A blog post for Grumpy Gertie

We have a children's book called "Grumpy Gertie" about a goat that needs to have it's pen cleaned out by two children. They do everything they can think of to get the goat out of the pen and succeed only by having it chase the two children out. Then they clean the pen and let Grumpy Gertie back in. The next day, they are surprised to find that Gertie had a baby goat. So let this be a lesson to you, June and Henry. As soon as you clean your house, that baby is going to come. Aunt Becky also tends to be a touch on the Grumpy side when she is finishing off a pregnancy. She started to get made about Uncle Kevin not updating the blog (he really needs to step it up anyway). Fortunately for her, Uncle Kevin brought the Crazy Train down to Carmel for a stop at our house.

Tessa allowed me the great privilege of putting a baby fountain in her hair before she ate breakfast. She wore it all day. When it fell out, she would bring it to me and I would put it back in. That's my girl.

We showed Natalie and Tessa the jeep. Shortly after this picture was taken, Annalise was holding on to the side of the jeep when Evie stepped on the gas and took off and started dragging Annalise behind. Uncle Kevin said we would have won $10,000 if I would have only video tapped it and sent it to America's Funniest Videos.

We went to the park this morning and all the kids tried to climb the spider web, or as I like to call it, Kid Plinko.

Evie easily gets to the top.

Natalie and Annalise weren't that fast. I was surprised how high up Annalise did make it as she made it half way.

Then we spent some time swinging.

Outside of the Nature Center, there is a solid granite ball that spins on a water fountain.

Everyone got to roll it.

Annalise had a pretty good time. Later, we came home and watched The Princess and the Frog. And there wasn't even any wailing and gnashing of teeth. My kids have come a long way. Then we got Tessa up and went to the pool for our daily dip.

Aunt Becky, here are your requested pics. Business in the front....

party in the back.

Before bedtime, I painted everybody's toenails. Even Oliver got a nice coat of clear. What a fun day with the Seibert kids. Hopefully everyone is worn out and will stay in bed and sleep all night.

Damp

We mothers of young children who have husbands who travel have to stick together. For our own sanity and so we can have adult conversations and compare strategies for combating whining. This week, our friends, Heather, Izzy and Oli are without "dad" just like us. We have enjoyed dinner and play dates with them the last 2 days.

A nice shower came through this afternoon and everyone decided to puddle jump.

Heather leads the way as the ducklings follow her. We stomped in all the neighbors' driveways and up and down the gutters.

Oli had enough and headed back to the garage.

The girls (plus a couple more neighbor kids) outlasted the storm. Thanks for the adventure, Heather!

A great day in NWO

Last Wednesday, the girls and I loaded up the grocery getter and drove up to NWO to do some long overdue visiting. On Wednesday, we spent the afternoon with Grandma Wagner. I took pictures but they are on the iphone and I haven't figure out how to get them off of there yet. On Thursday, we had the greatest, funnest day in the history of NWO. First, we went swimming at Bernie and Ruth Ann's pool. I went in my jammies and ended up in a corn field before breakfast. Smelled great and the corn was tall and pollenated. We got dressed and packed a picnic lunch then went to Grand Rapids, Ohio to ride on a restored section of the Erie Canal on a canal boat that was pulled by mules. This is a picture of the canal boat. The ride was about 40 minutes and took us through the only working historical lock in the great state of Ohio. Since we took the second ride (and we know the mule skinner), Evie and Annalise had the opportunity to help open the lock!
While we were waiting for the SEiberts to arrive and our turn on the boat, we visited the Ludwig Mill. It is a historical and operating grist and lumber mill. This is a big grindstone.

The girls then ground corn just like in the olden days. I am prepping them for their career at Connor Prairie.

They also had to sift the ground corn to get all the hard shells out.

On our way back to the picnic area, we met up with our friend the mule driver, Jake. He allowed Evie to drive the mules and control the boat.

She did a great job and she said you have to walk pretty fast to keep up with the mules. Jake does this four days a week as long as the state park is open. He figures that last year, he walked 660 miles. That's a lot of trips up and down the canal.

We had a quick picnic before our ride. This is Natalie's injury due to meeting a metal shopping cart toy with her face. Three stitches. She doesn't like to talk about it, but we thought Aunt Becky would like to see it.

