Saturday in Central- Henry.

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a rainy day. Luckily, they hold my baseball practice in a gym on rainy days.

Things couldn't be going any better at practice. Papa didn't have to bribe me at all this week to participate. I loved practicing fielding.

John did a great job too!

Here's a good video of both John and I batting. Check me out in the back knocking it out of the park! It took mama a lot of tries to get a good video of me.

Papa gave me a lot of advice about keeping my eye on the ball.

When we weren't batting, we fielded the balls. This kid is really good and papa could tell it was bothering me that he could get to the balls faster than me. What the video doesn't show is me telling papa not to hug me. I guess 4 and a half is when kids learn how to be embarrassed by their parents' interfering.

If you heard June talking int he last video, you can tell it absolutely kills her that she's not playing. She did sneak out on the court to play for a while. We can't wait to sign her up next year, even though the whole team is filled with boys.

When we practiced running bases, I was very fast. Papa says that after the second lap, all the other kids are starting to get out of breath, while I'm still going strong. Looks like "high energy" is starting to pay off.

After practice, we headed into Central for the Railroad Days. Central was named because it is centrally located on the railroad line between Atlanta and Charlotte. It's a struggling little town where most of the Clemson students live and is trying very hard to rebuild its image around the railroad.

There was a lull in the rain and we got there just in time to get rides on all the trolleys before the long lines started.

Lowe's had a workshop set up where kids could build a kaleidoscope. Mama really wanted to build it, so I humored her by pounding in all the nails. (She had so much fun that she says she wants to start going to all the Saturday morning workshops at Lowe's.) I helped her out on the condition that she let me ride the Thomas Train driving around.

I rode all by myself. Mama didn't think much of it until the "train" drove away and didn't come back for 10 minutes. I guess this is growing up.

Look at all these trains you can rent! Someone please convince my parents to get this for my birthday! Not only am I acting goofy in this picture, check out Junie in the background begging for another fresh made mini doughnut doused in tons of powdered sugar. They were so good.

After she downed the last of the mini doughnuts, Junie took a turn of her own on the train.

While they were waiting for us to finish building, June and Papa took a tour of the Clemson "CAT" bus. Mama says some day she'll take us on a bus ride, because everyone rides free.

The city set up an empty store full of train sets. June and I both drove a Thomas set.

And we spent a good hour playing with the wooden train sets.

They even had a TV playing Thomas videos! Could the day get any better?

Fun Friday- June.

We had a great afternoon. Mama woke us up early from our naps to go to the park with our neighbors. We got there a little late because we all took naps today, but mama was happy that we all woke up in good moods, which is pretty rare when we're woken up.

It was a great day to be outside. Baby Christopher was in a great mood. Mama almost traded me for him; he's so sweet and chunky.

We didn't get many pictures of the boys playing because Miss Kerri and Miss Juliet were clever enough to bring a ton of sand toys. The boys spent the entire afternoon playing with trucks in the sand and there were hardly any tiffs over sharing toys. James filled his car up with sand.

Andy played in the other sand pit.

John pushed his truck around in the grass while Henry spent the whole time filling up a toy garbage truck one stone at a time. We've got to find one of those little Waste Management trucks.

While the boys were playing with their trucks, I played on the playground. I managed to climb all the way up the 10 foot tall twisty slide by myself. Mama is thinking about enrolling me in a gymnastics class this summer. (By the way, could I be any cuter in my little tennis dress and cap?)

I headed straight to the sandbox as soon as mama slathered me up in sunblock, so I had a nice gritty coating for the rest of the day. I wonder if sand has a natural SPF.

Mama cracked me up by peeking through the holes in the tunnel. This may be our new favorite picture.

I keep begging mama and for a dog. They said I can hang out with Keats, John's dog. And Miss Juliet said we are welcome to walk him whenever we want.

After the park, we got a big treat- we went out to eat at a restaurant! A real sit-down restaurant even! We were very good and even ate the grilled cheese we ordered. Looks like we need to take advantage of two well-behaved kids while we still have time before the baby comes.

After supper, we got to go to the baseball game. We sat in the stands for the obligatory 10 minutes before we were too antsy to sit any longer.

Henry was so excited to see that we sat by a friend from school- J.D. And his parents let him come run around with us in the grass.

The boys had a great time playing tag and climbing the fence.

