Sweet G- Georgie.

Here's another update on my progress. This video is about 3 weeks old. But mama forgot to post it. I can now eat food on my own. When this video was taken, I could get puffs in my mouth with about a 20 percent accuracy. With practice, I'm now up to 70-80% accuracy with corn, peas, cheerios and tonight some steak.

At Grams' suggestion, mama tried to give me some belly time on a blanket instead of the carpet. It does seem to make a difference. I can scoot around in a circle, but no crawling yet.

I didn't want to play much on my own while it was just Henry, mama and I. My hard weekend in Cleveland led to a cold when we got home. By Sunday morning, I had gunk leaking out of my ear and by Sunday night, mama had no doubt I had an ear infection. Funny fact- I am the first of the three kids to get an ear infection. Not a first I'd like to repeat. Luckily, my doctor got me medicine first thing on Monday morning.

As long as I wasn't laying down, I felt pretty good. Henry did a great job making me laugh so I could forget about the pain.

Henry's really good as peak-a-boo, or "pea-pie" as they call it down here in the south.

When he worried that people might think I was a boy, he came up with a quick solution.

Mama just had to take a picture of me one last time in her favorite jammies. At 9 months, I'm getting too long for my 3-6 month jams. I still fit into most of my summer 3-6 month outfits. I've got really long arms and legs, but mama thinks I'm not gaining any weight to keep up with the length I'm acquiring. She knows I'm tall because she can stand me up and hold my hands without bending over. She always had to bend over with Henry and June when they were learning to walk. Just call me "String Bean."

Turners across America-Henry.

When we left Cleveland, we sent June home with Grams and PawPaw. Mama thought she might be sad when we left, but she just said good-bye and "Where's Gramma?"

We made the excruciatingly long trip back to Ohio and spent the week enjoying the life of just two kids. Turns out that only having two kids spaced 5 years apart is way easier than when you have another in the middle. We even hosted a neighborhood boy party.

On Thursday, we sent papa off to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. (We were assured it was not as exciting as it sounds.) The remaining three Turners hit up the bright spot of the spring- NorrisFest!

Sponsored by the tiny, tiny town of Norris and several area churches, NorrisFest is a four hour long festival on a baseball field featuring free food (hot dogs, pops, chips, funnel cakes, snow cones, oh my!), many free inflatables, free games, tractor rides, live gospel music, and a revival to round out the afternoon.

After some delicious food, we decided to hit up the inflatables.

We took John and Miss Juliet with us.

John got adventurous going down the slide, and believe it or not, I kept it cautious.

We didn't even bother to put on our shoes to go wait in line for snow cones.

These snow cones followed by more jumping prompted the following to mama:

"I just threw up a little in my mouth, but I kept it down so I can keep jumping!"

Guess how wound up we were?

We playe games and got these funny glasses.

John gave them a try.

Georgie did not think the glasses were so funny.

Before we left, Miss Juliet stopped to give blood. Mama said John could come home with us. We spent the remainder of the afternoon cooling down with the water hose. We only came inside because a big thunderstorm was coming and the sirens started going off. (Of course, the storm missed us.)

Mama said we were too filthy to play inside without a shower. It was almost as fun as the garden hose!

Escape to C-town- June.

We packed up for the weekend and drove to Cleveland.

First on our agenda was Aunt Girl's college graduation from Kent State University. Way to go, Aunt Girl! Unfortunately, mama didn't let any of us kids go as we'd been up until 2am the night before and did not have naps. She's the worst.

We told GG and GG that we had to get back to SC, but really we snuck over to Aunt Molly and Uncle Michael's house for a surprise birthday party for GG.

This is what a surprise looks like. It was loud and scared me.

Aunt Katie was also celebrating graduating from her master program and mama got a cake merely for turning 30.

Actually, this was our second surprise party that week. Before we left for Cleveland, papa pulled off an awesome surprise party for mama's 30th birthday, including barbecue and ice cream cake. Thanks, Pi!

For the first time in weeks, it wasn't raining in Ohio, so we all headed outside to celebrate spring.

Dash, forever advanced, practiced standing on his own for a few seconds at a time.

Best buds.

Henry and Sadie wrestled.

Whoa, horse!

Later, we walked to the park.

I love to swing.

Sadie's a great climber.

A great day always makes us want to pack up and move to the Cleve. Until next time, Cleveland.

Presents in the mail!- Georgie.

Grandma Seibert sent me this beautiful quilt. Can you believe she made it? We all love it and sometimes I have to wrestle it away from Henry and June.

