The great big end of the year clean up in Japan! Pre-New Year's clean up! New Year's oosoji! Getting ready for the New Year. Some end of the year shopping at Uniqlo, Sports Depo, Old Navy and Costco...

December 26th, the day right after Christmas. Branden and I immediately started in on the huge end of the year clean up in his room. I blog about this every single year and have since my blog first started in 2005. In Japan, Japanese people like to ring in the new year in a fresh clean house. Starting the new year with a fresh clean slate, I have said this for years. And it's true. I personally *love* this Japanese custom! I love having a huge end of the year clean up, of the entire house. Granted my house is pretty clean and organized to begin with year round. However it is not perfectly clean 100% every single day. Because well...real life happens here. And with 2 kids, it happens. : ) In any case, perfect chance to get a huge deep cleaning done! Keep in mind, we also do the American version at our house too...meaning, we have a great big spring cleaning, every spring. And I like to do a great big cleaning over haul too, when the Fall comes creeping in and summers rolling out. : ) So 3 huge times of cleaning a year...mixed in with the weekly regular stuff. Sorta keeps things from ever getting too bad! : ) December 26th, we both lifted and moved Branden's mattress. Holy smokes! Not many things usually shock me...but holy crap! There were misc socks...used up rolled up kleenex, he blows his nose wilds every single morning...now I know he threw a great deal under his bed! @_@ It was quite scary under there! I last cleaned under there this Fall. Shocking... what it looked like since then. However...had him throw out all tissues in the trash pronto! Grab all misc socks and put them into the dirty clothes basket! He vacuumed all the edging. And I came in with the green vacuum and I vacuumed and vacuumed my little heart out. We had music playing in there, via my phone and music streaming. Windows open. I vacuumed the blinds. I saw A-chan's papa cleaning all the windows in their house. the mom was kicking butt in their kitchen. Their windows were open too. I saw she saw a glimpse of us in Bran's room. I then saw, boy next doors mom cleaning her house, again she saw us too. All of Japan cleans at the same time. And it must be done on or by December 30th. You should not be cleaning on the 31st. It usually *has* to be done on the 30th. So we just worked our butts off on December 26th. And we actually finished Bran's room. Man it was a lot of work. 

Wiped and dusted his Ikea bed!

By the time we were done. His under bed area was as spic and span clean and you could imagine. Not 1 dust in sight! Perfectly clean under there! Keyboard, Dr. Dre Beats headphone box. And his Tamiya car. 

Two Bey stadiums. 

Windows were wiped and windex-ed! 

I'm kidding you not, his bedroom floor by the time we were done...was vacuumed about 5 times!

Not even a tiny dot of dust behind his toy and game storage. And his boxes were very messy...very unorganized. Never fear...I can tackle this right along with you! And I did!

We wiped and cleaned each plastic box. And dried each plastic box.

And yet more vacuuming of Bran's room.

Presto change-o and done! Organized. The 3DS cards all together. The Wii games all together. Now...everything makes sense. 

Just organizing his stuff...

Deodorants a plenty in there.... and body sprays and some Calvin Klein Escape. His Body Shop comb. And spare pair of glasses. And his Minecraft torch in case of...a Minecraft emergency? @_@ Hahaha. And letters and whatnot in his ziplock, all together. Everything organized...everything tidy. After that. I vacuumed my bedroom, vacuumed my bedroom blinds. Dusted my 2 night stands on both sides of the bed. I vacuumed the laundry room upstairs too. Washed the upstairs sink. And called it a day on December 26th. Good thing we had leftover ham because I was pooped. 

December 27th. We are now cleaning Noah's room. And goodness are we high up. And goodness is that quite the drop... to where the rice fields are. We are elevated on a rocky type hill area. Where our housing community is located. Just like B's room. We started with the windows. I vacuumed said windows and blinds. Windex-ed Noah's bedroom windows. 

Like a champ, Noah vacuumed all his bedroom carpet edging. And I vacuumed his bedroom really nicely about 5 times too. And I should say. If I cleaned their rooms all by myself. I feel my sons would never really appreciate or understand how hard it is to clean it. Not learn to appreciate how hard it took to clean the room and probably wouldn't want to keep it clean. And I just don't want my kids to turn out like that. So since they were little. I had them help me clean their rooms. They learned how hard it was to clean it...how much work went into cleaning it...and believe me...rooms stay cleaner...and longer... when they have to clean half of it! I know we all parent differently and stuff. But my boys know how to clean, and they should! For the regular weekly cleaning of their rooms, they are in charge of cleaning their bedrooms by themselves. But, I do go in there and vacuum and dust a couple times a week, but the weekly mess stuff... of their rooms, they are in charge of cleaning/organizing it all by themselves. It's just the 3 great big huge times a year, is when I will go in there and see how they've been doing and sometimes more often too... if it looks like something is... really needing attention, but usually they're pretty good with their own rooms for the most part. : )

And Noah's toy boxes are now spic and span and cleaned and organized. 

