VBS 1- Georgiana.

Mama wanted us to spend our summer of fun together all the time, but these three yahoos needed a little time on their own.

Mama's all up in arms about gender roles lately, specifically that June walks around pretending she's a princess and talking about how pretty she is. So she makes a point not to tell June how cute she is (isn't she, though?), but instead says ridiculous things like "It looks like you could run really fast in that big poufy ball gown" or "I bet that Barbie really loves math!"

So she had to follow though with Henry too, so Henry got to spend a week at his buddy's house while his mom taught them how to sew. He hand-stitched a bean bag and machine sewed a pillowcase. He's quite proud of himself.

Mama mentioned that Henry and June got to go to a vacation bible school. Down here, many churches have evening schools. One even served supper every night! Henry loved the first one because he got pop every night for a snack. Mama wasn't pleased, but you don't give lectures to someone who is watching your kids every night out of the goodness of their own hearts. So after an evening of pop, why are they eating popsicles?

Look close and you can see the remnants of Henry's first bloody nose. (It never stops around here.) Henry's face was in the wrong place at the wrong time when an errant shoe went flying across their classroom. It was pretty nasty- it even got on his shoes. Mama made a big deal about it being his first bloody nose and how it was a rite of passage into being a big kid. Being that sugar is on his mind 90% of the time, Henry capitalized on the situation by saying "Then we should celebrate with popsicles!" How can you refuse that?

Papa found this spider web outside our back door. Mama had just trimmed these bushes that evening, so the spider had built this whole web in only 2 hours. Better yet, the only thing holding the web up is a single thread that extended from a branch 15 feet up. Amazing.

3 kids.

Georgie was laying on the floor drinking a bottle when Henry and June decided to cozy up next to her for a little fun.

Mama had to snap a picture because it reminded her so much of another picture...

... of Uncle Kevin, mama and Aunt Jenni.

Fun Friday- June.

Well, Miss Kerri hosts Movie Monday and Miss Juliet has Wii Wednesday, so mama thought it was about time we hosted a day. So Friday mornings have been deemed Fun Friday. The only problem is that everyone is always out of town, so we've only been able to have one this summer.

The first order of business for the inaugural Fun Friday was to clear the stones out of this little garden. Don't worry, mama paid everyone $1 each for their hard labor. After the stones were moved, we put down new soil and mama said it was out new experimental garden. We tried to plant grass seed inside cookie cutters to see if the grass would grow in those shapes, but everyone ended up spilling seed all over. Mama and I also planted flower seed, but I pulled all of the flowers up one day when I was "weeding."

We ate lunch outside...

... then mama set the boys loose in the yard with the hose. They spent an hour spraying taking turns spraying each other, then getting mad at each other when someone sprayed them.

While the boys played in the water, I called Grandma- very passionately.

It's hard to believe Jo-Jo is ever grumpy.

Henry learned to play checkers and does pretty well, though he still asks papa to let him win. Papa always says no.

Georgie practiced waving while Henry practiced being a polite good sport.

I spent the week pretending to be a doctor.

Mama found a roadside stand that sells raw milk. She felt a bit like she was smuggling moonshine when they handed it to her in a paper bag. But the raw milk seems to be the key in making her own cheese. After 4 tries, it finally worked.

Ready for more cute Georgie videos? Look at this new trick Henry captured.

Recovery- Henry.

Mama was feeling so bad about Junie's hurt finger that she let June do anything she wanted.

June wanted to paint. But she knows that watercolors aren't as good as acrylics. And messier too. Check out her cool pink tape on her finger!

Here's the final product. It's worth noting that the circle ornament was painted about 10 different colors before June painted it all white.

While June painted, I worked on my own project. Earlier, mama took us to the local used bookstore that has a great kids room full of books and toys. Mama said I could have $4 to spend. I picked out a Magic Tree House book and another book about firetrucks. Because we were there for so long, I figured I could read the firetruck book and pick another. I ended up picking out about 10 books and reading them all before we left. I ended up picking out a book about the history of the plane The Spirit of St. Louis, or the "Sprite of St. Louis," as I call it. The best part of the book is that it it has all the parts to make a full paper model of the plane. All in all, it has over 200 pieces to cut out and painstakingly glue together. It's my big summer project (and mama's too).

Georgie (or Jo-Jo, as we've started calling her) was happy to sit in her chair munching on cheerios.

Here's a video from vacation we forgot to post. We're almost certain George is saying "hi."

June was playing with her toy laptop and something was quite right. So I led her to the couch and we both set up with laptops and blankets. Now where could we have learned that?

Again, Georgie was happy to be close by, playing in her excersaucer.

Another video of Georgie maybe saying "hi." Aunt Jenni is also convinced that she says "baba" for bottle. We don't know that so, but we are sure that Georgie already imitate sounds. That's something that June and I never did. Maybe we'll finally have someone in the family who talks before two and a half.

And take a look at those skinny legs. Georgie had her 9 (almost 10) month appointment and she weighed 16 pounds 2 ounces. That's only 4 ounces heavier than 2 months earlier and drops Goergie down to the 10th percentile, where the rest of us are. She did grow an inch and is still in the 75th percentile for height. Much taller then the rest of us.

June's bad luck- mama.

Now that's it's been a month I can talk more about June's bout of bad luck without having flashbacks that keep me up at night. You may have heard already, but June had the bad luck of getting her finger shut in a door and the extra bad luck of almost losing her finger tip in the matter. If you're weak of heart (or stomach), you may not want to continue reading of poor Junnie's woes.

