I know you’ve all seen our little Smurfette, but I couldn’t resist sharing this video. Smurfette is searching for her Papa Smurf.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIktgmx9s4

One of the most anticipated holidays (can I call it that) is finally here. The girls got to celebrate Halloween many ways this year. They each had their class parties in school on Wednesday and came home with lots of stories and treats. Then that evening their school had a “Halloween Hoopla” with lots of games, treats, and activities including a scavenger hunt. The girls also got Thursday and Friday off from school (fun for me and more about that later). And last night our church had its annual Trunk-or-Treat event. There was a chili cook-off, a half keg of root beer (via Mike), costume contests, glow bracelets, and trunk-or-treating with lots of candy. Tonight there will be trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, so you can see we’ve been busy reveling in Halloween celebrations.

This year I was little more motivated about choosing and planning for costumes. I remember it was the beginning of September, and we were sitting around a bonfire eating s’mores and discussing upcoming events. Halloween was mentioned, and Annie blurted out that she thought it would be funny to dress up as a s’more. Why, Annie, that’s actually a good idea! Mimi’s required a little more thought since she was convinced that she wanted to be a princess (again). A few days later while scouring online Halloween costume shops for little girl costumes, I saw some adorable cowgirls. I asked Mimi if she’d like to be a cowgirl, and she agreed immediately that she would like that. I’m pretty sure everyone who visits this site has already seen Violet’s costume, too, so my hopes of surprising everyone with my little Smurfette are dashed.

The night before the Halloween Hoopla we got costumes all ready to go. Annie needed to paint her chocolate bar. Mimi felt left out, so we let her paint her own chocolate bar.

Looks good enough to eat!

Howdy, pardner!

Violet is having a very smurfy day. My little Smurfette actually loved wearing her hat. If it fell off, then she’d pick it up and give it to me to put back on her head.

Searching for Smurfberries. Found one!

Smurfette is smurfed out by the end of the night.

I didn’t get any pictures from Trunk-or-Treat because I was busy helping to run the show, but the girls had a blast and left with full tummies and bags full of candy. Tonight will be trick-or-treating. I think the girls are most excited about that because they haven’t gotten to do traditional, door-to-door trick-or-treating since we’ve lived here. We also have half of a half-keg of root beer to finish off (Mike’s keg of root beer was a big hit at the Trunk-or-Treat), so the Johnsons are coming over to help us with that, too, along with dinner and trick-or-treating.

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!

The Hawley family had the pleasure of emptying stomach contents all weekend. It started with me on Friday night. Let it be noted that I’ll never eat homemade chicken pot pie. Ever. Again. I was feeling better by the next night, but then Annie woke up in the middle of the night for her turn with the stomach bug. After soiling her bedding I set up a little bed on the floor in our room with a bowl next to her. I finally fell asleep hard enough to sleep through her waking up to use her bowl every hour. She told me the next morning that she threw up 7 times total. Poor thing. By mid-morning on Sunday Mike was feeling it. He still had to go to church to teach his lesson, but promptly came home to sleep. Mike is home from work today still feeling week. So far the bug has skipped over Mimi and Violet, and I pray and cross fingers that it continues to do so. Mike and I had a date night planned for Saturday night, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Such a fun weekend.

At least leading up to the weekend was nice. Violet and I made a little visit to the library together. She was so sweet carrying her BIG bunny and just exploring. I did get a persnickety comment from an older lady questioning me, “You couldn’t give her something smaller to carry around?” Umm, you try to taking that bunny away from her, and tell me how that turns out. Today, it’s Joey that is glued to her arms so much so that it attended Kids’ Court with her while Mommy worked out.

While at the ill-fated chicken pot pie meal on Friday night we noticed Mimi was being silly with her headband and made a new hairdo for herself. So Mike exaggerated the look for her. She was laughing so hard that she could hardly keep her head up. I already know how Auntie Sara will classify her look.

Annie gave the same look a try, but her curly hair just can’t withstand the height like Mimi’s.

Poor Violet wanted to partake in the fun, but she doesn’t have enough hair yet. Give it another 2 years, Violet. Notice Lucy’s permanent dinner stance.

In other news, here is day 5 of frenchy. Still holding up pretty good. I do have a chip on my pointer finger, ring finger and a teeny one on my other thumb nail. Hopefully, the next time we do this my nails will be a tad longer so that we can “cap the ends” better.

Continuing with our experiment, I’m posting the nails on day 2. No chips yet. That’s more than I can say about any manicure from a salon. My nails are usually chipped at least once by the end of day 1. What can I say, I’m brutal with hands/nails. Thanks, by the way, for all the nice comments yesterday about my pretty nails.

How about a song of the day? I think it’ll be fun. This is something I recently downloaded, and it makes me feel like I should be at a carnival. Not one with “carnies” and “creepies”, but a carnival that probably doesn’t exist where all the colors are pastel and everyone is dressed up like Cirque Du Soleil. Or it also makes me feel like I should be a on a ship, a cartoon ship. Or maybe a carnival on a cartoon ship. The song is “the Esplanade” by FLL. They’re Swedish, and you may already know how I feel about the Swedish.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNyhgp6pjvQ

The girls had their annual Primary Program at church this past Sunday. They are always so excited about it and demanded that they get to pick out their own outfits. Both Annie and Mimi did great (even though I did notice that Mimi didn’t seem to know the words to most of the songs) and said their parts loudly and clear enough to understand. Violet was a pill leading up to the program but quieted down once she heard all the kids singing and remained that way until the end of the program. The kids also got an ice-cream party on Saturday as a reward for all the hard work they put into preparing for the program.

Yesterday I made the mistake of putting these sunglasses onto Violet because for the rest of the day Violet demanded I put them on her after she’d take them off a few seconds later. Fun times!