Washing the only 2 curtains we have in the house. And all Bran's JHS dress shirts and Bran's shirt he wore on Christmas. 

The 2 handmade Esty aprons, I had washed those on the quick wash, even though they were brand new, still feel a bit more comfortable washing them first. In Japan, kids cook a lot at school. Noah cooks all the time at school and so does Bran. The schools in our town do a whole lot of Home EC. Which is so good for kids! : )

We went to Uniqlo to get a pair of pajamas for Noah. Our house has central heating and floor heating, so our house is toasty warm, every room in the house. Central heating for Japan is rare where as in the US it's normal/standard. Why did I mention it? Because trying to buy pajamas that are not super thick fleece. In Japan is so hard. Because most houses don't have central. So their kids need the super thick PJs. Our kids don't. So, we checked Uniqlo. And they had mostly thick fleece PJs. But we did find some thin Star Wars PJs. So we picked a pair for Noah. 

They had adorable BB8. However they looked really plain. The bottoms were just plain blue, no cool print for the pants or anything. 

The Darth ones were so freaking cool! The top said...Come to The Darkside. With a picture of Darth Vader. And the bottoms had many fun prints on them, Darth's mask. The ships and everything. Very cool! So we picked the Darkside PJs for Noah. Just way cuter and the printed bottoms... were much better then the plain blue bottoms on the BB8 pair. 

We went to so many stores, December 29th. We went to Old Navy at Aeon mall in Inzai. We went to Sports Depo. And the final store was Costco. Info share... they now have America's fave...Kraft Mac and cheese. Here is a price and everything. It works out to about a buck a box. It's sorta high but...I am willing to pay the price. We love this. : ) Haven't bought it yet, but did want to info share it, at least. 

Costco Makuhari, years ago... when we used to go there as our main Costco. They had and sold turkeys year round. And then when we got our own Costco, in Inzai. The first year they too, sold turkeys year round. However...last year, they shipped them away...took them out of the Costco Inzai. How did I know? I saw the turkeys last year...in October-December. And kept thinking about them. But decided at the beginning of February 2015 to buy a small turkey for a small turkey dinner and mostly just for sammys. However...imagine my shock that they were gone. We asked the customer service lady and she was nice, but matter of factly just said..."we won't carry them after Christmas anymore but we'll restock next October." @_@ Remembering that. I made sure to buy the smallest turkey they had, last night. It's like a 10 pounder. But it is now sitting nice and quiet in my freezer, thank goodness for huge freezer space. And in February 2016, I will bake this little baby. : ) What else did we buy yesterday? December 29th? Mozzarella cheese, pasta sauce, a case of Dr. Pepper and a rotisserie chicken. We also had pizza for dinner last night at Costco, the kids and I last night had pizza, just said that, Noboru had a hot dog and clam chowder. December 31st we will be having baked chicken parmesan. Japanese have soba for New Years eve ...the noodles are said to give them a long and prosperous year and life. And so that sounds good...minus the soba part. So we have pasta...same long noodle. : ) Just Italian. Jan 1st dinner... I will be making homemade from scratch pizza and Jan 2nd, I am making chili concarne (Texas style chili beans) Tonight we are having....the rotisserie chicken wraps, in tortilla with melted mozzarella cheese and white rice. And a side salad. January 3rd, we are meeting my BIL, SIL, MIL, and 2 nieces and 1 nephew. We are all going to a restaurant in Narita City.

Everybody picked 2 packs of chips for New Year's eve. Noah picked the green bag (cheese flavor) and the Calbee potato chips. Bran picked the Doritos and the spicy potato chips and Noboru picked both taco chips but 2 different brands and I picked plain salt flavor tortilla chips. I have that amazing and cheap salsa from Besia. We will be also making some peanut butter icecream with Reese's peanut butter cups chopped in.  

This morning, I did the final touches of the cleaning. I vacuumed the upstairs again, Bran's room Noah's room, my bedroom and the hall upstairs, the laundry room, etc. Vacuumed downstairs. Changed the placemats to the regular ones. Wiped down the table real good.

