TGIF!!!!! : ) Yay, the weekend is almost here! : )

This morning in hopes of getting my weekly cleaning out of the way, so that my weekend can officially start. (Thinking) Ahh the weekends, yes the weekends, how I do love thee. Ha ha. My weekends are spent doing...nothing. Yup, that is right, absolutely no work involved, ha ha ha. Sure I cook dinner still unless we go out to eat. Or go shopping and checking out the mall and having some Starbucks. But nope, no laundry washing, yup all laundry ceases until Monday. Ha ha ha. Oh yes except B's yochien uniform washing I do on Sunday's but that aside from dinner making. I am nothing but a lazy girl all weekend long. Ahhh, my gosh I look forward to weekends. : ) So anyway, as I quickly tried to get the house finished off with it's last vacuuming it will get until Monday and such. I first took out Branden's comforter/top blankie outside and placed it on my great big fence out in the backyard. And with my house being at the end and then a 20 foot or so drop afterwards and nothing but a good 10 foot buffer zone area and then an endless rice field behind that. So, I enjoy hanging my blankets out in the back yard, especially since our backyard faces the direct sunlight. So, I hung his blanket out back clamped it with 2 big plastic clips and then I got out my big plastic stick. I am not sure of the correct word for it, but Japanese women use this plastic or some are wood, but I like a plastic one and they beat and hit their blankets or futons with them. Reasons are because it gets off dust in case you had any. And also it makes them fluffy. So, I went out in the backyard this morning, hung Branden's comforter out there after I got him sent to school, grabbed my big plastic heart shaped plastic futon stick and I whipped and beat the daylights out of the blanket. Meanwhile the older granny neighbor lady, was out hanging her laundry and she waved to me and said good morning. She's a futon whacker too, lol, so she knows. : ) Meanwhile I kept whacking the heck out of my sons blanket trying to get it good and fluffy and I, "Ohayo gozaimasu-ed her and waved with my free hand, ha ha. : ) I also saw a lady walking a weenie dog, down the street and she gave me a long distance wave and I waved and hit the blanket at the same time. I multi tasked again, ha ha ha. : )Meanwhile Noah ran around the backyard in his hat and sweatshirt and sweatpants and sneakers, going down the slide, running around like a maniac, saying...'hi wanwan, hi wanwan" (wanwan is Japanese kid lingo for dog, so sorta like "hi doggy") to the doggies next door. After a good 5 minutes of giving Branden's blanket the business, I came in the house. Ha ha ha! : ) Let it sit out for a good hour. When I brought his blanket in the house, it was so fluffy, I also whacked it a few more times before bringing it inside and then I placed it onto his bed. It's a cute little map comforter from Ikea. It's a duvet cover and also the inside futon type white inside blanket came from Ikea too. Really affordable and cute, bought at Ikea Funabashi about 18 mos-2 years ago. : )

And then I put out Noah's. I bet you are thinking, why does she do one at a time. I do that sometimes, because I clean Branden's room first, meaning I vacuum, dust and wipe down his mini blinds and make sure his books are properly placed and make sure his toy box and toys are all in order and when the hour is over, the room is done, and I brought in his blanket, room was finished. And then I started on Noah's room next and that is when I brought out Noah's blankie outside. But yes, sometimes for easiness I just lug out all 3 beds blankets at the same time. I guess it just depends on my mood how I do it that week. So, anyway I went back outside with Noah's bright colorful fishy under the sea, theme comforter from Ikea and I also gave his comforter the business as well. They really got the ol' one, two, I tell ya! Whack, whack, whack. His poor blanket never saw it coming. LOL. Boy was this little under the sea blanket fluffy from siting under the sun and getting fluffed up. " )

After that, I pulled about 3/4 of Branden's socks he wears to parochial school and I threw them all out. Because with today being Friday and only 5 more days of school left. So, I threw out all these. And I saved just 6 pairs (yes I saved one extra pair that he will need for the actual graduation day next Saturday). And he will use those last pairs next week and then after that, I am tossing them all out! These socks are all cheap, they came from Nishimatsuya. Only like 400 or so yen for a pack of 5. And as most of my mom friends can attest, kids get them so dingy looking anyway, so really not worth keeping around at all. Boy it really looks like yochien is coming to a close, huh? Even by just this tiny deed of tossing out his socks, it really reminds me, yes yochien is coming to a close!

