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The Turner Five

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Ohio Visitors- Henry.

To celebrate Thanksgiving at school, we always host a Stone Soup lunch for our families. I was worried that we would have to eat the stones and they might break my teeth. Mama said that there weren't really stones in the soup. It just meant everyone gave a little and we made a great soup from it all. And it didn't really matter anyway, because there was no chance I was going to eat that soup.

My class made the corn bread, of which June and I ate many slices. The other classes helped make table decorations. Mama found the leaf our neighbor James painted. She couldn't help but take a picture before she dropped it off for Miss Kerri. Notice that he's thankful for John and I, but not his little brother, Andy.

Hey! What are Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth doing here? They decided to take a long weekend down to South Carolina. They even got Grandma and Grandpa Seibert to watch their three, so it could be a little vacation. But we think the real reason was that Aunt Elizabeth hadn't met Georgie yet, and could wait until Christmas to get a squeeze in.

And can you blame her? This little girl is cute!

We took them out to all of our favorite places- including the great barbeque place with live bluegrass music, our favorite bakery for some buttery grits, and the botanical gardens.

I loved hanging out with my aunt and uncle. Aunt Elizabeth made me giggle the whole time she was here. Maybe it's her black, curly hair, because mama and papa have not been able to get her to giggle like that since.

And wouldn't you know, the kids finally took a great picture! Maybe we can photoshop mama and papa's heads in.

After Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Kevin left on Monday, we had to get down to the business of preparing for our next company- all of the Coopers were coming down for Thanksgiving. This included lots of cleaning, grocery shopping, and child neglect.

Luckily, Georgie recovered before the family started rolling in.

Big twubble, Henwy!- June.

We've been neglecting the blog in preparation for Thanksgiving week. Mama put Henry to work making pumpkin bread (and yes, those are chocolate chips).

Mama was so excited that she went three days without sleeping (not her choice). Things were pretty rough after the third day. It didn't help that SOMEBODY in a little flowered dress and green sweater wasn't sleeping well either. Luckily some Tylenol PM helped get her back on track.

I helped out by preparing some meals.

To make sure we all stay in tip top shape, I gave Georgie a check-up. First, I listened to her heart.

Then I checked her blood pressure.

We've taken to putting the baby on the table during supper so she can be part of the meal. Plus, she hates to be left alone on the floor. Henry started playing with her and that drove me crazy. So I spent a good deal of the evening declaring him to be in "big twubble" and demanding he "don't touch baby's toes."

Here's the result of all the toe touching. I don't think tights are supposed to fit like that.

I tried to recount the whole ordeal for mama, but ending up apologizing myself for Bubba's transgressions.

Christmastime is here!- mama.

For fear of being publicly mocked, we've held out on posting pictures of our fully decorated house. We've had the tree up since November 13th. Hey, if we're going to be on Ohio at Christmas, we should have everything up to enjoy that much earlier, right?

I don't think this picture does our tree justice. Ornaments are literally dripping from every branch. Henry was dying to get the tree up. It took too long for me to put all the branches on (oh, to have one of those fancy fold down trees). Then he wanted me to put colored lights on it, but the colored lights weren't working. (I only buy Christmas lights on clearance after the fact.) So we had to settle for white and gold lights this year. Then came the shocking realization to Henry that we CAN'T put up the tree unless it's snowing! Then the devastating blow that it doesn't snow in South Carolina. (I did wake up this morning thinking we still lived in Wisconsin, and dressed thinking it had snowed 6 inches the night before. Eventually I looked out the window and realized it was going to be 75 degrees today. Third winter in and Henry and I are still in denial.)

I unpacked the ornaments while everyone took naps and lay down for a little nap myself. When I woke up, Henry had half the tree decorated. The only thing missing from this picture is the tree skirt made of Great-Great Grandma Parsons' Christmas fabric that I finally finished last year.

June left her Christmas spirit up north. We unpacked our trusty plastic snowman Thomas- the first joint Christmas decoration Brandon and I purchased in college. June freaked out and is now terrified of snowmen. She sat in the other room crying "I like ghosts, I like pumpkins, I like witches. I scared snowman!" (Aunt Molly, come get her.) The offending snowman is still in the laundry room (all 18 inches of him) and she cries every time we walk past the closed door. It will be a relief when we get that terrifying thing outside.

June did warm up a little to Christmas when we found all of the horse ornaments on the tree. Hopefully we can find them all again when Christmas is over.

Henry decorated all day. There's a 5 foot tree in the office that he got to decorate with red and gold balls. Then he got working on the staircase. He was not happy when we ran out of decorations. He's dying to get the lights up outside, but we're holding out for Thanksgiving day before those go up. We got a new lighted Christmas train for the front yard at a garage sale, but our neighbor made fun of us on Facebook so we're waiting to turn on any outdoor lights. Then I'm considering purchasing something large and inflatable so we can be those neighbors.

What's the best part of Christmas? Christmas music! I am so proud that both kids' favorite song is Kenny and Dolly's "I'll be Home with Bells On." June simply calls it "Christmas Song" and she'll let you know her displeasure if you dare play ANY other Christmas song in her presence. It may be the new "Hold on Tight."

