Aunt Girl, you'll be glad to know I finally fit into the shoes you got me for my birthday.
And they are adorable! Every morning (after I put on my jewelry), I go straight to the closet for my pretty pink shoes.
I'm not so sure about the socks mama picked out, but who cares as long as I can look pretty.
I tried "double shoeing" it with mama's new Birkenstocks that she got on Ebay. ($20 for a pair of $100 brand new shoes! She hasn't stopped talking about them.) It was so cute that I clearly negated the "no shoes on the carpet" rule and wear these shoes nonstop until it's time to go to bed. It's driving Henry crazy.
At lucnch, I decided my bottle wasn't good enough and demanded to drive from mama's gym bottle. I didn't feel like eating much today, but for the first time in known history, I pushed all of my torn up sandwich into the cup holder, instead of throwing it across the room as hard as I can.
Now that I've stopped throwing food, mama says maybe she'll keep me after all.
Here's more pictures from my camera. The vast majority of them are big white over-exposed blobs, because I'm still learning not to take pictures from a distance of 2 inches. But some turned out.
These are my words. Every night, papa and I sit down at the computer and work on the finer points of phonics. I've got "oo" down, but "th" words are giving me a hard time. Maybe it's because I can't pronounce "th". Once we're done working on sounds, papa gives me 10 words that I have to read on my own. If I get all 10, I get an extra story before bed. Sometimes I get 3 chocolate chips.
Here's a picture of papa. I'm getting better at standing back.
The first picture of just mama and papa that has been taken in a long time, since mama is always the one taking pictures. Time for a hair cut, mama.
I dabble in self portraits. This is the first one for my facebook page. Mama says all the teenagers take their own pictures.
GG got mama a box of kids craft ideas, and I decided I wanted to make this snake. We cut it out so when you lift it up in the middle, he's a big twirly snake.
I gave him 3 eyes and an orange tongue.
I'm getting better at pictures of myself.
Here's mom again.
And Gracie and I making necklaces.
We want to give a special public mention to Aunt Girl. She's really got what it takes to be a teacher because on Tuesday night she very enthusiastically talked to me on the phone for over 20 minutes while I played out the episode of Bob the Builder where the ever technologically-impaired Bob can't get his phone to work because he held it upside down. I tried this out on Girl several times and it never got old. And Aunt Girl played along the whole time. Thanks, Girl.
Yesterday, Miss Becky was hit with the painting bug and wanted to paint 3 rooms in one day. Mama told her to bring Audrey and Grace over so she had a chance of accomplishing that goal.
All four of us played very well together. We tried to occupy the same 4 square feet for the whole play date. We didn't fight, but did manage to dump every single toy and scatter them around the house.
I got a little thrirsty, so Audrey tried to help me out with my bottle.
Mama got this big bin of beads for $3 at a garage sale and it has paid for itself many times over. Henry made 2 necklaces and Gracie made four. It kept them busy for an hour. We were all so good, mama managed to make a cassarole for the freezer, a loaf of banana bread, and supper while we played. Can you please come back again?
This is our last post... until Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth update their blog. Natalie, Oliver, and Tessa, please update your blog! We hate to punich everyone, but mama is suffering from severe withdrawal.
This weekend, I helped clean up around the house by doing some vacuuming. then I trashed the place again.
Mama wants to know, does everyone else's house have a one inch layer of magnet, coasters and other small toys? They're my favorite toys. Today I spent 15 minutes placing a button in different rooms of my doll house. It's gotten so bad recently that I need to wear Buster's boots to slog through the mess.
Last night, mama and Henry celebrated summer with some sweet corn. Henry was refusing to eat supper until he saw the ears of corn.
He ate two ears and even some chicken.
This morning mama was outside talking to our neighbors when I wandered off. They could see me sitting behind a bush, so they didn't bother me, because I wasn't running into the street. When mama fished me out, she saw I'd been digging a hole in the dirt. This picture doesn't do much justice to my filth, but make sure to zoom in on it so you can see how covered I am.
Here's a shot of my fingernails (after washing). Mama tried to clean them out, but I threw a big fit before she could get under my fingernails.
Finally, here's a funny story about Henry. This morning, Gracie came to pick him up for school. They were strapped in the back seat of Miss Becky's car when they drove my a rabbit that had met its demise in front of our driveway. Gracie told Henry "Look at that squished bunny. It must be a dog toy." Henry responded in a matter of fact way: "That's not a toy. It ran out in front of a car. It's dead Gracie." Apparently, Gracie was lost for words. What a realist Henry is.
Today, mama decided to take June grocery shopping before lunch. Bad idea. June spent the first 10 minutes scarfing down cheerios, then cried the rest of the trip. And if you know mama, she is not the type to end a trip because of a grumpy kid. She says she came to the store for a reason and is not leaving until she gets her shopping done, so you better not throw a fit to leave, because it's not going to get you anywhere. She did however resort to opening a box of crackers, which June held in her sweaty little hands as she cried. Mama even bought a new nuk, but Juner wouldn't take it. She cried all the way home and fell asleep as soon as she got her blankie.
She slept for 3.5 hours and woke up in a slightly better mood. The snake wrapped around her shoulders seemed to help. She didn't eat lunch and refused to eat supper, so we decided that she must be coming down with the cold that I have. Mama is so pleased because her pants become the most demanded tissue in the house. Well, when we're not using them to dry our hands.
June had a quiet evening reading books with papa.
