Busy days here.

What kind of mother am I to not post for 5 whole days? Especially when all the Seibert cousins are posting MOVIES! I guess I will have to take more pictures. We are soaking up the last week of summer vacation here . Evie starts preschool next week! I can't believe that she will be going to school without me! HOpefully my plan of getting annalise to take a nap while Evie is at preschool works out and I can have a whole hour to myself during the day.

Here's Evie making her spooky face. Pretty scary. Today she was playing outside with a stick and started screaming "my Eye!" I was convinced that she had scratched her cornea or something. I phoned the Dr. to ask if I could bring her in. While I was waiting for the nurse to call me back, she made a speedy recovery and beat up her sister. I guess it wasn't as bad as we thought. Needless to say, we didn't take her to the Dr.
This picture was taken by Evie. I think the Stinks looks a lot like me when I was little in this picture.

Monkeys on the loose.

Warning! The zoo has alerted us that there are 2 monkeys on the loose. They will most likely be found on stairways. If you decide to approach them, use caution.The smaller one seems to be more wild....
....but acts innocent as a disguise.

Thursday sans dad

Dad is out of town again today. Just to run up to MN for the night. We ladies are here holding down the fort. It's hot here and so we were looking for ways to amuse ourselves in the AC.Evie modeled her new backpack. School starts for her in about 2 weeks. When we asked her what type of backpack she wanted, we expected her to say "orange" or "pink", but she replied very specifically "Hello Kitty". I have no idea where her current knowledge of Hello Kitty comes from but I imagine it has something to do with a certain 9 year old girl that lives in Noblesville. Anyway, I figured that we would be on a wild goose hunt for a Hello Kitty backpack, but we lucked out. We went to Target and there it was like a shining beacon. Evie ran to it yelling "Hello Kitty! Hello Kitty!" Fortunately, there weren't too many people around to witness my daughter's public cross over to commericalism. Note to Grandmas: this doesn't mean you have to go out and buy all the Hello Kitty stuff you can find.
Like we said, Dad is in MN and so we went to the library because it is air conditioned. While we were walking through the truck and construction section...again...we stumbled through the craft section. There was a whole book of things to make out of pipe cleaners! What a find. Guess what we will be doing tomorrow. This is Evie playing ring toss with the pipe cleaners while I make dinner.
Stinks (or Annalise, as you may know her), well, she is becoming quite the climber. She climbed up onto Evie's stool by the counter. As you can see, Evie has a few inches on her. She has yet to fall backwards and klunk her head on the ceramic tile. I'm sure it will happen soon as she also climbs all of the chairs in the kitchen like they are ladders.

The funniest thing I have read in a very long time

My friend, Erica, sent me a link to a funny ebay auction. Who even cares about the auction when the description was hilarious. You have to check it out.
http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-POKEMON-CARDS-THAT-MY-KIDS-TRIED-TO-SNEAK-BY-ME_W0QQitemZ130144061675QQihZ003QQcategoryZ60238QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Anyway, this lady also has a blog that is pretty funny too. If you have kids, are around kids, or know what a kid is, you will laugh. I feel weird about posting a permament link on this page, but you can check it out and save it under your favorites if you are so inclined.

www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com

A Day of Annalise

I realized that Annalise hasn't been in the spotlight much lately so here is what she did today.She started out pretty happy...
...then mom walked more than 5 feet away from her and she melted.
Was busy working on trying to get the "pennies" in the piggy bank.
Took a nap. Both her and the doggy had their feet hanging out.
This is how she was sleeping. Even her nuk is upside down. Later, makes a break for the stairs through the dinning room
A girl with this much hair needs to hold it back with a head band.

Home Improving

Now that we are back home again, we are getting to the business of sprucing up the house for our big upcoming parties in September. Mom couldn't bear to look at the mismatched kitchen light fixtures for long, so she went out and ordered new ones. Evie and Dad have been busy installing them.You can see what a help Evie is. She is in charge of waste management.
The pair at work. They would give those guys from this old house a run for their money.
Despite all the goofing around, some work has been accomplished. This is the new fixture over the island and a new pendent over the sink.

Mom's Birthday

Mom is getting to the age where it isn't polite to ask how old she is. So, to remain young at heart, we went to Sauder's village--the location of mom's 4th and 6th grade field trips. Not much changed in the decades since mom has been there, except there is a new train which we rode.
Then we had a big birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa's complete with cake and decorations.
Evie and Annalise tried to help open presents.