Another try at the group shot.

Mama sent us out to try for another group shot.

The dead mums and the Camry are a nice addition, mama.

Two out of three.

This one isn't so bad.

Somebody loves his sisters.

This week- Henry.

Mama's new goal is to get a picture of all three of us.

She's given up all three of us smiling and is now just hoping for one of us all looking in the same direction.

Don't feel so bad Georgie. It could be worse...

June could be licking your head.

Now that Georgie is getting propped up more, we're dealing with an unexpected side effect- drool. We've had to start airing out those folds.

My school assignment for Monday was to draw something that started with an "F. I stressed out about it for almost an hour. "Draw a flower" mama said. Too hard! Finally, mama sat me down with a piece of paper and said "Draw anything! Just draw something already." So I drew Five Flowers and Four worms. That's 3 F words.

Then a Firetruck. (I don't know why Blogger keeps loading this picture sideways.)

And a Fish.

Another Flower. And a worm.

And finally a fire. Not bad for a kid who was worried about drawing.

It's been sort of a rough week for the Turner women. June's been suffering from a constantly runny nose. Mama got the flu again last weekend. Then she had three nights in a row where she couldn't sleep and went into severe zombie mode. (Luckily that was remedied by some Tylenol PM). Then she was worried that she got pink eye when one of her eyeballs turned bright red. Good news is that it is just some minor irritation. Plus, she got her stitches out of her back this week, so things are looking up.

Guess who's not having problems sleeping?

Train show- Henry.

For the first time in a long time, we've gone through fall without visiting a Renaissance festival. And let me tell you- it just doesn't feel right. But we did find something to make us feel better- a train show!

We headed down to Hotlanta for the Great Train Expo. I loved this train set I could control myself and waited so patiently to take a turn on the controls for all four tracks.

Even Junie gave it a try.

I wish our house was big enough for this train set.

As usual, we came prepared with step stools and chairs so we didn't have to be lifted up to see the trains.

We left for lunch and mama and papa took us out to lunch at an Indian restaurant where the owner kept me full of na'an and even offered to hold Georgie so mama and papa could eat. When we came back, we saw this van tricked out to look like a train. It even had a button you could push on the side to make the whistle blow.

Georgie was happy to go to her first train show. But I think her conductor's hat is too big.

All this fun really wears a kid out.

The best part was at the end of the day when a very nice gentleman let me hold the controller and drive a train all the way around his very big layout. He taught me how to slow down around the curves, but I was so careful, I never really got it fast enough to jump the track.

This was mama's favorite layout- the lego set. Whoever built this one had a sense of humor. You could spend hours looking at all the buildings and find Luke Skywalker chasing Darth Vader across a fire escape or a set of zookeepers sedating a bear in the park.

June's favorite layout were the ones with buttons that controlled the scenes. She very carefully pushed her chair to every single button she could find. Then she's push the button and exclaim "Looky there!"

Cuteness abound- Junie.

Looks like someone is closer to rolling over than we realized.

Mama walked in and found Georgie trying to look out the window.

Good thing she's starting to move around. That neck fold is looking pretty ripe.

Henry took his etch a sketch to bed and worked on this for four nights. It's a map of a city with a lot of parking spots. And in the upper left quadrant, you can see the baseball field.

Last week, Henry's class studied "I". Look at that little fly he drew. The gray parts are wings.

Mama liked seeing the evolution of Henry trying to perfect the arrow.

Henry came home demanding to do a project. Mama couldn't figure out a good project to do, so he took it upon himself to trace some rulers. He doesn't have much confidence in drawing things on his own, but does a good job if he can trace. We liked how well these rulers came out.

Georgie continues to bathe everyone in cuteness. We think she looks so smart in this little outfit.

We can tell already with this sassy little striped shirt and smart sweater that all the boys are going to ask her out in college, but she'll turn them all down because she's just too busy with the rock-climbing and sky-diving club. Plus, most of her free time (when she's not getting a 4.0) is occupied with her work volunteering at the local community center or running her online business that sells fashionable, but tongue in cheek zombie t-shirts.

She was also very smug that she was the only one allowed to stay up late to watch the Bengals Monday Night Football game. Not that it was worth staying up for.

She was on the edge of her bouncy seat when the Bengals almost came back to win it. But then they remembered they were the Bengals and blew it. Sigh.

It's been very warm here, so yesterday we ate lunch outside. As usual, I took two bites of my sandwich and abandoned it for the sandbox. Good thing too, because this monster of a bee came and feasted on the leftovers. This is not a miniature sandwich on a miniature plate. This bee was honestly 3 inches long! Needless to say, we left the plate outside until the bee was long gone.

Yesterday, mama and I had big falling out, because she had the nerve to run out of cereal and serve me oatmeal instead. I cried for 15 minutes before mama removed me from the table and sent me into the toy room. When she came in, she was surprised to find me giving June "lessons." We worked on my alphabet and number puzzles too. Mama sure is lucky to have Henry around to help iron out my bad moods.