Tonight, the Bengals played the 4:15 game versus the Steelers. Since not many games are at 4:15, we were lucky enough to be able to watch it on the tv at home!
Mama and Papa displayed their exemplary parenting skills by letting us do whatever we wanted during the game. I watched with papa for a while, but Henry learned how to use the mouse on the computer and we spent the rest of the first half watching "Dinosaur Train" videos and games on PBSKids.org.
The Bengals didn't play very well in the first half and were down 13-0 before they even had a play with positive yards. Mama was pretty worried.
Mama threw a bunch of food on the table during halftime and left us to our devices during the third quarter. Mama gave June our new favorite special treat- tiny little pretzel sticks to dip in yogurt. Why hadn't she thought of this before?
I refused to eat my lima beans and spent most of my supper being goofy.
The fourth quarter was great! The Bengals came back to win with only a minute to go! Mama and Papa screamed a lot and we jumped around with them. June stood on the chair calling the touchdown and jumping up and down. After the game was over, we were wound up and I asked papa if we could watch more football and keep yelling.
All in all, it was a great day. Because the only thing better than the Bengals winning is the Steelers losing!
Mama must be getting bored because yesterday I was loading coins into my piggy bank and when I looked up, she'd chopped off half of my hair.
She's been talking about how my hair was getting to long and how she didn't want me to turn into one of those southern girls with long, curled hair and earrings. So she chopped it, but then called Aunt Jenni and cried because she felt guilty for butting my curls.
The good news is that my hair in the back had two layers, and she only cut the long layer, so there is still a little curl in the back.
Papa thinks it's cute, but says the long in the front short in the back look reminds him of Kate Gosselin (or the reverse mullet, as we call it).
We'll wait for Grandma Seibert before we do anything drastic to the front.
Here's a video of Henry acting crazy in the garage.
And here I am doing some spinning. I was really spinning fast and giggling alot before mama got her camera out. Unfortunately, just after this video was taken, we went over to the neighbors house to pet a puppy and mama forgot to pick up her camera from the brick wall. It stayed there overnight and through some rainstorms too. We'll have to wait for a week or so for it to dry out to see if it still works. Luckily, it was the cheap little Nikon we use for videos and not the nice Canon. (Between you and me, Papa and I think she did it on purpose. She's always hated that camera.)
Yesterday, we decided to take papa back to the lake park for lunch (yeah for Sonic!). We made sure to reserves bread from the enormous grilled cheese sandwiches to throw to the fish. We fed a lot of fish but had to leave because it was just too hot. (90 degrees at the end of September? Come on.) June fell asleep on the way home, and for the first time in Turner kid history, she stayed asleep even as mama got her out of the van, took her upstairs, changed her diaper, and put her to bed.
Mama wanted to get a picture of her passed out on the changing table with one leg handing off, but decided instead to not risk June rolling off while she went to get the camera. Instead, here's a few shots of one tired little buggy asleep in bed.
Poor little kid even slept through her brother hollering downstairs.
And here's a gratuitous thigh shot for Aunt Jenni.
Thursdays are notoriously bad days for mama. Henry is home from school and he spends most of the day asking the same question over and over and over and then asking mama why papa can't stay home with him instead.
So mama tried her favorite method of combating whine and grumpiness- get out of the house. We decided to try a new park- the Abernathy Waterfront Park. Mama's been looking for it for a while and it's tucked into one of the tiny inlets of the lake and is really close to downtown. It is 8 acres waterfront and boardwalks and docks that line the lake.
Mama lost track of where she was and dressed me in an unseasonably warm corduroy jumper. It was super cute, but it is still 90 degrees down here. Add on the fact that I demanded to wear my hat down over my eyes, and I was a sweaty kid.
Mama convinced Henry to take a picture by bribing him with use of the camera.
He took this picture of mama and me.
He took about 700 pictures of his yellow bug filled with acorns.
A nice shot of the trees. Rumor is this is the earliest trees have started to turn in 10 years. We haven't seen that many trees turning and wish an early fall meant plummeting temperatures as well.
Here's a contemplative shot of me. "June in nature." I was really trying to get off the path so I could gather more acorns in my little hands. Mama has had to make it a point to check my hands before I go to bed because she's been finding tiny things in my bed, such as puzzle pieces, rocks, and shells from Henry's beach box. I literally carry them around for hours and throw a big fit if someone takes them away.