Today Branden's desk finally arrived, yay! It was quite the wait, but we ordered a 2008 model desk, so that is why the wait. They had quite a few of 2007 model desks, but my hubby and my mil when she phoned way back then, mentioned really wanting the newest desk possible (shakes head). I tell ya, only in Japan, would such a thing matter to my husband and mil, ha ha ha. (I frankly don't care what year the desk was made but then that's just me, ha ha ha : ). So anyway, the men came this afternoon and they assembled the desk in Branden's room. Here's a pic of the Nitori guys bringing the desk.

Branden came home Friday afternoon. And at the bus stop when the kids got off, we invited Genki-kun to come over after they all changed clothes. Genki-kun's mom said, cool! And Genki-kun came at 3:00 pm in his play clothes. Branden was in his play clothes as well. Same with Noah. And the 3 boys played outside in the backyard chasing each other. In this pic, Branden was on the far left in the orange sweatshirt. Noah was on the far right in the gray sweatshirt and Genki-kun was in the middle with khaki pants.

They played outside, playing boy games. One was the "oni" ( meaning monster) and the other 2 ran from the oni. Noah was the oni twice and chased both Genki-kun and Branden throughout the yard! Ha ha ha. They kicked the soccer ball around. Swung on the swings. They came inside after a long while, played upstairs in Branden's room and also played in Noah's room. I made snacks, I brought out juice and popcorn and a few other snacks and placed them all on the living room table. Then after an hour and a half, his mom and older sister Momo-chan came and picked him up and they walked home. They live really close. She also invited Branden to come play at their house on Saturday and I said, sure! So he is going to hang at Genki-kun's house for an hour tomorrow.

For dinner, I made chicken chow mein. You can see the crunchy noodles underneath the chicken and veggies. Man was this good. And nice to eat all these yummy veggies. So healthy and filling! : ) So, Friday is here and I am not doing a whole heck of a lot now. I am also going to rest up for a very busy last week of my son's kindergarten years, so plenty of rest for me this weekend. Plus the play and...you get the idea. It's going to be a busy week next week. : )

Bits from Sunday and Monday! : )

Sunday evening, Noboru was working. He was working the swing shift. So he was unable to eat dinner with us, poor guy. I wanted something easy. Didn't really feel like cooking a great big ol' long drawn out meal. So, I pulled some chicken outta my freezer and we had yakitori. Easy, quick, and the kids love eating the meats from sticks, they think they're fun! : )

Cut all the fat hunks off the chicken breasts. Rinsed the chicken pretty good, diced it up to fit onto the small sized skewers. Put them in a cheapie plastic container.

Poured half of my bottle of yakitori sauce on my chicken skewers. Sprinkled a bit of salt and black pepper. Marinated in the fridge for a while. And done as soon as they fried on the stove in a pan. Very easy meal tonight. : )

I purposely left 3 yakitori aside and put the lid on and left them for tomorrow. Two were put aside for B's lunch at yochien for Monday. And the other one is for Noah's lunch at home tomorrow. Thank god for leftovers. They are the best help for mom's who make obento. Ha ha ha.

Here's what my meal looked like from Sunday evening. Just a very simple, chicken yakitori, over a bed of rice. And, I added the other half of sauce, in the pan just for a second before I pulled the chicken out. Just to warm up the sauce. A boiled/steamed corn with butter, salt and pepper. And a side of kimchee. Because I love kimchee, ha ha ha. The kids had half a corn on the cob each and yakitori and rice. The kids and I had a nice Sunday. Just relaxing. Very low key. : )

Monday morning, I was ready. I pulled the extra 2 yakitori outta the fridge, by now they were marinated just beautifully. Fried them in a skillet. And here is what B had for lunch on Monday. It's chicken yakitori over a bed of white rice. 2 steamed broccoli, with butter,salt and pepper. And some fresh big grapes that we picked on the Saturday grape picking thing. A very good, healthy lunch. And it was quick as heck, for me to make, since it was already prepped from the night before. : )