I ate a good supper, even though I declared that the raisins in mama's dirty rice were dead and "I don't eat things that are died." (Please don't tell me where hamburger is from.) Because I ate a good supper, mama let me have a fun dip we've been saving since Seibert vacation. That ought to indicate how often we eat good suppers in this joint.
It took a lot of concentration to dip all that fun.
When I decided I coudn't get any more off the stick, I went straight for the plate.
The finished product. The plate was so clean from licking that papa could have just put it back in the cupboard.
Here's a little treat. When Evie was a baby, she amused the whole family with her "How big is Evie" routine. She was a natural. Mama tried it for a while with me, but I was always too busy parking cars to try. Today, she tried it with June, and even in her compromised state, June was doing it after one try. Girls are such show-offs.
If you can't understand what I'm saying in the video, I'm asking mama if the storm is going to be over soon so we can go to the pool. It storms here practically every afternoon. Mama loves a good summer storm and they usually blow over quickly. Mostly, they ruin my chances of going swimming. Yesterday mama and I went by ourselves. I'm really starting to like the water. I was jumping in off the side of the pool so high that I went all the way under water and didn't care too much.
We had a good time making foam snakes getting soap everywhere.
Mama made the best snakes. Note Buster's outfit- not only did he manage to venture upstairs alone (a major feat these days), he picked out his clothes, disrobed and managed to get dressy mostly by himself.
I played in the bubbles until I was covered in a nice sticky layer topped with dirt.
Henry gave up on the snakes and went back to normal bubbles.
Bubba gave the foamerator a try, but wouldn't listen to mama's instructions not to breathe in and out so fast.
I liked chasing the bubbles. Look at how happy I am every time I spot a bubble.
On Saturday, we headed down to Old Salem- the original Moravian establishment upon which Winston Salem was founded. We had a good time looking at the old houses, gardens and brick oven bakery that still bakes delicious fresh bread, thin cookies and sugar cake. While we were in a shop, Henry got an old timey whistle sucker. I don't know if the whistle pop dates back to Moravian times, but mama has a distinct memory of mastering "Mary had a Little Lamb" while sitting in the back forty of her first house on Mud Creek Road. That was about 100 years ago. Henro didn't learn any songs, but did have a good time busting the ear drums of all passers-by before he tankfully bit the sucker in half.
Our favorite people- Mister Paul and Miss Susan came over this weekend to do a little swimming. We had so much fun, we didn't leave the pool until it was almost too dark to see.
When we got home, mama stripped June out of her bikini and went upstairs to get her jammies. Meanwhile, Juner snuck out back for a little naked bike riding.
Scrawny little kid.
I hope someone washed that seat.
We don't have any pictures to prove it, but on Friday, we all went to the Y with my school class. They have a zero depth entry water works pool for kids. It gets as deep as 3 1/2 feet and I was completely confident, even in the deep end. (I'm only about 40 inches tall.) I ran under lots of water falls and we all took good naps when we got home.
On Saturday evening, mama and Mister Pail both ran a 5k. Called the Beat the Heat 5k, it's run in the evening so you can truly appreciate the splendor of July in North Carolina. Lucky for mama, it was only 80 degrees with a slight breeze. Perfect for a nice run. Paul of course, ran a swift 21 minute 5k. Since mama just hurt her back one week ago, papa was not so pleased that she was running at all. But mama said activity was the only thing to loosen up her tight muscles and squeaked in just one second under 30 minutes (although her official time was 30:01- we know that's not right). She was pleased with her time, as it was her first race in over three years and because when she ran on Friday she was only able to run 14 minute miles. Mama has also decided to only run races in the evening because they served, subs, pizza and beer to all the participants. What is this, Wisconsin? Mama wanted me to show you the purse she made over Cooper family vacation. You can't really tell because of the print, but there is a green lining and lots of curved piecing. She still needs to find a big button to finish it off, but is pretty pleased with the finished project, even if it meant the (hopefully) temporary alienation of her in-laws because she refused to take part in a particularly rowdy and loud game of Pit.
Finally, we excited to announce for the second time that we have a house in Clemson. The first house didn't make it past the home inspection- something about a leaking hot water heater led to the discovery that there was no drainage or working sump pump under the house. So we abandoned that house for this house. The inspection is tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed that we don't have to go back to Clemson again until we move. Mama says she's sure we've looked at every house in the county.
For Christmas, I got this cool camera as a present.
Mama remembered she hasn't uploaded any of the pictures from it, so here are some of my best shots.
The camera doesn't take that good of pictures, than add a boy that won't hold still very long to take the pictures, so most turned out blurry. This is Aunt Jenni and Aunt Elizabeth.
Uncle Kevin. By the way, mama had a dream that Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth found out the paperwork for their marriage had never been filed, so they weren't legally married. So they decided to take the whole family to Hawaii to make it official. What do you think Uncle Kevin?
Mama.
Most of the pictures I took were of bottoms, torsos, toys and toes. Here's one of Great Grandma Wagners snow globe. Mama says she spent hours watching it when she was little.
At Christmas, we spent the night at Great Grandma's. She read us stories before we went to bed. And if it's possible, her big old house is even quieter that the Seibert house. We've been in the city too long.
Jazzie.
A ferocious dinosaur. This dino (and my fear of it) was the supposed reason I didn't nap yesterday.
And they are adorable! Every morning (after I put on my jewelry), I go straight to the closet for my pretty pink shoes.