J.D. is in tee-ball this year and is very athletic. He taught Henry how to slide. Next time we'll dress Henry in pants so he can slide a little better.

The boys fun and were pretty bummed we had to leave to come home and put me to bed.

Henry has really been a pleasant kid lately. He's hit a great age where there isn't too much fighting or whining. We've talked about how Henry doesn't care much for doing chores for money, but loves the idea of earning books. Today, mama went to the thrift store and picked up a few more books. (We found more Dave Ramsey for kids books, Aunt Elizabeth.) Henry couldn't stand the idea of not getting a new book so he insisted they head outside and plant the new plants mama bought at a plant sale at the local Montessori school. When I was down for my nap, they planted a cayenne peppers, squash, parsley and Sweet William flowers. Henry is also getting very good at watering all of the gardens we've planted. We've got the vegetable garden, the herb garden, a raspberry plant in the back of the yard that needs buckets of water carried to it, flowers in pots inside the tree house, and flowers in 4 other spots around the house. We've learned the hard way that if we're going to keep anything alive, we need to water it often, because the clay down here dries out very quickly. We almost lost the Abelia we bought at the zoo, but it seems to be getting better now that we drench it daily. He earned one book for planting and watering. He tried to convince mama to get the shop-vac out so he could vacuum up more acorns but she made him come inside and take a nap before he could earn a second book.

While we're on the subject of Henry, it's worth mentioning his latest analytical obsession. He got a calender for Christmas and spends his mornings crossing off dates and counting down until future events. He can always tell you which day it is and how many days there are until the next pancake night, the train festival (tomorrow!) or how many pages until the new baby comes.

He's also really into adding. When he does his lessons on campus on Tuesday and Thursdays, papa has started writing out math problems and letting Henry work on them alone. He can add all the way into the twenties. Papa says it is really something to see. He counts out loud but doesn't use his fingers or anything. Mama says it's another sign of the "knack" and is very pleased that he likes math like she does. She can't wait until he started doing long division in his head to help himself fall asleep like she used to do.

The only down side to Henry these days is that he might be getting to an age when he won't take naps. We know we're lucky for him to still be napping at almost four and a half, but noooo! He didn't take a single nap last week. It was very trying more mama, who is still taking her naps every afternoon. He's good about playing by himself while she naps, but wakes her up every 5 minutes to tell her how much time is left on the timer she sets for him. Luckily, he napped a few times this week. We think that mama's promise to watch "The Incredibles" if he slept may have had something to do with it. If it gets a few naps a week out of it, mama says it's a good deal.

adding

Worst Parents Ever- Mama.

Okay, I'm sure somewhere out there someone trumps our poor parenting skills. We've never left our kids locked in their rooms with a jar of peanut butter while we went to the bar to watch the Packers (it happened in Wisconsin).

Tonight I was on the website for Henry's school and took a look through the photo album.

Here's Henry in October. The week of the Clemson- Wake Forest game. Wearing a Demon Deacon shirt is like suicide in South Carolina, especially two days before the big game. And we all wore matching shirts that day. I actually told someone at the gym that I only wore Wake Forest shirts to work out in because I didn't care if I ruined them. Because he was the 5th person that day to stop and heckle me.

Next up, the Christmas parade. Henry was so excited to sit on a parade float, but promptly fell asleep before the parade even started.

During Pet Week, Henry asked if we were going to get a pet. I told him we were going to get a new baby instead. He said that babies take too long to grow and asked for a dog while we waited.

The last picture was of Henry's class on St. Patrick's Day. Guess who forgot about wearing green? At least someone gave him a sticker so he wouldn't get pinched all day.

Today, I chaperoned a field trip to the performing arts center on campus with Henry's class. These are usually quite eventful because I always end up with 4 rowdy boys who do not have the attention span to sit through a 90 minute performance of anything. Why can't I ever get a few sweet girls who are enchanted by the Steel Drum Band's rendition of Little Mermaid classics? The boys did cheer along when the band finished the performance with (what else?) the Clemson fight song.

Later, we went to the park for a picnic. On Wednesdays in April, Clemson sponsors lunchtime music-picnic, including free bottles of juice! Henry had a good time running around with some girl classmates of his while I chatted up the moms. One asked if the boys in their class had as many playdates as the girls. (They don't. Of the 5 boys in the class, the other moms either work full time, don't speak English or are crazy.) I tried to casually say that we'd love to get together with some girls for a playdate, but before I could set anything up, June grabbed a plastic baseball bat and bonked someone's baby on the head. Maybe next year.

