Mr. Turner goes to Washington- Henry.

We started out our Christmas yesterday by driving up to Washington, D.C. We stayed with mama's high school (and college) friend Miss Andrea and Mister Christopher. Thank you for the hospitality, wonderful supper, and great Christmas decorations (Juner really liked those).

This morning we got up and rode the train downtown. we started in Union Station, where we saw the train exhibit put on by Norway. It's supposed to depict a Norwegian winter scene and did a great job, except for the unproportionally large trolls that dotted the landscape. Maybe we don't want to visit Norway anymore...

Mama and Papa had to drag me away from the trains, but we eventually headed towards the Capitol Building. It was very big and impressive, but we were a little worried that we weren't supposed to get too close when we saw the guards with the big rifles. But I guess that is just normal these days.

Around front was a huge Christmas tree! It was full of cute homemade decorations from kids. You can see that the Capitol is undergoing some renovations. Pretty much everything was under construction in preparation for next month's inauguration.

Mama says that this is called the National Mall. She also said we were going to walk all the way to that giant pencil. That looks like a long way.

We posed for too many pictures today. I tried to mix it up at the reflecting pool by turning myself into an overpass.

But I did calm down for a few minutes when we saw a lady feeding bread to the birds and ducks. They were actually climbing all over her. We were amazed and a little grossed out.

Future Attorney General Henry Turner. After lunch, mama and Juner decided to go check out the National Gallery of Art while Papa and I went to the dinosaur museum. I don't know why anyone would chose painting over dinosaurs, but mama said something about the texture in the paint of a Van Gogh she saw in the impressionist room and I knew I wasn't going to convince her otherwise.

We finally made it to the "Big Pencil" (the Washington Monument. By this time Juner and I were getting pretty tired, so mama and papa decided to keeping walking to the Lincoln Memorial.

We saw the (relatively) new WWII monument.

And stopped by the Vietnam Memorial. Mama liked the reflection of the Washing Monument in the stone. Did we mention it was sunny and 60 degrees? Not very Christmas-like, but wonderful for sight-seeing.

I missed out on a few monuments because I was too tired. Juner made it through on only a half hour of sleep today, but she spent most of her time in the stroller, so she didn't use much energy.

I woke up when we got to the Lincoln Memorial. You can see mama and I walking up the stairs. I was a little scared of this one because Mister Lincoln was so big. Mama says he was kind of a big deal, so she didn't let me stay at the bottom.

We took this picture for Grandma Cooper. 3 of her favorite guys and a little lady.

I wasn't really into this picture, but mama said I could have a fruit snack if I cooperated.

We made it a long way and it was starting to get dark...

...so we headed over to the main event-the National Christmas Tree!

There were no less than 10 model trains running around the tree. Even Gugger liked it.

I tried to show her all the different trains. She was a very eager learner. In addition to the big tree, each state had their own little tree that they decorated. We found the Ohio and North Carolina trees.

Unfortunately, we weren't there long before they shut down the whole place. We don't know why they closed it, but we had to leave before we even got to see the National Yule Log.

But then we looked across the street and saw the White House!

Mama was really surprised at how white it was(well, obviously mama, but she said she was expecting it to be more like the Lincoln Memorial). She also thought it would be bigger. But she thinks the Obama girls will like it anyway.

We were glad to see our friend Miss Sara, who works a few blocks from the White House. She came down to visit us when she head we were in town.

After our long day, we took the train back out of town and were glad to find a warm bed at Miss Leah and Mister Josh's house. They put us up for a night even though they just got back from Germany and were still pretty jet-lagged. This time we did remember to get a picture of our hosts.

Cleaning out the pantry- Henry.

We've been busy eating down all of our perishable food before our big Christmas journey.

I gave June some pointers on eating cheerios (while nabbing a few for myself).

I especially like pouring June more cereal, even if she hasn't finished up with what she already had.

Tonight mama and I finished off the bag of edamame. She is always surprised that I'll eat this considering I refuse most other food.