There were swings on one of the docks and we spent some time looking at the lake. Henry spent the first half of the outing asking where the playground was and if we could leave and go to a playground. Henry took this nice shot of the lake. Many of the docs had ramps down to another dock on the lake where you could tie up your boat or waverunner and head downtown for something to eat.
Five minutes before we left, we finally noticed the fish and ducks mama kept pointing out.
I liked this duck but jumped everytime it quacked. We had a little video of it, but Henry spends the whole time asking to use the camera and demanding a peanut butter jelly and pickle sandwich. Mama sounds very grumpy on it, so we decided not to post it.
Tonight before bath, mama decided to trim up the mullet on the back of my head. This is what I looked like before.
She was having such a good time trimming that she decided to continue to the rest of my head. Maybe it was because she always wanted to try to cut hair and a three-year-old isn't going to care how bad it looks afterward. Maybe it was payback for when I peed on the floor this afternoon.
Here's the finished result....
Hey, who's that charming guy?
Granted, it's no Grandma cut, but I don't think it's too bad for a first time stylist.
We don't want to jump to conclusions, but June might be a genius- despite the fact she's the only kid in the family who still isn't talking.
Mama noticed this last week (ask Aunt Jenni). June likes to play with the 3 different alphabet puzzles we own and especially likes to carry the pieces around. We've begun to notice that she especially likes the F's. We first thought it was a coincidence, but not after she brought two F's to supper last night. Start setting up her scholarship fund, Harvard.
Despite her vast cerebral abilities, June still enjoys the simple things in life- like sweet corn. We're very glad she figured out how to eat it correctly instead of just sucking on the end of it like a popsicle.
And check out that cute hair barrette. Mama scored a 6 pack of animal barrettes at the dollar store.
We found a better solution to June's indoor shoe problem. She didn't like the red slippers, so mama pulled out a pair of ballet flats that Mister Andy and Miss Christina got her last April. Good news! She's finally a size 4! (For those of you who don't know baby shoe sizes, most kids are in size 4s well before their first birthday. Our friend Audrey wears a size 6 extra wide. Sadie's probably in a size 8 by now- which is also my shoe size.) And yes, that is a cape that June is wearing. It's my Batman/Superman cape that I've never worn willingly but she now loves.
This morning, I had the best idea- a book party. It involves piling books in June's crib and reading quietly. The perk? I got to go in June's crib too. Mama was going to veto the idea but then she asked what she did during a book party. I told her she had to sit on the bed and check her email on the computer. Sold.
We looked at books for a half hour before we started jumping and got kicked out of the crib.
Mama took the opportunity of quiet kids to finish taking pictures of our house. Here's our room.
We share because it's pretty big and we're best friends.
I like my room because it has a desk in it. Right now it's piled up with stuff because we're waiting to move some new dressers in the room and don't want to hang anything up until we know how everything is going to fit.
Here's mama and papa's room. They got that headboard at the Sauder's outlet and it was advertised as full/queen. It's waaaay to big for their bed, so mama put it up on Craigslist this afternoon.
They have two closets.
The hallway between our rooms. You'll recall from the last set of pictures that the upstairs is only on the back side of the house. What mama likes best about it is that the whole front of the house is a walk in attic accessed by a door in the hallway and a door in our room. Already it is so much more convenient than the pull down ladder at our old house.
Henry's really come into his own lately, and thanks largely to workbooks, he's been calming down and able to concentrate quietly for long periods of time. Last night he found a box of vehicle stencils and was busy tracing them for an hour this morning.
Of course, there are times when he can't entertain himself- namely when I'm changing June's diaper, putting her to bed, trying to fix supper, or trying to take my 20 minute afternoon nap (he always wakes up just after I lie down).
He's becoming very self-sufficient and can use the potty on his own- though he doesn't like to. He'd rather we pull up his pants for him. He remains the one kid I know who has no desire to undress and dress himself, but he will do it if he has to.
He's very loyal to his little sister, but that doesn't stop him from and occasional push or toy-grabbing. But overall, they get along surprisingly well. June is finally getting to an age where she doesn't demolish everything (namely his train tracks) immediately upon entering a room, but does get in his way sometimes which results in lots of yelling.
