Thanksgiving visits and life as "normal"

We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving! Nate's mom and her husband and Nate's little sister drove down from Utah for a visit. Savannah quickly remembered who they were (the last time she saw them was in August when we were up for a visit). We all went to my mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving dinner, where my mom had an encounter with a can and ended up having to have 7 stitches put in her finger before dinner.
The day after Thanksgiving everyone took a trip to the L.A. area to visit Venice Beach and some of the sights in Hollywood.
That night we had a little mini-birthday celebration for Savannah and she got to dig into some chocolate cake.
Then on Saturday the girls all went to see Twilight and the men stayed home to do "manly stuff" like watch 24 and play with Savannah. That night we all went to Chuck E. Cheese's and had a blast helping Savannah to play games.
Sunday the gang left to drive back up to Utah--way too short of a visit! We had such a fun time with them. Okay, who's next???

Since then life has continued on as "normal." I just switched baby docs and had my first appointment with my new doctor last week. I switched because my old doctor would have required me to have another c-section, as that is the policy of Corona's hospital (and his personal policy). I also switched because Corona's hospital is tiny (despite the fact that Corona is not tiny at all) and doesn't have an NICU. So I'll now be delivering at Loma Linda University Medical Center. I'm so happy about the switch because I really like my new doctor. She spent a ton of time with me asking me questions and figuring out a plan of action.
Some interesting things came out of the visit, like the fact that I'm measuring 5 cm larger than the largest measurement that is considered normal, but my amniotic fluid levels appear to be normal and the baby doesn't appear to be the Hulk in infant form. Because of this and some other factors, the doc has put some restrictions on my daily routine. What? I'm being forced to put my feet up and read a book for a change? Darn. :-) I've got 7 1/2 weeks left until my due date, so it will be interesting to see what happens between now and then!

This past Saturday we celebrated St. Nicholas Day like usual, but it was way more fun that past years as Savannah was very excited to pull goodies out of her shoes (and out of her daddy's as well). Though a Santa cell phone filled with candy would probably make anyone excited to pull things out of their shoes, right?

Nate got set apart yesterday as our ward's Elder's Quorum President, so his life is about to become really fun, I'm sure.

Savannah has been on one lately.
When I picked her up from nursery yesterday, one of the nursery leaders told me she spent the last 10 minutes of nursery pretending to be a frog and hopping around the room. This was a result of a party we attended on Saturday, thrown by Nate's boss. There were two little girls who were playing a modified form of leap frog and Savvy was watching them and started imitating them.

For singing time last week I taught the nursery the chorus of Follow the Prophet. I had a picture of President Monson attached to a stick that I held and we marched around the room literally following the prophet. We sang it again today, and then on the way home from church Savannah started singing it in the car!! Then, when we were watching the Christmas Devotional tonight she got really excited and was pointing at the TV saying "It's the prophet! Look! It's the prophet!" She went on like that the whole time we were watching whenever President Monson showed up on the screen. It made it very difficult to hear anything that was being said, but it was beyond cute and was a proud parenting moment.

Last night we had our favorite quick and easy pasta concoction for dinner (Classico tomato and basil sauce mixed with Classico creamy alfredo sauce with spicy sausage in it eaten over noodles) and Savvy ate FOUR bowls of it. She set a personal record for the amount consumed in one meal. Now she probably won't eat at all today.

Japanese Gracious Hospitality

Okay, so I've been meaning to explain what I've been doing for MBK Homes and am finally getting around to it. About 6 months ago while we were still living in Japan I was contacted by a woman that I've known for years (she was actually my Sunday School teacher when I was a teenager for awhile). She had seen a post I had written on La Fuji Mama about an experience I had with one of our neighbors. Her company, MBK Homes, is owned by Mitsui Corporation, a Japanese corporation that is one of the oldest businesses in the world. One of the mission statements of MBK is to provide gracious hospitality and this friend was wondering what my perception of Japanese hospitality was. We talked for a bit and then she asked me to put some of my thoughts down and email them to her, which I did. I promptly forgot about it until she contacted me again in late July asking if I would be interested in putting together a presentation that would help educate the employees of MBK about their corporate heritage, give them some ideas of how they could implement some of that heritage into the way they conduct business and improve the quality of the hospitality that they provide.