Our good friend Mister Taylor sent these hipster hats to Henry and June. That's a zip-up pouch up top. You can zip the whole hat into the pouch.

Or you can store things inside the pouch. How cool is that? They are a big hit, even for June, who historically refuses to wear any kind of hat.

Since my hand-eye coordination is getting better, mama let's me eat puff baby food now. Henry loves helping me eat it, though mama says the whole point is to occupy me for a few minutes without us toughing each other. I've gotten so good at it, I can also now eat cheerios and peas on my own. i can technically also eat cut up bananas, but mama deemed it too squishy and messy.

I'm getting bigger every day and learning all sorts of new tricks. I make a sound dangerously close to "Hiiiiii!" when anyone walks in a room. Mama noticed today that when I'm pointing at something small on the ground, I use my index finger on my right hand, but my middle finger on my left hand. I'm still a master sitter, but I have no desire to start crawling. I can scoot myself in a circle, but it doesn't happen often because I hate lying on my belly.

St. Francis Mud Run- June.

Have you ever heard of a Mud Run? It's a race that features obstacles much like what the Marines encounter in their training. The St. Francis Mud Run is 3.5 miles long and features 35 obstacles.

Mama' friend Miss Alyssa asked mama to join her team. (Did you notice mama's hair is now long enough for "pigtails"?)

Their team name was the Real Housewives of Pickens County (hence the jewelry and cute flowers).

The first obstacle was to run under wooden beams through a mud pit. In keeping with the costumes, mama wore a sports skirt, which may have been a bad decision as it got quite heavy.

Teams were assigned numbers and started in that order one team about every 90 seconds. The RHofPC were 516, but they ended up passing teams all the way down to 480 during the race.

The race went through the woods so there weren't any pictures of climbing over many 6 ft walls, scaling a 15 foot tall rope ladder or running 150 yards through streams, saumersaulting through tires and climbing over humvees, but they did get pictures of all 4 ladies jumping in the deep mid pit.

Helping each other up an 8 foot wall.

And mama carrying Miss Alyssa 150 yards to the finish line.

The RHofPC's final time was 57:57. In the all female category they finished 37th of 166 teams. Not bad for 4 short girls.

Mama had so much fun!

After the race, everyone hosed off and ended up throwing all of their clothes away.

Mama says next year, she'll train for the race in advance, especially her upper body, because she came home all scraped and bruised.

But don't feel bad, mama loves showing off huge bruises, especially this 8 inch long bruise and a nasty purple one on her thigh where she threw her leg over all of the obstacles.

If you want to see all of the obstacles, check out this video mama found on YouTube of another team's run.

The evolution of shaving- Henry.

Papa's been rocking a pretty awesome beard for quite some time. To add to it's allure, he hardly ever trims it- only for weddings, conferences, or family pictures. But after almost 2 years, he was ready for something new. Though we hate to see the beard go, but it's always a good time watching it go. Miss Kerri and Miss Juliet were over helping mama finish a bottle of wine and got to join in the fun.

This year, papa's shave was accompanied by outfit changes. This is what all professor in the South look like, Dahl-in'.

Daryl here. Just waitin' for the next monster truck rally. America!

Keep your kids away from this guy. Luckily, the creepy mustache didn't last for long. I think papa remained clean-shaven for about two days and now he's back to his usual beard growing.

April 25-30- Sweet George.

Papa let us eat breakfast in the living room at the desk. Well, Henry and June got to eat. I had to watch.

Have I mentioned my BFF- my mom? I LOOOOOVE her. We're never apart. She always holds me and we're NEVER apart. I know she feels the same way about me when she's trying to get something done. But sometimes she does put me down and she's found one thing that will occupy me for a few minutes- Junie's eggs. It drive June crazy when I play with her eggs, so I usually only get to play with them when she's at school.

This is what $50 looks like. Can you believe Henry saved up this much money? He had some birthday money left over and procured a hefty $2 a day bribe from mama and Grams' when mama and papa were gone in the Bahamas. And he did a LOT of work around the house to get up to $50.

He took his earnings and bought a Toy Story 3 lego train (on sale). How did Henry manage to get such an expensive hobby?

Have I told you about my other BFF? (That's Best Friend Forever, in case you didn't know.) It's my blankie. I love it so much. My Aunt Jenni made it for me.

It's been pretty hot down here. It's already been above 90 and it's very humid. Mama got tired of all of the sweaty heads started cutting. June lost the most hair, though she's still sweaty. I hope my hair is as thick as June's when it grows in.

Mama also cut Henry's hair, then she cut James' and Andy's too. Thanks to Miss Kerri for trusting mama with the boys' hair.