Opened the new New Year's wreath we have to hang on our door every year. You should burn your old one (best) you can dispose of them easily at certain shrines where they burn them all or throw it out at least.... keeping them for another year or reusing it.... is bad luck. So we buy a new one each year. When you hang this on your door, it signals to your neighbors...I am done with my house cleaning. My house is now New Year's ready! That is the message this hanging on your house signifies. I hung ours...after my neighbor heard me...vacuuming the upstairs and downstairs. And saw me spray down some shoes outside with anti water...protective spray. And after I windex-ed the big patio windows downstairs. And they had seen me cleaning beforehand for days and I them. So they definitely knew...our house was totally ready, when I hung this on our front door! : )

Just 2 things each for the boys, bought yesterday. 

A classic navy blue pair of Asics sneakers for Noah, very preppy. 

Noah's PJs. Very cool and since the movie is so popular right now, very in style too! : )

A men's size 10. A Japanese men's 28cm. Good grief my son got big! : )  And he's not even finished growing yet! : )

A classic old school pair of Nike for BrannyB in navy blue. These were regular price 8500 yen. But on sale for like 6000 yen. These are quite popular right now. 

And this pair has a pretty purplish blue Nike part at the back, which just takes it up... just a notch from being boring. 

They will each have nice new shoes to wear to Disney, when we go there soon. 

And Bran got this preppy zip up sweatshirt from Old Navy yesterday too. Like a jean blue color and white. It was 50% off, so only 1800 yen. About $17 US. His sweatshirts are now a size men's large. Holy goodness he's getting big. Like the Hulk, hahaha. 

That's all really. Just 2 things each. 1 pair of sneakers and 1 pair of cool Star Wars PJs for Noah-chan. And 1 sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers for B. 

I also got a new pair of no name.. short booties. I had a longer length pair of actual Ugg brand. But, I had been wanting a shorter length pair. And these were only 1000 yen and I really don't care if they're name brand or not. So super cheap, cute and for just zipping around. Perfect for me. I may even wear these to Disney. I'm still thinking about it though. 

This morning, I sprayed down Bran's new pair of Nikes. The suede-y parts. Noah's shoes have no suede-y parts at all. And my boots also got a thorough spray down. 

And Noah's pair of Asics, he got in August, got scrubbed like a maniac by me this morning. I scrubbed the living daylights out of these... with a shoe brush and school shoe cleaner, I pre cleaned by hand... but ran Noah's through the washer with detergent to finish them off, boy oh boy, are they clean now, the white sole areas came out very white. They came out sparkling. These shoes are now inside, in our genkan/entry way. 

And at 11:45am today, I took down the Christmas wreath, packed it nicely away and I brought out the New Year's wreath. Signalling... we are indeed done on the specific day we are supposed to be done cleaning! So this means...our house...is ready to ring in the new year! And we are! We are all done with cleaning. Just relaxing and resting these next couple days. Eating good food, staying cozy warm. Ready to ring in 2016, the year of the monkey! : ) 

Christmas 2015...

Merry Christmas everyone! I certainly hope you all had a very lovely holiday with family and good food! As for us here, we had ourselves a very lovely Christmas here at home with our family. Christmas morning, I woke up first. I turned the hot water pot on downstairs, so we could have some coffee for Noboru and I or some Swiss Miss hot cocoa for the kids. I went upstairs, brushed my teeth and washed my face and came downstairs waiting for the family to wake up. Being that it was Christmas everyone woke up quicker then usual. : ) We all sat near the Christmas tree and Branden opened one and then Noah opened one and then Branden opened one and so on, Noboru and I opened ours last. I took many pictures from that morning. Some very funny ones, I might add. : ) While everyone was enjoying their gifts in the living room, I went into the kitchen and got started in on breakfast. I made up a whole pack of crispy American bacon. Eggs any way you want, over easy, omelet or scrambled. And we had toast. Christmas day was spent relaxing and enjoying our quiet family time here at home. And of course they were enjoying their presents. 

After lunch, Noboru peeled a huge amount of potatoes and while he peeled, I sliced every potato he peeled. We talked and joked while doing the potatoes. Then I made the homemade roux from scratch. And put the potatoes in the oven around 2pm. They take an hour and a half to bake. So early preparation is key. After 30 minutes of the potatoes baking alone, I put the ham, I had just glazed in the oven, while the potatoes were baking already. 

25 minutes before the ham and potatoes were ready, I also whacked the cornbread into the oven with the potatoes and ham. Thank goodness for a big/normal sized American oven.