I've been wanting to make a pork roast in the oven. Hmm, must be the cooler weather we have been getting around here lately or what. So, on Monday morning, I fried up 2 medium sized pork roasts. I fried them in a little olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic. The seasonings on the pork smelled fantastic. The outter part of the pork got all crusty, sorta crisp and brown. I could see all the spices on there, yum! I fried it brown on all sides and then I wrapped them in tin foil and put them in my oven on a low heat all day long. As, I went to go pick up B from the bus stop in the afternoon, I could smell roasted pork from down the street. That smell was coming from our house, I thought, boy did it smell fantastic coming down the street though. I made baked potatoes, green beans. And we had some salad to go with it. A really good pork roast dinner was had on Monday! : )

PS, I mentioned it slightly before, but that was before, I knew any specifics, but yes, we are leaving back to the US mainland on September 25th, for about a week. It's hard to guess where. We are flying non rev, and not sure which plane will have the most seats until the time grows near. However yes we are going back to the mainland then. Most likely we will be heading to San Francisco or Oregon, or Seattle, Washington. We like the West coast, so that is where we are trying to go. We are personally hoping to go to Oregon. But that is sorta why we have been a bit busy. Right now we are trying to figure out the most information we possibly can about San Francisco, Oregon and Seattle. I have researched San Francisco a little, and we have both been to San Francisco a few times, just site seeing and whatnot, as well as flew through that airport a bunch to Hawaii from Denver back and forth many times. But from what we see they have the Tracy Outlets and Vacaville premium outlets, Targets and whatnot, seems like a nice place. We have researched hotels etc, for San Francisco as well. Meanwhile same for Oregon. I have found the Lloyd Center and the Columbia Gorge outlet in Oregon and they have many places our family would like to visit in Oregon, as well as, I also checked Target.com to find where the nearest Target is compared to where we might be in Oregon. Same with Seattle, we have been researching like crazy. Neither Noboru or I have ever been to Seattle, however we have both flown through the airport many times. But from what I could see from the airplane, the city looked really gorgeous. And one of my ex boyfriends, used to be from Spokane, lol, shhh about that please. : ) So anyway back to the 3 cities. Ha ha ha. So, not really sure where we are going, but yup we are going. But a lot of planning and searching is going on here, behind the scenes at our house. Car rentals, looking for the lowest price of those and whatnot. The actual week we are leaving, is when we will know for sure the city it will ultimately be. Then it will be easier and then we can put all our effort into researching that particular city better, and more whole heartedly. But for now, we are just researching each city, very lightly. But, still it can get time consuming. Anyway, that's what our family is up to these days! : )

Japan is in a deep freeze!

Tonight is freezing cold here in Japan. According to our news we are in for a real bone chilling type of deep freeze from tonight and for the next couple days! I'm not sure if it will ultimately snow here in Chiba. But it is *so* cold, it might as well, because the weather can't possibly feel any colder then it already does, lol!

Noboru had the night shift tonight, so he got to eat with us and that was nice! I made steaks and my famous garlic shrimp (are we not experts on everything garlic or what? LOL) and baked potatoes. Since in Japan the potatoes are rather small in size, we each had 2 potatoes. Dinner came out fantastic! We all ate together and watched TV while eating. Plenty of laughter in the house and chatter going on, but then again nothing new there! LOL.

After supper, he helped get the boys bathed and into their PJ's. Then since he had to leave at 10:00 pm. And bathes and dinner was all finished by 7:30 pm. We all sat in the living room and had caramel corn and watched TV. Then daddy left to work and Branden didn't want him to leave, but of course he had to.

When I am downstairs I got the downstairs heaters going on full blast. We got 3 fan heaters downstairs and 1 wall mounted heater downstairs too. And we keep all of them on when we are down stairs. But we all turn them off, when we all go upstairs. Upstairs we got 2 wall mounted heaters and 2 fan heaters too. So, now that me and the boys are all upstairs now, we got all the heaters going on full blast up here! I just checked the thermostat on my clock and since it's in Fahrenheit it says, it's actually 80 degrees upstairs (no kidding)! Ha ha ha, so I guess I am keeping myself and the boys plenty warm! I do turn the fan heaters off at night, when we sleep though just to ease my mind. But I do keep the wall mounted heaters on all night long though. LOL, must be confusing to you all in Denver, not knowing what I mean by wall mounted heaters and fan heaters and such, lol. Sorry, I know it all sounds so weird

