Goodbye Jazzy.

We're sad to say that Gram's and PawPaw's giant Shelty went to that big dog park in the sky tonight. Jazzy has been in the family longer than mama and has had a bad couple weeks that led up to the decision to end her misery.

Though mama isn't known for her fondness for dogs, their relationship simmered from the explosive day in the summer of 2004 when she threatened to throw a very energetic, always-barking Jazz into traffic, into a quiet respect that mama has with old dogs that lay on her feet and keep them warm.

And there was no better dog to keep three kids in line. Jazzy was very patient with all the grandkids, even when they pushed, pulled hair, and tackled her when she was sore with arthritis. She spent her final years making sure that someone had a eye on the babies.

We told Henry that Jazzy wouldn't be around when we went home to Gram's house. Luckily for us, he is very into dinosaurs and has become used to the idea that all animals must die sometime. Mostly, he was interested that someday, someone might run across the fossils of an old dog had a good ten years with the Coopers.

Rainy Saturday and Super Sunday- Juner.

It was the weekend, so naturally, it was cold and rainy. Sigh.

Mama and Henry entertained themselves by building a parking garage out of blocks.

It was originally two levels higher, but not very stable, so they downsized.

On Sunday, we woke up to the best day of the year- Super Bowl Sunday!! I decided to root for the Colts, so I picked out all blue clothes to wear.

Juner picked the Saints and wore black and gold.

Sunday was actually a very nice day, so papa took us to the park so mama could stay at home and start cooking for our 6th annual Super Bowl party. Usually our theme is delicious Wisconsin food, but this year we expanded the theme to New Orleans vs. Indiana. Inspired by all the baking she's been doing this week, mama decided to make a king cake from scratch. It had to be set aside to rise twice and mama was pleased with the result. She said that the cake is to celebrate the Epiphany (King's Day) and you only eat king cake between the Epiphany and Fat Tuesday- the last day before Lent starts on Ask Wednesday. She even found a tiny baby to hide in the cake. No one at the party ate the piece it was in, so that must mean mama has to make the cake next year.

She also put together a big pot of jambalaya. It had chicken, shrimp, and Andouille sausage. We were very lucky, because mama could find a grocery store that sold it, but our neighbors saw her plea on facebook as they were shopping in a Whole Foods. Thank God for technology. They found her the best, freshest Andouille sausage she could have hoped for. It is very spicy and really made the whole dish. She joked that she was going to make it Indiana-New Orleans fusion and just add Lil' Smokies instead. We're glad she didn't.

Representing the Indiana side was a sugar cream pie- Indiana's state pie. We really wanted pork tenderloin sandwiches, but mama didn't feel she could do justice to a deep fried pork tenderloin as big as your head on a tiny bun. If you've never had a sugar cream pie, it is literally sugar and heavy cream (with a little vanilla, a few tablespoons of flour and ground nutmeg) in a pie crust. After some research on the interwebs, mama discovered that the true secret to making a good sugar cream pie is stirring the sugar and the cream together inside the pie crust with your finger. (Don't worry, she washed her hands.) It takes so long to dissolve a cup and a half of sugar into a cup and a half of heavy whipping cream, that you risk whipping the cream if you stir it with a fork. It didn't set up as firm as we'd hoped, but it was good- like eating sweetened condensed milk in a pie.

We also had a few midwestern standards- a cheese and cracker plate with big log of Klement's sauage courtesy of Aunt Jenni's visit to Menards- a hardware store (where else do you buy sausage logs?). And mama broke her ban of shelf stable cheese "product" and made papa his crock pot full of cheese dip with sausage and Rotel. Henry and mama spent a long time in the grocery store looking for the big yellow box and Henry was so excited to try what mama calls "Gross Cheese." This year's dip was so perfect, it wasn't even able to be captured properly on camera. It's like trying to get a picture of Big Foot. It's always blurry and you're not quite sure what you're looking at.

Here's the rest of the spread to prove that there were a few vegetable in there.

The party was so fun, the company so captivating, and the 6 kids aged 1-6 were so well behaved playing in the toy room, mama didn't even think to take pictures of anyone. She was too busy watching football and enjoying the company of other adults.

Mama and Papa stayed up late talking to the remaining guests that didn't have to take their kids home to bed at half-time, so we had a quiet day today. Henry refused to take a nap (because he wet the bed last night and his blankie was in the wash), but mama was very surprised that he actually played quietly by himself for an hour so she could take a nap. After supper, I decided to do some reading and pulled up the nearest dump truck.

And one more funny story from the weekend. Papa let mama sleep in on Saturday morning. He got up with Henry (I sleep until 10 am on the weekends). When mama got up, papa told mama that she needed to buy a new house phone when she went to the store. When she and Henry got to the Walmart, a friendly worker asked if they needed any help. Henry announced "We need a new phone because my papa dropped our phone into the potty- right in my poop." Surprisingly enough, the phone survived its fall and was still working. Mama thought it was gross and refused to use it. Sorry to Great Grandma Parsons, who was on the phone and had to suffer through the ordeal of being dropped in the toilet. Now we're the proud owners of a new phone with caller ID- the fanciest phone we've ever owned. But we still have an answering machine- not voicemail. Welcome to the 21st century, Turners!

