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?

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!

The storm of the year-Henry.

They've been talking all week about this huge storm that was coming on Friday. All school activities were canceled. The college sent out emails urging students to stay off the roads. We ran to the grocery store to grab the essentials- bananas, milk, beer, and bagels. Then we hunkered down, expecting the worst.

Though it had been 65 degrees and sunny on Thursday, the clouds started rolling in on Friday morning. Mama sent me on a very important mission to the mailbox- my favorite chore. She watches from the front door to make sure I watch for cars- though the only cars that drive by our house is our neighbors'. Our road is a circle and every one on either side of us goes away from our house to get out of the neighborhood.

Mama likes to watch me carry the mail up the driveway because I usually drop it four times. But today, she didn't get to see that because "the mailman closed the lid too tight" and I couldn't get the mailbox open. Instead I dissolved into tears, threw a tantrum and got sent immediately up to bed for a nap.

We spent Saturday lounging around watching BBC dinosaur documentaries on the Netflix. These are our afternoon shows of choice. Sorry, Bob the Builder. Mama didn't realize she looked so rough in this picture. She did drag herself upstairs at 6pm to take a shower and change out of her jammies.

And we continued to munch apples as we watch some pretty graphic dinosaur attacks.

Oh yeah, the storm. Despite our best wishes, it didn't snow on our house, even though just 10 miles north of us got a few inches. Mama and papa dragged us outside to inspect the damage. June showed her true southern roots and cried the whole time, even though she was wearing fleece lined overalls.

We didn't get snow, but we did get ice. And lots of it.

It covered our trees that have already begun to bud.

It must have been warmer when it rained, because the drops all froze.

I was pleased to see the trash can had icicles all over it.

And papa busted all the ice off the lid.

The ice was thick enough that mama was able to peel it off a leaf in one piece.

All this terrible weather made us hungry. Luckily, our steep driveway wasn't covered in ice, so we sent papa out for Chinese food for supper. And we surprised mama by trying some of it! Juner ate a half an egg roll (with sweet and sour sauce, please).

And I ate 2 crab rangoons. They were delicious. Papa even got Chinese donuts for desert and we polished them off.

After we went to sleep tonight, papa came upstairs and woke us up so we could see a miracle- snow! This is probably the most snow we'll see this year. And it will probably be melted when we wake up; it's supposed to be 45 degrees tomorrow.

One final note- papa wants to make it clear that all the yearning and whining for snow are clearly the sentiment of mama and I. He and Juner moved south for one reason alone- so they'd never have to see snow again. He even told me that if it does snow, mama will be taking me sledding, because he's staying inside.