What we're up to

Ellie tied wet wipes to her feet and "ice skated" around on the floors:

The girls started soccer!  The first day (a couple weeks ago) was a little chilly so Ellie wore sweatpants, but still insisted on hiking them up so that her new shin guards would show.  To be honest, I think we started Ellie a bit prematurely... she is constantly running off the field to play in the sand pit instead.  Or, she just sits down in the middle of the field and starts playing with the sandy dirt and collecting "pixie dust".  Last week, at the end of practice when all the kids are supposed to put their hands in the middle of the circle and say "1-2-3- soccer!!", instead of just putting her hand up at the end like she was supposed to, she threw a bunch of sand into the air and said, "Pixie dust!"  It's adorable, sure... but I'd rather she do that on her own time rather than the time I paid for her to learn soccer.  Oh well.  Abby, on the other hand, is a superstar and she loves it.

I hosted Book Club a few weeks ago.  We read "The Happiness Project".  It was a pretty good read, and led to an interesting discussion.

Here's the latest book I'm reading... I'm loving it so far:

Abby borrowed a kids' workout DVD from the public library:

I took the girls to a bounce house - our groupons were about to expire!  It was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something different for a change.  There were 9 different big bounce things to play on so they were occupied for a long time.

Abby reading to the girls:

All ready for church:

Piggy tails:

Ellie, showing off the little garden they planted:

I went for a walk with just Abby one evening last week.  It was so much fun to talk to just her without any distractions.  She is so funny.

"Hey Mom, my legs look like a 'P'!"

Abby and her friend Jack after getting off the bus:

The girls went running with me last week.  I was doing some circuit training and had to run 400m at a time (5 different times I think), so they came with me since it wasn't far.  Abby's a great little runner - faster than I am, sometimes.

I took a little break from my Fireworks quilt and made a cute strip quilt with the same fabrics from that same fat quarter bundle.  A strip quilt is supposed to be a fast method to make a cute quilt top.  I don't know what happened, but the first quilt top I made was terrible.  Okay, I do know what happened.. I sewed all the strips starting on the same end, and by the time I got to the last strip, it was much further down than the first strip.  Basically, the quilt top wouldn't "square up" and was really wonky.  So, I unpicked nearly the entire thing... so painful.... and reassembled it, alternating ends that I started on.  I still didn't end up very well (not sure why this time), but it was better than the first time so I went with it.  I agonized nearly the entire time that I quilted it, thinking that it would be horribly "off" and never look quite right.  Thankfully, the final product seemed much better than the quilt top itself.  It's not perfect, but it's still really cute and it'll work for what I made it for, which is snuggling!

The final product.. It's a good size, perfect for keeping warm:

Sisters:

We got to see Garrett!  The girls helped him wash his car one evening.  I'm sure they were a really big help:

So that's what we've been up to lately... among a few other things that will be getting their own posts.  It's been a busy Spring so far!