Well, I am missing Nip/Tuck, so I better go watch it! Good night and love to you all. : )

Dinner came out really good last night. Like I said, I made chicken teriyaki, this is one of my usual dishes I have been making for way over 10 years now, lol. I don't slice up my chicken in slices, so it doesn't get dry. Whole chicken breasts, I find stay juicier. I fried it up with a little olive oil (As, Italian's we sure love our olive oil don't we?) And garlic (gotta have garlic with everything, right? lol) and pepper. And then at the end fry up some mushrooms and bell pepper and teriyaki sauce. We had rice with it. Again, just super simple and a basic good cheap meal. Pictures are of Branden's dinner with less veggies and mine that was virtually covered in veggies, lol. Okay, I admit I like my veggies! : )

Dinner

Dinner's finished. Tonight, I made something called hoikoro, it's basically just pork with cabbage and mushrooms and bell peppers all fried up with a little olive oil and then when it's all done I add the sauce. The sauce is a miso based sauce. So, in a nutshell we had stir fry veggies and pork with a miso based sauce and also had some white rice on the side. I made this for Branden and I. Noboru ate at work, since he has an evening shift tonight. Just a very simple dinner, but I am making sure Branden eats vegetables. He also had 3 small cartons of milk with dinner.

Now, Branden is watching Chicken Little downstairs for like the 100th time so far, since we downloaded this movie. Noah is upstairs taking a nap. And I got dinner dishes that need to be all washed up and put away, so I'm heading downstairs right now to do that. My mil should be here in a few short hours.

Sunday at home

Today was Sunday and we enjoyed a really nice relaxing day at home. We got up about 10:00 am. So it was nice that I got a really nice long sleep today. Both the boys also snoozed until then as well. Branden and I had cereal and toast for breakfast and orange juice. Typical generic 5 minutes or less breakfast lol. Oh well, it tasted great and it was quick. Besides I'd prefer spend quality time with my boys then make each meal by hand ykwim?

Branden has been using these computer learning games. He has a preschool one and a kindergarten one as well. Teaches him counting and ABC's and more. I mean, we teach him this stuff ourselves anyways yk, but he actually enjoys playing the game and interacting and learns so much so I let him play for an hour today. Meanwhile it gave me a chance to clean house a bit and throw in a load of laundry. Then I made lunch.

For lunch today I made some grilled cheese sandwiches, because Branden asked for those. And I also warmed up the leftover cream stew on the stove and we each had a nice warm bowl of cream stew with rice and also had a yummy oohy gooey grilled cheese sandwich. It was a nice lunch. Again our lunch only took me about 5 to 8 minutes. So easy and so fast! We enjoyed it on the mini table in the living room and we watched reruns of the series finale of Joe Millionaire on Fox TV here in Japan. Noah also had cream stew. He's my second child, so there's an experience or wisdom that I got the second time around (lol hard to explain but it's all pretty much, been there done that! And I don't intend for it to sound cocky at all, not my intention at all but I know the signs of a baby interested in food yk) and I am pretty comfortable with him dabbling with foods now at this stage. He is ready and he loves to eat! Obviously I don't give him gigantic chunks of chicken and whatnot. But I do give him the broth of the cream stew and a tiny bit of rice. That's all he needs at this age and it fills him up pretty good, well besides the side of milk that he gets from mommy. LOL.

After Noah ate his lunch and I breastfed him, he took an hour nap. This gave Branden and me some together time. We got out our play doh and sat at the kitchen table and had fun. We only played for 30 minutes. Then we cleaned up. And he laid down for a nap.

I was feeling a bit tired but I decided I better start breading the shrimp for dinner. I also made the rice. I did 1 more load of laundry, this was a load of Branden's yochien clothes mixed in with Noah's stuff.

Noboru came home right on time and I had dinner all ready to go. We all sat down in the living room and watched TV and ate. We had ebi furai/fry, green beans and white rice. Noboru also had a cup of instant miso soup to go along with it. So not an absolutely gorgeous dinner, but certainly a good basic typical home cooked meal.

Now, baths have been given and Noah is fast asleep in my bed and Branden is also laying on my big giant queen sized bed watching the TV in my room. Hmmm I think he's watching Tom and Jerry. : )