Spangler Candy Company- Henry.

Apparently, lot of famous things come from northwest Ohio. Ohio Art (makers of the Etch-a-Sketch) is based in Bryan, along with Spangler Candy Company, maker of the Dum Dum Sucker.

They offer tours of the facilities, so we bought our tickets, donned our hairnets, and got in line.

I didn't want to wear a hair net, but the promise of candy persuaded me. (That guy behind me was mama's elementary school principal. He was there with his grandkids, so mama made sure we were on our best behavior.)

The best part of the tour was that it was all on a trolley! For health reasons, we didn't get to see any of the candy getting made, but we did get to watch videos when the train wasn't moving. Mama remembers touring the factory as a kid and grabbing warm candy canes right off the line and making them into any shape you wanted.

Spanglers makes 10 million Dum Dum suckers and 500,000 Saf-T-Pops a day. They also are the only manufacturer of candy canes in the US (2.7 million a day!). Besides the classic red and white peppermint canes, they also make the Jolly Rancher, Jelly Belly, Shrek, and Cinabon candy canes you see at Christmas. One more cool fact for you: the candy canes are made in a big 125 pound batch. The stripes are hand applied to the big lump by the same guy who's been doing it for 35 years. Then it gets threaded through a machine that turns into 4,00 canes.

After the tour, Henry picked out suckers for us.

Mama reminisced about the old products that Spanglers used to make. She said she used to get these eggs because you could save them in the plastic "shell." She also spent a while looking longingly at the Astro Pop display.

After the tour, mama announced that she'd take us out to lunch at the McDonald's so we could play on the playland. She forgot that you needed socks, so she had to buy some from the counter. Too bad they only came in big kid sizes.

We played for a long time until June got tired and took up her spot on the steps.

Somebody get this baby home and in bed.

While June napped, mama introduced me to the last Spangler creation- the circus peanut.

It's a dense orange marshmallow shaped like a peanut with banana flavoring. Mama says the old tour used to go by a cascade of circus peanuts as they came off the line.

We ate a bunch, then made them into a jello salad. It was my job to count out 15 and cut them into quarters. I took it very seriously and was very proud that mama let me use a knife.

While I made jello, mama and Grandma made poppyseed rolls. They had leftover egg white, so next they made meringue cookies. I did not like the sound of the mixer going that fast.

But I did like showing off.

On our last night, we went to Sherwood to meet up with mama's friend, Miss Terika. And there's not much else to do in Sherwood besides get some ice cream at the Apache Dairy Bar and walk down to the train tracks. June really liked what we think was her first solo ice cream cone.

On the way home, mama was struck for a moment of how nice Northwest Ohio can be.

One thing is for certain, it looks very different from South Carolina. Mama spent some time telling us how you could see the blinking traffic lights at the corner of 249 and 127 as soon as you left Farmer, even though they were three miles away. And every road is square with the next one. If you miss your turn, just go another mile and turn there. No one can ever say that about South Carolina.

Journey to Ney- Juner.

We narrowly avoided some pretty big storms and tornadoes in northwest Ohio on Saturday night. Henry was disappointed because Grandpa will usually take him around in the truck looking for damage right after the storm is over.

Driving up from Carmel, we drove right through Amish country (we saw 4 buggies) and right by Miss Megan and Mr. Scott's house. We stopped by to check out their playset, HUGE gardens (that's right, multiple gardens) and squeeze on sweet baby Lillie.

Baby Lillie is just about perfect right now. She's 11 months old and soft and cuddly and sits quietly in your lap. No sharp elbows or squirming. The only problem Henry had was that she kept trying to steal his puzzle pieces. Thanks for having us over and thanks for the green jello!

When we got to Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house, our Seibert cousins were already there waiting for us. After supper, Grandpa let us all take turns driving the tractor. Grandpa said that he never touched the wheel when Henry drove because Henry spent the entire time making sure the wheels were going in the right direction and carefully maneuvering the tractor and wagon. Mama verified this later when she let Henry back the van up. He sat on her lap while she pushed the pedals. He backed up the van while turning, and told mama when to stop before she got to close the the garage, then told her to shift into drive so he could turn again to position the van to drive down the driveway. Mama might start letting him parallel park for her.

While one kid drove, the rest of us rode in the back. The big kids were in charge of letting Grandpa know if Tessa or I stood up. But we all stayed on our bottoms until the tractor stopped.

Aunt Elizabeth was nice enough to push me on the swing while I yelled "Higher! Higher!" nonstop.

The boys kept themselves busy loading rocks into the wagons with construction equipment.

