How sweet is this photo of Noa and three precious friends at the CCSI sports day?!? It was such a great day of fun and fellowship and community building. Eric planned the whole day and did a great job! I hope to put up more photos of this day in early October later. I’m a little behind.
Eric and I had the opportunity to attend Passion Tokyo (also in October). It was a great evening of worship and encouragement. Highlights included worshiping and hearing a message in English. We went with a group of other missionaries and Japanese friends, and it was soooo encouraging to see how many people were there, filling the C.C. Lemon Hall. I was so refreshed in my walk with Jesus, convicted of my often lukewarm response to the Gospel, and I was burdened for the lost in this land in a new way. It was an added bonus that T.G.I.F. was only a few blocks away and we could have “American” size burgers. It was a very special night. 
Noa and Martha have been growing so much in their little friendship. One thing that has been especially sweet recently is that Noa wants to “match Martha” everyday. She just loves it and gets sad when they don’t match. I have done some pretty good convincing and told her that when they are both in pants, or both have pink on their clothes, or (if I’m really desperate) are both in diapers, they ARE matching. For now, it seems to work on the days that we can’t come up with some “pair look” (as the Japanese say) clothes. I can’t blame her, though. I, myself, LOVE it when they match and pull it off as often as possible. 
I’ve mentioned before about our babysitting swap with the Pfeils. Here is one such night when we “played house” with a family of five. It is always such fun for us to have the free dates and for the kids to be together on these nights. We really enjoy our little arrangement.
A few weekends ago we enjoyed going onto Campus for their annual festival. It was such fun and a wonderful day as a family and with our friends. Noa experienced many first, including her first cotton candy and chocolate-covered banana. Both are treats she will gladly partake of again, given the chance.
Our neighbor’s daughter has the sweetest twin girls who are right in between Martha and Noa’s ages. We so enjoy it when the come to their grandma’s house because we can see them too!
Eric had a great time with these three good friends camping a few weekends ago. It was great male-bonding, apparently, and a good chance to be out in our beautiful autumn weather. He loved it and I hope he’ll take me and the girls sometime soon…well, if it doesn’t get too cold around here!
While they did their thing, me and the girls had a girls’ sleepover with Chizuka. It was a great time for us ladies. Here is Noa and Chi-chan showing off their Hello Kitty tattoos (sent by cousin Liam for Noa’s birthday).
The girls have had some big milestones recently. Martha is learning her shapes.
Noa is learning to drum
They both still love to read their books
Yikes. Last week as we were leaving church we discovered our tire was flat. All of us girls really enjoyed watching Eric fix it and get us back on the road. Noa was particularly interested. Future mechanic? Maybe.
And I’ll leave you with this photo of our youngest, totally entranced by the Gospel music at our college ministry Livehouse event last week.
Hope you’re having a great week. God bless!
You may remember last June I found a little duckling, also 8 months old, in my living room too.
It’s amazing how time flies and it’s amazing how a pig and duck can look so much alike!
Who knew?!
Continue reading about The little piggy I found in my Living Room
Oh my goodness. Noa just interrupted my breakfast by yelling, “Kawaii! Kawaii! Martha Kawaii!”
Kawaii means cute in Japanese. Noa hears that word too many times a day (and don’t you ever tell her I agree completely with all the people who call her kawaii… we don’t want her to get a big head or anything
Anyway, that was a little humorous diversion for me this morning and I wanted to share it. I’m glad Noa thinks her sister is so cute.
Our sweet Martha is 8 months old, 2/3rds of the way to 1!!
Can someone please tell me how this happened so fast?!?
Thinking about my babies growing up makes me feel like this:
Just kidding. I mean, there is a bittersweetness to them growing and changing so much, but every new stage brings such joy too! Watching this little girl grow is truly amazing, especially as we see her growing into her own little person… not really a Noa 2.0 like we thought . Don’t get me wrong, this girl LOVES her big sister. No one can make her giggle, smile, or keep her attention quite like Noa can. They love to cuddle! Check out the sweetness:
But Martha is her own little person, doing things her own little way. The biggest difference between our girls at this age is that Martha is mobile, while Noa was not. Yikes! It is stressful trying to keep up with an 8-month mover! She is all over the place, getting into everything, and she doesn’t understand “No” yet. By the time Noa crawled (at 11 months), she had a pretty good grasp on how to obey me when I told her what she could or couldn’t do, where she could or couldn’t go. Plus, Noa was just happy to sit and play with whatever I gave her. Not Miss Martha! She is into everything, tasting it, throwing it off and looking for something else… like a live wire or a fallen coin or the dog’s tail. It’s definitely made my job harder, but I love it about her too. She’s an adventurer at heart and I know that will be an amazing attribute to her… I just hope she can survive her first year! Oh, and she not a traditional crawler. It’s like she’s in stealth mode and trying to sneak, like army crawling. It looks like it is such an ordeal, but she sure gets around. I will try to post a video, once I can figure out how to on this new site.
