I already did the, Branden's "getting ready for the 3rd grade post" And of course, had to do Noah's as well. With Noah starting school last Wednesday, that left me Monday and Tuesday to get him prepared. So that's what I did. I did all of this last Monday. After sending Branden to school last Monday. Noah and I went home and I made myself a cup of hot coffee. Turned on my ipod in the kitchen and listened to some music as I got Noah all prepped and ready to go! First pic is of, bringing everything down that the yochien provided on the last days before Noah went on Spring break. Then I pulled out all the stickers that we made for Noah last year. The amount of stickers made, are actually enough to carry him through the whole of his yochien years. So that's a savings for sure.
One packet of the waterproof bigger stickers. These are my favorite because they are so waterproof that they do not come off in the dishwasher or anything and believe you me, we wash that obento daily all year long and those waterproof stickers *still* will not budge!!! They're THAT good. And the one pack which makes 2-3 sheets lasts the entire years of yochien. And I make them at home on my own computer. The smaller ones are for stuff like crayons and such. And they're not waterproof. Which is okay, don't think he ever got water on a crayon. ; ) So, a few different sizes are what I bought last year and they'll carry us until we run out. And we still have plenty. Each pack of stickers costs about 400-500 yen or about that. I also bought the cloth type stickers and those are perfect for sewing his name on his red/white hat and undershirts etc.
A place to put the names on the base of the crayons. I can't even imagine handwriting those on there. That would take forever plus I would guess I'd end up with an aching hand. ; ) The stickers are easy peasy! And take almost no amount of work at all.
Sticking the name on there. And I gather you could stop right here. But I have seen some kids on visiting/observation day that actually pulled some of their own stickers off. So, what I do is put a single piece of tape around the name label and they stay put!
And here is with a tape around the name sticker. Those name labels stay on!
The top of the box of crayons needs a name label and so does the bottom of the box of the crayons. Just everything you can imagine. Needs a name sticker.
The base of the new glue needed a name sticker. And don't forget the......
Cap of the glue either. Believe you me. After sending one to yochien and finishing yochien and now with Noah at yochien. I have learned every trick, every tip. I've got it all down by now. As I should. ; )
Clay mat, that needed replacing. And 2 name stickers as well. If you recall, our school said they needed a flexible clay mat back when B started yochien here and after driving to Toys r us, 1 mall, and 2 homecenters I realized they don't sell flexible claymats (grrrrr!) and I sent/send B and now Noah with a square of a kids plastic table cover. That's what the mothers of the yochien send as well. I wonder how many new mom's of our yochien this year went on a quest looking for a flexible clay mat. ; ) If anyone asks me, I'll surely help out and info share. Anyway I sent Noah with a new "clay mat" to start of the new school year with. And I still have about 3 mats worth of extra material to make a few more.
Every kid has this same weird colored blue/teal box that holds all their yochien stuff at school. Look at how absolutely filthy it is!!! It was spic and span last April and though they bring back a ton of stuff before the Christmas holidays they did not bring this home. Look what a year of non-cleaning looks like. Blech!
Close up of the filth! What is that, a smooshed piece of clay? And bits of fuzz and whatnot in the corners of the box. Yuck.
Piece of clay that got stuck into his shaped clay board. I see bits of clay in the boat shape and a bit of clay in the snail as well. All Noah's clay instruments had dried up bits of clay as well.
So, I poured some green apple dish soap in there.
Hot soapy sudsy water and gave it a good soaking and then a good scrubbing.
The hard clay shape thingy as well. Yup, what fun, I had last Monday! ; ) But honestly it had to be done.
And spic and span once again! Dried it all off, Put another waterproof sticker on it and put it into the bag of stuff, we'd be sending Noah with on Wednesday morning.
Noah's scissors needed a good wipe down. They can't be plunged in water, I do worry about rust, but a good thorough wipe down was definitely had.