On Tuesday, we visited Sauder's Village, a village full of historic buildings that were moved from all over the Black Swamp into this little park. Everyone dresses old-timey and practices crafts from way back when, like broom-weaving, tin-smithing, and coopering (making wooden buckets). They also have a working farm. We got to take a ride on a horse and buggy. Mama didn't get a picture because she was "in town" at the herb shop with Great Grandma Wagner.

No surprise that our favorite part was the only thing that wasn't old-timey- this little train that went around the village.

Everybody is on-board and ready to go! For the price of one ticket ($1), we were able to ride all day. We got two rides before we headed home.

While mama and Great Grandma were in the basement of an old house checking out the sauerkraut press, Grandma got us all chocolate chip cookies at the Doughbox! (From left to right: Natalie,5; Henry,4; Oliver, 3; Tessa, 1; and me, 2.)

Henry said he wasn't tired, but he spent a good amount of time cuddling Grandpa on the last train ride. When we got back to Uncle Kevin's house, we all took naps.

It wouldn't be a trip to Grandma Seibert's without haircuts. Henry had his in the driveway because there was a tractor in the field to watch.

He held very still, despite the fact that I played peek-a-boo with the cape.

That summer haircut looks pretty good!

I had my first official Grandma cut (remember mama cut it once last fall). They tried to get me to sit still with a sucker, but I chomped it quick and kept on wiggling.

Eventually, mama figured out that I'd hold still if she let me watch the videos on her camera. Mama was so happy to have my hair short again. Since it all grows forward from my double swirl (and 3 cowlicks) in the back, she was having a hard time keeping it out of my face.

The finished product. Have we talked about mama's "sticky cheek" theory? No matter how often she wipes it down, there is always dirt on my left cheek. She thinks I must secrete some kind of mucus, like a frog. It's probably more likely that snot and spit get all over my cheek when I'm brushing hair out of my face.

Thanks for the haircuts, Grandma!

The pool!- Henry.

The real highlight of being in Indiana was the pool in the Tallers' neighborhood. Mama and Junie got down there every time they could.



It took me a while to get back up to the comfort level I had last summer, but I did have a good time swimming. I liked jumping in on the condition that mama caught me before my head went under water. But if it did go under, I didn't mind it so much. (Don't be alarmed by the big brown sea monster- that's just mama in a bathing suit.)

I wore the swim vest most of the time and really liked floating on my back. The real surprise was that June turned out to be a total water bug. She loved being at the pool. and when she jumped in, she wanted to go under water. She already knows that special way to hold your breath so no water gets up your nose when you jump in. (Mama has never mastered that.) Every time she went under, she came up smiling.

The big news of the weekend was June's fearlessness. After seeing Evie jump off the diving board in the deep end of the pool, June insisted on getting to the edge. She climbed up and walked over the the board. Mama stopped her long enough to get a swim vest on her. She climbed the diving board and jumped right in the pool. (Don't worry, Aunt Jenni was there to catch her.) Count this as reason number 100 we aren't getting a pool. We'd never be able to keep June out.
Say, who's that other lady in the pool? That's mama's friend, Miss Elizabeth, who drove down from Chicago for the weekend to become the chief object of affection for 4 kids.


Not only was it great to see her, it was a break for all of our parents. No one wanted their mom or dad to do anything. They wanted Miss Elizabeth. and that included everything from sitting beside her at meals, to reading books, to wiping bottoms. All of which, Miss Elizabeth willingly performed. We think she had fun, but went back to Chicago thankful she doesn't have kids.

Every night, we'd have to pull June out because her lips were blue and her teeth were chattering.
But she just kept trying to get back in.

All four kids played amazingly well together. When we weren't out having fun, mama and Aunt Jenni threw us in the basement with all the toys. And we stayed down there for hours, having fun with only minor skirmishes.
Aunt Jenni lives in the perfect neighborhood for riding bikes. We got to ride on the sidewalk two houses either way. I commandeered the red tricycle and we never left the house without me riding it. I wish we had some sidewalks in our neighborhood (and a surface flat enough to ride a bike without losing control).

Occasionally, June would try to get away and I'd have to go get her.
Before we left, we tried to get a shot of all four kids. Fingers out, June!
Kiss your cousin!

Make a silly face!
Roar like a dinosaur!

Finally, we got a good one.


Mama and Miss Elizabeth only needed one try for their picture. Thanks for coming to visit us, Miss Elizabeth. And thanks Aunt Jenni and Uncle Jim for putting up with us for 5 days. We hope everyone caught up on sleep after we left.

Mama at 30 weeks- Henry.