Martha has done great with solid food. She is eating 2 meals a day, along with 2 snacks of rice crackers and cheerios. She also drinks water from a sippy cup (another thing Noa couldn’t do at her age). When we started her on veggies, I wasn’t good about tracking what she was eating for the first time so I was clueless when she developed an awful diaper rash. After 2 weeks of cutting things out of her diet and starting again, and even going to the doctor for it, I now believe it was caused by sweet potatoes. So sad, because sweet potatoes are one of the best fall/winter food here. I hope she’s not allergic forever…
Anyway, so we will be adding back carrots and avocados and apples to her diet and then moving onto other yummyness, like pumpkin and peas and greenbeans and tofu.
I know you already saw this, but she was just such a cute lady bug, I had to get one more picture on here:
She only wore that headband for 3.8 seconds but it was pretty cute while it lasted.
Martha’s sleeping habits have improved. She is now consistently sleeping past 6am, usually til around 7, which is a drastic improvement from her post-jet lag crazies. She takes two great naps, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, usually averaging about 5 hours between the two of them. In fact, I think she is sleeping more than she was last month. She’s also down to nursing only 3 times a day, now. She is well on her way to weaning herself at a year old, just like Noa did… (sniff).
Martha’s favorite “toys” these days are books. First thing she does most mornings when I bring her down to the family room is scoot over the book shelf and empty the bottom two shelves. She enjoys looking at the books too, but mostly just tossing them around and grabbing at them when Noa is reading one.
Here she is with her buddy Calvin. They are both growing so much, and it is such a treat to watch them grow together. They are interacting a bit more with each other, which is fun.
In the next photo you will see her 5 teeth and the swollen gums of one coming through. It’s been a tough process but she’s a champ and has some pearly whites to show for it. I hope the rest come through a little less painfully!
What a happy and sweet girl!! Martha is such a blessing to our family and so much fun to have around. This smile, (doesn’t it look like it’s coming from her very core?) has the power to melt my heart and brighten even a rotten day. She is such a joy!
Thank you, Jesus, for 8 wonderful months with this incredible girl. May her life always be a testimony to us and to others of your good gifts. Use that sweet smile, that YOU made, to speak love and grace to those who encounter her. Be glorified in her, we pray!
Eric shared in our prayer requests that the church plant we’ve been attending, in the next town over from ours, has just rented a building after meeting in a home for the last six years. How exciting is that?!?! It has been thrilling this last month and a half as the members of this body have seen years of prayers and hope and waiting on God’s timing come to fruition.
While it has been awesome to worship together in the Tomita’s home, in recent months there have been some space issues. Also, as a cultural thing, Japanese are not as comfortable coming into a stranger’s home as they are to a meeting place. So, we are hoping this will be a more comfortable location for seekers and friends/family of church members to come.
In the last several weeks there has been a buzz of excitement among Christ’s body in Toke. Members have stayed for hours after worship to talk and plan and pray together. People have met to pray at the new building, and work on it, or plan for new ministries. It is an exciting time for these faithful saints, who are the only church in this town of 15,000 people. I am so excited as we physically move to a new building, and also, I pray, move closer to Christ and further out in reaching the people of Toke for his kingdom.
I am particularly excited to partner with two other dear women in this body to start a moms and kids’ club. As a stay-at-home mom myself I know how important it is to get out of the house to be with other moms, and for my kids to be with other kids. I am praying that this group, which will meet twice a month at first, will become a community for moms and place to talk deeply about the joys and struggles of parenting. I pray that there will be many opportunities to share with these women the great hope for them and their families found in Christ. I pray that as they come for a big ‘ol play day, they will leave having seen Christ.
Would you praise the Lord with us for this great blessing of a new place of worship and work? Would you also pray with us for His Word to go out from this place into the homes and lives of the lost? Pray that his people would continue to trust God to lead, guide, and provide for this church? Pray for the many new programs and ministries that are starting now with a new place, that many would step foot into Toke Chapel and encounter Christ (most for the first time in their lives!). Pray for our first Moms and Kids’ on the 25th of this month. I will post a little bit more about this later
Thank you for your prayers and, through them, your very real partnership in the Gospel here in Japan.
First worship service at Toke Chapel on November 2, 2008
A Little Lady Bug and a Bumble Bee
Last week, for Isaac’s birthday, we had a costume party.
Noa and Martha were bugs. Really cute little bugs!
Sarah Pfeil, cake decorator extraordinaire, let me help her make this fabulous ramen cake. It’s not ramen, it’s cake, but it sure looks like ramen, huh?
One of our favorite things about “Uncle Isaac” is his “idol status” with the young ladies here in Japan. Especially these young ladies:
(His status was elevated even further when he let them help him blow out the candles)
All of the characters (minus princesses and bugs and train-conductor-baby-Calvin who had already gone to bed) who came out to celebrate Isaac. Happy 27th Birthday!
