After a nice long weekend relaxing at home it was a bit tough for me to get back into weekday mode. (Saya doesn’t have school on Mondays, so she and I always have three-day weekends.) We never want to leave the house on weekends now, but we did have friends over. A friend from Pittsburgh came to stay and then we hosted a brunch on Saturday. We watched The Cats of Mirikitani which was wonderful and also Brave New Voices. I spent some time stitching of course. I want to make a lot of things this year. Sometimes I am not sure what direction I should be going in, but I know I love to make things.

Junji has been spoiling us with juice almost every day for the past month. It is usually carrot, orange, and apple and sometimes he adds other stuff like ginger, celery, or spinach. It is so delicious, and look at that color! I love it. I hope he keeps it up. We had been borrowing the juicer from a friend, but we just bought it from her today.

We have been talking about and planning some projects that we want to work on in the new year. I will post a bit more about that soon.

Tomorrow is Friday!

Saya got this awesome dollhouse for Christmas.  It was made for her by her Uncle Jim.  It is fun to decorate it with crafts and small art works.

We are back from our trip to Colorado. During long hours in the car, marathon shopping at IKEA, and hiking in Colorado, Saya was a champ through it all. On our third day of driving, somewhere in Nebraska, she looked out of her window and said, “Wow, I never knew the world was so big.” That made the whole trip worth while.

I made some ornaments for friends with snowflakes and their children’s initials.  Now that Christmas is over I can post this pic

The cross stitch patterns are from here.

The Christmas season can be fun, busy, sometimes stressful.  We love going to my grandparents’ house in the mountains after Christmas where there is a big fireplace, and no cable, and no internet.  The weather was gorgeous, even though it was way too warm for the end of December.  I loved spending time with my husband (who goes back to work tomorrow after more than two weeks off) and our awesome four-year-old.

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to pop in to wish you a happy new year.  I will post more later today, mostly pictures from our time away.  We are home now for two days and then Saya and I will hit the road again to help my sister move to Colorado.  In these two days I am going to clean the heck out of my house.  Most Japanese families try to finish their new year’s cleaning before new years day so they can rest on that day.  But we weren’t here, so I’ll do it now.  Let’s make 2012 a great year!