For all of you who care to see what carrying REALLY low looks like, here's mama at 30 weeks. (This picture is almost 2 weeks old, so we'll give you the run down on how 30-32 weeks feels).

Mama is still feeling great. This continues to be her best-feeling pregnancy- probably because of the afternoon naps she's able to take. Her biggest complaint about being pregnant with June and I was that she always had gall bladder pain. We'd spend our days kicking it and it would always swell up and cause her pain. She has a little this time, but is carrying low enough that our baby can't stretch out far enough to kick it regularly.

Mama jokes that the baby must be a boy because it seems entirely composed of sharp edges. (I can't think of any other boy who is all knees and elbows and always manges to head butt mama when she picks him up.) This is her most active baby yet. I mostly slept. June kicked a lot. This baby kicks 24 hours a day and spends a fair amount of time pushing. Mama says that this baby actually can take her breath away with a good kick, and anyone that felt her belly can attest that our baby will spend minutes at a time pushing out, like it's trying to bust a whole in her belly. So mama spends her time trying to push the baby back because she's afraid she's going to start bruising soon.

The weekly baby email says that the baby is about to go through a big growth spurt. This must be true because mama has turned into an eating machine. She doesn't put back much at every sitting, but you can guarantee that if it's been two hours, she's hungry again. No weird craving yet.

The weirdest side effect is that mama seems to have developed pregnancy-induced ezcema. Half of her face is flaking off and she has 5 weird patches on her skin. She says it's because she's not used to that dry northern air. The 100 percent humidity ought to help that out.

The hardest part has been being pregnant in the summer. It's no secret that mama doesn't tolerate heat. She was happy to go north for 3 weeks and proud of herself that 90 degree heat (with low humidity) doesn't bother her much anymore. We'll see how she does for the next 8 weeks now that we're back home.

Back home again in Indiana- June.

After a while at grams' house, we decided to pack up and see what Carmel, Indiana had to offer. Just a short 3.5 hour drive is all it took to get to Aunt Jenni's house. Henry is always excited about how long it will take to get to a new state, so he learned a new lesson about how interstate mile markers work. The last 45 miles from Dayton to the Indiana line featured Henry yelling "Exit 13 coming up! Exit 13 is for Highway 127! That sign means you can only go 65! This is Highway 70! Go right here for exit 13 and Highway 127!"

Mama also took the opportunity to steal Grams' GPS. As a former Northwest Ohioan (and Wisconsinite), she always thought GPS units were a waste of time. If you missed a road, go one mile and turn on the next one. But down south, the roads bend around the hills and if you start out headed north , you can guarantee that you'll eventually turn east then south. Plus, mama thinks there's a conspiracy in which South Carolina changed the names of all the roads after Google Maps came through just to confuse the outsiders. So it was nice to have the GPS when we traveled between everyone's houses. We used it so much that when we slow down to turn, I like to yell "Turn right here!"
Aunt Jenni kept our days full. One morning, we went with her to a cool park with a little town of small buildings.
We played in it for about 10 minutes before we found the sand pit.
Despite the fact we had no sand toys, we spent the next 90 minutes digging and burying things in the sand.

When we got home, Aunt Jenni wouldn't let anyone inside the house. We had a picnic outside, then mama spent about 20 minutes emptying sand out of my diaper and used about a half a bottle of baby powder to get all the sand out of my hair.
The next day, we visited a splash park. It was so much fun running through the "little rivers."
Look at how much these kids are stretching out! It breaks mama's heart that our chunky baby Evie is now a gangly 6 year old who mostly wants to spend the day reading her Rainbow Fairy books.
Even Annalise is losing her chunky thighs and round belly.
Good thing I'm still soft and squishy and totally kissable.
Somebody feed that kid some ice cream to get a little padding on those ribs!
After running around for a while, Henry took up post on this rock to make sure all the little stones and pieces of mulch made it over the little waterfall.
I ran from end to end waiting for fountains to shoot up.
I wish we had one of these in Clemson!
After us girls got tired of splashing, we headed to the playground. I climbed all the way to the top and mama had to send Evie up after me to make sure I came down. The slides were really long and came out all the way at the bottom of the hill, so mama couldn't keep track of where I was.
Aunt Jenni packed a great lunch to eat outside. We took great naps that day.
On Friday, we had a cookout and made s'mores over the fire. Aunt Jenni was feeling really crazy and bought chocolate-vanilla swirl marshmallows. They were good, but turned green when you roasted them. I didn't last very long at the fire because I kept breaking the rules and stepping on the tile close to the fire.