Is today the day?

Jason woke up this morning and asked, "is today the day?"  The kids have been patiently waiting for Christmas to arrive... and this morning they were up somewhere in the 4am hour. 

Talk about patient - the rule is that they cannot open their stocking or any of the gifts until everyone is up.  So it was a long wait until the rest of the house was up around 7am.

Ben sat by his stocking, looking at it and saying, "I just want to touch it."

Each of them got a new shirt... and many other great gifts that they have already started to enjoy.

This year there was a departure from our usual Kozuki celebration.  Instead of turkey and stuffing on Christmas Eve, we had a bunch of appetizers and a burrito/taco/nacho bar.  Grandma and Grandpa left this morning to head to Santa Barbara for an anniversary celebration for their friends, so the house is already a bit more quiet.  It's not even noon and Jason is already taking a nap...

But my consistent memory of Kozuki Christmas is sugar cookies... fortunately, the next generation enjoy decorating (and eating) sugar cookies, so regardless of what we have for dinner, I am confident that Kozuki Christmas will be around for many years to come.

Double Digit Birthday

It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were ordering Barbie cakes and buying gifts at the Disney store... but somehow Kara reached the milestone of being double digits.

Though she has grown so much, she still has the best best-friend...

And a great group of friends at school.

So what does a 10 year old do while waiting for her grandparents at the grocery store before dinner?  Well, since her mom got a new phone with more available storage... photo shoot!

The kids all had piano lessons after school, so we didn't have a lot of time, but we've gotta eat!  Kara chose teppanyaki, which is always a crowd pleaser.  The chef asked if she thought she could (with the help of her brothers) blow out the biggest birthday candle of them all...

We ended our celebration with Ampersand ice cream.  Yum!

Even though there are no Disney dresses wrapped up, Kara will always be our princess... no matter how many digits.

A Burger-Burger Birthday for Ben

To start off Ben's birthday celebration, he had a cream filled chocolate donut.  Though there are three donuts pictured... I assure you he only had time this morning for one.  Since we missed parent-teacher conference week, we met with Ben's teacher before school today and got a great report on Ben's progress at school.

When asked what he wanted for his special birthday lunch, Ben asked for a Big Mac.  Done.

Ben's friends were happy to come and hang out with Ben after their own lunch... since Ben was sweet enough to sit and have lunch with his parents!

Ben's only request was to go to Color Me Mine after school.  

And after painting, he wanted... another burger.  No one complained though; we all love Five Guys.

And no birthday is complete without something sweet... and Ben's birthday wouldn't be Ben's without some kind of Star Wars element.  

And Legos.

It's been quite a day... I think we covered it all and as you can see, Ben was all smiles all day.

Yay for Independent

We have never done this before... but we decided to take the kids out of school and go to Kauai to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa being condo-owners. 

Because the cheap airfare coincided with an already planned trip to Northern California, the kids ended up being on Independent Study for two weeks.

We flew into Lihue and it was the beginning of a great trip.

While on Kauai, we have fun doing simple things... going to the beach, looking for good food and we are always on the lookout for KBJs on the island.

For the first time, we visited the Lawai International Center, where we silently walked the path of the 88 shrines, which replicate the 88 temples in Shikoku, Japan. 

We drove up to Waimea Canyon to see the view...

We still enjoy shave ice in Hawaii, but we definitely are much more discerning!  I don't know Grandma and Grandpa managed to keep their white shirts clean.

We were at the beach every day... snorkeling, making sand "malasadas", building forts and just enjoying the perfect weather.  Uncle Todd was always game for playtime at the beach.

In between beach trips and food excursions, everyone had work to do.  Grandma helped Jason with his sight word flash cards.  He has quite a few of them down and he's doing a great job with his reading.  Jason said his favorite part of the trip was snorkeling.

Kara has always loved the water and has never been afraid to snorkel with all of the fish.  She loved all of the beaches... on our last full day, we managed to go to all three of our favorites - Poipu Beach to snorkel, Glass Beach to search for colored glass in the sand and Baby Beach for lounging and building sand castles.

