Valentine's Day, Cooking and Going Out

Happy Valentine's Day! We found some tasty chocolate and went out for dinner to one of our favorite restaurants Nico Cafe.
Recently we watched the movie Julie & Julia, a story about a woman in New York who cooked all 500+ recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. From watching this movie, Yoko decided she wanted to try something like that. We don't cook French food all that often, so Yoko found two cookbooks that better suite our diet: Rachael Ray's Look + Cook and Everyday Harumi. Yoko has done several recipes from each book so far and found them easy (she is a great cook to begin with) and pretty quick to put together. Everything has been おいしい (oishii-delicious).
It's been pretty chilly lately so going out with Maika means getting bundled up. Here in a little sequence of events.
Makia thinks her pajamas on her head will help keep her warm, but we convinced her otherwise.

Now Maika wants to use her bib to keep her head warm. Silly girl.

Finally everything is on as it should be. All bundled up and ready to go out.

Attached to Daddy and ready to see what lays outside our door. Let's go out!

200 Days

Today marks 200 days of Maika being on this earth and being a blessing to us. We are so thankful for everyday that the Lord gives us with her and know that she is in better hands than ours.
Other than a number of "amazing" events for us as parents, the past couple weeks have been mellow. We had Sarah visit last weekend, which we always enjoy. We will miss her when she leaves Japan in April. Erik's work continues to go well, and we are continually thankful for this job that God placed in our laps. Yoko stays busy with Maika, but she does manage to get in at least one ballet class a week. In addition to ballet she attends 3 or 4 exercises classes and takes Maika for walks regularly. She also meets other new mothers a couple of times a month.
Now for the "amazing" events for us.
Maika started solid foods. We feed her rice cereal mixed with a fruit or vegetable in the morning. She is a good eater and already wants to take control of the spoon.

She is now grabbing her feet. At times she seems to be thinking; "How can I get these things into my mouth?"

Sleeping on her belly. We never encouraged it, and she just did it on her own. Who every thought something so simple could be so incredible : )

It only took 6 months and a few days, but Maika finally fell asleep in Erik's arms, and yes, he was able to lay her down without her waking up.