In October I went to MBK and did an hour long presentation to their Sales Team which focused specifically on providing gracious hospitality in customer service. After that presentation I was asked to make a similar presentation at MBK's bi-annual conference for the executives. So last week I made a 45-minute presentation at the conference that focused on using gracious hospitality to promote team building within the company. It went well and I had a blast doing it. I've been really impressed with MBK through the whole process. It's nice seeing a company put so much effort into providing their employees this type of training.

Ok, now that you're all asleep, here's something more entertaining! This is a video of Savannah antagonizing Neko (one of our cats) and then scolding her ("Be nice!") when Neko gets a little bit annoyed.

Work, work, work!

Tomorrow I giving another presentation for MBK Homes on the topic of Japanese Gracious Hospitality, though my focus is on team building this time (the last presentation I did was for their Sales Team and focused more on customer service) and my audience is about 7 times larger than the one for my last presentation. As a result I'm just a little bit stressed and distracted. To add to the stress/distraction I finally got a calling in our ward, one that I'm all too familiar with--Primary Chorister. On one hand, I love the calling because it is very rewarding, but on the other hand, I dread it because it is WAY more work than any other calling I've ever had, including being the Young Women's President. After my presentation is over tomorrow I'm going to be feeling a whole lot better about life, I'm sure.

Nate has been more than a little busy as well. The weekend before last he was in Boston working through the weekend helping out with some bilingual interviews (English/Japanese) that needed to be done. Every day during the week he's in a different city visiting a client--poor guy doesn't get to rest! We're very glad that he's driving a hybrid, because boy is he putting miles on that thing!

Savannah continues to make our lives fun. A few days ago I bought a plastic storage bin to store Halloween costumes in. I had brought it in from the car and it was sitting in our family room waiting to be filled. I turned my back on Savannah to unload the dishwasher and when I turned back around she had filled the bin with some of her favorite things and a blanket and was lounging in the bin like it was a bath tub.
I finally moved and filled the bin this morning while she was asleep, but I didn't have the heart to take it away from her before that because she was enjoying it so much. Maybe we'll buy her one for Christmas.

Because I'm feeling particularly uninteresting, I'll leave you with something way more fun--a series of photos I took of Savannah. When I took the first one she didn't have any idea I was there. You can see as the photos progress that she's starting to be a bit more clued in to what I'm doing.

Spooky Resemblance

After my post about Trunk-or-Treat my mom emailed me with a side-by-side comparison of one of the pictures from my post and one of a Cabbage Patch doll. All I can say is wow, creepy!

Halloween Retrospective

Aaaah, the big day has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? Luckily, not much candy!
Savannah had a blast trick-or-treating, but mostly because she got to wear her pumpkin costume which she loves.
We went to a couple of houses on my parents' street and then drove down the Haimson's house (we had to take Savvy to see her Fairy Godmother Kathy of course!). She fell asleep in the car on the way there, but perked up once she saw their bowl of candy!

Trunk-or-Treat!

