www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHI97-1VCI

In other news, Violet and Sadie are the best of friends. Or shall I say that Sadie will tolerate being pulled and poked by yet another small child?

Let me tell you, times have changed on prime time television. Surprisingly, the styles have not too much. I suppose the fashion scene has come full circle because the tight, tapered jeans, belted blouses, and feathered hair seem to be quite prevalent these days. Political correctness was unheard of though, and boy oh boy did they get away with a lot. The Ewing lot had many servants and none of them were Caucasian. The assumption that women are too dim for anything beyond looking good and taking care of their men is also a common theme. The one thing that I do like about Dallas is that the women are “traditionally built” and have actual curves. No bony anorexics on this show. And, the booze! I don’t think there is one scene where someone isn’t drinking a glass of some alcoholic beverage. There is definitely no shortage of crystal carafes full of liquor. You’d also be hard pressed to find one episode where a main character doesn’t have a drunken outburst.

Which brings me to the whole point of this post, Booger Barnes. The name and character of Digger Barnes pops up occasionally in most episodes of Dallas. Digger Barnes is Pamela Ewing’s daddy (this must be said with a thick, southern drawl). He has some issues, namely with alcohol. If he does make an appearance in an episode, then he’s definitely inebriated and spewing fireballs of hate toward the Ewings. Apparently, he and Jock Ewing were partners in the 30’s, and Jock took credit and all the money for the oil that was discovered and later formed into Ewing Oil. As you can see, Dallas is sucking up much of my brain power these days, and the name Digger Barnes is on the tip of my tongue most of the time. So it’s not hard to figure out how I came up with Booger Barnes.

As a result of our Dallas viewing, Mike is now obsessed with J.R. Ewing. If you look at our internet search history, I’m sure you’ll find loads of J.R. or Larry Hagman search terms. Go figure.

In other news, Sadie has found a new bed. Speaking of Sadie, she goes in for her girly bits and paw surgeries next week. Keep her in your prayers.

The girls are absolutely smitten with Violet, and Violet the same with the girls. They spent all this morning happily cuddling with each other on the couch. Couldn’t ask for a better moment.

The two bags of plastic Easter eggs. 1 unopened. 1 opened and 2/3 full.

1 missing egg has been discovered.

Another missing egg has been located. And this morning 2 more eggs have been found.

The perpetrator has since moved on to other adventures. This time it’s the removal of a yellow feather from a Mardi Gras mask made by Mimi.

Mimi models her handmade Mardi Gras mask. Notice the lack of a yellow feather.

Annie’s just glad she doesn’t have anything that Sadie desires. Yet.

In order for Mimi to overcome her plight of missing feathers she instead demonstrates her new skill, that of reading. We are actually very surprised that she’s moved to this next step in her education because she’s never been interested in academics. At all. In the least bit. Without much persuasion and arguing and gnashing of teeth and pulling out one’s own hair and giving up and bouts of despair and searching for non-academic sources of success for a non-academic child.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPmzLsva8yg

Vi isn’t quite able to sit up on her own, but I was able to get a couple of shots of her sitting up before she toppled over. Why do all my babies roll over and almost crawl before they could sit up whereas it seems other babies sit up before they even roll over?!?

Violet loves getting put down on the floor so she can roll over and can really pull herself up high during tummy time.

This face was a first, and I’m glad I captured it. Too funny!

And had to include a smile. I don’t know if you can tell in the picture, but Vi has a way with her tongue. That baby can curl it in the strangest ways like I’ve never seen anyone do. Do I see a future talent (her daddy would be proud)?

In other news, Lucy approves of the new kitty.

And in other other news, they built a Monkey Joe’s in our town. Essentially, it’s an indoor playground that is full of bouncy houses. My cousin and his wife have one in Atlanta and take their kids there all the time. My Kenosha friends and I always thought we needed a place like that here since it’s too cold or snowy for playing at the park for 5 months out of the year. We finally got our wish and tried it out with the Johnsons last week. I don’t know how much time we’ll spend there because it seems every other family in Kenosha has thought the same thing as us, but we may stop by once in a while.

