Japan Day

 My parents sent these great outfits.  I adore them - I adore my kids in them!  I think we'll use them more for PJs, but they wore them the entire day.  In fact, Miles wants to wear his clothes for the 1st day of school.  Ben thinks they look too much like PJs, but we might let him wear his shirt with some "normal" shorts.  Funny kid.

 My beauties.

 We told them they had to make the peace sign in as many pictures as possible.  :)

 The whole gang of super cute Japanese-dressed kiddos.

 Ollie getting some lovin' by Lucy - not sure if he liked it or not.

We talked about the geography of Japan and showed them pictures.  We talked about the houses/apartments in Japan and how they are the same/different.  We learned the traditional Japanese odori dance (see above picture).

 We also made origami frogs.  The kids did so well with this!  It was fun.  We also practiced counting in Japanese and saying some familiar words in Japanese as well.  The kids totally responded great and were interested in all that we did.  It was really awesome.

 We ended the activities with a Japanese folk tale.  The kids were totally in to it.  Love these kids!

 Then it was time to open the goodie bags - one full of toys and one full of treats.  It was super exciting for them.  The moment they had been waiting for!

 A cool action figure.

 Lucy waiting no time in trying the weird treats.  She loved these marshmallow things - Rhett, on the other hand, hated it and made the greatest "this is the worst-tasting thing EVER face" and then spit it all in to his mother's hand.  Lovely.

 She's a beauty.

My parents had also given all the kids rice bowls and everyone (parents included) chopsticks.  These were all a hit, too.  Too bad the fried rice wasn't a hit with any of the kids (dang those peas!).  I, though, loved it and so did Erin and Chuck.  So there.

It was really a super fun day.

THANKS Mom and Dad!!!!  Errrr, Sister and Elder Galbraith.