It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I'm sure many of you have already started your Christmas shopping! Although, I enjoy all 4 seasons, I would have to say my most favorite season is the Fall. Because it just seems so cozy, homemade soups or roasted meats in the oven. Nabe and another family favorite is deliciously sweet roasted sweet potatoes. Freshly baked cookies and apple crisps baking in the oven! Leaves changing colors to beautiful yellow golds and shades of red, the sound of crunch crunch crunch when you walk along the street. Halloween and Thanksgiving! Oh how I love Thanksgiving! A day to stop and be thankful for all that we have... for our family and the delicious meal! To me...the Fall is just a very family centered time of year.  And with thoughts of winter not too far away. And with Christmas and Black Friday as well. Sure presents shouldn't be the main focal point about Christmas...but be serious though... when you have kids in the house, it is a hope of theirs! : ) So I'm gonna share with you what's already on it's way to our house. Let's have a quick fun little catch up, okay, nothing too serious. : ) Was it a month ago? I placed a fairly large order at Amazon.com and while somethings that were already released have shipped to me immediately in October. Yet some other things ordered... haven't been released in America yet, so they will ship them as soon as possible. Things I pre-ordered.  Both Branden and Noah saw Guardians of the Galaxy this summer in Guam and absolutely loved it!!! In fact Noah still often says..."I am Groot!!!" lol. So, this DVD I knew was something both the boys would really love, so it was ordered in October and as soon as it's released in America (in December, I think) is as quickly as they'll ship it out to me, here in Japan. Also the great thing about Amazon, is if the price drops before it's shipped... whatever was the lowest price. So for example if this should go for $7 bucks for example for Black Friday, they'd charge us only that amount too. As long as it was ordered beforehand and hadn't shipped yet.

Maleficent, not quite sure why Frozen was so hyped because it was really just a standard Disney cartoon/movie though... we do own it and it was good, don't get me wrong...just wasn't in the same league as Beauty and the Beast for example. However Maleficent was MAGNIFICENT...no joke! Such an amazing movie.  We 4 all loved this and this one is already at my house. It shipped immediately from the states to me here, as soon as it was released. This is also hiding in the closet as a present for the kids. : ) 

This one and the next one are for me. I mean, if we're ordering for the kids might as well toss a movie or two for me as well. You know my sense of humor, I like to laugh I loved Bridesmaids, Family Guy type of humor. And I already own and love 21 Jump Street (with Jonah Hill) and I wanted this new one. I got an email this morning in fact saying this and the DVD below shipped yesterday from the US to me here. 

This was shipped along with 22 Jump Street and I can't wait! This yet again, was a book. A popular one too and made into a movie. It looks good and I can't wait to see it. 

Yikes what a scary picture of that little devil doll, lol! Sorry. : ) Anyway if you saw the Conjuring you saw a glimpse of this doll and this movie is all about the doll. Looks so good and scary to watch after the boys go to sleep. It isn't released on DVD in America yet. But it was pre-ordered in the 1 order...it just saves on shipping is why. So whenever it gets to my house, I think they said end of January first week of February. So we will see. Oh and according to what I read online last month the real possessed devil doll...the real Annabelle doll was a Raggedy Ann doll. @-@ Anyway, that's it on the DVD front...remember we already have The Amazing Spiderman 2 and the new Transformers for the boys and a Tamodachi Life for Noah, already hiding in the closet, gee I am sure hiding presents in there, lol.

What else, I placed an order at the Bath and Body Works. I love the Bath and Body Works. One of my all time favorite American bath and body type shops. Their seasonal stuff is out of this world! When I lived in Denver, I used to go to the Bath and Body Works often and their prices are so beyond fair! Anyway, I picked up their 6 for $24 deal. 6 delicious smelling seasonal hand soaps for only $24 US. Granted now they have a deal that's better 7 for $24. @_@ Aw well. Wish I could have got the deal of 7 for $24. But you know what...I'm just really happy with the deal I got anyways so. : ) Plus I'll probably order another order around Valentine's Day.  Oh here are the scents I picked up. Pumpkin Pecan Waffles. OMG! Sounds so good! Especially because Americans love everything pumpkin flavored and scented, hahaha!

Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin! Yes please! This sounds amazeballs! Can't wait. 

Fresh Sparkling Snow sounds fresh and clean too. Perfect for winter. 

Gingerbread, yumm! 

Merry Cookie. The Japanese have their Christmas cake tradition and Americans bake cookies for Christmas! : )  This will be a perfect hand wash for the season!

And last, but not least...Cherry Almond Shortbread. I love the smell of almonds which is why I picked this up. And love the Christmas bow picture on the bottle. 