All Noah's darks went out to hand dry. His 2 navy blue vests, his 2 navy blue shorts, his smock that used to belong to B. And his navy blue jacket. I washed them on the gentle cycle here at home and then dried them up outside. I'm lucky his uniforms are not dry clean only. Good thing last Monday was a sunshiny day. Meanwhile I did a load of lights as well.
All Noah's yochien bags, his seat cover, long sleeved white dress shirts. Red/white hat. It all got nicely dried. And then I brought it all inside and got Noah all nicely packed up.
Around noon last Monday, Branden had a half day (was off at 11am) since it was his first day of school, so with both the boys in the car, I drove to Nishimatsuya and picked up a new pack of long socks for Noah. A pack of 5. Threw out any old looking socks Noah had. And that was it. As much effort as I put into getting Branden ready with Nike pencil *bag* and soda smelling erasers, new smock etc etc. Is the same effort and time I put into getting Noah ready as well. Tuesday, we just relaxed and enjoy our last day together.
Wednesday morning, Noah's first day as a pink badge. Noah is now a nenchu! ; ) Meaning the middle grade for yochien life. In Japan, yochiens, commonly have 3 grades. First year for our school that is the red badge, but it is also called the, nensho (first year), then there are the pink badges at our school which is the middle year where they are called, nenchu, and then at our school they also have the final year of kids, we call them the blue badges at our school, but they are also referred to as, nencho (the final year of yochien) And at our school we had a training period where Noah was a yellow badge, for a few month's. Anyway, Noah is now a pink badge. A nenchu. He's got this whole year and a whole other year, he still has 2 long years of yochien life. I was pleased to send Noah off with new shoes and socks, a freshly washed uniform, new haircut and new school supplies all nicely named with stickers and the whole bit. Well done to the both of us! Have a fantastic new year at school sweetheart!
Have a wonderful day at school my dearest Noah! We are so unbelievably proud of you! Absolutely everyone is so proud of you and you are so *so* loved!!! So, I dropped him off with his great big bag of stuff. Kissed and then waved him good bye. What did I do after that? I went to Mc D's, got myself a egg mcmuffin combo. And went, turned on CNN, watched some of that while I ate and after about 10-15 minutes. Quickly opened a box of brownie mix and made my boys a batch of "first day of school fudgy brownies." First days of school are special in this household! ; ) Then I spent an hour on my treadmill and listened to my ipod. Noah had a half day the first 2 days of school, so I swung back around and made sure to pick him up at 11am.
First day of school fudgy brownies!!!! With chopped walnuts inside, so yummy! The boys loved coming home to these Wednesday! And fwiw, on Branden's actual Monday first day, I bought him an ice-cream parfait at the local conbini which he absolutely loved eating on the way home.; )
A cute little lamb! And if you notice what color bow tie the lamb is wearing. Last year it was red, and this year it's pink. The bow tie depends on what badge you are. Yup, Noah's a pink badge alright. Congraulations baby, we sure do love you!!! : )
Have a wonderful day at school my dearest Noah! We are so unbelievably proud of you! Absolutely everyone is so proud of you and you are so *so* loved!!! So, I dropped him off with his great big bag of stuff. Kissed and then waved him good bye. What did I do after that? I went to Mc D's, got myself a egg mcmuffin combo. And went, turned on CNN, watched some of that while I ate and after about 10-15 minutes. Quickly opened a box of brownie mix and made my boys a batch of "first day of school fudgy brownies." First days of school are special in this household! ; ) Then I spent an hour on my treadmill and listened to my ipod. Noah had a half day the first 2 days of school, so I swung back around and made sure to pick him up at 11am. First day of school fudgy brownies!!!! With chopped walnuts inside, so yummy! The boys loved coming home to these Wednesday! And fwiw, on Branden's actual Monday first day, I bought him an ice-cream parfait at the local conbini which he absolutely loved eating on the way home.; ) A cute little lamb! And if you notice what color bow tie the lamb is wearing. Last year it was red, and this year it's pink. The bow tie depends on what badge you are. Yup, Noah's a pink badge alright. Congraulations baby, we sure do love you!!! : )
Inside Noah's Easter basket!!! All the same stuff as Branden. With two boys, I always make sure, what one has, the other one has too.