Nothing smells better than hot buttered freshly baked cornbread. : )

In our comfy clothes, we were ready to enjoy our Christmas dinner! Noboru chit chatting with Bran.

Noboru chit chatting with Noah.: )

We had, hot fresh buttered cornbread, black olives, gratin potatoes, a honey baked ham, green beans hiding behind the potatoes in this picture. And a big fresh mixed salad.

Cheese and garlic croutons and salad dressing. And another plate of hot buttered cornbread at the back. 

Ready to eat ya'll? I know, I sure am! : )

My Christmas dinner plate from 2015!

And my Christmas dinner plate 2015 with the food setting on, on my camera. lol. : )

Christmas cake, our first, I usually bake pies. : ) 

From our favorite shop in Nagano. 

This was so good!

And just one of our many leftover ham sandwiches. Honey ham and swiss cheese, lettuce and Miracle Whip. We ate the last of our ham Sunday night. : ) Anyway, just wanted to say, I sure hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, from our family to yours! Happy holidays! : )

Christmas cookie making and baking fun...

December 23rd, I made the Christmas cookie dough from scratch. And I wrapped it into fourths and into plastic wrap and stuck in the fridge to harden over night. December 24th, the boys and I, had our cookie dough ready and waiting! Christmas cookie cutters given to me by my mom, a very long time ago except for the huge star one. We have Christmas trees, 3 of those, bells, a snowman, a Santa and a few others. 

We had Christmas music on the radio. And the boys were set to bake some Christmas cookies 2015! We have done this since they were toddlers! A family tradition, for sure! : ) 

Branden goofing around and giving me a cheeky grin! I'm so glad my kids are so playful. Noah concentrating, trying so hard! My sweet Noah. : )

Branden giving his brother some side eye! Hahaha. : )

We baked a bunch of Christmas cookies!

I see lots of stars and lots of trees. The Santa and snowman ones were hiding under these ones.

We don't frost them, because it's just too much for those of us in Japan. Frosting would be way too sweet. So these are perfect and the way we love them most... just like this! : )

We had a lot of fun making and baking these this year! : ) 

Merry Sithmas!!! Taking the family to go and see, Star Wars: The Force Awakens...

This Tuesday, December 22nd, was the boys last day of school! They both got out at 11am, Tuesday. We had lunch here at home. And they then totally helped me get dinner ready early. Why? Because we had a family movie date that evening! Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The family plan? We 4 would be having dinner at home at 4:30pm. As soon as Noboru got off work, Noboru got off at 4pm and would be home at 4:30pm and dinner was ready by the time, he walked through the door. After dinner, we all cleaned up the kitchen, everyone pitching in, means it just gets done way faster. Our movie started at 8pm. 8:25pm to be exact. If you go to the 8pm movies in Narita they're a whole bunch cheaper then going to an earlier showing. So we got there with oodles of time to spare... about an hour of free time. We printed out our tickets from the prepaid machine at the movies, we bought our tickets online at home days before. And after getting our tickets we walked and crossed the street to the Aeon mall (my car was in the movie theater parking lot). And picked up some drinks for the movie at the Aeon. We would be buying popcorn at the movies, but drinks there are pricey, so we bought our drinks at the Aeon mall. We also bought the boys each a pack of pink lemonade Mentos for the movie too, it's just what they picked. : )   

Seeing the movie on Tuesday was the best idea ever! Every one's mood was so good, so relaxed. With the kids being on winter break. We were all just ready to enjoy this movie, we all so badly wanted to see! 

We had our movie tickets! 

We had 2 large popcorns! We all went to the bathroom, right before! 

In our family, everyone has seen all the Star Wars movies. But this free magazine, at the movies, had all key points of the movie. So my family was brushing up! Info share...there is a YouTube video, called something like...everything you ever wanted to know about Star Wars in 9 minutes! Not 7 minutes or 20 minutes, they have those too, you want the 9 minute one. This guy that made one mentioning 9 minutes. He explained things *really* super well. It refreshed my memory and I really appreciated that guy making that video. So many men and women were leaving comments saying...on his YouTube video, thank you for making this...I had forgotten many key parts/points and you reminded me. I thought the same thing. His 9 minute run down, was amazing! I am so glad I saw that a few days before we saw the movie! I was so ready! One middle aged Japanese man waiting for the movie to start who was standing in the lobby had on a Darth Maul shirt! I had to give him *the* head nod...the...hey you're wearing..a cool shirt head nod! He smiled back! There were 2 western guys and 1 western woman (me) in the English speaking Star Wars movie (the 2 western guys were with their own wives) and I was with my own family). And holy cow, was the movie PACKED. Like...I have never in my life *ever* seen a Japanese movie theater, as packed as it was this Tuesday!