Last night was our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. We have had Savannah's costume for a few weeks now, but hadn't even thought about costumes for ourselves. So yesterday I spent the morning pulling some things together for us. Savannah is a pumpkin this year. I didn't really think I'd be able to pull together a costume that she would be particularly interested in (since she really has no clue what's going on when it comes to Halloween anyways) until my mom and I were at Marshall's a couple of weeks ago and we saw the pumpkin costume and the light bulb flashed on! As you know Savannah has been obsessed with pumpkins since they started popping up in Halloween decorations everywhere and she is obsessed with her costume, asking us, "Punkin on?" all of the time and carrying it around like a favorite stuffed animal.
Nate wore a pair of scrubs and then borrowed an afro wig and Bass Pro shops hat. Unfortunately when we got home last night and I downloaded our pictures I realized that the picture I took of him in his complete costume didn't turn out at all! So all I have is a picture of him in his scrubs. :-(
I went in a blonde Marilyn Monroe-esque wig, long false sparkly eyelashes, and sparkly makeup. I have no idea who I was, but I do know that I wasn't myself, so that counts, right?
Savannah had a fun time walking around the parking lot trick-or-treating at all of the cars, but all I ever got her to say was "thank you" a couple of times. For the most part she wanted to hold the candy, though we did manage to get a piece of candy here and there into her trick-or-treat bag. She didn't have a clue that what was being handed to her was candy, she was just excited that people were handing her things! I'm not going to inform her otherwise either.
We handed out M&Ms and KitKats at our car. We will not be handing out candy at our house tomorrow night however, since Nate just left for Boston this morning on business so he won't be around. Savannah and I are going to go trick-or-treating in Redlands with my parents instead.

Savannah was pretty enthralled with my wig.
When I put it on her she was more than pleased.
She didn't want to take it off. I think she thought if she kept it on we wouldn't recognize her, and thus wouldn't make her stop reading her books and relinquish her hold on her candy to go to bed.
Someone in my extended family (was it you Uncle Dave?) recently emailed out an article on the Six Worst Halloween Treats. I take issue with candy corn being on that list as it is one of my all-time favorites. What are you handing out this year?

No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

Savannah has started to memorize the words to some of her favorite books. This video is of her and Nate having their nightly story time reading one of her current favorite books. It makes me smile every time I watch it.

Pumpkins, Lizards, and "Poo poo"

It's so fun to watch Savannah grow up (although sometimes I wish she wouldn't do it so quickly!). Last Friday Savannah and I went with my friend Jennifer and her two girls to the Sugar Plum Arts & Crafts Festival held at the OC County Fairgrounds. We had a blast and the girls were really good. We had them harnessed up in matching monkey harnesses so they couldn't run off (strollers were not permitted at the fair). We actually were stopped at least five different times by people asking if the girls liked their harnesses, where we got them, etc. Jennifer's oldest daughter grabbed Savannah's hand at one point and I thought I was going to melt, it was so cute. On Saturday we met up with my parents and went to The Pumpkin Patch at Live Oak Canyon Christmas Tree Farm in Redlands (California), which is owned by a family in my parents' ward. There is a ton to do, from picking pumpkins, to a petting zoo, to hayrides and stuffing your face with carne asada fries (of course I would never do such a thing). :-) I think the highlights of the day for us were watching Savannah in a total state of bliss in the petting enclosure and riding in a wheel barrow with the pumpkins we picked. She had no fear around the animals and was delighted when my dad helped her to feed the goats. She LOVES pumpkins and would get excited with each pumpkin that was added to the wheelbarrow. We did have a small heartstopping moment when I noticed a black widow spider in the wheelbarrow with Savannah near her legs, but we got it out and she lived for us to tell about it.

Also on Saturday my Dad caught a small lizard for Savannah (they go lizard hunting every time we go to my parents' house, it's their tradition). She held the lizard by herself for the first time (usually she just gives the lizards kisses--no joke). In an email that my mom sent later that day to my brothers, she wrote, "She [Savannah] was quite excited. However, then we noticed some brown stuff on her wrist and thought maybe the lizard had the poop scared out of him by being held. When Savvy finally relinquished the lizard, we discovered the poor thing had been crushed to death between her eager fingers. She'd squeezed the guts right out of him (her?). Ewwww…. It's probably a good thing she can't catch lizards by herself yet."

Savannah's current obsessions, besides pumpkins, are books and shoes.

