Cleveland rocks- Juner.

On Wednesday, we packed up and headed to Cleveland. Mama spent the night in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, so Uncle Kevin packed 5 kids in the mini van (The definition of "Mini van- Mega fun.") and we drove to Toledo to meet her.

In Cleveland, we were glad to see that GG had pulled out all of her fun toys. I got busy helping Henry park cars.

I must have been doing something right, because Henry and I both touched the same toy for minutes and he didn't try to pound me.

Needless to say, I was very pleased to be playing with big boy toys.

I spent a good deal of time watching out GG and GG's big window.

Luckily, there were plenty of people coming and going. We were practically the spectacle of the neighborhood because there were so many cars.

Thanks Grams Cracker for my new dress. Mama loves it.

Once we settled in, the real spectacle started. Sugar Fest 2009. When I started whining and mama started preparing my supper, GG was quick to pull out a peep to tide me over. Sugar covered sugar. I love my GG. Other great event at Sugar Fest included the night mama and papa went out to eat with their friends and Henry and I feasted on the following : peanut butter on cinnamon raisin bread, pudding, oatmeal creme pies, and reese's peanut butter cups. A supper of champions. Of course, mama said not to get used to it and had us back on a diet of vegetables today. I have a cold, so that means I'm throwing up (of course). But it's really just a reaction to all the nourishing food after a long week of junk.

On Friday, we visited Aunt Girl and got to see Kent State University. It was really nice, but we forgot to take our camera to document the one time that Girl's room has been clean. After our tour, we went the greatest restaurant ever. It was called Mike's Place and everyone whould make a special trip to Kent just to visit it.

I got to drive this bus then walk to the back and eat at a table inside of it! The rest of the place was covered in stuff. Mama was pleased to find an Abita beer sign hanging on the wall.

Papa headed to the wing of the restaurant that looked like a castle and took his place on the throne.

Juner stayed on the bus and caused trouble. When the food came, mama overwhelmed by the fish fry she ordered. She got about 2 pounds of fish and 3 pounds of chips. Plus hush puppies and applesauce. All for $8. What a bargain. We would gain about 200 pounds instantly if we lived closer.

Outside we posed in front of the X-wing. Did we mention how much we loved this place?

Back in the Cleve, Grams took me on a tour of GG's back yard. Here we are sharing a private joke.

And a big kiss.

Then they tried to put funny St. Patrick's theme headgear on me.

Even though I looked good, it didn't stay on for long.

On Saturday, my cousin Sadie came to visit with her parents. All the girls went to the mall and Aunt Molly bought me these awesome shoes for my birthday. I'm pretty sure I'll be walking in no time because they are so great!

Then everyone screamed at the top of their lungs to try to get us to sit still for a picture.

Henry was rewarded for a good supper with some cookies (what else?) and was very eager to share it with everyone. He gave Sadie and I both bites. What a nice brother. Sadie was more interested in the cookie, but I spent most of my efforts crawling between bowls of ice cream begging for bites. By this time, mama wasn't even trying to limit the sugar intake. She was riding high on her two visits to separate Trader Joe's and was busy hugging her radish seeds, gluten free pancake mix, and case of Two Buck Chuck.

We had a great time on our Ohio visit and wish it didn't have to end. Thanks to everybody that came to visit us, including many old friends that mama and papa haven't seen since before we became a family with kids.

A trip to Ohio- Henry.

On Friday afternoon, mama and papa packed us up in the van and announced that we were headed to Ohio for Spring Break. We made the trip to Uncle Kevin and Aunt Elizabeth's house in a record 10 hours and 2o minutes. That's with 3 long stops and one certain 3 year old who refused to put on a diaper or pull-up for the whole trip home. Mama was pretty pleased that I stayed dry the whole time, even though we didn't make it to our destination until 12:30 am. (Too bad I've had a ton of accidents since.)

Mama made a conscious effort to take more pictures on this trip. Normally, a Seibert reunion is so crazy everyone forgets to take any pictures.
Juner was excited to show Aunt Jenni her new skill- walking with a walker, something she hated until Thursday. Aunt Jenni had hoped June would be walking before her birthday and if you look closely, you can see her cattle prod.

