Optical baby illusions. Don’t worry. Daddy was right below catching her each time.

Sometimes it’s just one of those days when you don’t feel the need to exit the sleepwear. When Annie emerged from her slumber this morning with a wheezing cough I knew right away it was going to be PJ Day. Even Violet has been participating in the activities. I don’t feel too bad because I managed to drag my sorry buns out of bed before the wigglets got up and did most of an exercise DVD prior to being interrupted by a raspy child. I was planning on doing some cardio at the gym, but one day off won’t throw off my weekly plan too much.

Violet has been obsessed with that yellow vest since introducing it to her yesterday. My neighbor has been so lovely about handing off retired clothing from her home to my kids, and she happened to have some Violet-sized items this go around. Obviously, Violet was pleased. Notice the nebulizer in the background. It’s been in heavy rotation today (poor fragile, little Annie).

Grandma Minnesota will be delighted to know that Daddy tracked down a hardcover version of “Little House in the Big Woods” from the library. He took the girls to the library last night while I had a meeting at church.

I know so many families are dealing with sick kiddos these days. I hope everyone makes a full and healthy recovery.

Bad title, I know. As mentioned in the previous post, we went on a little trip this weekend to visit our friends, the Knutsons, in Vermillion, SD. Mike went to dental school with Matt, and they’ve been hunting buddies ever since. Vermillion is only a couple of hours away from Watertown, our future residence, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of the Knutsons soon. Mike and Matt spent all day on Saturday cutting down trees and hunting while Jenny, the kids, and I went bowling. Saturday night is when Violet became ill, so Sunday for Violet and me was spent laying on the couch covered in lots of towels. The others went to a nearby town to hopefully go ice-skating, but the ice rink was being used for a hockey game. I’m sure the kids were just glad to hang out with each for the whole day. The Knutsons took great care of us with wonderful meals and comfy beds, and we had a ton of fun (even though half of the time was dealing with a pukey kid). Thanks to them for welcoming us into their home.

Bowling day. The oldest son had a birthday party at the bowling alley, so he was off with his group while we bowled. The middle son went on an overnight trip with his grandma, so it was just the youngest son and my girls bowling. They had a lot of fun though. Annie and Mimi were very strict about making sure each person took their turn immediately, and they loved helping little Emmett when it was his turn each time. Violet was content to just wander around with some stuffed kangaroos.

The girls remembered from our last trip to Vermillion that the Knutsons have an indoor trampoline. They were giddy with excitement on our drive thinking of jumping on the trampoline again. Violet loved getting her turn, too, even though it meant she could only lay in the middle. Poor Wyatt wasn’t allowed to jump on the trampoline while Violet was up there, so he waited patiently on the sidelines.

While I was dealing with the sick Violet Mimi disappeared for a while by herself. She called out to me at one point to ask me how to spell “like”. A little bit later she asked to me come see what she had done. Mimi was quite proud to reveal to me the sentence she wrote all by herself. She really can be such a doll at times.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4x1PKXx6gk

And sick, little Violet has spent most of this week doing this. Update on Violet: she still has faucet bottom but is regaining her appetite and energy.

I do have pictures and things to post, but life was a little off track around here for a few days. While out of town this past weekend Violet developed the pukies in the middle of the night on Saturday and was sick until yesterday. Driving home on Monday was a nightmare with Violet eventually staying stripped down to her diaper and me having to hold her the entire drive with snow and icy conditions. I thought she was better on Tuesday, but she quickly put that misconception to rest right after breakfast. I didn’t get anything done at all that day because the only thing that comforted the sick Violet was laying on me. Once again Violet seemed back to her usual self by evening and managed to have an appetite and eat a good breakfast on Wednesday. However, breakfast made its way back up, and Violet spent the rest of the day wanting me to hold her and not eat anything. I’m crossing my fingers that today is the day Violet will make a full recovery and eat normal again.

Just to let you know how I feel about trying to catch up from these past few days. “I Want the World to Stop” by Belle & Sebastian.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgtR3DAHj5E

Annie started taking piano lessons this summer. There’s a teenaged boy, Baxter, in our church who gives lessons to several other kids in the ward, so I thought we’d let Annie work with him until we move to SD. He seems to do a decent job of teaching Annie the basics, and she’s able to play a simple song now if given the music. Baxter must be doing something right. Annie does enjoy playing and practicing and remembers to practice everyday without being reminded.

Baxter had originally scheduled a piano recital for all his students on the same night as our ward Christmas dinner, but he ended up getting really sick that day. The recital was rescheduled for this past Friday night. Since the kids worked so hard on practicing their Christmas songs, most of the kids just stuck with they had planned on playing the first time around. Annie did still play her Christmas song but chose a new song to play for her other song (the younger kids played 2 songs since their songs were shorter). I didn’t think she’d be nervous, but she stumbled and hesitated a few times which means she must have been pretty tense.