Also purchased 3 small tubes of hand cream, you know how my hands get awfully dry in winter and how I always keep a tube of hand cream in my bag, no matter what. So, I picked Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin hand cream.

Iced Gingerbread hand cream. These hand creams all have shea butter and vitamins in them.

And last, but not least, Fresh Sparkling Snow hand cream. Sounds fresh and clean. 

Not sure if you can see the red it does indeed say 6 for $24. Such a great deal really!

Also on top of that already good deal...I went online and used an online coupon and got $10 off my order and as you can see, they shipped my order to Guam for free. So even more savings. The Bath and Body Works stuff arrived at my dad's condo yesterday and he will be bringing this Bath and Body Works package with him in his suitcase, when he gets to our house this coming week. So yeah little things here and there, but yes, we are definitely underway with Christmas presents and with getting ready. For now though, I am focusing on Thanksgiving at the moment and my dad's upcoming arrival. I will be keeping my eye on Amazon.com and the likes for Black Friday sales though, which always happens the day after Thanksgiving. : )  Hope everyone is doing well and is happy! Stay warm ya'll. : ) Except you dad, you live on a gorgeous tropical island, so I think it's better for me to say...stay cool, nice and breezy dad, see you this coming week. Hahaha. : ) 

Friday's lunch date and some Christmas shopping at Narita mall

Okay so last Thursday as you know, Branden and Noah received their final flu shot, so that is done. And then Thursday *after* the shots, I cleaned house, did laundry, prepped for dinner. And I also, colored my hair. Same color, same brand and color of hair dye for the past year, I like it. : ) Showered quickly to get the hair color out and then blew dry it and, went and picked up the boys from school and then took them home for a quick bite to eat and then to Kumon.  Meanwhile, Friday was set that Noboru and I would be going to the Narita mall. Because I wanted to get some of the Christmas only, special edition body butters and whatnots for part of my Christmas gift. Boy am I glad I didn't buy online though....though you can from The Body Shop Japan now online. But the scent, I thought I wanted most, didn't smell even remotely how I had imagined. @_@ So I picked something else. I saw online the cute body butter with cutest gingerbread man pic on the front. Oh how cute, I thought. I must have that! I have to. So, I had my heart set on it. And when I smelled it. Didn't smell like gingerbread cookie at all to me. Not a cookie at all in fact. : (  Instead to me it smelled very spicy gingery type smell and zero cookie or gingerbread man cookie smell at all. So, I admit I was a bit disappointed because the cute gingerbread man on the packaging was really cute. But yeah, the scent just wasn't what I was hoping for at all. : ( Bummer. However good thing is.....I ended up really liking the Vanilla Bliss and Cranberry Joy special edition Christmas ones though a lot. So, yeah I guess I am glad we did go to the shop and smell them first in person versus just buying online without smelling them first. Glad, glad glad about that. : )  We did some more shopping in the mall. And also, the Narita Mall has been totally revamped the downstairs part near Aeon, new shops and everything. However, if you live closer to Lalaport, stick to there. they still have better shops there of course. but for country folks like us, we are *really* happy they revamped these shops. Subway sandwich shop is now there. However Hard Rock Cafe is gone. Kaldi is gone however a bigger (meaning space wise/store shop wise then what the Kadi we used to have at Narita mall) in the mall opened a huge International market up to take Kaldi's place. What I mean is, the Kaldi at Narita mall used to be a small shop, smaller in scale but this new international shop is about triple the size of our former Kaldi. So a good thing for any of us living near here. Plus we do have a Kaldi near us at another mall anyways. So having 2 different shops now to choose from is just a bonus. This info is only helpful if you live near here, so sorry not very helpful in the long run for most reading sorry, but still worth writing it all out at least. : ) That's where I bought the boys Advent calenders from.  Anyway many shops have changed. But it's all for the better. Upgrade...not a downgrade, Narita mall. Oh they also have the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory now too. Anyway so we did our shopping and left and headed to our neck of the woods and went to lunch.

We went and had lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant. Favorite waiter was there too. He's always really nice and we chit chat with him, he's so awesome. Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch. Picked up some bread from the bakery and headed home. To hide another stocking stuffer. And then we went and picked up the boys from school.