The forecast said rain on Monday. Thank goodness it was Sunday however the day was still gray and overcast, but luckily not a stitch of rain. Yay!!! Anyway, where was I. Oh yes, we all had a nice breakfast, eggs, bacon, toast and skillet fried potatoes. Coffee for us and OJ for the kids. I had originally thought of having a huge Easter party much like my Easter's of the past here at our house. And believe you me, I debated on that quite a bit. But in the end, considering how absolutely fried/exhausted I was before Spring break. Though now I am feeling way better. Anyway, I in the end decided to have just a family Easter celebration instead. Next year I'll have the party and I certainly have enough cookie cutters and cupcake cups and stuff to do it. But this year it was just us. And I sort of loved it this way. This picture was taken before we started. A picture of getting this all set up. Tissues for little fingers that might get some coloring on them. All the cups arranged.
Branden looking at the egg he was coloring. And Noah waiting for his egg to get brighter.
Eggs in all the cups.
Branden pulling out a green egg and Noah looking on!
Since we color eggs every year, at age 4, Noah's an expert! Or should I say he's an Egg-spert?!!! Ha ha ha. ; )
What a lovely blue egg, Branden.
And after the eggs have all dried, the decorating could begin! I made a few. And Noboru and Branden were decorating some in this pic!
Go Noah go!!! There he is with his crayon!
Noah drew a face! I said..."wow Noah what a good job, that totally looks like a face" ha ha ha. ; )
The finished eggs for Easter 2010!!!
And then we hid them. And here's Noah finding one.
The playground we have..... means good hiding spots for the eggs.
Yup Branden just found one and is about to slide down with the eggs in his basket.
Safe landing and the eggs were all A-okay. ; )
Who's going to find the most? Hmm, tough call, tough call.
Branden's eggs he found.
So, Noboru tells me, if you can hide one so good they can't find then you win, but if he could hide the egg the kids could not find he would win. I had told him, "you're on!" And I must say, we colored and hid 13 eggs. And they found 12. They could not find my egg. I told Noboru, I won. Ha ha ha. And we sat there and watched and I'll be goshed darned, they could not find it! Until......Noah looked inside the cold BBQ and he...FOUND IT! Yup, I hid the egg in the BBQ. They walked past that BBQ about a hundred times and they never bothered to check until Noah finally looked in there. Big huge grin on my face but I didn't say a thing.
Well done Noah! You found the last egg!!!
Branden won, he beat Noah by 1 egg! Next year, we'll see who wins. ; )
We had 3 egg hunts in the backyard. And then Noboru got the grilled started. And I got the ground beef mixed and the hamburger patties made. We were going to do ham or roasted chicken. But with so many roasted chickens we've been eating these past 2 month's. We sort of took a break from that. And I had the beef guy grind us some very lean ground beef. And we had some good burgers.
The kids played and relaxed, while the BBQ cooked the burgers. I had fries frying up on the stove, the lettuce and tomato and onion sliced for the burgers sat on the green counter. Dinner took no time at all.
The smell from a chargrilled burger?! OMG! Amazing! Noboru kept telling me...these smell great! And they did, they smelled fantastic!
We had so many burgers, everyone could have 2 and some had 3. I had 1 and then a few hours later ate my second burger. The fries were crisp and dinner was oh so good. Definitely the funnest Easter meal we've ever had! Easter 2010, rocked! Anyway hope you all had an amazing Easter for whoever celebrates it! : )
This past week, while the boys were on Spring break, we went to visit some old friends in the Yachiyo/Funabashi area where we used to live. It was a nice visit, but a long drive for us to get there. After we finished visiting, we headed to Costco in Makuhari.
We only bought 2 things while at Costco. One large cheese pizza, when we brought it home we whacked it into the oven and rewarmed it and had it for dinner that night.
And we also bought dinner rolls, that's it. Just didn't need much from Costco but it was nice to be able to pick those up since we were in the area.
