eating at an Indian curry restaurant.
It was a great day for me. This year's birthday/New Year's celebration will be hard to beat.

For the sake of tradition

A few years ago we started making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers before Christmas. We really enjoy it (maybe it's all the candy...) and so it has become a family tradition. Graham crackers are hard to come by in Japan, but when we were in Sendai we knew of an import store where we could get them. This year we wanted to do it again, so we looked all over Yokohama for graham crackers. Shane finally found some and ended up paying about 8 dollars for a small box of nasty tasting no-name brand graham crackers, all for the sake of tradition. Why didn't I just make real gingerbread?? Because you can't get molasses here either. Anyway, we had a great time making them so I guess it was worth the 8 bucks.

Happy 4 weeks

Today is Isaac's four week birthday. These first weeks of life are counted by the days and weeks for me. Each week is like a milestone..."wow, I made it another week." The aftermath of this birth has been much better for me, but still, the lack of sleep and demands of a newborn are not easy. I have been on my own (without help from our wonderful families who came all the way to Japan to help me) now for over a week. The hardest part is the morning when I don't want to get out of bed but I have to because I need to get Cailey out the door to school and take care of Isaac and Bryant.

If this picture of Isaac looks like a mug shot, it's because it is. Since Isaac was born in Japan, there has been a long list of things that we have had to do so that we can take him back to America with us. He got his Japanese visa this week and now we have to take him to the US embassy to get a passport, birth certificate, etc. We took this picture of Isaac for his passport. They are very picky about the picture, and it is not easy to get a newborn to cooperate. Eyes open, looking forward, on a white background, head size between 1" to 1 3/8 ", etc.

Isaac is here!!

Only hours after posting my last blog, I finally went into labor on my own. It was about 2 am when the contractions woke me up and by 5 am we were at the hospital. 3 hours later at 8:00 am on November 15th Isaac Thomas Griffin was born. He weighed 3690 grams (8 lbs 2 oz). I was very relieved that the labor went so fast (for me, it was very fast). I survived the natural birth and even the 5 day hospital stay (barely...on the later). I took a picture of one of my breakfasts just to give you an idea (the little white things in with the beans are fish, complete with eyeballs). Isaac is a very good baby and I seem to be recovering much better this time around. I hope it lasts....

Isaac Thomas Griffin

My mom, Cailey and Bryant

Breakfast at the hospital

Waiting is the hardest part!!!

I am one week overdue and let me tell you that this has been the longest week of my life! They will start inducing me tomorrow, so I guess there is an end in sight. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, because the technique they will use sounds a bit unpleasant...something about a balloon in my cervix. My mom is here and we have been trying to find things to do to pass the time. We have been out on several walks. Japan is absolutely beautiful right now. We have had beautiful sunny fall days this whole week.

My mom, dad, and brother Michael came to visit us on the 24th of October. One of the first places we went to was a beautiful Japanese style garden. There is a large pagoda up on a hill.

They were here for Halloween too. The Japanese love to celebrate this holiday, but usually there are just parties, not trick or treating. There is an area near us called Motomachi. There are a lot of high end shops that cater to the foreigners that live around the area. The shops at Motomachi had a big Halloween festival going on with trick or treating at the stores. There were so many kids there! That night we carved our pumpkin that we found at Costco. We love Costco...