30 OCTOBER 2007

“This is a story about a guy, who like most of us, sometimes questions his existence, measuring himself to others, not believing enough in his abilities or his worth. Then one day, his passion outgrew his fears as he stepped onto a stage, a stage that took him to a place beyond his self imposed prison. Watch the faces of the judges as this guy walks out on the stage. You can almost see what they’re thinking as they pre-judge this guy based on his looks and the fact that he’s a cell phone salesman. Maybe this guy stopped believing in what people told him for so many years and ultimately started listening to his passion.”

Edited: I was informed that the video I originally had embedded is expired. I updated the link, but if it still doesn’t work then go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA.

All of our weekend plans were almost ruined due to rain and illness. Annie’s school warned us on Thursday that her field trip to the pumpkin patch could be cancelled the next day if it rained. It was even sprinkling when I we arrived to the school, but they decided to give it a go. Fortunately, the rain didn’t start until the very end of our trip. More on that later. Directly after school on Friday the girls and I were planning on driving to Viriginia to see our dear friends, Tricia, Elena, and Elissa. The agenda included spending the weekend there with the girls running amok together while Tricia and I dished and caught up on old times. I’m sure lots of picture taking would have taken place, too. {Tricia did a little photography on the side, too, and I did her website.} Sadly, Tricia and her girls came down with quite an illness and suggested we reschedule. We’re going to try again this weekend, unless something else comes up:/ Be sure to check out Lucy with the femur (that’s a human thigh bone…only “the Burbs” fans will get it).

The pumpkin patch Annie’s school went to this year wasn’t quite as extravagant as the one we went to last year, but it was very quaint and appropriate for our young and small group. The “tour guide” showed us some of the vegetables they grew including green beans, cucumbers, various squash, tomatoes and more. We also got to visit with some cows, horses, and pigs. Of course, the kids got to pick out their very own pumpkin to take home. Annie insisted that her pumpkin was the biggest of all (even though most other kids had bigger). She picked out Mimi’s and made sure that it was much smaller than her’s. Mimi, being the diplomat, made no fuss. The girls had lots o’ fun getting to run around and seeing some animals. Well, Mimi was off to a rough start with a touch of cantankerousness, but she pulled through and was happy as can be by the pumpkin picking phase. Everyone also got to pick out an apple to snack on, and I got to divert a little boy from vomiting on us (good times). Right as we were finishing up with the apples the rain started to pour. We were escorted to their produce store. They actually had quite a nice selection including eggplant. While waiting for the bus I happened to look over and spotted a bow and some arrows much like the one Mike owns. He would have been so proud. Once Annie was on the bus Mimi and I motored home to take naps. Of course, we had to pick Annie up from school an hour and a half later.

Mimi and I have been battling about her incessant hair-twirling. I’m not kidding when I say that she wakes up everyday with a dreadlock in her hair. So I sit patiently and work out the knot every single day. I would love to just cut it out. However, if I did that each day, then she would be bald after only a week or so. I’ve tried talking to her about it. Funny, right? I’ve tried scolding her, but it does no good to discipline a 2.5 year old for something that happened hours ago. The other night I came up with a new idea. I decided to make a hat out of panythose (yes, panythose). I figured it would be thin and soft enough to not disturb her sleep. Unfortunately, she woke up without the “hat” on and with new dreadlocks with which to contend. I’m thinking my next step is to try mittens on her hands, but she’ll probably just take those off, too. Mike suggested french-braiding her hair. The problem with that is that I don’t really know how to french-braid, and I think she would manage to wriggle her little fingers in enough to pull out an adequate amount to twirl. Any ideas, people? In other news, the girls are quite fascinated with bad words, potty words as we call them. We try to limit or prohibit their use of the words butt, poopy, booger, fart, etc. Instead we prefer bum in place of butt and toot in place of fart and other such replacements. Unfortunately, the girls are constantly testing us on this. I caught them the other day singing “the ABC Song” but they were inserting butt where they could. “A, B, C, D, BUTT!” ha, ha, ha. Such clever girls! Then the other day Annie came to Mike to tattle on Mimi about how she was saying potty words. When Mike went to catch Mimi in the act, she was saying “potty words”. In fact, she was jumping up and down on the couch screaming, “POTTY WORDS! POTTY WORDS! POTTY WORDS!” Oh, our pesky kids.

Since my traveling plans were cancelled, Mike and I went to “Beer, Brats and Bunco” (a dental spouses club sponsored event) on Saturday night. I spoke with Trang about it beforehand, and we made the executive decision to RSVP. Apparently, this didn’t sit well with the men. Mike grumbled a little bit but knew he had no choice. I called Trang right after leaving our house to make sure they knew how to get there, but Trang informed me that they weren’t going (the USC game was more important to Matt). Oh no, they weren’t getting off that easy. I laid on the guilt like molasses, and Trang conceded that she would bring her mother along for the event. I figured that we wouldn’t be seeing them there. However, much to everyone’s surprise, the whole Chesler brood showed up, Matt, Trang, Brady, and Trang’s mom. Evidently, Trang insisted that Matt attend. He said that if USC scored, then they’d go. Sure enough USC scored seconds later. It turned out that Matt and Mike seemed to have more fun than us. Our babysitter asked that we be home between 9:30 and 10. When it got to be 9 p.m. I told Mike that we better call it a night even though there was still one more round of Bunco to go. He was the one that insisted we stay to finish up the last round, and so we did. It was a fun night that I’m glad Trang and I decided to do:)

I now leave you with the girls’ rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. Broadway, here they come! (Just trying out the video function again on my new P&S.) I love that Google will let me upload my 50MB video so that I don’t have to take up that much space on my own web server.