Finally it was our turn to get on the boat! By then the temperature was approaching a million degrees and we wer on the boat with a bus load of senior citizens. Those grandpas and grandmas just love the little sweaty kids.

This one was unstoppable. I don't think she stopped moving unless she was strapped down in a car seat.

All the seniors got off at the mill so we had a private ride!

There's Jake and Sally and Molly.

Me and Oliver. Man, do I need to get my hair colored.

At the end of the ride, we went back to talk to Jake some more. He let us pet Sally and Molly.

Could it get more posed than this?

The kids all took a rest eating an old timey stick of candy on the banks of the Maumee river.

Tessa was hot so she decided to pump herself some water.

Then we went for ice cream to celebrate the fact that Annalise kept her pull up dry all night! Yea!!!!! Since then, she is 50% keeping dry. I hope this keeps up because I can't wait to get out of pullups! And we promised her a breakfast at a resturant if she could keep it up!

Oliver wanted to enjoy every last drip of his ice cream.

Delicious!

Next, we visited a cow-calf farm on the outskirts of Napoleon. Annalise had such a great time seeing all the cows. She named several of them too. I didn't take any pictures because I was trying to keep kids out of manure and it was just too stinking hot to go back to the car for the camera. You will have to take my word on how overjoyed Annalise was to feed a cow clover from her hand. She spent a good hour in the barn feeding the cows. Good thing there was a good breeze!

Then we went to the Ney Homecoming for dinner (and I had Manure on my shirt--gross). It was hot and rainy. The typical Ney Homecoming weather. The kids splashed around in the puddles and jumped in the inflatable jumper while we visited with friends. It was nice to see everyone and the homemade chicken and noodles were great!

Grandpa bought a bowl of ice cream and "shared" it with Tessa. Later that night, we got a call from Archbold that said some little girl was up way past her bed time on some sort of sugar high....hmmm....

Then Grandpa and I loaded up to see our most favorite polka princess, Mollie B and her band, Squeezebox. I had a great time polkaing with Dad's old high school classmate and catching up with other people we know. And then I got to meet Mollie B in person! The picture is on the iphone and when I get it figured out, I will upload it. Complete with me and my shirt with manure on it.





If you aren't familiar with Mollie B, listen to her sweet voice and tell me you don't think she sounds like an Angel.

4th of July weekend

This past weekend we celebrated Independence day much like the rest of America. We ate stuff off the grill, we went to the pool, we sweated, drank beer, and stayed up to watch the fireworks. All that and we had Grandpa and Grandma Seibert in to visit and we celebrated Grandpa's Birthday. We took Grandma and Grandpa to Connor Prairie. Our new favorite place. We treated Grandpa to a ride in the balloon with Evie and Jim.

While waiting in line, we took a clever picture of Evie falling out of the balloon. We are so funny.

This is what it looks like when the balloon rises up.

It was a nice clear day, but a tad too windy for Grandpa's taste. You could see all the way downtown!

Later, after spending a lot of time in the barns with Marin and the goats, we headed to the village. The girls tried out walking on stilts for the first time. Annalise needed help, but Evie figured it out in no time.

After a nap at home, we all went to the pool. Annalise thinks it hilarious to wear my hat.

That night, we celebrated Grandpa's birthday. Here's his swimming pool cake complete with three little heads bobbing out of the water

Grandpa and his Granddaughters.

3/4 of the Bray family came to celebrate with us. Marin, who works at Connor Prairie, brought along her new costume that she gets to wear when she pretends that she lives in 1836. We can hardly wait to go and harass her about what a cel phone and McDonald's are when she is in costume.

Grandpa opens his present of a firepit. We will be there soon to break it in with you!

In the mean time, if it wasn't already hot enough, we started a fire and had smores before the evening fireworks started.

On the 4th, Grandpa treated us to Donuts. What is more patriotic than blue frosting and red white and blue sprinkles?

Happy Fourth and God Bless America!

Welcome to our new blog

The old blog was starting to get full and I was noticing that some of my old posts were missing. In order not to lose any more of the log of my children's lives, I had to start a new one now, so change your bookmarks to this page. Don't worry, the old blog is still out there in the interweb so you can go back and check out history any time you like.