Visit to Santa- Henry.

Nothing make mama happier at Christmas than a good drive-through light display. And living in the South adds a new element- the walk-through display.

We got out of the car and found out Santa was inside. Mama said I could go talk to him if I wanted, but I did not want to talk to him. She asked how Santa would know what to get me and I told her that "Santa would thik really hard and come up with something good." I wouldn't even stand in front of the real Santa, but we got this picture of us in front of a display.

There was an activity I did want to take part in- marshmallow roasting! Four for a buck and it comes with a stick.

June took hers raw.

Not that mine were cooked. I held them over the fire for about 2 seconds than stuffed them in my mouth as fast as I could.
(Nice snowflake tights.)

Since it was a slow night, mama made papa stop a lot so she could play with the shutter speed on her camera. Here's an elf throwing presents in a stocking.

And we didn't forget the proud southern heritage- here's a cannon blowing a cannonball across the road.

On the left is the big red explosion.

On Wednesday, we opened the mailbox to find a present from Miss Megan- santa hats!

Junie wore hers and tried to put mine on her dolly.

We think that family pictures might actually be fun this year. June likes to say cheese and I am easily bribed with candy. Thanks for the awesome hats Miss Megan!

Before bed, papa and I checked out this cool book that shows cross-sections of trains, ships, subway stations, oil rigs, etc. The best part is that you can always find a bathroom and some guy sitting on the potty. Mama and I think this is pretty funny. Papa thinks we should grow up.

More visitors!- June.

We couldn't resist opening up our house to visitors again when our good friends from North Carolina wanted to come see us!

I was so happy to see Miss Becky. I even got jealous every time Audrey touched her. Doesn't she know Miss Becky belongs to me?

Audrey's hair is getting long and she still outweighs me by 4 pounds and a good 2 inches even though she is 4 months younger than me.

Henry and Gracie were glad to be back together, even though they fought the whole time and have both reached a very melodramatic age. Henry would stand by Grace and grace would scream "Henry's pushing me." Seeing that this bothered Grace, Henry would do other things to bother her, like put a foot on her. "Henry's kicking me!"

But despite the squabbles, we think they were glad to see each other.


Proving again that they are the coolest family we know, they brought Henry a kid-sized accordion for his birthday. We all had fun playing on it and mama has vowed to learn how to play the "Merry Christmas Polka" before Christmas. With the accordion and the guitar, we're that much closer to forming a family band and getting on Big Joe's Polka Show.

We watched Jungle Book on Saturday night while we all changed into our jammies. Check out this enormous diaper! Four adults and there's no one to take care of the kids?

On Sunday morning, we all hung around and cuddled.

I've overcome my fear of the rock and roll snowman that plays a killer version of "Deck the Halls." To celebrate, I performed my craziest dance yet.
These two guys look like they stayed up too late playing Rock Band.

Gravity got the best of Mister Andy, so I joined him for a pretend sleepover.

If we thought Henry's running commentary was bad, put Henry and Grace together and mama's head almost exploded. Luckily, the dads took all the kids to the park while mama whipped up a pumpkin-turkey-cranberry sauce with pasta for lunch. (And she might have also gone to Planet Smoothie with Miss Becky- they had a coupon!)

The dads had tickets to the Clemson-South Carolina game, so they dropped us kids off and left. The babies went down for naps, while Grace and Henry actually played quietly! It was wonderful! Then they both got to pick out a video to watch. Thanks to the wonder of Netflix streaming through the PlayStation on our TV, the possibilities are almost limitless. It's almost like having cable TV with a Tivo. Grace picked Dora, which Henry didn't like. And Henry picked Mighty Machines- a show that is entirely videos of construction equipment. Grace immediately rolled her eyes and called it the worst. So much for quiet time.

Thanks so much for coming down to visit us, Grace and Audrey!

Last week- Henry.

Mama has a ton of great hand-me-downs for Juner. Some work, others don't. We're going to file this one under please put it away immediately.

Here's a video of June's favorite pastime-dancing and the ever cute jump. Also featuring my constant commentary. And the reason June needs to put this jumper away. Way too short.


More dancing. This one has June doing the one-knee bend that she got from Sadie. And if you can understand it, I explain that we have a dance move at school called "Inches in front, inches in back." It's a short of thrust where you stick your belly out, then you stick your bottom out. Mama and papa can't figure out what it means because I generally refuse to tell them anything about school.

We worked on some ornaments to send to PawPaw for his little Christmas tree in Iraq. I painted and June colored. After the paint-eating incident, mama says she has to wait til she's three.