See? It's in there!

June tried a few beans, but stuck to her grilled cheese.

Check-ups-Henry.

Today we went in for our checkups today.

Juner is 18 pounds 5 ounces (around 45th percentile) and 27 1/2 inches (around 49th percentile) and exceedingly pretty (10,000th percentile).

She checked out great, although she was in the low range on her hemoglobin test, so we'll just have to give her some baby cereal with supplements to boost her iron intake.She's pulling up, which puts her right on track. She also had two shots. She cried but I sang her "Happy Birthday" to make her feel better.

I also had a good check-up. I was 37 inches tall. The first time I weighed 33.8 pounds. Mama thought it was a bit heavy, so later when she changed my diaper and took off my clothes, she asked them to weight me again, and I only weighed 32.8 pounds. That must have been a full diaper.

The doctor asked me a bunch of questions. I told her that I liked school and that my favorite food was a butter sandwich (peanut butter, that is). I also told her that my favorite TV show was Little Einsteins. She said it is fun to watch TV but not too watch too much.

I didn't have to get any immunizations today, but I did need a flu shot. the doctor gave me the choice between the shot and the nasal mist. Because I was jealous of Juner's band-aid, I choose the shot. I was very brave through the shot, but cried when we got in the car because my leg still hurt.

We were so pleased about the good check-up that Papa and I celebrated with a little slow dancing.

Papa gave Juner some chocolate as a reward for her good check-up.

I wanted Juner to pretend she was ob the Buulder, but she was still grumpy from her shots.

We told the doctor that I know my letters and the doctor said that I must be a very smart little boy. So tonight papa let me play some Word Girl games online to expand my vocabulary.

Mathlete-Mama.

We have a normal naptime routine at our house. Everyone heads upstairs, Henry tried to bargain with me to get June to sleep in his room. I refuse on the grounds that I want everyone to take the longest nap possible. Then Henry gets to play in the car room while I put June down for her nap in our bedroom. Afterwards, I let him play for a few more minutes before he goes down for his nap.

Today I walked into the car room and said "Two more minutes until nap." Henry replied "Five minutes." I then gave him the option of one minute or two minutes. Henry answered "What if i had one minute plus two minutes?" I told him if he could tell me how many minutes that equaled he cold play that long. He very quickly yelled "One plus two is three minutes!"

Henry is suddenly very interested in time (normally in the context of what time papa gets home and how long until that time) and adding on his fingers. We're pretty sure this means he's a genius. Too bad he will still only sings songs to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," including tonight's classic "Building, building, building, building."

Climber Gugger-Henry.

Two days ago, June didn't climb stairs. But yesterday she surprised everyone by climbing an undetermined number of steps and subsequently falling.
I was coming downstairs when all this happened. Mama was in the kitchen making supper. She's not sure how far June actually made it up the stairs, as I have have been giving inconsistent reports as to the actual events of the incident, but she did the telltale thumping of baby falling.

The good news is that Juner made it through with no injury. She did cry for a while, and then cried even more because it was supper time and mama didn't have food ready. But after she ate a very generous portion of beef stew, she was in much better spirits.

Now we've got the car seat box guarding the stairs (much to my dismay-it really cramps my style) until we head home to Ohio to pick up the gate Aunt Jenni has waiting for us.

We're all getting really excited for the holidays. I'm excited because we're going to Washington D.C. to see two different model train shows! Juner is excited to get back to Ohio because both of her grandma's pay very close attention to her and want to rock her to sleep. Papa is excited to be finished with the semester. And mama's excited because she booked tickets to go to New Orleans! Tickets for two! With no kids! (Okay, she did book a spot for Juner, because they've never gone longer than 8 hours without being together and we're not sure how Juner is going to handle being away from her BFF, but we have 3 weeks to get her ready for the big day so that she can stay with me.)

Tree Lights on the Road-Henry.

Tonight we went back to Tanglewood Park for what I like to call "Tree Lights in the Park."

