Penelope's Baptism

Penelope's baptism went so well.  I wasn't sure at first because it was so different then how things went when Tucker got baptized.  First off, we were kind of on our own for planning.  The church building doesn't have a font so we had to go to a different one on base to book the day.  Our ward really didn't seem to care when we did it so we just picked a day that worked for us.  Then we did all the planning.  We asked people to fill all the rolls, talks, prayers etc.  We even found someone to bring a keyboard because the building didn't have a piano.  Then I made the program and we just brought treats and showed up.

Aside from me planning it the ward was super helpful.  Everyone said yes to what we asked and people even came early to help us set up chairs.  I was surprised by how many people came!  They about tripled the amount of chairs we originally set up.  We've only been her 2 months so we don't know people that well and I felt a little bad for Penelope because barely any family could come.  But the ward really stepped up and most came out to the baptism.  Lots even brought treats.  I think everyone in this ward knows that family can't generally come to Japan for a baptism so they are extra supportive.

Penelope looked so cute we had to take lots of pictures.  She was really happy that Grandma and Grandpa Woestman could come.  She originally said the only people that could come were our family, both sets of grandparents, and her teacher.  I told her that people from the ward would come and she was really upset about it.  She told me she didn't want anyone to look at her.  But that was about two weeks beforehand.  I think she just needed time to process it because when the time came she was totally fine.

We did her hair in a crown braid just like I had when I was baptized.  It is so perfect for being out of the way and she loved it.  After the baptism she was super fast getting dressed.  Tucker had been talking about how fast he was and she wanted to beat him.  Tucker was fast, but I think she was way faster.  She had me to help her, where as when Tucker did it Bob was getting himself dressed and couldn't help Tucker.  Plus the boys had belts, shoes and ties to worry about.  Penelope just took off her wet stuff and threw on her dress so quickly she still had water running down her face still as we walked out.  Bob took about twice as long as Penelope, not that he was long. To give an you a sense of how long it was, everyone was singing primary songs and they sang two different songs before she came out, first verse only.  Then about two more and Bob came out.

She was so cute in the jump suit.  Two different people in the ward offered to let us use their dress to get baptized in, but Penelope was worried about the dress going up so we went with the jumpsuit.

I am so happy and proud of her.  We had lots of talks before hand about what it means to get baptized.  She even spent some time praying and really thinking about if this is what she should do.  I am really glad she decided to get baptized.

I put a copy of the program on here just so we can remember for the future.  Brother Serrano ended up not being able to make it and Bishop Lewis actually conducted.  Sorry it is doubled, I printed it like this with the song lyrics on the back and then cut them in half. 

Read More

Penelope's 8 Pictures

Penelope is getting Baptized tomorrow!  We are so excited and happy for her!

Penelope is such a sweet and thoughtful child and this is a huge milestone for her.  In so many ways she seems extra mature for an 8-year-old.  

She definitely is a planner, everything is thought out and preplanned in her head way in advance.  She rarely forget things.

Penelope can get really nervous for thing but this past year I feel like she has started to come out of her shell.  She started going to activity days (a group of girls 8-11) without any problems and she went to her new church class without hesitating.  She even talks to the other kids in her class, which is huge if you knew her in our previous ward.  She tends to stay quiet in group settings but she will talk to her friends and answer questions in a group if asked.

I've noticed she really takes on the big sister role with Scarlett.  They do a lot of things together and she has really stepped up and been the one to lead the way, where sometimes Scarlett will be too scared.  She is also a great big sister to baby Calista.  She loves to hold and play with her.  She cracks me up because she is was so analytical about it at first.  The first time Calista cried while Penelope was holding her she didn't know what to do.  So we talked about softly bouncing her.  So the next time I saw that Calista started crying she mechanically started bouncing her.  Penelope was confused as to why Calista didn't instantly stop crying.  That seems like ages ago because now Penelope is a pro and holding and calming down her baby sister.  It has been such a lifesaver because Calista hates to be put down.

Penelope has specific tastes when it comes to her hairstyles.  It was hard for me to convince her to leave her hair wavy like this for pictures.  She likes it straight down, because that is easiest and quickest.  When I convince her to let me do her hair she likes it neat and nice.  No bumps or poofs on top, and absolutely no messy buns.  Which is a shame because messy buns are my fav.  Even when she takes her hair down at night she doesn't like to go to bed with it looking crazy.  Once she was up crying about it.  It seemed silly to me because no one could even see her.  But I took her into the bathroom and sprayed her hair down and let her comb it out to get rid of the "craziness."

We are homeschooling her this year and it is going really well for her.  She is an awesome reader and has even taken to staying up later than Scarlett and Leon because she is reading on her own.  Math isn't a problem for her although she does sometime write a few numbers backwards.  Writing seems to be the biggest struggle for her.  But we are working on stretching out the sounds and just putting down her best guess.  She gets frustrated because when I tell her to just guess she will but then she won't be able to read it back to herself later.  So so wants to spell everything right but she doesn't know how.  I made her a little chart with common words that she can look at.  That helped but it also slowed her down a ton because she was trying to find how to spell the whole time.  When I'd rather she just let go and let her creativity flow by forgetting spelling and write whatever pops into her head.

