The weekend- Henry.

Once a point of terror in our house, we're now quite fond of our big toy Tyrannosaurus Rexes. Mama vividly remembers a time in Wisconsin when I banished my T.Rex to Juner's crib and cried for a half hour when she got it out.

This T.Rex, when it's not rampaging against Matchbox car towns, has a button on the back that opens and closes its mouth, while emitting some pretty terrifying sounds. I like to try and get it to pick things up in its mouth. Last night I spent a good 45 minutes "feeding" it animal crackers and creating quite a lot of crumbs.

June is apparently following in the footprints of Aunt Girl in that she loves to be scared. She will pick up the T.Rex and carry it around, hounding mama and papa to make it roar, then she looks terrified and runs away- until the roaring stops and she started all over again.

She even roars back at the dinosaur.

Here she is caught in the act of scaring herself.

On Thursday, mama promised me that we'd go out for ice cream if I ate a good supper. She was very surprised that I ate, especially because she'd made Ethiopian food for supper (we miss Buraka in Madison). So we braved a rainstorm and headed out for ice cream. I insisted that we both wear our full rain gear.

I've been so funny lately, mama decided to take a long video of me. If you've got almost 4 minutes, here's a glimpse of daily life with a goofy 3 1/2 year old. Mama also wishes she'd caught on tape when I'd explained to her that the scrape on my knee was healing. "It shrinks back into my bones."

June has been saying a few new words. Among them: "Mama" "Papa" and "Bubba." In this video you can hear mama say those words a lot, but June only says "mama" and goes back to making mischief. It is pretty cute to hear her babble though. Mama say that I never babbled, I just pointed to what I wanted and yelled "Becky!" She says that Juner's babbling reminds her of our friend Nora when she was a toddler. Pay attention to what a stinker she is. Mama pulled a muscle in her back this weekend at the gym. So she's been on the couch while papa is playing Mr. Mom. He tried to clean the house, but was surprised at how quickly June had torn it all apart again.


Here's another attempt to get her to talk. If you listen closely, June kind of says "Di-so," or "dinosaur." She really love dinosaurs. You can also hear me helping June out with some words. I'm tired of hearing mama trying to get her to talk. It's not so hard. I do it all the time.

We mentioned that I really like painting. Here's a finished piece. Look at how well I stayed in the lines.
Mama got this cute shot of June watching the tv in full zombie mode.

On Saturday, we had a big treat when Mr. Doug called us and said he'd be stopping by on his way home to Fort Bragg. We were really excited when he brought his dog Sasha. Mama even let Sasha sleep inside (she had a cage) and Sasha proved to be a very nice dog.

Sasha was a nervous little dog and really only warmed up to Juner. Maybe because thye were the same size.

I asked Mr. Doug if he would leave Sasha with us, but mama said no.

Finally, on Sunday night, we had a special movie night. Papa got Wall-E on blue ray and we've been dying to watch it. It had enough bloopers to make me laugh the whole movie. Here's a sample of what it's like to watch a funny movie with me.

And here's what it's like when I'm not laughing- a LOT of questions. By the way, if you haven't seen Wall-E, go rent it. It's the cutest movie we've seen in a long time, and we're all debating whether how to rank it among the rest of our favorite Pixar movies. (Mama thinks it might be her new number one.)

My southern style-Juner.

Lately, I've been noticing mama's sense of style (or lack thereof) isn't quite up to par in the south. We've noticed it especially at the gym. Mama gets up every morning and just pulls on some clothes and puts her hair in a headband. She doesn't even put on makeup (before her workout, of course). Mama was also painfully aware of her lack of effort when she was sandwiched in between two ladies discussing the trouble they have matching their earrings to their workout clothes. Mama felt a little awkard because she was wearing sweats and her favorite purple gym t-shirt. (Note from mama: I don't wear the same purple t-shirt every day. I just have four of the exact same shirt.)

That being said, I've had to take matters into my own hands. Henry picked out my dress and insisted that I be a princess today. I accessorized myself. I was a big hit at the gym, even if mama was a little embarrassed to have a beauty queen with her.

Independence Day- Henry.

Mama says that the craft bug bit me.

