Koji received an early birthday gift in the mail the other day and I’ve been dying to give it to him.  I knew he would love it!  But I also felt I should wait for his birthday to give it to him or at least the big birthday party this weekend.  Well thank goodness Kelly is awesome and last night asked why I was waiting!!! She wanted me to give it to him just as much I wanted to!!

Ohhhhhh….

He walked forward, pushing the cart, then walked backwards pulling the cart, over and over and over again!

Checking out the new food Kelly sent with the cart!

In and out, in and out…

Thanks again Kelly, Avery and Ari!! You always know exactly what the kids will love!!!  Can’t wait to see you this weekend!!

Continue reading...

Even though our visit was short we had a great time seeing Katie and her family!  They were in town for a wedding and only had a couple of hours today before boarding the plane back to DC.  We decided to hit the Big Apple, a farm that the Lemoines have been taking me to for years, for some apples and pumpkins.

It proved to be impossible to try to get a picture of all the kids with the pumpkins…

Thank goodness that I have an IT guy that might be pretty good at Photoshop.  Check out his handy work…

Family picture time…

The kids had a great time picking out some pumpkins…

The kids ran and ran and ran…

My Daddy!

Peyton tickling Koji’s feet…

Continue reading...

Is there really anything better then the Big E?  I THINK NOT!!!  I just love it, love everything about it.  We didn’t make it there last year.  I was pregnant, due any day and Ichiro wouldn’t let me leave the state of MA.  So this year I made sure we’d be going!  I couldn’t wait to see Noby’s face as he experienced it all for the first time.  Mind you, this wasn’t Nobys first Big E, he had gone once before.  But last time Noby was Kojis age and pretty much just stayed in the backpack.  This year I knew we would hit the Midway, a part of the Big E I haven’t been to in a LONG time!

We were at the Big E 5 minutes and Noby had…

Fed the goats….

rode a pony…

and picked out our Jacuzzi!

Koji just went along for the ride…

Then we met up with Ryan and crew, and the real fun began…

Someone LOVED the kettle corn…

he didn’t want to share…

Pit stop to massage our tired feet….

ummmmm no comment…

Noby just loves Ryan, and from the pictures I’m sure you can tell why.  Ryan is just fun, F. U. N. FUN!!!

Even Daddy went on a ride…

Koji didn’t want to get off….

“Look Mom, No Hands!!!”

With a little help from our friends, Noby and I won him a big yellow Angry Bird!

Koji loves him too!

MIDWAY!!!

Hugs before we go…

Continue reading...

So this week I wanted to do a test run of the boy’s birthday cake.  I wanted to make this…. but wasn’t sure I could do it.

I decided on a spice cake for the adults and cupcakes for the kids IN a kid friendly flavor, of course.  I started with the spice cakes.  I baked two spice cakes in bundt pans and let them cool.  In the mean time I started on my Rachel Ray vanilla frosting.  Cream butter, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla.  How could I go that wrong?  Not sure either but I did and it tasted like SHIT! hahah Even though it didn’t taste good I wanted to try and frost the cakes.

I gave up before adding the stem and leaves because I knew I couldn’t actually serve this to anyone! haha  At this point lots of thoughts were running through my head.  Do I just buy canned frosting?  Do I just go to Costco and buy a cake?  Do I call the best cake maker I know and see if she can make a last minute cake for me?

All I can say is don’t worry.  I called my friend and she is going to save the day!!!!!

THANKS LISA!!!!

Continue reading...

4 years ago today our lives changed for the absolute best!!  4 years ago today I became a Mommy!!  It was an amazing day that I’ll never forget it!

Today I wanted to make Noby’s birthday something special, something he’ll never forget.  You know, you only turn 4 once!! haha  So last night Ichiro and I snuck into Noby’s room and released a dozen balloons.  I wanted it to be the first thing he saw in the morning!

Our door swung open bright an early to a very excited Noby tell us, “THERE ARE BALLOONS IN MY BEDROOM FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!”  It was awesome!

Showing off his balloons…

I sent a cupcake to school with Noby and he came home with his…. A BIRTHDAY CROWN!!!

He needed a picture with his sunglasses…

Mr Cool!

Tonight Brenda came over for Noby’s favorite meal, TACOS!!  We made it special by having Mater party hats and Cars 2 plates!  Noby of course loved every minute of it!

Noby and Auntie…

Koji’s wasn’t to sure about the party hats…

Even Daddy got into it!!

Taco Time!

Cake Time!  YES those are T lights, please don’t judge me!

Someone didn’t mind at all!!!

I know you were all thinking, “Did Koji get cake?”  NOOOOO couple more weeks and he’ll get his! haha

I don’t think he mind, “Ohhhh Ice Pop!”

Gift time… “Auntie how did you know I wanted an Angry Bird shirt???”

Mommy did well too….

I love this kid….

Continue reading...

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/mPIIMbG9R4w" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I’ve always loved this commercial.  Something about it just makes me laugh.  However I don’t think I ever really appreciated it until this year.  Today was Noby’s first day of preschool and even though it’s only 2 hours and 15 minutes, it was wonderful!!

Check out Noby in his first day of school outfit…

Showing off his new backpack…

Car 2, of course!!!

Continue reading...

Today we headed north to celebrate Audrey’s 1st birthday!!!  Audrey was born just weeks before Koji so I felt like Katie and I went through our pregnancies together!  It was so awesome to be included on her big day!!  We of course had an amazing time!

The birthday girl!!

Matt and Katie just purchased a new home!!! They have worked so hard and the house looks amazing!! They have totally added their style through out the house.  It looks amazing, exactly out of a magazine!  Here’s Matt cooking up some hotdogs on his new grill!

Cake time… I love this picture of Matt and Katie, such great parents!!

I think she likes it…

“HEY! Where’s my cupcake?”

I loved Katie’s owl theme!!!

They have an awesome backyard!!! Perfect for lawn games!!!!  Next time I’m bringing the bocce set!!

Continue reading...

So several people have emailed me to see if I was still on Dawn’s deck drinking coffee.  If I had been that would have been one BIG cup of coffee.  The Ashihara family has had a crazy summer and this week we are finally getting things back to normal!!

Our summer started with our annual trip to the beach!

It was once again an amazing week!  I have so many pictures I want to share with you!! I’ll try and post some more this week.

3 days after we returned from the beach the boys and I packed up and headed to Suffield.  My mother was having major foot surgery.  We knew it was going to be several weeks before she could put any pressure on it, so we decided it would be best if we moved there to help her with the daycare.  We ended up having an amazing summer.  Noby loved being at Memere’s and loved being part of the daycare!  I think he liked the fact that he always had friends to play with! We also signed him up for two weeks of summer camp that was put on by the rec department. Which of course he had a great time at!

Staying cool…

Lots of shopping…

First day of summer camp…

Playing with all his friends from the daycare…

Koji also loved being at Memere’s house!  He loved all the attention he got from his Memere and Grandpa!!  As you can imagine both kids were pretty spoiled!!!  Koji especially loved the special freeze pops he got every night…

Looking for something to eat…

Koji loved Memere’s big backyard…

Koji’s favorite spot was standing on the Time Out chair and looking out the window…

He LOVED his nightly freeze pops with Buddy…

Koji had so much fun and we we often found him like this…

We had an awesome time in Suffield this summer.  It was a very busy summer but overall the boys and I had a great time.  I have a lot more pictures to share and will try to post them over the next several weeks.

Continue reading...