Life at 247-1

It's that time of year already and we were quite early in putting up our tree this year, infact it was a lot quicker in setting up than in previous years, probably because I had 3 little helpers this time!

Markie's special day to celebrate his 5th year began with baaba dressing him in the special kimono, a valuable antique handed down from jiiji's generation.

Today was a special games day at Jamie's school, the kids set up different games in the classrooms and parents and family were invited to join in. Jamie's game was bowling with empty drink cans. Sophie was very excited to see her 'nii-nii' (big brother) at school, I think she felt like one of the big kids.

Markie ran with all his might as you can see by the expression on his face...

Wataru has been taking electric guitar lessons at the Yamaha Music school for over a year now and today his school held a mini concert where the students performed various pieces.

The boys enjoyed seeing their daddy on stage, Sophie was too restless to sit in the room so we watched and listened from outside.

This year we were unlucky to have the kinder and school sports days consecutively in a row. Up early again this morning to make the lunchboxes and then off to the school by 9am.

Obviously with a much larger number of children than in kindergarten it was a little harder to take pictures and actually spot Jamie.

The children split into 3 teams, blue, yellow and red. Jamie was in the yellow team and they actually won their tug of war. Jamie was second from the end!

A busy day started with getting up around 5:30am to make our lunchboxes for Markie's sports day. We were all up and at the kindergarten by 8:30am. We had our outdoor table and chairs set up and even little Sophie made herself at home.

Today is "Hina Matsuri", Sophie's special day, so we took some pics in front of our Hina Dolls.

Here she is wrapped in grandmother's kimono.

The 3rd of May is 'Hina Matsuri' in Japan a celebration for young girls where they display their hina dolls. Usually something passed down from generations from mother to daughter in Japan but in our case we had to buy a new set and Jiiji and Baaba were very kind in doing so for Sophie.

So to open and set up the display we chose today, the 16th February, a lucky day for good luck.

Markie did well in his performance, his class sang,