We are down to less than two months till the baby is born, so that is definitely going to change things up around here. We’ve been a one child family for quite a while. Everything is ready for the baby though – my hospital bag is packed, the room is ready… There are a few things I’d still like to buy, but they are necessarily necessary. I would like a glider rocker and I am having a really hard time finding one over here. At least finding a semi attractive one.

Madison and the baby are going to be sharing a room – we just don’t have that much space in this house! I think it will work out though. Madison is really looking forward to being a big sister. Anyway, here are some pictures of Madison’s room/the nursery. The ducks things are the same as we used in Madison’s nursery, although my mom did make a new matching quilt for the baby – we intentionally bought extra fabric when when Madison was born so that I could reuse the nursery stuff but each child would have their own quilt.

The baby crib. The walls are actually orange. They look kind of yellow in this picture.

Madison’s bed. I’m planning to put their names over their beds, but I’m waiting till we pick a boy name so that the letters will match. We still haven’t decided 100% on a name – suggestions are welcome…

This is Madison’s shelf and her area for her personal stuff…

and this is the baby’s dresser and space for his personal stuff.

Instead of buying a new dresser, we bought these shelves for the closet for Madison’s clothes and the baby will use Madison’s old dresser. There are actually three shelves; there is a blue one is behind the closet door. They were about $12 each (1180 Yen) and the bins were $10, so it’s a nice storage solution for about $60. She does a pretty good job keeping her clothes on the shelf so far.

We have all of Madison’s toys in a closet under the stairs – part of my peace offering for making her share a room with a boy. It’s a tight squeeze, but at least this way she will still have her own space, even after the baby is born. Here are a few pictures of her toy room:

So now we are about halfway through the home tour… look for more later!

So I’m not really sure where to start here, since it’s been a month since I updated, and a lot has happened since then.  Madison was sick for 5 days with a fever of 104, and although I’m not trying to make excuses, I’d say that’s the main reason I quit updating for a while.  Then there were the holidays, and we were out of town for a week…  but we’re back now and while I’m not really doing New Year’s Resolutions this year, I am going to try to post on this blog 2-3 times a week.  That’s my goal.

We had a nice Christmas, although it was hard being away from family.  We were able to talk to Matt’s family on the webcam on Christmas Eve (Christmas Day for us) and it was nice to be a part of that even though we were so far away.  I’m going to share some pictures, but this is taking longer than I expected, so I’ll have to do it later this week.

On New Years Eve, Matt and I were invited to an afro party, which I thought was a really fun idea.  Everyone at the party had to wear an afro.  I might steal that idea and have one when we get back to the states.  I think this is one of the first times we have gone out on New Year’s Eve since Madison was born.  It was nice.  And the afro’s were hilarious…

Last week, we spent the week camping at Okuma, a military resort on the beach here on Okinawa.  It’s about an hour and a half away from where we live.  I’m not much of a camper, but we all had a really great week.  We stayed in a cabin there and did most of our cooking over the campfire.  Matt and Madison bought wetsuits so they could swim even though it was a little chilly, and we went up to Cape Hedo, the northern point of the Island.  I definitely think we’ll go back before we move, although next time we probably won’t stay in the cabins since we’ll have a new baby.  They also have regular rooms.  We took lots of pictures, so this is a pretty long slideshow:

We also stopped at The Butterfly Park on the way home from our vacation.  We’ve been studying butterflies the last couple of weeks in school, so this was our culminating event.  I was a little disappointed because there were only two types of butterflies, but it was still neat (although it would have been cooler if we could read the signs!).  We had a lot of butterflies land on us and saw some coming out of their chrysalises and letting their wings dry.  Madison really wanted to have butterflies land on her, but once they did, it kind of creeped her out.  She said they tickled and she was ready to leave after that.  You can see in some of the pictures she looks scared.

Finally, I got my haircut yesterday.  I hadn’t been brave enough to try a new hair stylist since we got here, but I finally had to just go get something done with it.  And I am happy with it.  It’s cut pretty much the same as it was before we moved.  Here’s a picture of the new hair, and although it’s not too flattering, a belly shot too.  Since I know you all want to see how chunky I’m getting.

And now we are back to our regular routine…  at least for the time being.  And as always, there are lots more pictures on Flickr if you want to check them out.

I’ve been MIA for the last month or so – I’m working on it, I promise! Look for a new post tomorrow… and I’ll try to do better!

Matt and Madison playing one of her math games – this might be my new favorite picture

A few weeks ago, Madison and I saw an advertisement in the base services magazine about a Gingerbread House Contest at the community center and Madison thought we should enter it.  So we bought a book about how to bake gingerbread houses and made one.  We spent four days making it – one day baking the gingerbread, one day assembling the pieces, and two days decorating.  Matt even helped with the decorating one day.

Anyway, I was really nervous for her because she had her hopes way up – she was sure we were going to win the contest.  There were five houses entered, but only two in the kids category.  I wasn’t sure whether we should enter in the kids category, since she had a lot of help from Matt and I, but a lot of the ideas were hers and she did help a lot so I told that to the people in charge and they agreed that it could be entered in the kids category – yeah – and she got first place!  And first prize (I didn’t even know there were prizes) was $50 in AAFES gift certificates.

She asked me to take this picture after she got her prize and said “I’m sending this picture to my grandmas!”  She was so proud.  I’m making her wait till after Christmas to spend them though, although I did suggest that she use one to buy me a Christmas present

Notice how we are still wearing sleeveless shirts and shorts.  Yeah, it’s that warm here.  It’s hard to get into the holiday spirit when it’s so warm outside, but making a gingerbread house definitely helps…

Madison has been asking to go on the ferris wheel since the night we got here four months ago and I have put it off as long as I possibly could.   It is a huge, impressive ferris wheel, but it goes very very slow and I was told not to go on it in the summer when it is hot.

Now that the weather has cooled down considerably, we decided to brave it and went this weekend.  It was very slow, but there were some beautiful views and we had a nice, slow, peaceful ride.  I actually don’t think Madison will ask to go again because it was pretty boring, but I am glad we went.  Here are some pictures from our afternoon…

The biggest building in the background of this picture is the hospital on Camp Lester where the baby will be born.

The mall, Jusco, and a hotel. This is part of “American Village.”  According to Matt, the water in the background is the East China Sea.