In other news, here is French Manicure Day 1. Yes, my exclusive nailist did the job. I want to see how long it will last. Pay no mind to my stubby middle fingernail. For some reason they always break off. Grrr!

Trying to jump on the “families who pray together, stay together” bandwagon, but it doesn’t quite work with “science” since science only rhymes with alliance, appliance, compliance, defiance, and reliance. The girls had “Family Science Night” at their school last week. I immediately decided to sign us up for it (schedules permitting) since Mike claims to be a scientist like 20 times a day. The PTO for our school was sponsoring the evening and were providing free dinner and free childcare. How could we pass up that opportunity? The girls were very excited about the chance to have us involved in a school event. I never get chaperone or volunteer now that I’ve got Violet at home.

Mike was a little disappointed by the lack of fire or explosives, but we still had a nice time with the girls. Daddy and Mimi split off to do an activity for the lower grades. They glued tissue paper onto pre-cut construction trees. Daddy was less than thrilled. Annie and I practiced measuring with non-standard units of measurement such as our forearms, pinkies, thumbnails. When Daddy and Mimi reunited with us, Annie and I were in the process of making a flying object without wings. I quickly made Mimi one, and the girls were off flying their creations.

The last activity for the night was to make towers out of toothpicks and marshmallows. It was difficult for the girls to understand the concept (and not eat all the marshmallows) until they saw the towers that Daddy and I made. Then they each made one of their own although I think they might be posing with the ones Daddy and I made (at least Mimi is).

And this is was what we were greeted with when we picked up Violet from the childcare at the end of the evening. Poor tootsie:(

The girls had a half day at school today, so Julie and I thought it’d be fun to give the big kids a chance to visit the Jerry Smith Pumpkin Farm. Fortunately, this time all the displays were complete with heads and all. The day was beautiful with the weather making a turn for the cool.

Alyssa and Annie took turns pulling the lazy kids around.

They had these straw/pumpkin displays all over the farm to encourage families to pose for pictures. Annie went a little overboard with the posing.

Oh, no! A two-headed cat!

Aaack! They have knees for faces!

This was the best we could capture of Violet. She’s going to need to learn if she wants to remain a part of the Hawley family.

The kids had a lot of fun. So much so that when I looked at my watch I realized we were to going have to disobey traffic laws in order to make it to piano lessons on time.

Do you remember when I mentioned how Mimi LOVES to wear headbands? I’d say out of the 28 days of school so far Mimi has worn a headband for 25 of them. Last week Annie brought home a back issue of American Girl Magazine, and in it was an article showcasing a week’s worth of hairstyles for 3 different girls. Annie asked if we could do this this week. I told her I’d play along. Mimi seemed excited about the idea, too. The first hairstyle Annie chose was 2 pigtail buns. And Mimi’s first choice was to wear a headband. Normally, I’d try to convince her otherwise, but it was hard enough to not burst out in laughter to say more than 2 words about it.

In other news, the girls went to a birthday party on Friday night. Mike and I had a triple date that night with 2 other couples from church, and we went and saw Brian Regan live. It was a lot of fun and laughs, but that’s another story. I got a text from the birthday girl’s mother telling me that Mimi literally lost her tooth. As in it got knocked out while horsing around, and it took the whole group of girls and the mother to find Mimi’s tooth some minutes later. It was discovered, and Mimi got a visit from the Tooth Fairy that night. Mimi has gone out of her way to not tell us when her teeth are loose, so it was a complete surprise to us that she had a tooth that was that close to coming out. I think she may have been tormented from the last time when Mike pinned her down and yanked her tooth out. Ya think!

And, lastly, I couldn’t not include a picture of Violet in this post. Sorry for the poor quality of photography this time, but I snapped these as quickly as you can say photography.

I know. I know. I’ve been neglectful to the blog, but the school year always puts a zinger in my day.

Last weekend we headed back to the same orchard where we got the Honeycrisp apples. This time we picked golden delicious, and they really are what they claim in their name. Mike even thinks they taste better than the Honeycrisps. I’m on the fence because I enjoy the little bit of tart you get with the Honeycrisps whereas the Goldies are mostly just sweet.

It was a brisk, chilly morning. The first and last we’ve had so far. We had to bundle up.

Violet loved being able to amble about.

The kids do a pretty good job of filling their bags up. Although we had to throw out many of the apples from them because they looked more like pre-ripe crab apples.

Mike was our master picker, so I left the task up to him while I snapped pictures and followed Violet around.

After a while poor Violet was getting too cold. Daddy turned into a marsupial for her.

The entire group.

Since we ended up with another half bushel of apples, Mike and I decided to make some applesauce. It was so delicious that we didn’t even have to sweeten it. Good stuff.

The girls had a fundraiser last week at Monkey Joe’s, and I finally gave in to the begging and pleading and took them for the last hour. I will spare you pictures of the girls jumping around and being silly because I’ve already provided you pictures of them at Monkey Joe’s.

While waiting around I was letting Violet just roam the lounging area. After a few minutes it occurred to me that I could let Violet try out the toddler bouncy house especially since nobody else was in there. I figured she’d be freaked out by the idea and demand I get her out of there and fast. Boy, was I wrong!

Violet immediately figured out the concept and tried some bouncy action on her bum first.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0xGjaU8xp8

It didn’t take her very long to act like a big kid and jump up and down on her feet.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spAV7bSlXhU

When it was time to go I had to contend with a baby tantrum getting Violet out of the bouncy house. I suppose we’ll be going back soon, just Vi and me.

And lastly, Bat Baby! The girls were playing in last year’s Halloween costumes, and they decided to dress up Vi.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AqYNeONjKA