When June isn't dancing, she prefers to be at the table coloring with her markers. When I was little, if I couldn't get a marker open, I just gave up. June grunts and visibly strains herself to get markers open. When mama was uploading the videos to the blog, June caught a glimpse of herself opening up her markers and put on a repeat performance with extra grunting and yelling.

Pawps, if you're reading this, don't look ahead. We want your ornaments to be a surprise.

I spent about an hour painting this train.
I painted this cookie too. After the train, I didn't have the energy to paint more colors.

June colored this bear. She meant only to color the ball. It has approximately 398 different color applications on it. Any other markings on the bear are purely accidental or because mama tried to get her to color somewhere else.

On Friday, mama went with me to school to take my class to see a performance of "Rainbow Fish." (Or the Communist Manifesto, as our friend Mister Andy calls it.) Mama drove two kids on to campus and meant to take more pictures, but didn't once she was in a crowded auditorium with one thousand loud 4 to 7 year-olds. She is happy to say that my class was very well behaved, though we all got a little antsy by the time it was over. I wanted to sit by mama, but Landon wouldn't trade me seats, so I sulked for a while and that kept me quiet.

Friday after was very quiet. I just wanted to color the Christmas printouts mama made me.

Here's the finished project. You can tell this one kept me busy for a while.

And Junie stood at the desk playing with beads.

Papa worked late, so mama said we could have a special movie night. We watched "The Christmas Dinosaur." It wasn't anything worth writing home about, but it was only 47 minutes long and we were happy to get to watch TV. Mama spent her time playing with Junie's hair.

It's not long enough for a pony tail, but it is long enough for this fancy hairdo that mama remembers getting when she was trying to grow her hair out in 5th grade.

Happy Birthday Henry!- June.

On Wednesday, Henry turned 4. It was anti-climatic because it was the first day that we were all alone again, but we enjoyed the quiet house and quiet time.

Henry got two different sets of legos for his birthday- the perfect gift for a 4 year old! And just like his cousin Evie, Henry is going to be the kind of kid who builds from instructions and not from imagination. Mama says it's okay because that's the way the Seiberts are.

Here's his first creation.

Henry took cupcakes to school for his class. But after that and all the junk he's been eating for the past two weeks, he still wanted a big cake with "slices like a pizza." (That means a big circle layer cake.) Mama felt bad for not making another cake, but did bump up pancake night to Wednesday and made Henry a special whipped cream pan-cake.

Henry must have reached his limit of sugar because even the pancake king couldn't finish this big stack.

This guy is 4!

And turning 4 comes with many benefits and privileges. The best one is that your parents start buying you presents!! (Under 4 gets you nothing in this house.)

What a cool recycling truck!

But the best present is this construction set. It's supposed to be an outside toy that you fill with sand, but it is the rainy season down here so we filled it up with beads instead. The beads and the conveyor belt keep Henry busy as he fills up all the coaches of his train.

Mama had to wrestle Henry away and pin him down to get this picture. Happy birthday, Buster.

Clemson Christmas parade- June.

On Tuesday night, we bundled up and headed to the Clemson Christmas parade.

Though you really can't see it, Tesser and I are wearing matching outfits from the June and Sadie collection. Now I'm the big one!

Oliver, or "Ovs" as he became known to Henry, waited patiently to see something with lights and a mini generator.

Henry got to be in the parade with his class. They had a trailer with Christmas tree inside.

That's Henry to the left of the little girl in the white hat. (And so you know, it was about 46 degrees out, so mama didn't make him wear a hat.) Henry was very excited to be in the parade, but the 8 days and visitors and lack of sleep really started to catch up with him. Then plop him down in a trailer all bundled up and he was asleep with in 5 minutes of the start of the parade.

Papa was also in the parade. He walked with the float so we didn't have to rush to the end to pick Henry up. Luckily, the school float was close to the front of the parade, so Henry was able to see the rest of the parade when papa woke him up at the end.

Natalie, or "Nads" as Henry now knows her, sat on a blanket and waited for someone to throw candy. Luckily, one float did bring candy, so we all scored a few pieces.

Someone put a lot of effort into this stroller. Lucky guy.

Oliver and Henry got really pumped when they saw something special coming.

It's Thomas! And you can even rent this for parties!

The best float of the night was the ReMax float. They had a hot air balloon basket with the flame thrower on top. I feel bad for the people inside that float, because we could really feel the heat when they drove by.

I sat still for half the parade, but wanted to run around once the JROTC performed with their rifles. Papa put me up on his shoulders so I couldn't get away.

And to end the night, Santa came by on top of a fire truck.

The parade was a great way to end 8 full days of guests. The Seiberts loaded up their van right after the parade and headed out of town to get a few hours of driving in before bedtime. Thanks for visiting us!