Leyna's First Day of Preschool

Our big 2 year old had her first day of preschool today! Mentioning "school" to her in the morning really woke her up and eager to get ready. She literally shrieks in excitement. Yes Leyna, please keep up that attitude as loong as possible! haha. Taking photos of her before she left the house, it was funny how she would only stand with her back to me to show off her backpack. She's so proud to buckle it up and wear it all by herself. Love the look on her face.
Preparing for her first day was fun. Homework was to fill out some facts about various favorite things of hers, another thing being "What I want to be when I grow up" So I made sure to ask her without a imposing a parent's wishful answer. Starting with things I know she loves, I asked "Do you want to be a singer?"..."Noooo"...."Do you want to dance?"..."Noooo"..."What do you want to be when you grow up?"... "Doctor"...Really?... "Doctor!" OK I'll stop asking there and we'll take that as your answer for now. =D

Then of course, Mommy was happy to pack Leyna's first mini bento lunch. Some pasta with flower shaped carrots. I thought she would love to dig into it since she screams "nooooodles!" at any other hour of the day she can get her hands on some, but turns out Leyna didn't really eat much. Apparently she was asking for crackers the whole time! Note to self, pack crackers...Dropping her off was easy, she was blowin kisses goodbye and ready to get on the playground. During my 4 hours of freedom, for the first time I was finally able to sit in on one of Danno's trials and see both counsels in action in the courtroom. Then it was nice to get some work done, uninterrupted - sweeet! Leyna came home with a folder of crafty things. My favorite being her cute lil handprints as they learn about "family." So it was a great first day...could've have been terrific had Leyna napped in the later afternoon. I'm not surprised she's packed with too much energy for preschool to wear her out completely. Overall, it was a great first day!

Leyna Cam

Leyna's been getting some good use out of one of her birthday gifts - a digital camera made especially for kids. No longer does she have to frame her face with her lil hands as a pretend one. We finally uploaded her photos to see the results of her clicking away at it. Blurry, crooked, random, and photos of things unrecognizable were of course expected. Or better yet, there were no real expectations for what kind of photos a 2 year old would take. It's been entertaining to see her LOVE using it...clicking away at everything and anything, and be her subjects as she yells "cheeese!" from behind the camera. Fun to see the world from a 2 year old's eyes for a change!
Here's her first photos taken, along with some of her other randoms...
She's quickly getting the hang of it and seems more intentional on what she shoots. Beware, she can capture you when you don't expect it. I didn't realize she got me picking at my leg while waiting at the traffic light. haha.
The other night we grabbed pizza at the Sunabe Seawall, our closest boardwalk along the ocean. Ever since the nasty typhoon passed, the weather has been nice and sunny with gorgeous sunsets everyday, so we made an effort to get out of the house right when Danno came home from work. Leyna and I took our cameras along. I got some shots of Daddy n Leyna enjoying the view.
Our lil photographer taking pics. We were quite impressed with her results!
Cheeeese mommy & daddy!
Here's some last photos from the night as we enjoyed our pizza with a view.

...and Muifa keeps goin and goin

This video was taken last night on our front porch. 2 minutes was about as long as I could handle getting drenched out there and trying to maintain my balance! Muifa keeps going strong...we're on day 3 of the storm and as of 6:30am, already 34.7 inches of rain has fallen and 50-80mph winds continue to pound the island. According to the radar, it's passing through but at a whopping 6mph...so uh, at that rate it's practically standing still on top of the island. This link shows you real time radar of what's hitting us.

We remain safe indoors and getting quite a show out our sliding doors and windows. Thank God our place is built well and we've had no power or leaking problems like we know others are experiencing in other areas. Our day looks as exciting as more movies, books, munchies, internet, scrabble, and our little typhoon Leyna to keeping us occupied!

Typhoon Muifa

Nothing like another typhoon our way. My cousin Ana Lisa is here in Okinawa for her 2nd visit and just in time for our 2nd typhoon experience. We're all safe and sound in our sturdy concrete building, watching and hearing Muifa roar its way through our lil island. We're enduring sustained winds of about 86mph and gusts up to 104mph, which are scheduled to diminish by tonight. And of course to experience its strength in person is much worse than how it all appears when we try to get it on video. But here's a little taste of what it's lookin like out here. This is before the storms peak performance.

Leyna's 2nd Birthday Party!!

For Leyna's 2nd birthday, it was easy to decide on a Rockstar theme since she absolutely LOVES music. You'll always find her playing the piano on the edge of tables, drumming on anything she can find, beat boxin', singing tunes and making us get up dance with her to music. I came across some great rockstar themed parties as inspiration, but of course I wanted to make her party unique. Being that we're on our last year living in Okinawa I hoped to fuse Japan into it somehow, and so it evolved into a theme I call "Kawaii Rock!" Kawaii (pronounced like 'Hawaii' with a 'k') is the Japanese word for "cute" and how girls describe things that are absolutely adorable. This was a great avenue to keep it fun, girly, turn objects into characters, and incorporate anything just plain cute, which is characteristic of so many things found in Japanese pop culture.