He's a delightful id to have around with a few exceptions. He NEVER stops talking, which really wears you out. He's starting to compare mama and papa. For example, mama won't switch albums on her Zune when we're driving in the car. Once we've picked an album (in the driveway), that's what we're staying with (especially since we only drive about 7 minutes at a time). So no flipping from the Beach Boys to Johnny Cash to the Kinks. But papa will change songs on the MP3 player to any song Henry wants to listen to. "Why don't you change it mama? Papa always changes it to my song. I want to ride with Papa next time."
And perhaps Henry's worst vice right now is the already huge amount of guilt that he inherited from his father and the Parsons side of the family. Henry will apologize for just about anything. "Pick up the spoon you dropped" "Okay, sorry for dropping my spoon." He really amped it up one day when we were coming in from outside and he pushed June down the step in the garage. I yelled at him and told him to go park cars in the spare bedroom- which is where he was racing June. I found him five minutes later crying in the bedroom and he sobbed to me and said "It really hurt my ears when you yelled at me." I felt pretty bad, so I apologized for yelling. He picked up on this as a pretty good way to get out of being in trouble, so now everytime he gets sent to time out, the tears flow and his ears hurt from my yelling. His main fault is that his ears hurt even when I don't yell. If I ask him to carry his dishes to the counter he responds "It really hurt my ears when you yell like that, mama." Sorry kid, you just lost all sympathy.
We had a great weekend, but neglected to take many pictures. Henry's feeling better and went back to school on Friday, though he continues to insist that he's sick and demands medicine every time he coughs. (Nice try, buster.)
On Friday morning, the exterminator came and sprayed the inside and outside of our house with a cocktail of chemicals that he insisted were harmless, but "don't let the kids touch them while they're still wet." We are glad to report that there's only been one Palmetto sighting since, and it was a slow moving roach that showed up on Friday afternoon and had pretty obviously already been affected by the spray. Mama sprayed it with Raid (which is not a pretty sight to watch) and vacuumed it up. Henry then insisted on setting up his train track on the spot of the chemical holocaust (who is Raid kidding with their "Country Fresh" scent?) and we've probably all lost enough brain cells to set us back a few months in our development. But at least we don't have any more bugs.
Mama is getting tired of me carrying shoes around the house (I refuse to observe the strict "No Shoes on the Carpet" policy), so she got out a pair of Henry's old slippers. I don't know what she's thinking. Who would give up pretty sparkly slippers and fun flowered rain boots in favor of fuzzy red boy slippers? Whatever, mom.
On Friday night, we went to bed with the promise that we'd have visitors on Saturday morning. And we did! We woke up to find our favorite Miss Susan and Mister Paul asleep in the guest room and mumbling something about having only given up playing Beatles Rock Band 4 hours earlier. When are these grown-ups going to learn to stop playing video games all night because we're not going to sleep in for them? Despite the rainy weather (that's been going for a week), papa and Mister Paul headed on to campus to try and get tickets for the Clemson-Boston College football game. They had a great time, but the game was delayed due to lightening in the 3rd quarter and the stadium was cleared as a safety precaution.
The rest of us set out to find something fun to do. We succeeded in getting lost and found one of the few remaining gas stations in the country with old dial pumps (where does the credit card go?) and an old chain-smoking lady working the cash register inside. She told us we should go check out some big flea market east of Anderson. Mama decided no one was going to take a nap and we headed over to find the flea market. It was massive and boasted only one rule "Pay us $8 and you can sell anything you want." There was a farmers market, a whole section of puppies being sold out of laundry baskets, many Michael Jackson Tribute shirts, tons of "As Seen on TV" products, and even a mini donut booth. I really wanted to stay and look at the table with obscure Pixar Cars' cars, but mama made the mistake of coming to the flea market without any cash. We did scrape together enough change to buy snow cones before we left. I got banana, mama got strawberry, and Miss Susan got blue raspberry. June was asleep in the stroller and we didn't tell her that we stopped for treats.
On Sunday, mama took the opportunity to dress June up, since it was still raining, so there wasn't a chance to go outside and get dirty. We found a restaurant in Anderson that was playing the Benglas game (most of South Carolina is dry on Sunday, but Anderson is one of the few towns that allows bars to open). Henry and I were very good at the restaurant for the whole first half of the game. I played with toys in my high chair and Henry colored a special project for PawPaw. We got to eat lunch there too. (Mama loves bar food.) We didn't get home until after 3, so we took really late naps. This worked out well, because mama and papa let us stay up late because PawPaw was going to talk to us on the webcam at 9. I spent most of the time trying to type on the computer, but Henry had a nice conversation with PawPaw that quickly evolved into Henry running across the room, so PawPaw could see him saumersault on to the couch wearing nothing but his underpants. I think PawPaw thought it was funny.
