Welcome to the world

We are very excited to introduce our baby daughter. She was born on the 8th of May at 2:05 in the morning. She was much smaller than her brothers, weighing 2848gs and was 46.3cm long.

Here are some photos of Ashley during the first few days of her life outside mummy's tummy - This is the third round for us and we know it well but are still amazed at how much the little babies change day by day!

10min after she was born:



First time meeting her brothers (Day1):





Look at her hair - need a haircut already! (Day2):



Like her brother, she likes sleeping holding up a fist (Day3):    



Very excited brothers are back!



With her grandmother (Day4):



In her hospital ninja outfit:



Finally in her PINK clothes! (Day 6) - Going home!!



And this is Ashley 1 week old - she is very alert:



Who does she look like the most? The majority of the people who have seen Ashley says Oliver - and I agree she looks very much like Oliver when he was a newborn :) We are all looking forward to getting to know her!

Welcome to the world our precious daughter! Sooooo happy you are finally here!

Pillow festival

This is one of the festivals held in our neighborhood during golden week. According to the Hineno Shrine website it started in 1585. It used to be a quite a violent festival, pushing these tall pillars into each other but now it is just a calm one. There are 25 handmade pillows on a 5 meter stick and they will carry it around the whole neighborhood during the 3 day festival. People make these pillows wishing for babies, safe delivery of babies and finding good partners etc.

We heard them outside our house so went out and had a look.





The pillows are quite colourful. Oliver loved the koinobori ones:





The boys were treated with special Japanese rice cakes - Oliver doesn't like it but Luca loved it!





I love showing Japanese culture to our boys!

Tennoji Zoo visit

Matthew took the boys to Tennoji Zoo for a special "Boys Day" treat yesterday. It is about one hour away on the train from our house. I stayed home as I didn't want to risk myself having the new baby while we were out. Instead while the boys were out I had a very relaxing breakfast with mum and Mako.

There were some animals they cannot find in the Singapore Zoo, which was very exciting for them! 

Unfortunately the indoor exhibits are mostly no-photo zones... Oh well I hope they remember what they look like!

Oliver was so excited to see "kolalas" and "kiwis" from Down Under:

Luca loved the tortoises - of course!

Instead of pygmy hippos in the Singapore Zoo they got to see the BIG hippo!

Oliver was a little bit concerned that the polar bears didn't have any food...

The boys are back in kindy today and hopefully the teachers are kind enough to listen to their endless zoo stories... 

Boys Day 2013

We celebrated Boys Day over a few days this year. It was wonderful to have Matthew back in Japan (AGAIN!) during the time our boys were out of kindy for 5 days :)

I finally managed to find the decoration to go up in our front yard:



They came home with nice craft work from kindy, Oliver made origami koinobori and Luca did some great scribbling on his koinobori too. Oliver also learned how to sing the koinobori song in Japanese!





They had some yummy snack:





And on the 5th, we made pancakes for breakfast:







In the evening the family got together for a yummy BBQ!

Rui:



Runa and Luca:



My boys :)

All the kids played happily until dark. Always great to have the family together!

Great catch up with friends

Once again Chie, Yumiko, Chisa and Keito came to visit us. I used to work with them and it is so nice to have friends who you can keep in contact with for a long time.

They were expecting to meet the new baby but she is still tucked away in my tummy. So instead we had a little Boys Day (which is on the 5th) playdate.



While the boys were happy playing with Lego, we had a lovely lunch.  I didn't go to the trouble of making homemade lunch, instead we went to the mall in the morning and bought some yummy Japanese deli food. The selection is huge and they taste so good - so why not!?



Yumiko and Chisa:



Chie and Matthew - Matthew arrived (again!) at 6am in the morning! Great timing honey :)



The wind was a bit chilly but it was such a lovely day, so the boys had their lunch on the deck:







Each boy got a special bubble machine for early Boys Day present. They had a ball!!
They pretty much spent the afternoon looking at some spiders & ants, picking some flowers, chasing each other, kicking a ball etc etc - Just being boys!











They promised to come back and meet our new baby - maybe BBQ party next time?

Golden Week

In Japan people don't often get long holidays throughout the year. I guess there are three major holidays which are 3-5 days off in a row. Golden Week, which starts at the end of April till the 5th May (depending on the calendar), Obon holiday in August and the New Year break.

Matthew managed to get all 5 days off and arrived this morning to enjoy Golden Week with the boys and the family. I am so lucky he is here, otherwise I have to entertain my super energetic boys by myself 10 days before the due date!

At this point we don't have any big plans (except for having a baby soon...) but we are very excited to be able to spend the next few days together!

Ouch

A week or so ago Oliver came home from the kindy with exactly the same bruised eye and it finally faded.

It's Luca's turn. It is very funny they tend to get the same injury often. At least Luca hasn't had any stitches yet.

The kindy teacher told me he didn't cry at all and he doesn't seem to bothered about it either.
Just looks bad... Ouch!