My Utes lost in overtime to BYU and this morning I received these two pictures of my children in my email inbox from our BYU-loving former neighbor here in Tokyo - truly a great gotcha.
All in all, I'm not too upset at the loss. Only braggging rights were on the line and I can swallow my pride for a year. Besides, our freshmen quarterback barely lost in OT to the winningest quarterback in BYU history. Bodes well for the Utes future.
If any of you in AZ are looking for a good photographer for family portraits or whatever, check out Ryan Young's website. Just make sure that if you're a Utah fan, you keep that to yourself...because it might come back to haunt you.
Shelley has been working on a project to make a "flirty apron." If you don't know what a flirty apron is, see the picture above. Anyway, as she was finishing it up, she decided that there was enough fabric and ample motivation to make a matching apron for Ella. As you can see by the smile from ear to ear, Ella was very pleased.
The apron will get its first use this weekend when we belatedly prepare for and celebrate Thanksgiving here in Tokyo. As I write this, it's technically Thanksgiving Thursday. But on certain important American holidays there's more than a 16 hour time difference between LA and Tokyo...it's more like a two days difference. We have to wait until the weekend to celebrate. But alas, we will at least have turkey and stuffing and everything that goes along with that. Thank you Costco and friends that have military base access.
Halloween has come and gone. This year it got lost in all the preparation for Quinn's birth.
This was Ella's first true Halloween experience. And she got into it. We traveled with a larger group of older kids and Ella loved following along. She ran as fast as her little legs would take her and you could hear her just yelling as she ran down the street. She was happy. If it involves candy, she's in...even if it means dressing up in a silly lion outfit. It's a means to an end.
Anthon was finally looking forward to Halloween. After last year's debacle, Anthon dressed up as Spiderman - one of four Spiderman costumes in his class. Spiderman has been a bit of an obsession for Anthon of late. His Grandma Daetwyler only feed the fire by buying his this costume for his birthday. And yes, Anthon goes around shooting webs from his wrists at us.
My only complaint about Halloween in Japan is that some people don't quite grasp that you hand out sweets. I understand when, say, a dentist would hand out tooth brush kits to kids on Halloween. It's in their nature. Kids don't like it, but we understand it. In Japan some people were handing out these curry flavored puffed rice sticks. Trust me when I say that it creates an unnecessarily difficult smell to eliminate from your kids' skin.
The day before Quinn was born, Shelley, the kids, Shelley's parents and I spent the day in and around Shinjuku - going to parks, lunch and what not. We took the train. On the train, Anthon decided he would have a little vocabulary lesson with Ella. This is the result. Hang in there till the end:
While I'm not the biggest fan of Anthon using some terms so liberally...I do have to laugh that Ella seems to know the difference in placement between the bum bum and the penis.
More importantly, I love the kindness that he's showing to his sister. I'm glad that I caught this on tape, so it can remind me that my kids do love each other...even when it doesn't seem like it at times!
Quinton Edward Cannon was born on November 4, 2009 at 12:50 PM. Both Quinn and Shelley are doing very well.
Speaking as someone who really had nothing to do with the birth other than to support Shelley, I realize how I would describe the birth might be totally without base. But it seemed like the birth was relatively uneventful. We had a bit of a fright when the doctor couldn't get the epidural quite right. We thought we were in for another surprise drug-free, max-pain delivery. Thankfully that was not the case.
All told, we checked in to the hospital and were the labor/delivery room and hooked up to the IV by 9:30 and Shelley began pushing by 12:35. The baby was out 15 minutes later. Again, from my totally unexperienced view of things, a relatively uneventful delivery.
So what do we know about Quinn so far? He was 7lbs 1oz and came in at about 20 inches in length. He came decked with a lot of dark hair. The Japanese don't wash the baby at all for the first day - not even the hair. The second day they'll wash the hair, but the body I guess isn't supposed to be washed until after a week. That's why in the pictures it looks like he has junk in his hair...it's because he still does.
Anyway, back to Quinn. We're not quite sure who he looks like. Both Ella and Anthon looked so much like each other. Quinn has a rounded nose and gigantic eyes. He's eating and pooping and sleeping quite well.
When Anthon and Ella met Quinn I think they were excited. Ella was a bit scared and while she was curious she refused any attempt to touch him or hold him. She warmed up after a few minutes, but I think she's still very confused as to who Quinn is and why he's here and what this might mean. You hear stories of children regressing a bit when a new child is born. And we might be seeing the first stages of this. Ella, who has never once taken a pacifier and stifled any and all attempts by us to put one in her mouth, picked up Quinn's pacifier and began sucking on it for about 20 minutes tonight. Uh oh.
Anthon on the other hand is a vet when it comes to welcoming new babies in the family. He held Quinn, sang to him, talking to him and held him.
We're very excited to have Quinn in our family. I've taken some photos and video from the first 24+ hours. Please click on any picture to go to the gallery. The video is posted below on youtube.