Czech cooking- Junie.

Mama requested that mama bring down her Czech Dancers Polka Club 1972 cookbook so they could do some baking.

Specifically, mama wanted to make the poppyseed rolls that Great Grandma Wagner makes at Christmas and weddings. They are simply delicious.

Mama sure looks happy. They worked a whole pound of butter into that big lump of dough. That batch made six portions that were rolled out, smeared with poppyseed or apricot Solo filling (very hard to find at a grocery store down here- we had to go to Greenville), rolled up jelly roll-style and baked. They made 6 big rolls. They had intentions of freezing some, but one roll went home with Grandma, and papa just finished the last one today. He says he doesn't understand why he gained 4 pounds last week.

Mama spent some time scanning recipes from the cookbook. There are many great traditional Eastern European recipes- rye bread, hassenpfeffer, and many cabbage and potato meals. Mama was also very delighted to find many 1970's-style casseroles and salads. There were a lot of taco and pizza casseroles. Of course, mama's favorite section was the "Salad" section, which is Midwest speak for "weird things you can do with jello. She scanned the cheese and pineapple salad especially for Aunt Jenni, who loves a good jello with cheese and meat. And we mean no offense to Grandma's neighbor- Mary. Because as much fun as we poke at any jello salad, mama still makes the Fruited jello salad featured on the left page and spent most of last week in a funk wishing someone would make her Tater Tot Casserole, which features ground beef and canned green beans drowned in cream of mushroom soup and topped with frozen tater tots. Now that's comfort food.

Grandma and Grandpa come to visit!- Henry.

First off, a big apology to our readers for a long week without updates. The card reader we use to upload pictures from our camera to the computer broke, and we took our time finding a replacement.

Last Sunday, we emerged from the big storm with a lovely 40 degree day. It got warm so quickly, that the ice fell off the trees in a big ice storm. It was loud enough that I opened the front door and proclaimed to mama that it was raining with no clouds in the sky.

Mama says it reminded her of when we lived in Wisconsin and on the first warm day you could hear ice cracking from the trees.

Grandma and Grandpa Seibert braved the storms and came down on Sunday. Mama and I decided to make cookies for their arrival.

We used Alton Brown's recipe and ended up with a big batch of cutouts. Apparently, we make very small cookies and pancakes, because we always end up with at least twice as many cookies and pancakes than the recipe predicts. Does that mean we get to eat twice as many?

I put extra time into decorating this T-rex for Junie.

June and Grandma spent some time hugging their respective babies on Monday. Grandma specifically requested nicer weather than Ohio. Unfortunately, it was chilly and rained most of the week, but mama did point out that it was still nicer than the 6 inches of snow they got in northwest Ohio.

Because the weather didn't cooperate and mama spent most of the week taking Grandma and Grandpa to things I wouldn't like, I went to school and didn't get to skip any days. But I looked forward to coming home and playing with Grandpa. He is really funny.

Not only is Grandpa funny with a tunnel, he builds a great train set, too.

And when we weren't playing with toys, he was up for wrestling and avoiding getting kicked in the face by a rambunctious boy.

Junie did get to go along on the adventures and was always ready to run out the door to see something new. We visited the little shops in Pendleton (mama scored a basket in the shape of South Carolina), an awesome bakery with many french and german delicacies, the local art center (both mama and Grandma bought pottery), and a little quilt shop in Central.

On Wednesday, we did have a beautiful day when the temperatures reached the mid 60's, so everyone took off to visit Greenville. I got to pack my lunch and stay at the extended care at school until 2. I was so excited. I've been asking to stay for lunch all year.

Greenville has a very cool Main Street with lots of shops and a park that runs through the city that features its own waterfall. (Little known fact: It's the only city in the US with a waterfall inside city limits.)

A big bridge went over the falls. All the Seiberts must have a fear of heights, because they were all jumpy about letting juner walk on the well fortified bridge. Mama even had dreams for two nights after about June falling off of things.

But she was plenty safe holding two hands.

As if the trip couldn't get any better, they had lunch at a barbeque joint and stopped to watch a building get torn down. What a perfect day.

June proved that second child should be closely monitored when she got a pen and wrote all over the chair. Mama made a frantic call to Grams and Aunt Jenni. Turns out that rubbing alcohol can remove ink. Mama thanked her lucky stars that they got the microfiber furniture that can stand up to strong cleaning chemicals and moved all the pens to the top shelf.

Before Grandma left, we made sure to get our haircuts. Of course June refused one, but mama and I lined up.

We had to postpone our trip to the railroad tunnel and mama's favorite chicken place, due to sleet and the pending snowstorm that was headed towards Ohio and the mountains. I guess this means you'll have to come back Grandma and Grandpa!