Finally, Henry has been pretty funny lately. There's a saying at school "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." I think this comes from kids whining about snacks. Henry has made this phrase his own by telling us repeatedly: "I do what I do." This was certainly met with a mixed reception. Today, he started saying "I always do what my parents tell me to do." We realized tonight this may stem from from the fact that my general response to "I do what I do" was "You do what I tell you to do." Best mom ever.

This weekend- June.

Good news on the baseball front. Henry actually participated! He was much more willing to practice tossing and catching, hitting, and running the bases.

Mama wanted to get more pictures, but she was watching baby Christopher (our neighbor and little brother to John, who is on Henry's baseball team). Plus, I wasn't helping at all because all I really wanted to do was get out there and play some baseball with the boys. I kept running away and sneaking on to the field to try and hit the ball off a tee.

It took a little coaxing, but Henry ran the bases with papa. When the whole team ran around the outfield, Henry started in back and made his way up to second place. He could have beat the first kid, but Henry isn't the kind of guy who likes to lead. In the end, he wasn't even winded. He said it was fun to pass all the other kids. Mama suddenly got super-competitive and started giving Henry advice about running and passing the other 3 and 4 year olds. I think it has a little to do with the fact that Henry has never before excelled at ANYTHING physical in his entire life and a little to do with the fact that mama was a runner in high school. Henry really couldn't be more of a Seibert if he wanted too. Well, except for the fact that he is actually a fast runner and no one has ever accused a Seibert of being speedy.

After practice, Bubba remembered a bribe papa offered last week: a Chick-Fil-A milkshake for a complete practice. We convinced him that it was too early for a milkshake, but we would go get doughnuts. Too bad no one had remembered to bring a wallet to practice. But Mama did scrounge up enough change in the van to get a doughnut from the Walmart-with sprinkles.

Here's a little Southern trivia- people just don't eat doughnuts down here. Sure, there is a Dunkin' Donuts down here, but any true Ohioan knows that those waxy things aren't really doughnuts. It's really impossible to find a fresh doughnut down here. They don't even make them at grocery stores. Papa noticed too and someone told him that before Krispy Kreme's came down about 10 years ago, you couldn't even get doughnuts in South Carolina. Gasp! We didn't know how good mama had it growing up when her neighbor used to bring over hours-old blueberry cake doughnuts from the overnight shift at John's Doughnuts. And don't get papa started on the lack of a good creme-filled long john.

We were going to spend the weekend in Atlanta, but decided to forgo a trip to the spring Renaissance festival (boo!) to stay at home on Saturday and do yard work (BOO!). We love our house, but realized this week that our yard has a lot of "potential." We spent all day Saturday raking 3 years worth of leaves out of a woody corner in the back and trying to shop-vac up the 18 million acorn caps and pebbles in the hopes that something besides moss may someday grow in our back yard. We've got a long way to go. We won't say much more about Saturday because it involved a lot of bickering about the utility of raking out an abandoned corner and two kids who refused to take a nap and a VERY grumpy, pregnant mama.

We did make it to Atlanta today. Henry's been begging for a trip to the Dinosaur Museum and got his wish today. We didn't take many pictures, but mama did get the camera out when I spent a good 25 minutes playing with this goofy creature creator. They were surprised I liked it so much, because they've never seen another kid ever play with something like this.

Every time I came up with a particularly funny combination, I would run back 5 feet and giggle at how funny I am.

I've made the full-time transition to walking down stairs upright and on my own. It makes mama nervous, but I refuse to go any other way. The only negative fallout is that I've started trekking upstairs when mama isn't looking to recover my blankie and nukie to bring downstairs. So far, mama is not letting me keep them out of bed. I'll keep trying.

As if a day at the dino museum wasn't enough, we also made our obligatory city trips to the Trader Joe's and the Ikea. Ikea was full of surprises. First, kids ate free this weekend. And June and I discovered that we don't like those Uncrustable peanut butter sandwiches of white bread filled with sugary peanut butter and tons of gross jelly. Mama cheered silently that she's brain washed us onto 10-grain bread with the all natural peanut butter that papa hates.