First thing's first, render Leyna into a Japanese style cartoon as a lil rockstar. The iconic peace sign that many Japanese pose when photographed was perfectly fitting to also represent a 2 year birthday!Then on to a custom party invitation, mixing a bit of grunge with kawaii music notes and stars. I threw in a QR code, a barcoding system widely used in Japan, and I'm sure you're starting to see a lot more of it as the U.S. is now picking up on the trend. You scan it with your phone and it uploads a website to your device. In this case, it links to Leyna's website, which some of you have already seen from the last post.
Upon entering the "VIP lounge" the kids (and any adult that wanted to sport one) got their own All-Access VIP Pass. The barcode numbers are the date and time of the party, and the Japanese characters on the back is Leyna's name in kanji - translating to "Reina" =)
Here's the main dessert table. Some other decor included felt stars and music notes, all handmade. (Big thanks to the help of my friend, Precious, who did an awesome job stitching and stuffing each one!)
The dessert table featured Leyna's strawberry lemonade birthday cake bursting with stars and 2 varieties of cupcakes made by our friend Shannon. For the strawberry lemonade cupcakes I created music note toppers to soar from the cream cheese buttercream frosting. The chocolate cupcakes set a delicious stage for fondant stars to sing out a sequence of 'do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!' (Something Leyna loves to sing!) I'm so happy my paper arrived in the mail juuust in time for me to try this new topper concept and I think it came out nicely.
Here's Leyna oh so gently trying to blow out her candles. And not surprisingly, our neat eater was more interested in nibbling on all the stars than getting messy in the cake!
Treat cones for our lil popcorn lover were designed with "yummy" words, including the Japanese characters spelling "oishi" (means delicious), "nom nom," and it wouldn't be kawaii without happy popcorn characters!Other sweets included a mix of American treats, like chocolate dipped marshmallow pops (the star shaped marshallows, thanks to the 4th of July holiday, made a nice addition!), simple sugar cookies, the classic Pop Rocks candy -- and Japanese goodies, like Pocky sticks, fruit jellies, and Leyna's favorite assortment of rice crackers (which of course already come in such cute packaging). The jarred items had labels tags that say "We ❤ all things kawaii and delicious"
Later we handed out Japanese vanilla mochi ice cream, which was another fun treat for people to try whose never had them before. These flags I made with washi tape and the food labels carry over a hint of the theme design.
The drinks I wanted to have some fun with. Juice boxes I packaged as mini guitar amplifiers. The back of them has the word "juice" written in Japanese, and parents could write in their child's name where it says "This juice is getting ___ amped up!" to keep track of their drink. The side panel held the straw with washi tape and says "Plug me in!"
For the adults to have a little fun too, we served 3 flavors of Ramune which are Japanese sodas packaged in a cool bottle. A glass marble seals it, so when dislodged using a special cap, the ball jingles inside, then when held correctly the bottle design holds the marble out of the spout while drinking. Instructions to open them were certainly needed & provided. I wanted to keep part of the original Japanese packaging since it already has cute fruit characters and bubbly Japanese fonts. So I added smaller labels on the back to explain the drink in English, gave an area to write their names on the bottle, and of course it boasted the "Official Drink of Kawaii Rockstars" seal. I also re-named the flavors to Strummin Strawberry, Rhythm & Bluesberry, and The Original Score. People must have enjoyed them, only a few were left from all 25!
And don't forget good old H2O ('mizu' in Japanese)...like the label says, "Rockstars gotta keep their vocal chords hydrated!"
In addition to the dessert table, we had other muchies too. Star shaped PB&J, heart shaped lil smokies, and homemade sushi was served with drumstick chopsticks. The napkin holders encourage VIP loungers to "Dig In!" while the Japanese characters read "Itadakimasu" - a phrase said before eating.
As for some entertainment, RockBand was standing by for anyone wanting to rock out. I made some coloring pages for the lil ones to color and decorate with stickers. Leyna is expert at putting stickers everywhere else so I will forever find them randomly scattered throughout the house. haha

Leyna did a great job opening her gifts.

The kids departed with handmade guitar favor bags (another great collaboration with Precious), some glowsticks, rock star stickers, and play microphones (which Leyna enjoyed personally handing out to everyone.)

Here's pics of some of her fans!

Speaking of fans, one thing I didn't get around to finishing in time were these postcards designed to be fanmail to Leyna. One side features a photo of Leyna and a Rockstar Tip, and the other side gives room for fans to write a message. So the idea doesn't go to waste, instead I'll just add any personal messages from her birthday cards and any messages posted on her website to these. If you still want to send her a belated birthday message, feel free to write her one on her website! Just follow the link that says "Fans Worldwide..."
In closing, here's a few more photos of the birthday girl. It was a great time with everyone and we're grateful for our Okinawa "family" while being so far away from our family and friends in SoCal. Managing both food and decor is no easy task, so again huge thanks to everyone who helped out!
We love you Leyna Taylor and looking forward to a (not so terrible) 2nd year with you!\(^o^)/

Someone's turning 2!

Wow is July 4th really around the corner?!...in less than 1 week our lil firecracker is turning 2! The nice thing about moving to a larger place, we can now use it as the venue, which also means plenty of work ahead for mama. All my design energy is now going into the preparations for her party and sure I hope it turns out to be a fun one for her and the guests! Leyna's website has been quite neglected since her first birthday but it's up and running again for her 2nd. So if you stop by you can get a glimpse of her theme this year...and especially for all our friends and family in the US, you can still be apart of the celebration by leaving her a birthday message and we'll save all the notes to a memory book for her!

Stay tuned, we'll be back to share the party details...