Mama's still trying to get a decent picture of Henry. She's worried he might run away from home, and we'll only be able to give the police pictures of him in his underpants. And the way he and mama are getting along today, he might run away from home sooner than we think.
Since we got to stay up until 9:30, and didn't really fall asleep until after 10, we've been quite a handful for mama. Henry got sent to nap early for hitting me with a car. Then he really tested mama's patience by calling for her, so he could discuss a matchbox car he found in bed. This has become increasingly common lately, so mama said it was bedtime and he lost all of his books because bedtime does not meaning calling mama upstairs 10 times to talk. Henry cried and asked for Papa to come home because Papa would let him read books. Mama responded that papa is at work, so he was stuck with her. This just made Henry cry more. We sure have the meanest mom ever.
Finally, here's a video of me dancing. Papa and Bubba were on campus last night getting some work done, so I took the opportunity to dance without the threat of getting tackled. (By the way, here's proof that we do pick up the 97,000 puzzle pieces every night.)
I couldn't handle looking at that gross spider every time I opened the blog, so here's a quick update and a much nicer picture.
Henry's feeling much better now. He still has a bit of cough and a runny nose, but we proclaimed him healthy enough to go back to school today. He must have felt better because his teacher said he ran around the whole time. He did get a sticker today- for being quiet during circle time! Rumor has it that not many kids got the sticker today. This is really quite an accomplishment for Sir Talks-A-Lot.
Henry's been surprising us at night and during nap time by coming out of his room. But he never comes down stairs. After the first night, we asked what he was doing and he said he was going into the bathroom to blow his nose. Poor kid. We also think there's some illegal book trading going on after hours because June's books keep ending up in Henry's bed. He told me that June gives them to him.
It looks like June is coming down with the cold now. I never understood what Grandma Cooper meant when she said a kid gets sick in the eyes until June came along. She's had seeping, crusty eyes all day. Hopefully, her flu is over as quick as Henry's.
Yesterday, we just hung out at home, because Henry came down with the flu and couldn't go to school. He had a nasty cough that kept everyone up most of the night and a fever. We don't think it was the big one because he's already feeling better today thanks to some powerful cough medicine. Mama is hoping for H1N1 to hit soon, because it's inevitable that we'll get it thanks to the fact that we are going to be regularly exposed to the germs of a preschool and a college campus (that already has over 150 confirmed cases). She figures we should just get in now while we still have our summer strength instead of this winter when we're compromised by harsh 50 degree temperatures.
Mama walked into the living room to big this doozy of a spider last night. We tried to find a ruler, but had to use this pencil for reference. That is terrifying huge.
`Here's papa ready to pounce on the kill. This spider was fast and ran under the mama was standing on before mama could catch it. The exterminators come tomorrow morning.
Mama needed a picture of Henry to send to his school. She was looking through our archives when she realized that we only have pictures of Henry looking down at his workbooks or toys or acting goofy with someone else. We had to go back to early August to find a picture of Henry in a truck that worked, even though Henry wasn't looking at the camera.
' This one is nice, if you don't count that Henry is standing with his hands down the back of his underpants. Why are they on inside out, you ask? Because this morning, mama was upstairs getting me dressed (I slept in until 9). She could here me downstairs yelling, but was choosing to ignore the old fashioned Seibert intercom system. When we got downstairs, we were surprised that Henry was in the bathroom washing his hands. He went to the potty all by himself! We were impressed because Henry suffered from "I can't pull up my my pants by myself" syndrome. He got his pants and underpants back on, but mama had to take this picture when they were getting dressed and she saw his underpants were on inside out. All that matters is that they're on, right?
Mama and Papa displayed their exemplary parenting skills by letting us do whatever we wanted during the game. I watched with papa for a while, but Henry learned how to use the mouse on the computer and we spent the rest of the first half watching "Dinosaur Train" videos and games on PBSKids.org.
Mama threw a bunch of food on the table during halftime and left us to our devices during the third quarter. Mama gave June our new favorite special treat- tiny little pretzel sticks to dip in yogurt. Why hadn't she thought of this before?
I refused to eat my lima beans and spent most of my supper being goofy.