What have we done for our final week of Spring break? Besides the Costco run, visiting with friends and a quick Guam night trip. We just basically hung out at home. The boys have played with a lot of kids in the neighborhood. They've beybladed and kori-oni'ed themselves like crazy all this week. I've also spent a lot of time with the boys in the backyard this week as well. I like kicking the ol' soccer ball around with the boys. Still doing the cleaning and laundry obviously. But not having to run here and there has been so nice for me. *happy sigh* : ) Another load of towels hanging in the pic.
Can you see the farmer and his tractor in the background? Yup, they've officially started on the rice fields for this season.
I also went through Branden's stuff he brought home from school. And looked through everything and saw what needed replacing. The brand new Mizuno bag is his new shuji set, as you know. He needed new white/inside shoes, a new hat, new crayons. New notebook paper. And would you believe, the last week of the 2nd grade, get this! The sensei announced that 3rd graders at our school aren't supposed to use the standard shogako pencil boxes anymore!!!! This was an official, what the heck, for me, I tell you!!! Are they serious??? Do they know we just bought you that new Pokemon sparkly pencil box??? You should have seen my facial expression when Branden came home and told me that. @_@ Ummmm, okay then what type of NEW pencil box do you need now then? Apparently a pencil *bag* for bigger kids. Grrrr! Branden didn't know, it's obviously not his fault at all. I was just frustrated that perhaps at the many many meetings we have at the school they didn't mention this. I went to the small country city near our country town and let Branden pick his pencil *bag* which he did. And fwiw (for what it's worth), since I don't have my receipt anymore for the Pokemon sparkly pencil box, I offered to let B use it at Kumon. But he said, no, that he has one already and to let Noah have the new much coveted sparkly pencil box. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes. So, the new sparkly Pokemon pencil box is now Noah's. And he'll be using it at Kumon as soon as he starts. ; ) What a good big brother Branden is! A seriously good egg!
When Branden was an ichinensei, the note said, all kids at our school must bring an 18 piece coupy set. And 18 is what he brought for ichinensei, didn't want to be a rule breaker. And for ninensei, he also brought 18. However by then, there were kids with 24 and more pieces of coupy. Hmm. So, this year, we decided to let Branden bring the 24 piece as well. he could certainly use the extra colors for art class.
These are the things we picked up at the Daiso. Erasers, they smell like cola and orange soda and B said a few of his classmates had them, so he wanted them too. ; ) He also needed a liquid glue and a stick glue, plus the American glue, he usually takes 3 glues at school, again with so many different types of art projects he needs a variety of glues. Staples for his stapler. Tape, they always need tape.
1800 yen for the new pencil bag, grumble, grumble, grumble. Oh well, it's what Branden picked, because he likes Nike. He said Genki is bringing Puma and the other boys are bringing Adidas and Puma and Nike. We like Adidas or Nike, but the Adidas bag they had was too thin and flimsy not really as structured as the other bags. Which is why he went to this Nike bag. 
I have since name tagged everything, sewn his name on his gym hat. made sure his name got on his inside shoes. Every coupy each piece has his name on it. And Branden's ready!
I also had him get all new pencils and sharpen them. His pencil box, he had only a set number that could fit in there. But this time around, I made him take 2 red pencils (and they all have his name on them) and 8 or 9 pencils. We placed pencil caps on them all so the lead wouldn't break off in the bag. And put his 2 erasers in the front pocket and he's set. Branden starts the 3rd grade this Monday/tomorrow. And Noah doesn't start school until mid-week. This coming Wednesday. Happy Easter everyone, I'll be posting on Easter probably this evening or tomorrow morning. : )
Thought you all would enjoy the entrance ceremony picture for the new ichinensei in our small country town for the school year of 2010. How many ichinensei/first graders does our town have this year? Get a good look at the pic! I'll wait while you count.......did you count yet? If you counted 4 on one side and four on the other, then you counted exactly right! Eight. No, not 80. Not 18. Just 8.
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