One of her favorite times of the day is sitting down with Nate and night to read books.

Savvy-ism of the week: Savannah was sitting in her highchair playing with a favorite stuffed dog the other day. She flipped the dog over so that the tail was facing her and noticed the little tag that was near the tail. She pointed to the tag and said, "Poo poo!" She's daddy's girl all right.

BYU Bummer

Ouch. BYU's 32-7 loss tonight to TCU was a bit painful to watch. My mom and dad came over to our house to watch the game because they didn't have the channel that it was showing on. We were all glad to have Savannah as a distraction otherwise the evening would just have been too painful. She utilized her time with Nana and Papa to practice shouting "Touchdown!"
Here is Savannah holding cheerleading practice:



Savvy-ism of the week: A few days ago we all went to the grocery store. Nate had Savvy in the shopping cart and was going down the feminine hygiene product aisle. Savvy saw a package of pads, pointed and exclaimed, "Cookies!" Go figure.

Traffic and "Punkins"

Yesterday I put on an hour long seminar for the sales department at MBK on the topic of Gracious Hospitality. Now that it's over (until I do it again next month for their executives) I'm feeling a lot less stressed and have realized I'm overdue for an update!

We are still without a dryer. . . well, kind of. You might remember that I mentioned a couple of posts back that we finally got our washer and dryer in our Memphis shipment, but that our dryer wasn't working when it was hooked up. Well, our relocation company paid to have someone come out and take a look at the dryer. We figured it had to be a problem with the dryer, since we had a full inspection of the house with an inspector before we closed escrow and no problems had come up in relationship to the washer or dryer hookups. Well the repair guy came out and took a look at it and determined the dryer was fine, but that there was a break in the electric line somewhere between the breaker and the outlet. Great. So we called the inspector and said something like, "Um, you missed something?" He explained that they don't really check that outlet anymore because most people aren't using electric dryers and many people modify that outlet to accommodate hot tubs and the like (???). Well, unfortunately we're one of the few families I guess with an electric dryer because our place in Memphis didn't have hookups for a gas dryer. We got a rough estimate of what it would cost us to do the electrical work and quickly figured out that it was going to cost us about $50 more just to buy a new gas dryer rather than do the electrical work. We opted for the new dryer, since in the long run it will save a lot of money anyways. The dryer was finally delivered on Tuesday, but they didn't hook it up. Nate made a trip to Home Depot last night to buy a hook up kit and will hopefully have a bit of time soon to try and get the dryer going. In the meantime, we have now been without a dryer since we moved out of our temporary apartment in Irvine--a good month and a half ago. Ugh.

This weekend for Conference we went to my parents' house to watch the Sunday sessions. My cousin Denise and hubby John Pedroza (and their cute little guy A.J.), and my cousin Tom and wifey Erica (and their cute little doll Harper) came out for dinner. Good times!

(Savannah and A.J. Pedroza)

(Savannah being spiritual for Conference)

(Savannah "driving" Papa's (my dad's) car)

Nate is still as busy as ever, spending a lot of time on site at clients. Lately he's been having to go to Torrance and El Segundo (not exactly next door) more than he would like. Poor guy. He's truly battling the good 'ole SoCal traffic.

Savannah continues to get crazier and crazier. Thanks to Nana (my mom) she is now obsessed with doing Ring around the Rosie over and over and over and over again.
She's loving the change in seasons because she has discovered "punkins" and likes to point out every single one that she sees. I made her a pumpkin hat so she would even have a "punkin" to wear on her head.
I am now just short of being 24 weeks pregnant. I had an appointment with my OB/GYN earlier this week and things are looking fine, so all is good on the baby front!
Today Savannah and I went and met my dear friend Keilani Tanaka and her little boy Kai for lunch. Kei and her hubby Ryan were in our Stake in Tokyo and then moved back to the US a year before us. It's always good to see her. It's amazing how small the world is sometimes, isn't it?