So we decided to get a new camera. Don’t worry, I still have my ginormous beast of a camera that I use for professional stuff. However, I was starting to dread having to lug that thing around everywhere or found myself “forgetting” to bring my camera to events. Now we’ve got a handy point and shoot that also doubles as our camcorder. Our camcorder decided to not work well over a year ago, and Mike’s little P&S chooses not to record video anymore. Rather than buy a new camcorder that would hardly get used, I decided we should just invest in a nice P&S with the video option. The one we decided on is the Canon Powershot 950IS. The camera boasts a whopping 12.1 megapixels which is more than my pro camera. I was suprised to see that each picture was 8 MB. I’m going to lower the resolution because I will never need to print anything bigger than 8×10 (if even that big) from this camera. Without further ado, here’s a sample video from the new digicam. While watching a movie, I noticed that my camera was done charging and Mike was alseep…what better time to film a “movie”. I just got the biggest kick out of the look on his face at one point during the video. Enjoy!

On Saturday the Guises made a suprise appearance to return our long, lost coolers. The girls and I were away at a birthday party, but we all went out to dinner upon our return. The restuarant we went to is a great place that has a fun, general store with tons of toys, games, gag gifts, and much more. {Unfortunately, on this particular night the service was not so great and left a bad impression with the Guises:( I hope they will believe us when I say that this was very unusual. Gina is not afraid to speak her mind to service staff and made sure to let the waitress know that we were not happy. I was hiding under the table though…yes, I’m a big ol’ wimp.) Of course, the kids always have to make a stop in there every time we go. We gave in and purchased a couple of items including a potholder weaving kit and a couple of sets of fake moustaches (don’t ask). Once Annie got wind of the potholder kit she asked over and over when we’d get to make potholders. It was on Sunday (a whole day later, can you imagine) that we finally got a chance to sit down and make a potholder. Annie actually got the hang of the process and got 2/3 of the way through before handing it over to me to finish off. Mimi lost interest after the first couple of weaves. She was very intrigued by the instruction booklet though. That thing didn’t leave her hands for most of the day.

The girls got new dresses for church. I couldn’t resist snapping some shots while they were wearing them. Please don’t let them grow up because they are just so scrumptious right now.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

This weekend was fun-filled for us Hawleys. On Sunday (I know, it’s supposed to be a day of rest) we went on a bike tour to the Anacostia River. I was reluctant to go, but Mike insisted. I’m glad he did because it really was nice to get out and do something different. The trailer was hooked to Mike’s bike this time, so my thighs weren’t on fire two minutes into the trip. Mike clocked us at traveling around 10 miles. Go us! On Monday we headed down to Annapolis for the day. Our first stop was at the Naval Academy. I suggested we check out the gift shop. We were glad we did because we got the girls the cutest visors that they wore all day. (Mimi wore her’s again today–she’s very attached.) The rest of the day was spent strolling around downtown Annapolis peeking through shops, eating lunch, enjoying the boats, and devouring ice-cream. We had dinner plans at the Parks’ home (a new classmate of Mike). However, we lost track of time, so we had to go straight from Annapolis to their house. The girls were pooped (oops, Mommy said a naughty word…as Annie would make sure to tell me) and took a quick nap on the drive over. I’m glad we finally took the time to check out Annapolis. We’ve had lots o’ people tell us what a neat place it is, and it is. Have a look at the pictures we took on the girls’ page under “October 2007“.

While I was making the girls’ October album I realized that I’ve been remiss in putting any galleries for the girls since May. So I went ahead and put together an album for each month that has been missing. I must warn you that many of the pictures are repeats from some of the memories galleries–there are a couple of new ones here and there. Mainly, having the galleries are just a formality and record of my girlies for each month:) If you’re interested, then go check out the girls’ page to see all the new months.

Anyone who has kids can surely relate to this. The man sings my exact routine with the girls each night, and I thought I was the only one going through this (::wink::). And to think he worded it to Pachelbel’s Canon.

In other news: Mimi decided she wanted to sleep in Annie’s bed today during naptime. When I went to get her after she woke up she was in her crib?!? Does this mean she’s not ready for the big, girl bed? Fortunately, for Mimi, I’ve been putting off the official bed search. It amazes me at times how different she is from Annie. Annie was/is determined to learn/do new stuff all the time. Mimi, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have that same fortitude. At times, I do worry, but then I have to tell myself that Mimi is just a different person and is an incredible, magnificent, wonderful, spectacular, terrific kid in her own way.

Today the girls and I went to Moe’s Southwest Grille since Mike has been attending a conference in Baltimore since yesterday and will continue to do so until tomorrow afternoon. They closed down the one closest to us in College Park and re-opened next to Ikea in a new shopping center next door. It was a total fluke that we attended their grand opening, but we lucked out. The girls were asked to have their picture taken with the man dressed up as an Indian (?) who was making balloons animals. Supposedly, the picture will be in a newspaper (or a newsletter–I couldn’t really understand the photographer). In return for their cooperation, the girls were gifted with Mexican, turtle bobble-heads {picture courtesy of some seller on eBay}. Annie chose a pink one and Mimi a blue. On the way home Annie declared that her turtle would be called Fancy Nancy. If you have never heard of Fancy Nancy, she’s a character in a series of children books who loves to be fancy and adores anything French. They really are some cute books with sparkles and spunk. Grandma Minnesota got Annie 2 of the books when we visited her this summer. In one of the books Fancy Nancy decides that her family is lacking in fanciness and offers a seminar on how to be fancy. The other day Annie asked me if I would attend her class on being fancy. Does this mean that I’m not fancy or that Annie sees something devoid in my style :(?