Wednesday in Ney

We are staying with Grandpa and Grandma Seibert this week while dad gets some work done in MA and MN.Great Grandma Wagner came over and played all day.
Then we went to Archbold for dinner. After dinner, we all walked to get ice cream at the Dairy Queen.
Evie and Natalie ride in the wagon. They were under the threat that if anyone punched or kicked each other, there would be no ice cream.
Evie and Natalie seemed to notice that Grandma had a much bigger ice cream cone than them. Better watch out grandma--before you know it, they will have tackled you and sitting on you while they eat your cone!
The babies get no cones of their own. They did get lots of tastes from mom (aunt Jenni) and grandma.

Attack of the Cicadas!

Evie finally discovered what is making all the noise in the evening. We found a couple of shells on the tree while swinging in the back yard at Grandma and Grandpa Seibert's house. One got stuck on Evie's nose
Yikes! Grandpa, there is something on your head!

Silly Grandpa and Evie

Our State Fair is a great State Fair!

Grandma and Grandpa Taller visited us over the weekend and we braved the heat and humidity to go the Indiana State Fair. Unlike the Minnesota state fair, this fair had a whole bunch of heavy equipment to check out. The most impressive was the combine with the 32 row head on it. Mom thought that would make quick work of all those test plots she had to harvest by hand. Then there were a bunch of show offs. This is an example of what NOT to do when you are a heavy equipment operator.
Mom drug everyone through all the animal barns. We touched everything (and then hand sanitized). The barns in Indiana are airconditioned. It made you want to go in and smell like manure. Annalise's toes get licked by the calves.
Of course, we checked out the ag building and mom went stumping for jobs. Meanwhile, Evie got a horsey ride with her political agenda balloon.
This fair was still a good old fashioned fair that people and 4-H er's are heavily involved in. Check out these Giant Veggies!

We ate some stuff too--pork sandwiches from the pork producers and milk shakes from the dairy producers. Of course, what is the fair without a lemon shake up? We even saw deep fried kraut balls. It made us think of Aunt Becky.

We actually have more pictures but mom and dad STILL haven't installed the software to rotate the pictures so they are upright. Maybe one of these days....

Touch a Truck

The Carmel parks and rec organized a bunch of heavy equipement out to the parking lot of the football field for kids to check out. Hey, who wouldn't want to stand on black, hot asphalt with the sun beating down on one of the hottest days of the summer? Count us in!

Evie, driving a crane truck

Evie, this is the only time we want to see you in the BACK of a police car.

Evie in the very shiny Carmel snowplow.
She was really excited about this bulldozer.
Our standard tractor picture.
Then another piece that she was pretty excited about was the cement mixer

Watch out Danica Patrick!

One of the things we could touch was Danica Patrick's real live Indy show car! That means no seat, no engine, no gas...but there was a steering wheel!Evie and Annalise will be the first sisters to win the Indy 500....in 2035.
Mom couldn't resist trying to hijack the racecar.

Back home again

Annalise picked up a couple of things over the weekend from her family. One being a bad case of diarreah and diaper rash from Henry. No pictures of that.She also has learned to talk on the phone. She holds up up to her ear and says "Ga Ga Da Da". Hmm...wonder who she learmed that from.

I've always said that this is the house that my girls will get dressed for their weddings. Little did I know that it would come so soon.
Evie is trying out her halloween costume (thanks Marin) in honor of our anniversary today. She thinks that you marry someone by putting flower petals on their heads. Because of her beliefs, we will be having a renewal of vows ceremony this afternoon when Jim gets home. Man, 9 years, 2 houses, 5 cars, and 2 kids later. Who'd have thunk it?

Amish Lands and Lakes Tour

We spent the weekend in Howe, IN doing the Amish Lands and Lakes Bike tour. Grandpa and Grandma Seibert, the Archbold Seiberts (and Elizabeth's sister Madaline), and the Turners were there (minus Uncle Bran). Everyone rode the loop except Grandma and Linky.When we got back from riding, we all enjoyed popcicles. It was amazing we had room in our tummies after all the cookies and blueberries we ate at the rest stops.
Henro in his trailer pulled by a pregnant Aunt Becky. What a woman.
Oliver was relaxing with a bottle of juice.

We had a fun weekend and are looking forward to getting flithy dirty again next year.

Evie Rides!

Evie is moving up in the world. We got her a fancy two-wheeler bike, complete with sparkly streamers, so she can keep up with the other little girls in the neighborhood.This morning is her first ride. She only wiped out on the turns a few times.
She is also practicing braking. We don't think she is ready to ride Amish Lands and Lakes this weekend, but maybe next year.