But that's how it is with second kids. The first kid gets hours daily trying to walk. The second kid stands up once and either her parents or older brother sit her back down because they don't want her to start walking yet.
But June didn't get any pressure from her birthday buddy Uncle Jim. He just wanted to get a squeeze in before she ran away.

Mama honed in on the only Seibert kid who couldn't get away. And Tessa was a willing subject.
What a stinker.
Do those socks taste good?

Annalise was the proud recipient of a certain big red dog from Grandma.

Natalie and Uncle Jim shared a laugh and a tickle.

Clifford caught a ride while the girls tore up the basement. Oliver and I spet our time trying to keep our train track in tact amidst all the chaos. We had a great time together and even shared a bedroom for naptime and bedtime. Papa said he found Oliver on the floor next to me when he checked on us during naps.

After (a relatively quiet and well-behaved) Mass, we came back to celebrate 4 birthdays with a Seibert favorite- Dairy Queen ice cream cake. June wouldn't take her eyes off those peanut butter cups to smile for the camera. (Note the stealth Annalise behind Juner hoping to get the first piece.)

Great Grandma also came to the party and we tried to get a good picture with 7 of her 9 great grandkids.

This one turned out well with the exception of my ultra low rise jeans.

On Sunday, we packed up and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's to spread our junk around their house. We had some big excitement last night as a big storm came through and forced us to evacuate to the basement in the middle of supper prep. Luckily, the tornadoes touched down a few miles south of us and we were able to come back upstairs to eat. After supper, Grandpa, papa and i hopped in the van and went storm chasing to check out the damage. I was so excited to see trees, barns and a few houses that got knocked down, along with all the police cars and fire trucks. Mama was excited to see two guys she went to high school with on the news (and it wasn't even crime-related!).

This morning, Grandma took us to a pool that her friend built inside a barn. They gave me a life vest and I spent the morning swimming around the pool by myself. Juner did not like swimming, even though the water was really warm. Maybe it was because I splashed her a lot. Maybe it was because she was embarrassed about the rainbow bathing suit with the belly cut out. Too bad we forgot the camera.

June and I did our best to play together today. I drove her around on the fire truck, but as usual, I got too excited and pushed too fast and pulled her backwards until she cried.

In my defense, she spent most of today crying. Probably because mama woke her up early from her nap yesterday to take her to a baby shower. But rarely is something my fault. For example, when I spilled my milk tonight, it was because "mama filled my glass too full."

After supper, mama begged Grandpa to please take me to the barn and let him play with the toy tractors in the stones. We had so much fun mama had to come and get me to put me to bed a half hour late.

June was happy to have some piece and quiet in the house and was only happy when mama finally set her in the bg kid chair so she could sit at the table and flip through quilt magazines with the girls.

And she even got to play with a car without it being grabbed away. Mama was happy that she got June to keep her hair barrette in. What's her secret? She parted June's hair on the opposite side, so the barrette wasn't where June expected it. How long until June catches on to that trick?

When I finally came inside, I was so dirty I had to go straight to the bathtub. Mama spent a good amount of time reminding me to be quiet because June was already asleep. I obliged her request by passing wind. But then I told mama "I farted really quiet so I wouldn't wake Juner up." Aren't I a great big brother?

Just hanging out at home- Juner.

With all the snow, mama's been putting off laundry day. Mostly because our washer and dryer are in the shed out back and she didn't want to have to drag 5 loads of laundry through the snow. Well, the snow is mostly still here, but it was 45 degrees today, so mama really only had to worry about the large sheets of ice that kept sliding off the roof. She escaped alive, but missed on big sheet by only about a half second.

Henry heard that today was a cleaning up day, so he spent all day dumping out anything he could find then insisting that mama play with him while simultaneously keeping me in a seperate room so she wouldn't mess up his stuff.

I worked on my standing and reaching skills. I can now reach everything in the top bins. I can also open up all the drawers in the kitchen and managed to unroll a half a roll of saran wrap while mama was out doing laundry. I also grabbed the packing tape with the very sharp cutting edge, but luckily, mama saw me grab that and got it away before I hurt myself.