Penelope is such a great child, we love her so much!

Read More

Penelope's Birthday/Ninja Park

Penelope always seems to have her birthday's when we are not at home. Ok, just two years in a row, but that seems like a lot to here.  We tried to make it special even though we are living in a hotel.  I hung up some decorations and even attempted a special birthday seat.  For breakfast she got waffles and ice cream.

She is sooo easy to please with presents.  I think the majority of them were from the 100 yen store, and she loved them!

The exception was this fancy dress I bought on a whim just before we left for Japan.  It was only $5 from Good Will and I knew the girls would love it!  Really it is from David's Bridal and was probably pretty pricey.  It worked out perfectly because it is white and her baptism dress is packed.  So this will be her new baptism dress.

The one thing she wanted to do was go to the ninja park in Taura.  We went twice before 6 years ago, check it out here.

We actually used to live in this apartment.  Just for about a month, but it still feels special to me.  The sign right by Scarlett's head is pointing the way to the park.  They were all over town and made it very easy for us to find the way.

To register your car in Japan the police actually come to your house and measure to see if you can fit a car.  You have to prove you have a parking space big enough.  This car barely fit in it's space, like two inches on each size.  It was a tight fit and seemed like it would be hard to park everyday.

Another sign for the park.  I think we found three maps, each a little different.  I learned long ago not to trust the Japanese maps.  They are never to any sort of scale and everywhere you want to go always seems to be uphill and farther away than you think.

The trail was soo pretty though.  Like some sort of magical forest.

The kids were so happy when we got there.  Tucker has been hyping this place up to everyone for 6 years.

The ninja course.  Pretty much America Ninja Warrior for kids...Bob and I did it also.  There may have been some racing going on.  On our fist attempts went, Bob 1st place, Tucker 2nd place, and me 3rd (but only by 5 seconds of about 4 minutes).  Tucker made a second attempt and beat all of our times.  In my defense, it was my first time doing the course and everyone else had played on it for a while before that.  I did fall at the park one time, but not on the playground just on the grass trying to take pictures.  The ground was slick in areas.

Complete with a zip line and all.

This park has more than just a ninja course.  It is a pretty popular destination to see the plum tree blossoms.  There is a great lookout spot, and this time we found a back trail to some sort of cub scout building.  The signs were in Japanese, but there were definitly boys there with uniforms on.

On our way back we saw a pop machine blocking someones stairs.  I thought the placement would be pretty annoying.

We stopped and ate dinner at CoCo Curry.  When Bob opened his bag to pay he found a friend.  

It would have freaked me out.  The grasshoppers here are big and one jumped on Scarlett at the park.  She froze in place and let out a deathly scream.

When we got back Penelope finally got to have her long awaited cake and ice cream.

Read More

Last Day of School

Monday was Penelope and Scarlett's last day of school.  Tucker officially ended school last week.  Wohoo I'm so happy it is summer!  I'm pretty sure everyone in my family was really excited for school to end.  The kids had a great year, I'm just ready for a schedule break.

I wanted to get some pictures of their last walk to school... kind of.  We actually are planning on walking to the school a lot this summer to use their playground/library/free lunches.  But this felt different.  We usually drove to school in the mornings but it was nice out so I wanted to walk them on their last day.  I always walk to pick them up after school, rain or shine.

Over all it is a pretty nice break to get out of the house every day and get some fresh air.  I wanted to get a picture of my walking buddies.  Tucker usually comes too.

The girls both really liked their teacher.  Scarlett had Mrs. Chinnock, who was a lot of fun.  Scarlett said she was going to miss her.

Penelope had Mrs. Sherry who she really liked.  Mrs. Sherry was a little more strict but I could tell she cared a lot about her class.  She is actually going to China to teach a bilingual class for the next two years.

I'm grateful for all the school teachers!  That has got to be one hard job!

Read More

School Fun

The end of the school year has been lots of fun for the kids.  Penelope's first grade class went on an all day field trip to the Seattle Art Museum.  I even had to drop her off at school and hour early and pick her up two hours after school regularly gets out.  She said she had sooo much fun.  I could tell that she was worn out.

They also had a whole week of dress up days.  The first picture is of job day.  Both girls just picked something they wanted to dress up as and made it clear to me that they probably don't actually want to be that when they grow up.  Penelope is a dancer and Scarlett a teacher.

Hawaiian day was fun.  Penelope first wanted to wear a grass skirt too but she changed her mind.

I was excited for twin day because they get asked constantly if they are twins anyway.

And lastly crazy hair day.  Penelope did not want to participate.

On crazy hair day Scarlett's class went on a field trip to the park.  The boys and I decided to meet her class there and hang out with them for a bit.

Read More