Wait a minute, this person would be me. Yes, I did
all of the above which means I must surely be all of
the above.

Below is the picture that will be displayed should the
vet’s office ever feel compelled to call me.

In my defense, the stuffed animals were already sitting
there posed while I was making an appointment for Sadie
to get her kitten check-up when the idea sprung to mind.
It’s inexcusable though, and I hold my head in shame.

To make myself feel better, I will also post pictures of a live being. One of my favorites at that. A smiling baby can cure anything.

So now we’ve got a sweeter and female kitten who just wants Lily’s love in any form. It was very evident last night when Sadie perched a couple of feet away from Lily and kind of cowered to her with a few, soft mews escaping her lips. (The use of the term lips for cats is debatable because I actually don’t believe cats have lips. Mike differs in opinion. What do you think?) Lily responded with “hiss, growl, hiss, hiss, growl, hiss, long growl (lasting a minute or 2), and one final hiss”, but I think there was actual progress. Mike can’t seem to understand why Lily doesn’t just say to herself, “Oh, look! A baby kitten that’s so cute and cuddly. I’m going to love her and snuggle with her right now.” I had to explain to him about cat dynamics, and that Lily looks at Sadie as an evil foe who is impeding on her territory no matter how cute and small Sadie is. Lily also needs to establish herself as the alpha cat (if that’s possible with females). Plus, Lily isn’t like any normal cat. She’s very shy and nervous even after living with us for over 11 years.

Have a look at the progress for yourself. Sorry for the poor quality as these pictures were taken with my phone.

Going through pictures I realized I missed posting this picture of Violet wearing another Christmas dress she received as a gift. She wore it the same New Year’s Sunday that the girls wore their Christmas dresses. Can you tell we like to dress up around here?

Sorry about the test posts earlier (and then deleting, in case you missed them), but my sister-in-law alerted me to the fact that my blog feeds had not been updated since around Christmas (to those who have no idea what I’m talking about, then this probably doesn’t affect you…LOL). I had upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress (the blogging format I use here) around that time, and it apparently screwed something up. I was able to switch my feeds to feedburner and went through some blogs that I know link and here and saw that all is fine now. I hope I can rest easy now.

Violet, on the other hand, hasn’t been having as great of a time. She’s been feeling pretty rotten with a constant fever requiring round the clock doses of Tylenol. Today she is finally feeling like herself again but can’t seem to figure out why the same cute voice isn’t coming from her lips anymore.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWlSYk2Jt8

I got a cat and she is so good and well I named her Sadie. We love her but I got a American girl doll. Happy 2010. I lost a tooth my 2nd . Vivi is sick. I am home from school because of snow. Bye bye.

Annie wanted to have pictures to post, too, so she was given permission to take the camera on her own to snap a couple of pictures of Sadie.

What she says is all true. All kids are home today. Thank goodness we have the kitten to take up much of that time and outside playing in the snow more time. Violet was up much of the night last night with a fever and coughing/sniffling/sneezing. Poor bebe:( Once the Tylenol sets in though she’s just fine. Annie did lose her 2nd tooth yesterday. However, the tooth fairy wasn’t able to make it through all the snow to trade Annie’s tooth for some money. We are going to send her a snippy email reminding her that little girls get their hearts broken when the tooth fairy doesn’t come. (Yes, we forgot. We are bad bad bad bad parents. In our defense, the tooth was overshadowed by a sick kid and new kitty.)

I’ll leave you with some random pictures, too. The girls have been dying to wear their Christmas dresses to church but our trip to NC forced us to miss the previous 2 Sundays. They wore them for New Year’s Sunday instead. Mimi picked out her own tights and shoes. Both girls adore those coats that Grandpa Indiana got for them a couple of years ago, and they constantly wear them around the house, too. Daddy accidentally broke off Annie’s fur collar on her dress, so Annie improvised with her white, furry scarf. And the story behind Mimi’s furry hat is that Mike purchased it for me because he wanted me to have a real fur, Russian hat. It was too small for my head, so Mimi is very reluctantly wearing it.

Lastly, Lucy looks so forlorn.