In a surprising turn of events, mama and papa actually got me a toy birthday present. (We're so blessed that mama and papa normally don't like adding to the collection. So most of our presents usually come in car seat or booster seat form. How practical.) Mama scored this at a super sale and loves anything that involves blowing air and balls.

Here's my new toy in action. I've already mastered it.

After pictures yesterday, mama only half changed Buster back into his play clothes. Then she didn't feel like wrestling anymore and let him stay in his dress shirt. As he was running around, she tried to get a picture of him, because she had a vision of what he'd look like in college. With the button up shirt and ripped jeans, Henry is destined to become Jeff Griswold. (He could certainly do worse.)

But we're pretty sure Mister Jeff never had dance moves like this.

Bunny pictures- Henry.

We've been stuck inside avoiding crazy people for the past 5 days, so mama was ready to get out even after they closed school again today. (Don't get mama started on this. They cancel school the night before here and they canceled today due to the cold weather- it was in the 20s this morning. It's supposed to be 45 degrees and sunny tomorrow and the schools are already delayed. This is too much.) Anyhoo, Miss Becky called mama and they both agreed to meet up at the mall to get us all out of the house.

I've been accident-free since Friday and mama decided she needed a reward for her finally getting up the nerve to undertake potty-training. So we got our pictures taken at the picture place in the mall.Yes, I know this is the same outfit I've worn for the past 4 photo sessions I've gone to, but it just works.

Plus, it looked good with Juner's pretty dress.

Since we've been stuck inside, we were both pretty wound up and it took a while to get us to settle down.

But we both cooled it when they brought out the bunnies.

Juner didn't want to touch the bunny.

I really liked holding my gray bunny.

But once the bunnies started hopping around, Juner got really freaked out, so we had to put the bunnies away.

After that, Junebug decided she was too tired and hungry to take any more pictures and pretty much melted down.

She didn't quite recover, even after mama stuffed us with goldfish.

In the end, mama really didn't have any problem picking out which picture to buy. She liked this one the most.

After pictures, mama had to own up to all the bribes she promised. We got to go out to eat in the mall and enjoyed a great lunch from Sonic. Then we got to go to the hobby store and play with the Thomas train set. All the time out of the house must have worked because both Juner and I settled down to bed rather quickly tonight, instead of staying up for 90 minutes after mama put us down.

Weathering the storm.

Well, even a "huge" storm can't keep us in. June had her one year checkup this morning, so we had no choice but to venture out in the frozen tundra. Instead of risking the icy roads, we decided to walk to the doctor's office, which is only about a half mile away.

Like we said, it's a wet heavy snow that stuck to all the trees. It really is quite pretty. Plus, it's about 35 degrees, so it's not too cold to be out. And the sun is out, so it feels like Wisconsin, instead of gray and dark like North Carolina has been for the past week.

We had a good time walking, although there are no bobcats here that come by early to plow the sidewalks, so we had to forge our own path. The tricky part was that the round doesn't freeze down here and it's been raining for 5 days. So every time you stepped off the sidewalk, you sunk about 6 inches into the red mud.

The most exciting part of the walk was watching the idiots drive down our street. Our street is especially "treacherous" because it's hilly, curvy and shady, making for some pretty icy conditions, even in our inflated Northern opinions. And walking home, we discovered there are two types of Southerners. First, there are the kind who lose their minds and stay at home. We like these people. Second are the morons who see the ice as a sort of challenge to prove their manhood and show Dale Earnhardt who really is the best driver. These were the people driving on our street this morning. No kidding, we saw 4 accidents on our way home. We think somewhere someone must have told these people the best way to drive on ice is just to get over it as fast as you can. Henry was pretty excited to see all these cars spinning out and knocking down fences and street signs. Mama was sure we were going to be the unintended victims of these crazy drivers and hurried everyone home as fast as she could.

