Outside

We have a big field at the end of the neighborhood, the kids love to go there and run wild.  The husband enjoys running around with the kids, so I sat on the hill and watched. 

They would come and check on me every so often, but I was knitting and watching them, so I was good. 

It is good for them to get out in this unseasonably warm weather and run some energy out.  I know some day it might actually become winter here and they will have to stay indoors.

They are a little crazy, but man do they like to run outside! 

We like to encourage the running around outside, so they don't run around in the house and scream at each other.  Of course when they get too tired they whine more, but then they go to bed early, you win some you lose some.

The Quilt and other things

As some may remember, I have been working on this quilt for Eric for I don't know, like a million years.  Ok, in truth I started this bad boy in September of '09.  You can see the full thing without any quilting here and when I started hand quilting here.  But recently I realized that I'd only finished 3 squares and I still have 22 to go, so I have to figure out how to get this thing on the machine.  I did at the beginning of the month and I now have 9.5 square done.  I have really sped through the thing now.  The bad thing is that my basting method, while fine for hand stitching, is not holding up for machine quilting, the t-shirts have stretched some.  This is not going to be the flattest quilt, but it won't take me 25 years to finish!  I guess I should re-baste.  But, here it is so far, well actually I have another shirt almost done, I am working on the diagonals now.  

Today Gwen went to a birthday party.  She came home looking like this.  I don't know if you can see the jewels on her face. 

She wanted to look like a fairy princess!  By her account she had a very good time.  They had a clown who did a magic show (with a BUNNY!), balloon things and obviously face painting.  The lady had quite the skills! 

New Year's Eve

We were pretty excited to have visitors for New Year's Eve. Gwen was really excited, she wouldn't go to the grocery store with Daddy and she wanted to decorate the driveway. 

I think that Eric might have helped a little. 

It was nice to my friend and her daughter.  We don't get to see each other that often, even though we live closer than we used to, and we seem to be in the exact same place in life currently.  Which you know doesn't always happen, made Eric a little uncomfortable, just the idea of what we would talk about sent him off to another room!  But we had fun, kids stayed up too late, and we saw the ball drop.  The neighbor was kind enough to make a special trip to bring over some sparkling cherry juice that she apparently had laying around, so we were able to enjoy that in Champagne glasses, like we were real drinkers!  A good night indeed!

Mother-daughter tea

Gwen and I were invited to a Mother-Daughter tea on New Year's Day. (this is why we had the big practice tea party with Grandma).  Gwen was super excited and decided to wear her Christmas dress and I asked her if she wanted to do her hair in the hot rollers.  She said yes!  She wasn't pleased with the length of time the curlers were in her hair, but I tried to keep them in for as long as possible.  One thing I know about my hair is it starts out big and then falls, was pretty sure Gwen's would do the same.  

BIG HAIR!!

I combed it out a little, and she was ticked at me, but her hair is actually cut to curl out, so I just brushed it out a little. 

Ready for the party!

She and her little girlfriends had a great time.  They got to paint a little tea pot and cup, drank hot chocolate, ate little sandwiches and put on a play.  It must have been a lot of fun for her, she asked if we could go to another one the next day.  My friend has said she would like to make this an annual thing, I hope so, it was fun to chat with the Moms and watch the girls and their "play".