I've been painting a lot lately. Mama was nervous about it, but I'm pretty good about not making a mess and staying in the lines on my coloring pages.

On Saturday, we exercised our independence but eating all American food all day long. The morning started out with me and mama making Scotcheroos (sugar, peanut butter, corn syrup, and rice krispies, topped with butterscotch and chocolate chips. Yum!).

Then we made some all American goofy faces.

Here are the scothceroos minus the scotch. I made my own little pan.

Then we packed up some all American PB&Js and headed to the Train museum (American!).

We rode the train, toured the roundhouse, rode the turntable (the operator went around twice for us!) and finished out our visit with a trip to the gift shop to play with the Thomas train set.

We came home and all took a patriotic nap. Then our friends Mister Paul and Miss Susan came over for an All-American cookout- hot dogs, watermelon, jello, and beer. Things got a little un-American when mama pulled out brats and sauerkraut and papa said it had just morphed into a Wisconsin party. Then we all went down to the pool for a few hours. Let me just say, the pool is much more fun when the kids don't outnumber the adults. Afterwards, we came back for some popsicle refreshment on the deck.

Juner really liked hers.

Mine was good too. We all clinked our popsicle together for "cheers," except Miss Susan because she worked with an H1N1 patient at the hospital that day and didn't want to risk it. Then we all got dressed and drove to Lewisville for the fireworks. It was a pretty good show for a small town. And it worked out perfectly because we were able to cruise into town about 10 minutes before the show started and got back out through the country without hitting any traffic. Juner and I both liked the show especially because Miss Susan brought us ring pops. Juner was pumped because she's seen me eat them before, but has never had one of her own. I spent the whole show asking everyone what their favorite fireworks were. I liked the red ones.

On Sunday we had a quiet morning because we were up so late the night before. We all worked on the new sticker book I got from the train museum.

And we finished the day with a little Rock Band. I told papa that I would hit all the orange notes and he could get the rest.

Audrey is 1- Juner.

Last week, our friend Audrey turned one.

We like Audrey a lot, but Papa doesn't want to hold her or kiss her because she looks a little too much Mister Andy.

Miss Estelle made Audrey this huge cupcake.

This is the best family whot we could get of Miss Becky, Mister Andy, Audrey and Gracie.

Mama got Audrey this special birthday hat and bib and made her wear it while she ate her cake.

I got a piece too, but I wasn't interested in eating it. I just wanted to get out in the yard and get dirty.

I think this was Audrey's second piece.
Buster and Gracie had fun playing on the double swing. They were going so high, it had the whole playset shaking. Mama doesn't like that swing too much and was waiting for someone to fall off.
Mama took off my clothes because I was getting too messy in the yard. So instead I ate a ton of watermelon and rolled in the dirt.

Check out the dirt on these faces.

Best friends. I think they were wrestling over who got the beer. Lucky for mama and papa, Miss Becky let us all take baths at their house so we could go home clean. Thanks for inviting us to celebrate Audrey's big day!

More videos-Juner.

Back at home, we're settling into our summer schedule. Mama enrolled Henry in a summer program at a local school for autistic kids. They have an inclusion preschool that pairs up typical kids with autistic kids. Henry loves it because they get to play in the water outside every morning and mama love it because it's 5 days a week, 6 hours a day and completely free.

I love it because it gives me free run of the house and all the toys. Notice that I accessorized myself in mama's headband in this picture.

He doesn't know I played with his tools or his monster truck.

Henry's preschool program focuses mainly on kids learning to work and play together. He's only been there for three days, but we can already tell that he's learning a lot. Maybe it's also because we're not around each other as much, but he's been very good with me lately.

My new favorite toy is Little People. I am usually carrying 4 or 5 people around with me and love playing with this playground.

Mama can put me in the highchair with the swing and a few people and it will keep me happy for at least 15 minutes.

Mama thinks it's funny, because she got this playground at a garage sale for Henry when he was my age. He never played with the people but did push cars down the slide.

On Thursday, we opened our mail to find a surprise from the Meyer kids in Edgerton. They sent over a huge pack of tattoos. We put two on right away and now he's got about 14 on both arms.