About 100 yards from home, Henry lost his sense of adventure and spent the rest of the trip whining that the road was too icy and that his underpants were falling down. (On a good note, Henry successfully completed his second trip out of the house with no accidents! We're now on day 3 with no accidents. Too bad the size 2 underpants he inherited are way too big and sag constantly. And if you thought his 24 month pants were too baggy with a diaper, try not to look at Henry from behind now. He makes plumbers look modest.)

June's appointment went great. She seems to have recovered from her stint as a normal sized baby and is back to being a shrimp. She weighed in at 19 pounds 10 ounces (25th percentile), up only 1 pound and 5 ounces since her last check up 10 weeks ago. And she's 28.5 inches tall (25th percentile), 1 inch taller than last time. We thought she'd grown more. But the doctor said that it's normal for kids to grown slower once they get moving around 9 months.

When we got home, Henry demanded to get his wet pants off and to watch the Grinch in honor of the snow. In her estacy over the snow, mama drank two glasses of Cheerwine and made herself sick. So she was more than happy to let Henry watch some videos on the computer while we moaned on the floor. As you can see, Henry really likes the Grinch. If only his pants would stay up.

Many thanks to the numerous people who called this morning to check up on us. Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jenni win the funny message category for the multiple messages hoping that we hadn't started burning our furniture for heat, or resorted to eating the last of the Christmas candy to stay alive (don't worry, it's still in the tupperware in the cupboard). And luckily, no one had to send out the St. Bernard with the barrel of whiskey to save us.

We made it.

In the words of Car Movie- "Thank the manufacturer; you're alive!"

We're glad to report that we made it through the night and still have the appropriate number of limbs and appendages. We did lose electricity for a while, but luckily, we were all wearing our fleece jammies and sleeping under our thick down comforter. Well, Henry just slept in a t-shirt and shorts, but that kid is on fire.

We ended up only getting 2 inches of snow, but it's a very warm snow that is sticking to everything, including the power lines, so even as I update the blog, the power has gone out two more times.

Henry is pretty excited about the prospect of clearing off the back deck with his dump truck and woke up this morning screaming "It snowed! It snowed!" June, has stuck to her southern sensibilities and thinks we should stay inside.

We're going to attempt to walk the half mile to the doctor's office (they were just delayed, not closed) this morning. I'm sure no one plowed the sidewalks, but there are a lot of dog walkers on our street, so there should be a path.

We just got a call from Miss Susan over in Greensboro and she says they got 5 inches! She said that when they found out their work was canceled (last night), they walked to the store for beer and milk. (This is why we like them so much.) Hopefully the road situation clears up and we can all get together for a real hootenanny.

Pictures are coming soon.

Storm watch 2009.

UPDATE: 11:30 pm. It's now snowed an inch and a half. 312 closing have been reported. The doctor's office is closed, so June won't get her one year check up. And Wake Forest is now closed as well. Eat it up Wisconsin students. All the of students at Wake Forest live on campus and can't make it through a couple inches of snow. In our memory, there was one cancellation at Wisconsin and it was only for classes after 5 pm.

The storm of the century- for real this time.

There's a big storm coming to North Carolina tonight. They're forecasting 4 to 6 inches of snow. And not just the same 4 to 6 inches of snow that they're forecasted twice before this winter, but never came. It's really going to happen this time, just like they always say.

And because it's supposed to happen tonight, everything has already been closed for tomorrow. Check out that picture, already 122 closings have been reported, including every school in the state and most businesses. Mama's pretty sure that we're not going to get our picture taken with bunnies tomorrow morning- our appointment is at 9 am and the mall is probably already scheduled to be closed.

The TV stations are all over this story and are issuing some pretty crazy statements (in our opinion). They include "Snow will accumulate most in grassy areas and make driving conditions dangerous." (Dangerous in grassy areas?) "Make sure you have extra food and water on hand and an alternate heat source." (Too bad our condo doesn't have a fire place.) And mama's favorite "Snow will down trees, blocking roadways." Here's hoping that we make it through the night, and that no one gets hurt by the shower of trees falling on the roads. There may be 6 inches of snow after all.

UPDATE: In the time it took me to write this post, 68 more closings were reported. God help us.