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This year, I “got” Jason the special lightning edition of the PS3 slim as well as Final Fantasy 13.  We actually had to preorder the PS3 because it’s a limited edition.  Both items were officially released today and so we went to pick it up after Jason got off work. We did the preorder at Sakuraya in Shinjuku.  Let’s just say that they must’ve invested a lot in advertisement for this much anticipated game. Ads with Lightning from FF13 posted on every column in front of the subway exit. This is what the storefront looked outside… These tv screens were playing the pv of theRead More →

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Guess who’s 9 months today? No, not me….though there are times I wish I was. Ellie’s 9 months today!  Hooray!  That means that in 3 more months, she will be hitting a big milestone by turning 1! So at 9 months, what kind of madness is she up to these days?  Well…. – She can definitely crawl and quite fast especially when she realizes that I will be walking to a different part of the room.  She can sure chase you down! – She’s got her 2 bottom teeth!  You can see it in the picture above.  I think the top ones are coming soon. Read More →

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I joined this class called “Journal your Christmas” a few weeks back. It’s essentially a scrapbooking/journaling project that documents the month of December and the first 6 days of January. I’ve been gathering materials and waiting and getting excited for this day to come for a while. So finally, December 1st has arrived! For my first page, I made a declaration of my intent for this project. I really wanted to make this book and see it through because it is E’s first Christmas and I want to record it all. I’m hoping that it’s going to be a fun month despite her current mood.Read More →

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These past 2 weeks have been rough for us.  A lot of that revolved around E and her current temperament. First, we’ve been working on sleep training her.  It’s been hard since she’s use to sleeping in our bed with us most of the night and moving her to her crib has not been an easy one.  She also does not self-soothe well.  E is use to sucking to sleep and not with a pacifier.  Well, I am her pacifier which does not work for me since I technically don’t get any sleep when she is sucking on me. We’ve tried pretty much all theRead More →

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Recently I signed up for an online blogging class.  It’s not so much that I need to learn how to blog since I’ve been doing it for a long time now (6 years maybe?).  I did it to help stimulate my thoughts and to get me to blog more often since I have a tendency to go days and weeks without a single post. I’m about 2 weeks behind on the prompts that were given and since it’s a self paced class, I figure I can just catch up on those on some other days…. Anyway, today’s prompt is about looking back in time toRead More →

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Before we had E, Jason and I would always make an effort to go to any hamster events that were being held in or near Tokyo.  These events are essentially Kiddyland events that are held to sell hamster goods as well as some event specific goods that cannot be found elsewhere. Since having E, we have been cutting back on hamster time, which is sad since we do love our hamsters. It just so happen that there was a week long hamster event held at Tokyo station in mid-August.  Since E is older now, we decided to take her on her first hamster event trip.Read More →

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A few weeks back, while shopping at the mall with E, we encounted these 2 bears at some store with lots of cute things for sale.  I asked E if she wanted one and she reached out for one when I held him up to her.  I bought the bigger one and then a few weeks later, we returned to the mall with Jason and bought the smaller one. So here they are….the 3 stooges… The big bear is named “Kuma-san” and the little one is “Mike-san” (pronounced mee-kay) and E is in between the two. This is the pecking order between the 3 ofRead More →

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I had wanted to share the post labor story since it’s different how they handle it here in Tokyo than in the US.  Sorry it took so long to get it out. So….in Japan, almost all hospitals let you stay for a week after you give birth.  I think a lot of it has to do with preparing you for motherhood as well as letting you rest and recover from the birthing experience.  Plus they can do all the checkups and whatnots with the baby.  In theory, that’s a great idea since you can rest and enjoy your baby with the nurses helping you beforeRead More →