It is starting to feel like summer. I bought these very inexpensive popsicle molds from ikea. Sometimes cheap things suck, but I love these and we always have popsicles in our freezer now. I made a batch today of watermelon and strawberry.

Also from ikea…a bag of colorful straws. I love using straws to drink water, I’m not sure why. We also cut them up into pieces and used them to make necklaces and bracelets

BIG NEWS! We took the training wheels off of Saya’s bike over the weekend. On Friday we were at a friend’s house for dinner. We took their kids’ bikes across the street to some tennis courts and Saya wanted to try riding with no training wheels. I actually had to run back to the house for something, and when I was walking back to the tennis courts I saw her zipping around on her own! Needless to say, she is over the moon excited about this. We have been biking every day since. Now that the days are longer, there is plenty of daylight for after dinner bike rides. She is so cute and confident on her bike now, I just love it.

I was on the fence about growing vegetables this year. I love having fresh veggies to pick for dinner, but I am just not the biggest fan of gardening or yard work, and there is always so much to do. In the end I decided to plant a few things–tomatoes, herbs, lettuce, kale, and squash. Saya came with me to the garden center and I let her pick out some flowers to plant.

Saya brought this home from school today for me. I think it was supposed to be a mother’s day gift, but I guess she was sick on the day they brought them home. I love how the pot is covered in glitter

I am finally getting around to finishing up some things for an etsy shop update. I have listed some things already, but I will be adding more tomorrow.

Things have been good lately. We are all getting excited about summer. Saya only has 10 days left of kindergarten. Unbelievable!

After she gets out of school we are planning a camping trip to somewhere in west virginia. Any recommendations, let me know!

Saya was so cute in our town’s big parade last weekend. I thought she wouldn’t want to be in the parade because she is usually really timid about those kind of things, but the start point was right around the corner from our house, so I took her over to see if she would join. To my surprise she said she wanted to try it. She was on the float with her spanish class and she stayed right next to her teacher the whole time. But she had fun and said she wants to do it every year.

It was such a fun weekend here in Oberlin. There were lots of activities for kids in town and we saw a few performances at the college. Our favorite was Taiko drumming!

I ordered some Nani Iro fabric from missmatatabi on etsy, and it arrived from Japan so quickly. Thank you Frances!

I got Saya’s baby futon out of storage and made a cover for it. (This is what she slept on when she was a tiny baby in Japan. We all slept on futons then.) I thought it would make a comfy mat to sit or lie on while we are playing on the floor. The fabric is so soft, I just love it.

I got some some new cushion covers on sale from West Elm when we were in Portland, and my favorite ridiculously good deal was our new rug from Anthro. It was originally sold for $900 but was on big time sale (down to $200), plus I had a gift card and a shirt that I decided to return and I ended up only paying about $50 out of pocket. (The only thing that could have made me happier was if it was during the 50% off of all sale items time of year, but I guess that would have been too good to be true.) I am so happy because I have been wanting a softer rug for our playing area.

This room is where we keep a lot of Saya’s toys plus my sewing/craft supplies, so it is pretty full of “stuff.” When I decided to rearrange it I moved every last thing out of the room including furniture. I put things back one by one until it felt right, then I stopped. There is less furniture now, but I am enjoying the room so much more. It is the brightest room in the house and where I spend the most time.

pics from Cargo in Portland

pics from home sweet home

doll + accessories.  This is the birthday present I made for Saya. I got carried away making lots of little things for her, but it was just too much fun…

These are from the Oregon coast near where my sister is now living, and the last two from the Portland Japanese garden. So pretty.

We only spent one day in Colorado before we set off on our drive to the west coast. We explored Colorado National Monument. It was gorgeous (even though my fear of heights was kicking in big time) and I loved the color of the rocks. We were dying to see some bighorn sheep, and we got lucky!

(For the last picture Saya wanted to do a “Japanese pose”)

I am so proud of my six year old. She is just amazing!

Today is Saya’s 100th day of kindergarten, so she had to bring 100 of something to school. We chose origami penguins, which was a bit of work, but turned out to be the perfect way to channel her excited energy.  I’m not exactly sure why, but she was very excited about today. I took a few pictures at school too…