Lazy afternoon-Mama.

UPDATE: All of the videos are working now. Check them out. There's a lot of our kids crying while we laugh.

The trauma of the winter weather was too much for June. It is very clear that June is papa's girl while Henry is turning out to be more like mama. June and papa both have sworn off cold weather.

Add on the fact that papa has a cold and Juner has some bad diaper rash, and they were forced to cuddle on the couch for a half hour.

Junie's blankie was in the dryer, so she got it all warm and cuddly, along with a blanket, a sheet and a mattress pad that Henry piled on top of them. Maybe her teeth are bothering her, as I noticed that her 3rd second year molar has broken through.

June really is coming into her own as she approaches her second birthday. She's expanding her vocabulary beyond her favorite word (and food)- "nana." Yesterday at the grocery store, she pointed and yelled out "Apple!" She also identified and screamed "bubble!" when we were playing outside.

She loves dinosaurs, Little People, and Dora (to the dismay of the rest of the family, who get the sings stuck in their head for hours after an episode). At Aunt Jenni's suggestion, we got out some pipe cleaners for her to bead pony bead on. She really liked it, but only wanted to put beads on one end and immediately take them off the other end, so there's no end product to show. She's also known to grab your hand and pull you to the guest room while begging "Tickle, tickle," which is her word for pillow fight, a nightly after supper tradition. Often, you'll hear her yelling and find that she's climbed into the guest bed and piled pillows on top of herself. She just lays there and giggles until someone finds her.

Henry is becoming quite the show-off. Whenever June has her picture taken, he demands a picture of himself. Very natural smile, Henro.

Henry is starting to tune into other people's behavior. He'll admonish you for not being polite if you don't answer him immediately. He noticed this week when I was crying. (After an especially trying field trip with Henry's class. Why do I always get a van full of rowdy boys and everyone else gets sweet, quiet girls. I think they are going to stop asking me to come on these field trips. Or maybe I'm the only mom who will still take the boys.) Despite occasional meltdowns of frustration, he is really growing up and has been very patient with my laziness during this pregnancy. Every day he gets up from his nap and asks if my baby needs more sleep so it can grow (the answer is usually yes and that usually means he gets to watch some tv).

I remember the day in 8th grade when I noticed I squinted my eyes when I smiled. Now, I try to make an effort to open them up when some one is taking my picture. I asked Henry if he could try the same thing.

And got mixed results. Looks like the Seibert awkwardness has hit. I also noticed in this picture that he has the same weird eyebrow arch as me.

Snowpocalypse!-Henry.

Grams pointed out that mama must have complained enough because it actually snowed in South Carolina! And just in time for the Olympics to start on Friday night. Our February blues are officially over.

It started after naptime and mama snapped a few shots just to prove it happened in case it started raining.

We decided to go outside. June wanted to play in the sandbox, but the snow picked up enough that we didn't want the sand to get wet- strike one for June in her hatred of snow.

Mama has said all winter that our house would look so cute covered in snow. Here it is at 5:30.

I tried to shovel some snow off the stone.

Strike two for June- mama won't let her ride a grown-up bike in the snow.

After supper, we went back outside. Here's our house at 6:30. Looking pretty!

We got rid of our sleds when we left Wisconsin, so all we had to work with was an old laundry basket. Mama said she wasn't going to spend $10 to store a sled we'd only use once every few years. I had a run by myself and liked it! The berm of the rode stopped me from going to far.




We sent June down despite her protests and she wiped out almost immediately. To make things worse, papa carried her back up the hill, slipped in the snow and dropped her face first in the cold stuff.

June ran back to the house and cried for papa to take her inside.

We tried another bin, but it just tipped over. June cried some more.

I took another solo run and wiped out. I did not like it.

Mama made June go down one more time. Mama says no one would ever know we're from Wisconsin the way we carried on over two inches of snow. I took a few more trips down the hill with mama before we took a walk around the neighborhood and eventually went inside.

This morning, mama and I went outside and walked around the neighborhood for a while. When we got back to our house, we borrowed our neighbors sleds. They proved to be much faster than our laundry basket and mama and I hit the bump of the berm (mama had the bruise on her bottom to prove it), flew across the road, and wiped out on the other side. We abandoned the fast sled and went back to the laundry basket. After I decided to go inside, mama stayed outside and ended up making friends with some new neighbors who invited her to build a snowman with their kids who actually liked the snow.

Before lunch, mama insisted that we go back outside one more time before lunch. This time she opened up the sandbox, hoping to lure June back into the snow. While mama and I scraped the snow and ice off Papa's car (which was very easy because it was now 40 degrees outside), mama wondered where June was. I told her she was inside the garage and this is how mama found her:

Face down in a mud puddle, just waiting for the misery to end. She wasn't even crying. Mama stripped her out of her muddy clothes and threw her inside.

I think mama is most upset because there is a big hill on campus that everyone goes to to get some good sledding. Not only was our driveway too icy to get safely down, it was clear that no one had any intention of going with her to hit the big hill. Maybe next year, mama.

The temperature hit 43 degrees today, so most of the snow is gone and the roads are clear. Regardless, we're surprised at how many things are still canceled- including Sunday morning church services. Mama can never remember Mass being canceled as a kid, but the churches down here must be a little more lenient.

This week-Junie.

Mama lets Henry stay up later than me at naptime- which is totally unfair, but does allow me to get my 3-4 hour nap in before supper. She lets him stay up on the condition that he plays by himself for the most part. He's been spending his time working on building the marble run. Mama gave him a lesson on making sure it's "stable" (not adding a 4 foot tall leg that not attached to anything).

On Thursday, he surprised mama by alphabetizing the wooden blocks. He used his alphabet puzzle as reference, though he kept it upside down and was upset that he couldn't fit 7 letters in each row of the wagon like the rows in the book. (That's mama's sprite, by the way.)

We had a dance party on Thursday night. June got down to some classic Roxette. I decided it would be a good idea to have a "car dance party."

Unfortunately, the idea turned bad quickly. Mama caught a video just as I tried to dance and flipped up the dumper to my truck and caught it in my lip. "Don't you know it's a little bit dangerous" to dance with trucks?