We almost didn't go because I refused to eat any of the beef stew mama made. But finally I ate 3 bites and we were allowed to go.

The pictures don't really do the light show justice, but we'll give it a try. This is the snowflake forest. It twinkled as we drove through it.

Mama played with the shutter speed on her camera. This is with a 2 second speed. This horse was really fast, but now we can see 4 of it.

We drove underneath these big candles. I counted 2 plus 2 equals 4 candles.

This trumpet spewed stars and cheer. You can't tell by the picture but it was about 40 feet tall.

Another slow shot. Instead of 1 deer jumping over the street, now there's a deer arch.

This is the real reason we went back. I wanted to see the "crocodile." Mama loves that the dragon is wearing a santa hat and the pirate ship is filled with trees and poinsettias. This display was cool because it was huge and in the water.

Another magical forest- this one was filled with bells.

This funny Eskimo caught fish and threw them to the polar bear.

Grandpa and Uncle Kevin- this guy is for you.

This was a real train decorated with lights.

Papa wanted this shot. The golfer hits his ball really fast over and across the road. You can see the 50 "balls" shoot really fast.

Look at how big this arch is compared to the truck driving under it.

Juner liked the scene of Santa and his reindeer flying over a town.

Finally, there have been those of you (Grams Crackers Cooper) who have been upset that I don't know much about the big man- Santa Claus. Well Grandma, you'll be glad to know that I am now an expert in all things Santa. I informed mama and papa that his job is to hand out candy canes and he rides a fire truck. Not bad huh?

Happy Birthday Oliver!

In our sick pathetic wallowings yesterday, we failed to post a birthday to our favorite boy cousin, Oliver.

Oliver turned 2 years old yesterday and we can't wait to get back to Ohio to play with all the cool new big boys toys he got for his birthday.

Oliver sure has grown a lot in the past year. Just please don't get potty trained before Henry. This family is making us look bad.

Happy birthday Ollie Dollie!

Thanks a lot Stinkers.-June.

This weekend Mama and Papa were both sick with colds. Hopefully this is their Christmas cold, so they can be healthy over Christmas break. Since they were sick, Henry and I pretty much had the run of the house. We got to make a mess of everything and watch a ton of tv! It was awesome. They did manage to pull themselves together long enough to take us to the Winston Salem Christmas Parade. It was so much fun. Their main features were radio station trucks and marching bands. The band part of the marching band doesn't seem to be so popular, but the dance teams fith the marching bands were great! Most high schools just had a drum line and a dance squad. Mama's favorite band didn't even attempt to play, they all just danced while carrying their instruments. Grandpa, could you spin your tuba all the way around you when you were in marching band?

We didn't take our camera, but here's a link to the slideshow from the newspaper:
http://extras.journalnow.com/photogallery/2008/christmas_120608/slideshow.html

Mama was feeling better and was ery proud of the outfit I'm wearing today. We think Aunt Jenni would approve istead of giving us a hard time.

She was also feeling good enough to take us out to run errands. We had quite the adventure when we visited our post office (inside the Ace hardware store). They don't accept credit cards, so we had to visit 2 more stores to try and get cash, but they didn't have any (seriously!), so we walked across a big parking lot to the bank to cash a check, only to realize we lef the check in the van. So we walked back to the van, then back to the bank, cashed the check, then walked back to the post office, and bought 80 stamps for our Christmas cards. Mama was hoping the post office would have a meter to stamp our cards for us, but the post office is iside a hardware store, so really what could we hope for? Then we spent the next 15 minutes sitting on the floor of the Ace putting stamp on our letters. We were determined to get these finished! And it only took an hour and a half to make the first two stops!

We even made it to two more stores before mama decided she wanted to come home for a nap.

Finally, if you're looking for a last minute gift for mama, she's decied she wants the Snuggie. It's a big blanket/poncho with sleeves. Talk about stylish! And look at all the things you can do while wearing it! I think it would look good with her big pink house boots.