I finally got around to printing and framing the photos of my darlings in their red dresses. Indecisiveness is a major flaw of mine, so I dragged my feet about what to do with these. Then I saw the frames at Michael’s (not my husband’s, silly) for 50% off. They are 8×8 frames with 5×5 openings. However, the actual opening is only about 4.5″ which means I had to cut off Annie’s hand and part of Mimi’s head in a couple of the pictures. Fortunately, there were already 4 nails in the wall above the fridge, so I won’t have to hammer new holes with only 2 months before moving. I don’t like that the pictures are nearly on the ceiling, but at least I get to look at them each day (I may get a crick in my neck before we move though). What do ya think?

Just a quick Mimi-ism here. I made some hot chocolate for ME this morning, but I literally forgot about it after 2 sips until a few minutes ago. Mimi looked like she had just eaten a mud pie, and I asked her if she had drank some of my not-so-hot cocoa. To which she promptly replied, “Yes. It’s all gone. It’s okay. You can make some more.” When I went searching for the cup that held the liquid Mimi wasn’t kidding, it was all gone.

This is what I found a few minutes ago and had to immediately document the moment. If you can’t tell what’s going on in the picture: that is my shoe, Polly is inside and snuggling under a child’s mitten. Apparently, Mimi is quite fascinated by the sleeping arrangements of various toys. On numerous occasions we would find or trip over her babies that had been “put to bed”. This means that a baby would have a blanket perfectly placed over her body and a pillow under her head. Mimi has, however, ventured onto putting other toys to bed such as stuffed crocodiles, bears, kitties, and Polly Pockets. One time while Mike was outside playing with the girls he had found that Polly had nestled herself under a used ketchup packet and was using a pen cap as her pillow. Oh, and Mike found inside the suitcase he’s using this week while in Vancouver with Polly tucked into one of the pockets. Mimi really is very considerate.

As I suspected, the feeds for my old format are not automatically working for the new design. So I had to make a brand new feed which is located here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/hawleyfocus. By clicking the link it will take you to a new page that gives you the option to choose your reader (Google Reader is one of the choices). If you’re using Google Reader, then you can just put www.hawleyfocus.com as the subscription address. I tried it, and it does work. Sorry to those who have to do this a second time, but I know no other way. I’ll also try to figure out how to put a link on the left so that people can subscribe directly from there in order to avoid future confusion.

In the meantime, check out my kiddos all decked out in snow gear. I have a video to post of Annie searching for eggs. Sara, Dylan, and Lucy, play small roles, I hope they don’t mind.

Wow…what a difference, huh? Don’t worry…you are where you are supposed to be. After seeing how easy it has been to update my snappy chic designs blog I decided it was time to move this website out of the dark ages and over to WordPress. I will no longer have to manually insert permalinks, archive each month, update/upload the rss feed, and so much more. Hopefully, with all this release of responsibility I will feel inclined to post more often.

One of the biggest problems with switching over is that it will be nearly impossible to get all the content from my original site over here. Hence, I’ve decided to only go back to the beginning of this year (thank goodness it’s only April) and move those posts over here. Anything before that will be linked back to my original website. Also the memories, pets, projects, and other original pages will remain on the old format. I suppose this is one way to hold onto my beloved design that has been with me since the beginning. I will, however, an archive page posted here for each month prior to 2008. Eventually.

You may notice little things change around here and there because I’m not completely done with all the tweaking to this design. Since I’m not completely familiar with WordPress and its workings, I had to use a free template that someone else made. Of course, me being the control freak that I am could not leave it as is and had to make this new layout fit my style. So don’t scroll down to the bottom of the page and notice that the footer doesn’t match up with the rest of the page. And certainly don’t make note of the comments section not being formatted yet to match this color scheme.

The only thing I’m nervous about with the big switch is that I now have comments available on each post. With my original design I used to have a guestbook that visitors could sign, but I started getting a lot of wierdos posting there and even a few stalkerish folks who decided that I was their “friend” on a way too personal and creepy level. So I eventually disabled the guestbook. Fortunately, I have the option of moderating the comments here, and I intend to before they will be posted to my site. Sorry to be so paranoid, but my husband likes me that way (::wink::).

Keep in mind that with this switchover I don’t know how this will effect the RSS feed. I hope it won’t at all:/

Holy buckets, I’ve got a lot to post about here, but I’m a little overwhelmed to get it all done in one sitting. For now, I’ll give a rundown of last week. Most of you already know this, but we drove to Minnesota for Easter weekend to see Mike’s ma, pa, brothers, one sister, 2 step-sisters, and a whole heck of a lot of cousins. Then we headed down to Wisconsin to do our house-hunting.

First up is Easter. It was our initial plan to arrive mid-afternoon on the Saturday before Easter because it was cousin Owen’s birthday party. However, lots o’ snow and traffic made it so we didn’t arrive until well into the evening. Fortunately, we got to see most of the crucial people on Easter day. We started out the day with the girls discovering the Easter Bunny’s tracks leading to their baskets full of goodies. Annie later confessed to Aunt Marissa that she thought the tracks were only made of chalk (ha…she was wrong…they were made of cornstarch). After all the excitement of the morning we attended church with Mike’s mom. For some reason Annie got shy and made a huge stink about attending primary by herself. She attended the same primary classes in August and immediately fit right in. Mimi was actually quite brave and went right into nursery.

Later that day extended family began to arrive, and the girls were just giddy to have so many kids to play with. It had snowed 8-10 inches on Friday/Saturday, so the Easter egg hunt made for an interesting adventure. Of course, us southerners weren’t equipped with snow gear and had to borrow from cousins Dylan and Maya. The girls really enjoyed the opportunity to frolic in the snow. The collected eggs had numerous treats and even lip gloss. We had a marvelous feast after all the activity died down, and everyone was stuffed beyond comfort. The next night we dropped the girls off to hang out with Dylan and Maya while we went to eat a wonderful dinner at Dave’s restaurant, Edina Grill. Num, num! Earlier that day Kathy and I went to some yarn shops, and I fell in love with a sweater on display. So I bought up all the materials to make it, and Kathy taught me how to knit. Of course, I’m nowhere near knitting that sweater yet. I need to practice, practice, practice before I have the nerve to try my hand at making a garment to wear.

On Tuesday morning we headed out and made our way to Wisconsin for our anticipated hunt for the home we’ll be living in for the next 3 years. Several houses were viewed, an offer was made and rejected, another offer was made on a second home, and we’re still waiting to finalize the deal between us and the sellers. The town we’ll be living in certainly isn’t as grand and full of activity as D.C., but I think we’ll be quite pleased with the slower pace and nicer folks. The schools seem to rate well, and there’s plenty to do in town. Shopping at the Prime Outlets, ice-skating or watersliding at the RecPlex, touring the Jelly Belly factory are just some of the things available in the flat quaint town. Only a couple of more months, and we’ll be cheeseheads.