Yes, Branden has this same exact obento box/lunch box on the left that is right/correct. However, in all fairness, I have I have to tell you guys this story.... we have 1 shelf for obento stuff. And although I did throw about 60% of the unused obento stuff we had away in Summer. Such as the winter metal obento things etc that I knew we'd never use again. But I did keep Noah's 1 regular obento and Branden of course has the long hamburger one. Anyway, one day about the start of October, Noboru was pulling something out of the dish cabinet, his obento box and he accidentally his elbow must have caught it by accident Noboru nudged Noah's obento out and off the shelf and it fell to the floor breaking the open and close piece on one side of the obento box. @_@ It was an accident so we just threw it away and called it a loss (couldn't be fixed). I did remind Noboru though, the next time Noah has an ensoku/field trip or needs a lunch we will need to buy Noah a new lunch box. But other then that, no worries. "For sure" he said. And that was that. Well...with the marathon coming up this Saturday and lunch being needed...clearly Noah needed a new obento box. So, while we were there at the mall, we picked up Noah the exact same one as Branden. Because #1 it's cute. #2 the price is really affordable on it. and #3 the space, this has a lot of space for lunch. fruit, dessert. It has a lot of space. Meanwhile they had the round obento hamburger too. And Noboru said, let's get both, that way he can switch between the 2 if he wants. I think he still felt really bad about breaking Noah's obento although he shouldn't have. Sometimes accidents just happen, you know.

If you have ever bought a character obento, you know how expensive they are. We've bought Thomas, Pokemon, Spongebob and they can be 1500yen and up. So 504 yen type prices for these hamburger ones was honestly a pretty good deal. The bigger hamburger one was 605 yen but still a great price.

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory hails from Colorado. Durango Colorado  to be exact.  So, I was a little surprised to see this shop open up at Narita mall. At first I was thinking...."eyes are you deceiving me?" Hahaha. Turns out, I was seeing clearly after all.  : )Next I looked into the glass looking for chocolate haystacks. And sure enough they had 3 milk chocolate ones left.

Growing up, I have clear as a bell memories. Of my mom walking me into this old mom and pop chocolate shop (not the Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory), they made everything by hand.  She'd walk me in there once every other week just a special treat for her and I. And what I remember is the sound of the bells against the glass door making a jingle sound when we'd walk in....every time. Ohh that sound. Love that sound. And the other thing I remember is the smell of the chocolate hitting you as soon as you walk in. My mom always picked 4 milk chocolate haystacks. 1 for each of us for the car ride home, for her and I and 1 each for us at home. I am sure she bought some for my dad but I always remember what she bought for us, it was our special time together. The smell of the chocolate haystacks and the texture of all the coconut you could feel in your mouth. Yumm. I also remember when I was in college, I would sometimes walk into the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Denver and buy a haystack or two for old times sake. And I think I bought some haystacks in Honolulu from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (these are everywhere now days ; ) or another chocolate shop. I told Branden and Noah my important to me, story of when I was a little girl and how my mom/their grandma would buy these for me as a special treat. So yeah, when I saw the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, I just had to look for them. I just had to. And so when they had the 3 left, we bought them.  I even asked the lady behind the counter...do you have any more? She said, ahhh sorry we don't. : (

Friday after dinner, I gave one to Branden and 1 to Noah, I split mine with Noboru., Wish they had more haystacks but they didn't. : (  Just as good as I remember. I won't buy them often. But maybe once every 3 months or so. A little treat for the boys. : )

The Body Shop.

The prices of these is a little high imo. But I do really like them. But, I picked only 1 body butter, considering the price. 2,625 yen. It was a real debate between the cranberry one and the Vanilla Bliss one. But I picked Vanilla Bliss. Smells like vanilla custard to me. It smells really good. And light not too overpowering.

It has snowflakes and a vanilla bean on the design on it and stuff.

In Winter in Japan, I seem to really need hand cream. My hands get so dry. They don't get dry in Summer or Spring. But come Winter they're super dry. I picked both hand creams.  Cranberry Joy and Vanilla Bliss. 945 yen each for such a tiny tube (30ml/1oz). They only come in small sizes, they have no bigger sizes. But, I was happy to get these for Christmas. I love these and Noboru will wrap these things up for me this coming week.  And again, I did also get other things, clothes  a couple DVDs etc. That's why I didn't want everything from just the Body Shop only. Otherwise I would have picked more stuff. but, I only wanted a handful of things from here because I am already getting things from other places as well. : )

I cannot use these or even touch these until after Christmas. Hahaha. : )  Oh well, bright side is.....something to look forward to. : )  So that was Friday day. The next post will be Friday evening. Sorry, I know I am really behind. But I'm trying. : )

Little blurb thrown in here real quick.  Tomorrow is observation day for both the boys. I am going to that. So that's Tuesday. And Thursday is my salon appointment for my thermal hair straightening. I made my appointment for that yesterday.  I am not planning on getting any length cut off, I will let them know they can snip off any dead ends if I have any, which is fine, but I really don't want any length gone at all. : ) So that's what's sorta going on here.  Also we are heading to Guam this month.  But we will be spending Christmas here in Japan. So, I really do have lots to say and update about....it's just trying to find the time to sit down in front of this computer and get everything up and on here. But I am trying my best. : )