I'm finally starting to make a little headway on my vocabulary. Here I am working on a few signs. Mama' trying to get me to sign "more." I sign that and "all done." I also say "nana" for banana- my favorite food.

I also say the words "hi," "hello," "Jazz" (nama's dog), "all done", and "dada" (for Henry, not papa). Unfortunately, I don't say any of these words in this video. But my babbling is pretty cute.

The drive home-mama.

We flew back to Ohio on Sunday and got into Marion around 1 am on Monday morning. We had to be back to NC to get down to the business of moving on Monday, so we took off early Monday morning.

While in Dallas, we hoped people would say things like "It's been three years, it's so good to see you." Instead, we heard things like "Why don't you put more videos on your blog?" Well, Arend, here you go. June's going to have a tough time at finishing school, because spitting is her favorite past time.

After we all stopped spitting, the kids engaged in a spirited game of hide and seek.

And for once in their lives, both kids fell asleep at the same time. You might not know, but both Henry and June usually refuse to sleep in the car. Even if we are driving in the middle of the night, they are usually awake. But we got lucky and they both took a good nap almost all the way across Virginia and into North Carolina.

Dallas-mama.

On Friday morning, we woke early and snuck out before anyone could make us take our kids and boarded the first plane to Dallas. Let me be the first to say: Dallas is stinking hot. We were proud of ourselves for adjusting somewhat to the humid NC climate, but it has nothing on Dallas. According to Wikipedia, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has around 3 million people. But it is so big, I'm sure it could hold about twice as many. I'm sure it has enough concrete to make it to the moon and back. While we were there, it was hot enough to declare unhealthy pollution levels and all people were warned to stay inside because air quality was so bad. I don't have that much experience with big cities, but I didn't notice that my contacts were covered in dust every night when I took them out.

On Friday night we got tickets to the Rangers-Padres game. It started at 7pm and 100 degrees. It was still 92 degrees when we left at 10pm. It was a fun game and the Rangers were up 12-1 when we left during the middle of the 8th inning.

We made it through the game on one thing alone: All You Can Eat Seats. Our ticket price (only $25) covered our seats, and a buffet of hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, nachos, popcorn, peanuts and pop. I earned back the ticket price with pop alone. I know I drank 7 cups full while we were there. The game was only bearable if you were chugging cold drinks and rubbing your legs and arms with ice cubes. Despite the heat, papa posed for a shot with Nolan Ryan on the way out. On Saturday, we celebrated the real reason for our trip down. Papa's high school friend, college roommate for 3 years and a groomsman in our wedding, Jeff married his lovely girlfriend Cara.

They were married in a cool mansion in a very nice ceremony that I only cried about half through.

After the ceremony, we were all excited to get the party started. I was impressed by the carved watermelon.

I guess grooms get their own cake in Texas. It was as delicious as it looked.

And the bride's cake wasn't too shabby either.

The wedding party cleaned up real nice, even though a high percentage hailed from "Mern", Ohio.

We were very excited to see our friends Ryan Arend and Anupam. Papa lived with Arend for two years in college and he was also in our wedding. It's been almost three years since we've seen him.

It's been since our wedding 5 years ago that we've seen the whole Griswold family. We were very excited to hear that Mr. and Mrs. Griswold live only a half our from our new house in South Carolina and hope that means we'll get to see the Griwolds more. (And we want to give a special mention to Mike's wife, Heather, who braved the heat and a plane ride to make it to the wedding 8 months along in her pregnancy. We feel for you, Heather.)

The vast majority of the kids at the wedding were little boys aged 6-8. We spent some time wondering which one Henry was most like. Half way through the ceremony, we got our answer when one said to his mom "Can we go already?"

We expect this picture to be plastered over Facebook in no time. How sweet.

When the happy couple left, we were given kazoos and noisemakers to send them on their way.

It was quite the procession.

The reception ended early, so the party continued on at the bowling alley, where everyone bowled in their formal wear.

Don't let papa's good form fool you. Despite bowling a pitiful 53 in my first round, I bowled a personal best of 91 and beat him in the second round. Unfortunately, we were bowling with the elder Griswolds. Jeff's dad rolled a 179 and his grandpa bowled around a 120.

Thanks for including us in your special day, Jeff and Cara!