Julia's 2nd birthday

We had a little pizza party birthday for Julia at our house and had a great time. Mike, Hattie, Molly, Winnie, Grandpa and Margie were here to celebrate. When it came time to cut the cake after singing to the birthday girl, she wasn't going to allow that to happen. She was so excited with her Nemo cake that she wouldn't let me take it away or put a knife anywhere close to the cake. Grandpa even tried to get her to taste it so she would want to eat some but she wasn't interested. At one point we thought everyone would leave without being able to eat any cake but then I convinced her to let me cut the top of the cake. We then opened presents and Julia got lots of goodies. One of her favorite presents was Mrs. Potato head from Winnie but the best part was that Grandpa thought the hands and arms should all be in the right place but Julia didn't want them all in the right place and they kind of faught about it. It was funny to watch and made everyone laugh.
I almost forgot that on Julia's birthday morning she received a new train set from us and she loved it. She played with it that morning and then got busy flossing her teeth. I was able to capture about 100 pictures of this because we were trying to get one for the office and she was too cute that morning.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2009 was celebrated at Grandpa and Margie's house this year with most of the family and friends in attendance. Grandpa, Margie, Mike, Hattie, Molly, Collin,Ron, Deborah, Bill, Rhonda, Kelsey and Brett McCarthy. It was a nice holiday for us to be home and one of the best parts was to spend the holiday weekend at our house and we enjoyed the long weekend. Harry and I went to the UFS for the wine tasting on Saturday with Margaret and it was a good time.

Daddy Daughter Dance

The Daddy Daughter dance is one of the highlights of the school year. Harry and Sydney went shopping the weekend before and picked out the perfect dress for the event. The corsage and botineir were ordered and they dinner was planned. Sydney got to pick where to eat and of course she picked McDonald's. The night was a great time and Daddy carried his date into the house asleep. She had so much fun and can't wait to do it again.

The bike crazy madwomen!

The girls are bike crazy this spring and we have only had a handful of days which we could ride our bikes. Julia got it, you know what I mean within a couple days of nice weather this spring she officially understands how to pedal a bike. I remember when Sydney got it February 2007 when we returned from a trip to the US. It is so much fun to do a lap around our neighborhood and Julia be able to ride her bike with only a little help, she does get worn out after one lap but it is a quarter of a mile so I will give her little 2 year old legs a break. Sydney just enjoys going down the hill as fast as possible.
I hope to get my bike ready soon and put a seat on it so we can all ride this summer. Sydney is quite the little roller skater also. She got them for Christmas and has been skating in the basement for months, Julia really wants to skate too so she may be getting some for Easter or something. Anything to be like her big sister.

The things we learn at Church!

Since we arrived in Japan we have been attending church every weekend. It has become a way of life, which it should be but wasn't. While in Japan Harry converted to Cathothism and Julia also was baptized. Now we are all Catholic and enjoying our church. Sydney has started at St. Thomas the Apostle grade school last August and she really enjoys the school. We are enjoying meeting people there and getting to know other families. Last Sunday at church Sydney said to me "the people with grey or silver hair will be going to heaven soon." She has been learning about heaven a lot at school and talks about how we should all go there soon.
We like that she is teaching us prayers that we didn't know like Angel of God, which is now one of my favorite prayers and I even caught her hoola hooping and praying.

Our house!

We purchased a house in Dunlap Illinois on July 28th, 2009! It is located at
11602 Ballymore Avenue in Waterford Place. We have 4 bedrooms upstairs and 2 full bathrooms. The middle level has a large family room, kitchen with granite countertops and formal dining room. The basement is unfinshed but perfect for the girls toys, roller skating and riding our cars in during the winter. We have a TV set up and the treadmill also.
The neighbors are all so nice and there are so many kids for the girls to play with. During the summer months we spent many evenings outside playing with all our neighbors and enjoying the warm weather. Now that we have lived here for over 6months I am finally getting to organizing the basement and making piles for trash and sell. There is a neighborhood garage sale every spring so we hope to get rid of some things there. In march I am going to paint Sydney's room and she would like purple and pink so that is what it will be. I hope to paint the whole house because it was painted using flat paint originally and over time the girls have destroyed it.

Leaving Japan

We finally received our orders, May 12th, with the help of Congressman Schock's office to get things expedited. The following day we went to the out processing place on base to set up our household goods move and express shipment. They needed 10 business days from the time we filled out the paper work so we counted 10 business days and we were in business. The time it took for us to receive our orders and to actually leave the country was almost exactly one month. We arrived home to the Short's house after 24 hours of travel. The final jet lag we would experience was difficult but we made it through with lots of dvd's at 2am and lots of naps. Harry joined us the following Friday and it was nice to have the family back together. We started looking for houses that weekend and had good babysitters to help us out. Kelsey McCarthy was home from college so she was so helpful in those months to watch the girls.