Today we took a long awaited adventure to the Japanese grocery store and the Kyushu Sushi Restaurant in Va. Beach and it was fun, fun, fun! Our main objective for J Mart was to obtain our very favorite toasted sesame salad dressing (the ONLY way I can get Josh to eat salad!) At $7.75 a pop, I’m sorry to say that Josh will no longer be bathing his lettuce in dressing, but it’s definitely a yummy splurge to help him get down something green. We also managed to find a few yummy candy treats and thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the familiar edibles from lovely Japan.
Next it was off to Kyushu to enjoy some sushi, yakisoba, and tempura – yum! Elise couldn’t get enough sushi and continued to say “more sushi please” and “oishi des everybody” (oishi = delicious) while she stuffed her little cheeks with noodles and cucumber rolls. Caleb did a pretty good job slurping down yakisoba noodles as well!
If you didn’t know this already, I’m a pretty sentimental girl so the trip down memory lane was good for my heart.
A CLASSIC TODDLER MOMENT
Elise confidently declared "I love baby food" during lunch yesterday and preceded to help herself to a rather large spoonful of Caleb's "herbed chicken and pasta" jar of baby food. This, of course, was quickly followed by a gag and some spitting and sputtering as she then "removed" all of the baby food from her mouth and announced "I don't like baby food."
UPDATES AND SUCH...
Caleb is quickly approaching his first birthday and we are looking forward to celebrating with him. He's gotten quite vocal lately and likes to "tell" us all kinds of things! He's also started to repeat sounds that we make and be very playful in his interactions with us. He sings "sh, sh, sh" when we get to the part of "The Wheels on the Bus" when the parents are saying "sh" to the crying baby - he like to bark at dogs when they bark at him and he also enjoys copying "ma-ma-ma,"da,da,da" and "ba, ba, ba" (banana!) Elise and I are working on some simple signs to help him communicate, but so far he prefers using the "screech" when he wants something we have or says "aaaaahhhh" when he wants more food. I guess we should be happy that he's trying to tell us things, but it makes for a very noisy dinner! 
February has been a busy month for visitors here in VA. We started the month with a visit from my parents, Lydia, and Phoebe (my parents' dog). We did our traditional breakfast run to the Donut Dinnette (yum!) and enjoyed a lovely day inside while it snowed. On Sunday we had a nice church morning and then got ready for our Super Bowl party with the Smileys.
Next came a visit from Aunt Hannah over Valentine's weekend. She escaped from snowy Pennsylvania to hang out with us. We enjoyed an outing to our local library (with a fabulous kids area) and lunch out at Ten Top (a great new find for cute and delicious dining!) Of course, we got in lots of quality sister time while Josh was on-call and watched plenty of Olympics as they were just getting underway. This weekend we're looking forward to a visit from Josh's mom and dad and that will complete our full month of guests from the north!