Our second surprise was that Henry was PUMPED to visit "SmalLand"- the drop-off childcare center. He went in without even a goodbye and spent 45 minutes watching movies and playing in the ball pit. He told mama it was his favorite part of the day. I can't wait until I'm old enough to go.

Our third surprise is that I got a new big girl chair! Wait for papa to put it together and we'll post some pictures.

Around the house- Henry.

Here's a sampling of what we did this week.

June upped the cute with those little pigtails. The big thing in our house these days is the Sesame Street CD player and book that Unkie Adam and Aunt Kate sent June for her birthday. It has started a whole new trend of playing "DJ." Whether it's this book, the baby exersaucer (that has to this day remained a favorite toy in our house), the clock radio, or papa's I-pod, I love demanding that people make requests for songs and I play them. When I'm at school, June is especially happy to get her own turn on the CD player. We really love this book because mama will request something like "a song on the page that has elmo as a sailor." then i have to find the page int he book and figure out which CD and track number is the right song. That's educational, right?

We had a blast while mama was gone in DC. There was lots of mac and cheese and we got to go to the park every day. (And mama wants it publicly known that the house was SPOTLESS when she got home. Well done, papa.)

On Monday, we picked dandelions and blew the seeds everywhere.

Until "June the Onery" challenged me to a duel.

She fought bravely.

But I closed my eyes and swung blindly...

...and unarmed by foe. She surrendered before I ran her through.

We go to almost all Clemson baseball home games. We sit in the stands for an inning, then run around in the plaza while papa watched the game from the 3rd base side. June loves to see the Tiger and yells "Hi 'Iger!" until he comes to see us. When he gets close, she freaks out and refuses to look at him. I didn't have any reservations about getting my picture with the Tiger.

(Note from mama: Come on, Clemson, you're known for you're awesome school spirit, but you're mascot is named "Tiger" and walks around in this creepy uniform? He should be named something awesome like "Tommy Tiger"(after founder Thomas Clemson) and have an awesome oversized head. Google "Bernie Brewer" for inspiration. Just saying...)

Mama's been trying to get some work done in the yard and June is getting better at entertaining herself instead of just running straight for the street. She loves holding batting practice with our tee and baseball equipment.

Our garden is actually coming along. There's our broccoli on the right and the start of our peas on the left. This was taken on Thursday and by Sunday, our peas were as high as the broccoli. Here's a question for you master gardeners out there. Do we need to put some kind of trellis or support up for the peas to climb?

On Thursday, mama planted peppers...

...three different kinds of tomatoes and a new strawberry plant to replace the two we killed. We don't think we watered it enough. Luckily, we haven't killed much more, though the seeds we planted int he herb garden have not been very successful. The cilantro is starting to come up, and maybe the rosemary too. She planted a new basil plant and has satisfied herself with waiting until we go to Ohio to steal shoots off of Grandma Seibert's and Aunt Jenni's herbs.

We also planted a raspberry bush in the yard and some flowers in planters that I immediately claimed for my playground lookout. It's my job to carry water to them every day.

Her Aunt Jenni, this plant came up in the garden and in the compost pile. We don't want to pull it in case it actually is a veggie. Please let us know if it is a weed.

When June got done playing baseball, she grabbed a trowel and started digging in the garden. She was having fun until mama tried to stop her from digging up the strawberry plant. And she was mad. then she saw mama soaking the compost-able pots the plants came in and proceeded to throw all the other plants in the bucket. She was mad when mama stopped her then, too. To top it all off, she was filthy when it was over and mama stripped her down int he back yard and hosed her off. One. Mad. Buggy.

She felt better when mama took her inside and got her dressed. She spent the rest of the morning playing with her alphabet puzzle book.

I don't think mama ever showed off the dino t-shirt she made for Junie's birthday party. She's very pleased at how well it turned out.

Once Junie caught wind mama wanted her to pose, she turned on the charm.

Oh boy. This kid is doomed to some awkward teenage years. Mama swears there are identical pictures of her at this age. Don't worry, little sister, maybe your permanent teeth won't be so round.

Finally, here's a video to round out the week. Everything June says revolves around counting. You can hear her try to count to ten if you can really concentrate over me yelling and Buggie shoveling corn into her mouth. (Side note, how can that many ribs stick out in the back with a belly so big int he front?)