Oh, while we were at the Aeon mall buying drinks, we saw they had the new Star Wars school folders. Elementary kids use these in Japan, to hold homework etc. And we offered to buy both the kids one each, Bran said he didn't need it. So, we just bought Noah one. We put this in my car's trunk, before going to the movie. It's got BB8 on it. BB8 is so cool! : )

What did we think about Star Wars: The Force Awakens? It is an amazing movie! Like amazing! Definitely worth the wait! You can tell there will be another to follow. And I can't wait for them to start making it! Definitely a DVD our family needs in our collection. Like...if movies were not so costly here in Japan, I'd frankly go and see it again! That's how good this is! It's *that* good, you guys, if you've seen it, you know I'm right! Merry Christmas everyone...oh that's right...Merry Sithmas! : ) By the way...I made this post on Wednesday along with the TBT in advance. I just reread quickly and added anything at the bottom needing to be added. : ) Such as the Costco tidbit on the last post.  And this here...just now. Happy holidays! : ) 

Throwback Thursday...Some Gingerbread House Fun...

December 2013, the boys and I had just been in Guam and we brought back some Gingerbread houses to build and decorate! Info share for those of you living in Japan, although, I am quite sure everyone and their mama knows already. But Ikea in Japan sells the ready to decorate gingerbread houses here too. Meaning, the Gingerbread house kits! So, no need to have your family overseas pay expensive shipping for shipping the heavy kits to you in Japan, you can buy them here at Ikea. So, just wanted to throw that info share... out here. : )  We could have built 1 big standard size gingerbread house, but they also had a small house set of 4. And since I have 2 kids and not just 1, I figured buying the 4 smaller houses would give them, a chance to decorate 2 houses each. : ) So that's why we opted to pick that kit, versus the other kit with just 1 house, though they were the exact same price. : )

Am, digging your hair Bran! And you are making a perfectly straight and well constructed house bravo. I was in the kitchen keeping them company, we had music playing and we had a blast.... but I really wanted my kids to actually build them... their selves, versus...helicopter parent them and me really make them. That's just not me, at all. I would prefer they decorate it themselves...that way years from now/then, we can look back fondly and see what *they* think of the houses *they* created. Know what, I mean? Really important, I think. : ) 

Noah tried *so* hard! He did a fantastic job too!

And we let them dry over night. And ready to decorate the next day! Good night tiny gingerbread house village! : ) 

I loved seeing what *they* came up with. Their own designs. : )

Okay you can now eat your house if you'd like to! Noah had a few bites. And if you know anything about people in Japan, they really dislike overly sweet things. Noah had a few bites and afterwards, he was done. He just didn't want to eat anymore. : ) Hahaha. 

Branden had a few bites too. He gave it the old college try! But after a few bites he was done too. We'll definitely build them again in the future. But not sure if we'll actually be able to eat them though. Hahaha. Definitely a fun thing to do for the holidays! : )

Update for today: This morning at 10am, we 4 were at Costco to pick up a great big fresh mixed salad, we left the house by 9am today. That's all we needed there. The ham is currently defrosting in our fridge. OMG, you guys Costco was so packed today. Like...not a parking space left in the parking lot...type packed. As in all.... rotisserie chickens were long GONE, but they had a whole bunch of roasted chicken leg quarters. Folks were waiting in a line for the rotisserie chickens, not even baked yet... the line for that was long. Carts were like sardines and people slowly moved around.... because it was so packed. We went in without a cart. Grabbed our salad, walked near the insane line for rotisserie chickens (okay we were nosy, sorry) and went to the check out counter. Thanking our lucky stars.... we didn't need one (a rotisserie chicken). Holy goodness was it crazy in Costco and it was barely 10am. We imagine there is holiday store hours type time..going on right now... so perhaps they were open an hour earlier, or I don't know what. But, I sorta think so. @_@ What else...ohhh our favorite amazing lady at the homemade ice cream shop in Nagano delivered/mailed our Christmas ice cream cake to us here yesterday. Yay, it's now in our freezer! We are so excited for Christmas dinner tomorrow. We will be having a baked honey spiral ham, cheesy gratin potatoes, green beans, black olives, salad, and hot buttered cornbread. And an ice cream cake for dessert. I also made the Christmas cookie dough from scratch yesterday. And we will be rolling those out and baking them as soon as I post this sucker up. : )  I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!! Happy holidays!!! : )