Here she is playing “Grandfather’s Clock”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-EG4cmmMn0
And “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHPR16XhQA

The seating went by order of who played, so Annie was relieved when she saw she got to sit by her BFF Alyssa.

Surprisingly, Annie wasn’t very thrilled to have to pose with Baxter, her piano instructor.

Of course, she was all smiles with Alyssa.

The girls spent some time teaching each other their songs. Vi wanted to learn, too.

All the kids did such a good job. It was a lot of fun seeing the range in skill levels. One of the final piano players, a 12-year-old boy, got up and played “The Toccata and Fugue in D minor”, and I literally gasped when I saw the music the boy was set to play. And he pulled it off, too, after only been playing for 2 years. It was a great evening, and I can’t wait to see how much Annie progresses in the next year. Both Julie, Alyssa’s mom, and I decided that we really need to have “real” pianos because the girls sounded so soft on the “real” piano as opposed to the keyboard which sounds the same no matter how hard you hit the keys.

Somehow I don’t think the writer of this song had envisioned the listeners of his song imagining cleaning up their children’s messes with a Sham-Wow while listening to it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHuUzJfn9Ug

The other day the girls and I were on our way out the door when I realized (satisfactorily) that I needed a belt to help hold up my jeans. I told the girls to go wait in the car while I fetched my belt. Being the ever helpful daughter Annie suggested that I try some Pajama Jeans. Not one to miss humor I laughed aloud as I continued on my search. The comment was soon forgotten, and we went on with our daily activities.

Fast forward to this past Sunday at church. The adults were just convening for Sunday school, and I realized I needed my scriptures at the ready. Being the technogeek that I am, my scriptures are on my hi-tech phone. I innocently turned on my phone to get my scriptures app ready when all of a sudden my phone loudly blurts out, “Do you love stylish, SEXY jeans?” I couldn’t find the power button fast enough before the whole group of 40+ church-goers in the room turned to discover me and my foul-mouthed phone. As you can imagine, I was mortified, but the class had a good laugh and didn’t seem to be offended. Apparently, Annie had pulled up the Pajama Jeans website on my phone, so that she could show me later how much I needed to own a pair of my own. The website immediately launches the infomercial as soon as someone visits the site. In case you’re not willing or able to click the Pajama Jeans links, then I’ll include the informercial for your viewing. Enjoy!

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

In order to make myself feel better about my big girls growing up much too quickly, I needed to see a picture of my cuddly baby. Violet still adores Mimi’s puppy Pillow Pet. She loves to just lay on top of it and snuggle. Mimi is still not pleased.

I have mixed feelings about the kids being back in school. On the one hand, it was nice having no schedule and being able to sleep in and decide at the last minute our plans for the day. On the other hand, my girls and I thrive on routine or else all heck breaks loose. The big girls constantly bicker, and I lose all motivation to do what needs to be done like the dishes, laundry, exercise, etc.

So the girls returned back to school on Monday, and things didn’t go smoothly, in the least. By today things were a little more on schedule, and there wasn’t as much chaos in the a.m. Who am I kidding though, even on a good day in the Hawley household there is always chaos. We are mostly females here, after all.

Before heading back to the daily grind we did manage to squeeze in one final hurrah. I treated the girls to a day out. We started off with a fun lunch at McDonald’s.

Then we headed over to Monkey Joe’s for some good, bouncy times. It was crazy busy so Violet didn’t get to try out all the sections like usual, but she still thoroughly enjoyed herself. I hardly saw Annie and Mimi the entire time once they got their shoes off. They immediately found friends from school with which to play. It was a great way to get all the wigglies out before having to go back to school.

On Christmas day we met up with the Johnsons for a little bit of sledding. The days leading up to the 25th we got dumped with snow, so we wanted to make sure to take advantage of it. We got another foot on the 26th, but then a heat wave melted almost all of the snow. Now we’re back to ugly, brown grass. I’m sure we’ll get more snow soon.

Here we are snowed into our driveway, but our kind neighbor did the neighborly thing and snowblowed us out.

The girls had a blast trying out new moves–on their tummies, on their feet like sled-dogging, and even backwards.

Of course, the kids had to go down together.

Here’s the whole gaggle of kids, but this sled didn’t move very fast. At all. So it required multiple pushes down the slope.

Violet couldn’t stand just waiting around and watching. She wanted her turn down the hill and required lots of rides. We don’t have an actual snowsuit for Violet, so I put a larger, fleece sleeper over her clothes. It actually worked out quite well.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope we get more snow soon for the girls to keep sledding and playing in.