Hot Balloon

This morning as Veronica opened the door to leave for school, we saw a hot air balloon in the sky directly in front of our house. It was completely unexpected and pretty cool. Veronica kept calling it a "hot balloon." Meanwhile, Violet is mastering the art of the "guilty look." She can creep along pretty well and loves to pick up little pieces of paper or any other treasure she can find on the floor. When I come up behind her and say, "Violet, what are you doing?" she immediately tries to hide what's in her hand and looks up at me like I just caught her doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. David had a great birthday. He got a shirt and pants, a banjo ornament, a fiddle ornament, a coat, and Star Wars Battlefront II (a computer game).

Pre-Birthday Excitement

Tomorrow is David's 39th birthday. While he's kind of dazed by the concept of being 39, Veronica and Harrison couldn't be more excited. Veronica keeps saying, "It's your birthday, Daddy. Aren't you so excited? You're going to eat chocolate cake and you're going to get presents! I'm so excited!" Then Harrison pipes in "you're going to get presents!" Veronica got a happy face on her hand again today at school (which means she didn't lose any of her smiley faces for breaking the rules). Violet ate bananas for the first time tonight (the baby food version, not the "real thing") and really liked them. I think this was the first time she's really shown an interest in any solid food. Harrison helped me feed her and she didn't even mind when he jammed the spoon in her mouth.

A Clean Room

We spent most of today cleaning and sorting things to take to Goodwill. David made 2 trips to Goodwill. If he had his way, he would just throw away about 90% of Veronica and Harrison's toys. So they need to be very grateful that I'm around to intervene. We did give some away. I spent most of the day cleaning Veronica and Harrison's room. Veronica helped me towards the end and thanked me for doing such a good job. Then she said that I must have been good at cleaning my room when I was a little girl. I didn't have the heart to tell her that my room was probably worse than hers! Okay, I just didn't want to give her an excuse for having a messy room! Of course, Harrison succeeded in messing up a lot of what we accomplished within minutes of waking up from his nap.

Make Way for Sweet Potatoes!

Veronica and Harrison continued to enjoy their vacation today and even managed to sleep in a little later. Then, tonight for the first time I let them feed Violet. They haven't been able to be involved until now because she won't take a bottle. She's been having some solids for about a month, but they don't really make up much of her daily diet. Veronica started feeding Violet some sweet potatoes and Harrison REALLY wanted to be involved so I gave him a spoon too. Violet seemed to enjoy the whole experience--even when both Veronica and Harrison had spoons in her mouth at the same time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving we went to Callaway Gardens (in Pine Mountain, Georgia). In addition to the immediate Conely clan, David's parents and my dad were there too. I'm posting some pictures which I took with the camera on my phone and since the lighting wasn't that great, the pictures aren't that great, but at least I have them now instead of 3 months from now--or whenever I would finally get around to getting them developed. We didn't stick around to see the Christmas lights because the kids were crashing and we had all had a pretty long day--plus David has to work tomorrow because he doesn't get any vacation until Dec 17 (and then he gets 1 day).

The Vacation Effect

Today Veronica started her Thanksgiving vacation and, of course, she and Harrison got up on their own 10 minutes earlier than I normally would wake them up on a school day! For some reason, a day with nothing to do but play is the biggest motivator for getting out of bed there is! Since today's weather was pretty mild, they went outside in the backyard a lot and, of course, kept turning on the water! I had to change Harrison's clothes twice. Veronica wanted to put her swimming suit on, but I had to explain that it was too "cold" for that--even though it was fairly warm! She needs to experience a "real" fall, instead of these "wimpy" Alabama falls. Knowing her, though, she'd still want to put her swimming suit on. I wonder if they have a "junior" Polar Bears group somewhere . . .

The Violet Effect

This morning I took Violet into Veronica's room when I went to get her up for school. While Veronica wasn't necessarily eager to get up, she was in a decidedly better mood because of seeing Violet. Unfortunately, Violet isn't usually awake at that time so I don't normally take her in with me.
Later in the day, Harrison, Violet, and I made a trip to Target and Harrison got a small stuffed Curious George for being such a good boy. Needless to say, Veronica wanted to get one too when she found out about it since she had been good at school. Actually, Veronica has been great at school for the past few weeks. So David took Veronica to Target (yes, we're pushovers). He couldn't find Curious George right away so she ended up with one of the Dragon babies from Shrek 3.

Our Little Eskimo

Getting Veronica up for school is never easy and today was no exception. Thinking I would try something new, I told her that if she didn't get up I would put an ice cube on her back. As usual, she called my bluff and I had to go get an ice cube. First I put it on her leg--no reaction. Then, I put it on her back and still no reaction. Then, she said, "Well, that didn't work." Finally, as I heard David get in the shower, I told her that if she wasn't ready before Daddy, she would be in trouble. And that got her moving! Of course, if this was a non-school day she would have been up already on her own, but that's a different story . . .

Welcome to The Conely Chatter!

Hello! I'm glad you could stop by. This is the place to find out everything you've always wanted to know about the mundane goings-on of the Linnea and David Conely clan. I'll try to post daily, but we all know how good I am at writing letters, making phone calls, etc. Besides, some days you may have something even more exciting to do--like watching paint dry.