It was nice that all 3 of my sisters and my brother called to let me know how oooooold I am. Just wait, you all will be there soon. At this point in my life, its nice to have daughters who are more excited for my birthday than me. By the way, just to let everyone know, it's Kaori that does the digital scrapbooking. Thanks Kaori for bringing life to the pictures.
We had a mellow Christmas this year compared to last year when we had the whole Sakuma clan celebrate in Hawaii. Grandma & Grandpa came for dinner. Due to the weather, we hanged out in pj's all day.
Our first snow of 2008 and it was a doozy. No school for a whole week, which was fun for the kids. It was good timing for our cousins from Hawaii to enjoy the snow as well.
Maya started ballet this year and had her first open house for parents to see all their hard work. Our little ballerina did a very well arabesqe with her friend Sasha.
Our cousins from Hawaii came to join us for a little pre-Christmas get together. Luckily, they came just in time to enjoy the snow storm. 7 little girls (and Kashus) were running around in our little house. Girls at this age tend to play a little nicer than boys, which is a good thing.
After Thanksgiving, it is a family tradition to put up the Christmas tree the following Monday. Yes, it's fake but the kids had fun putting it together. This year, the kids put all the ornaments.
Klair had her 2nd Birthday, Yeah!! We invited Ojiichan and Obaachan over for dinner and had tempura and soba. Klair loves shrimp and noodles. Klair likes playdoh as well and her cake kind of looks like wads of playdoh. She couldn't figure out what to do with the candle, but hey, we have next year to figure that out.
We spent Klair's birthday at the zoo. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the zoo was. A lot of upgrades. I think I enjoyed the zoo more than the kids. I thought 3 hours would be more than enough to see everything, but we ran out of time.
For some reason, it always rains on Halloween in Seattle and this year was no different. We tried the Mall seen this year for Halloween and was suprised to see so many people. Most of the stores ran out of candy by 7PM.
This year Karen wanted to be a witch, which was a pleasant suprise, since all they talked about was being princesses. Maya was very content with Karen's costume from last year (Mulan) and Klair was excited just to wear a crown. Good thing about having 3 girls is that the costumes can be recycled again for next year.
This year we went to Craven Farms in Snohomish to pick our pumpkins. Unfortunately, all the good ones were already taken and we didn't want to walk to the far end of the pumpkin patch to find the good ones. The mini-pumpkins were a bigger hit for the kids so we bought those instead. 
This year, Karen was able to handle the carving knife for the pumpkin and designed her own jack-o-lantern.
Maya's new friend and kindergarten mate Sasha and her little sister Mia. Zoe also came by to visit. It was a nice surprise to see Zoe, since their family moved to Lake Stevens during the summer.