Kauai has tons of roosters and chickens roaming around and Ben brought his own stuffed animal version home.  His new friend is named Happy Fatty.

On our last snorkel, Ben was able to swim with a sea turtle.  As we were swimming together, holding hands and watching the sea turtle, Ben squeezed my hands several times in a row, which is our non-verbal way of saying I love you... It is a moment that I will always cherish.

As part of Ben's Independent Study, he had to write about a topic each day using spelling and vocabulary words.  Here are a few of his journal entries...

We had such a great time in Kauai... Ben asked if he can be "Independent" every year.

We came home in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with both sides of our family.

And on our last day before the kids head back to school (after being out of school for 3 weeks!) we decided to enjoy a little bit more of the island magic.  

Ben is right... Yay for Independent!

Back to... Halloween

It just so happens that Picture Day at preschool followed Halloween.  So our (Mc) Fly guy decided to wear one of his favorite outfits for picture day.

Jason was told he could bring one item to be photographed with... and he decided to go to with the guitar 'cause that's the Power of Love.

So he didn't have the suspenders or white tennis shoes... but our Marty knows this character (and movie) inside and out and we couldn't pass up the chance to have him photographed in his outfit.  Fortunately it was a cool day... I don't know how Marty wore all of those layers!

Happy Halloween!

This year we went all different directions for Halloween...

Jason decided on a costume first.  He saw Batman at Costco and decided instantly and early that he would be the dark night this year.  He plays the part well... but when you see that smile underneath that mask, there is nothing dark about him!

Since we had a duet at the Halloween piano recital, I decided to go ahead and be Batman's sidekick.

Grandma found the vintage pirate costume she made way back when for Uncle Todd and Jason had fun wearing it around the house today.

Ben and Kara had more difficulty figuring out costumes this year, especially when I told Ben that he should consider something outside of the Star Wars family.  He and Sho talked about making a knight costume, but what Ben wanted was way too difficult and the costume Sho had as a kid would not allow Ben to sit down... but luckily we found a knight costume just in time for the recital and Halloween.

Though I still call her my princess, Kara's days of dressing up like a princess are long gone.  I have to say, I like her hair with these streaks of red.  I know I will regret saying this when she gets older and wants to dye her beautiful hair some crazy color.

Sho thought he had things figured out... get the afro wig, find the crazy jacket that was in storage and he'd say he was someone from the 70s.  But the jacket didn't fit quite right, so he thought maybe Jules from Pulp Fiction.  But he doesn't have the facial hair.  So then he thought Men in Black, to which Ben said, "So they were just businessmen?"

Happy Halloween!

Doesn't get much better...

After soccer, we drove down to LA for a quick weekend anniversary trip. Rather than leave the kids at home, we decided to include them in our celebratory weekend.

We made reservations for the kids' first trip to Lawry's!  Lawry's does not disappoint.  Jason kept repeating, "Mmmm... this is really good."

 
On Sunday morning, we met our favorite photographer, Holly, at UCLA for family pictures.  On our previous trip to LA, we gave the kids the UCLA tour and we quickly remembered the beauty of this campus.  Since Holly is also a UCLA grad, she was happy to meet us on campus for our photo shoot.

We were fortunate to get some sneak peaks sent to us... cannot wait to see the rest!

I don't know what it is about Coffee Bean, but we all love it!  After our photos, it was Ice Blendeds for everyone.  Happy times!

And then lunch at my all time favorite Vietnamese restaurant.  Now this is a good day.  Sho is so lucky... no flowers or jewelry, just some eggrolls with peanut sauce and I am a happy camper.

We even got a chance to visit the Gordon family, which is always fantastic, but always way too short.  The kids could not wait to see Maya and Cy and it was so hard for them so say good-bye.

I don't think it gets much better... the food, the photos and the fun.  It definitely doesn't get better than Sho.  Twelve years... I am thankful every day.