We were walking out the door to go to the gym. The door to our garage leads to two steps. Since Junie is still a little unsure of her footing (but her arthritis is gone in her ankle!), she must have put her hand in the door jam to steady herself as she descended. Henry was following her out and closed the door as he also came down the steps. I was in the van putting the baby in her seat when I heard June screaming. I was pretty sure she'd fallen down the steps before Henry told me her hand was slammed in the door.

I took her inside and at first couldn't figure out why her middle finger looked so weird. Then it started bleeding- a lot. (I much later figured out that her finger was cut because we have metal weather stripping and June's finger was in the wrong place at the wrong time.) I wrapped a wash cloth around her hand and learned something very important about myself.

If you're ever on a boat that's going down- don't look to me for help. I froze. My mind went totally blank. Luckily, it did pop into my head that our neighbors were home, so I picked up June and ran her next door. I'm not sure what wonderful Miss Kate was thinking when I showed up with a bleeding girl, but she was very nice in helping me remember the name of our doctor (again, I totally blanked) and called him for me.

The nurse at the office told us to visit the local urgent care (in town). Our wonderful neighbor Miss Kate was nice enough to take Henry and Georgie and I sped June to the urgent care, which ended up taking 20 minutes because I hit the only traffic I've ever seen in Clemson. I also left a series of frantic voice mails on Brandon's phone that when played back made absolutely no sense. I also called Brandon's boss looking for Brandon (who was at the gym) and probably gave him the impression June was in grave danger.

The good news with a small town urgent care is that you get to see a doctor very quickly when you show up with a screaming, bleeding kid. Their first action was to take X-rays of June's finger. Not an easy process, considering June was still quite hysterical and not letting ANYONE near her hand. The doctor took one look and determined that the tip of her finger was broken and since it was an open fracture, we had to visit the emergency room in Greenville. The doctor also made the remark that maybe we'd be able to save her finger and wouldn't have to cut the tip off. This is when I really started freaking out. At that point, I was cursing Brandon for moving us to the middle of nowhere with no emergency room within an hour of our house. The nurses wrapped June's hand up in an entire roll of athletic tape, June declared herself to be healed (read- no one touch my hand!), and I spent the hour fretting that June would now never be able to play the banjo or pursue her dreams of becoming a hand model.

At the emergency room, the surgeon soon determined that he wasn't going to be able to do anything with June awake, so they decided to put June under anesthesia. So for the second time in June's short life, she was put under. Good thing, too. June was not letting anyone close to her.

Here's the gory description: June sliced her finger down to the bone just above her knuckle. It sliced clean through her fingernail, but luckily missed her nail bed by a millimeter. Hopefully, this means that June's fingernail won't be permanently damaged. I didn't look as they were fixing her up, but I did make the unfortunate mistake of glancing over once and seeing them completely remove and clean her fingernail. The surgeon was able to stitch up June's finger and actually insert her fingernail back in to "hold open" where the new nail will grow in. G to the GROSS.

Junie was pretty pathetic coming to. But the nurses kept her well supplied with cartons of orange juice and crackers. It wasn't until June was all wrapped up (in pink tape with purple hearts that she picked out) that anyone noticed that her ring finger was also smashed. It hadn't occurred to me to even look at her other fingers. They brought in a portable X-ray machine to take a photo of the rest of her fingers and confirmed that none were broken.

We made it home to collect Henry and Georgie from the fantastic Mister Tony, who came over and watched the kids all day. Henry had overheard bits and pieces of phone calls and had it in his head that June was going to have her whole hand cut off. He was glad that June was okay, but a little disappointed that she came home with only a bandage on one finger.

June spent a week favoring her hand quite heavily. Two follow-ups with a hand surgeon showed it is healing well. The old fingernail continues to "grow" out and will eventually fall off as the new fingernail grows in. It's a spectacular shade of black and brown and I only just recently (after 4 weeks) got up the guts to trim the fingernail (the surgeon confirmed that scar tissue had bonded the fingernail back on- more or less). Just this week has June decided she no longer wants her finger wrapped up. Until now, we were unwrapping it at night, but wrapping it again in the morning because she refused to use her hand at all. (She also refused to use the garage door for weeks- instead she leaves the house out the back door.)

June did find a bright side to her pain. June still likes to tell people about her injury. She and Henry went to a Vacation Bible School at a small Baptist church the week after her injury and June amassed an entourage of high school girls who carried her around and doted on her as the limping, injured, youngest and cutest girl. And at the closing service every night, they'd pass around a microphone and apparently most of the kids would pray for June's finger. Then June would get the microphone and sing a song for everyone. Needless to say, June wants to be a Baptist now.

Memorial Day- Henry.

It's a well-known fact that if it's a national holiday, Papa will probably work. (We're not upset, papa, but you have to admit that it's true.) The professor likes to get work done when the department is empty and it's also common fact that political scientists love to hold conferences on holiday weekends.

Memorial Day was still early into our Summer of Fun, so mama decided to take us to Chau Ram County Park. It's a nice little park with plenty sandy spots on the creek to play in. It ended up being quite crowded.

Mama and I set up with Georgie on a sand bar in the middle of the creek. We spent our time digging a channel through the sand.

George just had a fun time playing in the sand.

Some of the other visitors to the park had an air of, how does Miss Juliet put it, "making us feel like big city people." Mama not-so-stealthly took this picture to show one of the many Confederate flag bikinis we saw at the park. Don't be jealous, Aunt Jenni.

Our sandy beach spot was getting crowded, so we moved on to the rocky bend. We came here last fall with Aunt Jenni and Uncle Jim and it's more fun when you have more adults to make sure no one busts their skulls on a slippery rock.

June didn't feel very sure on her feet, so she took up post throwing rocks into the water.

Mama and Georgie took funny pictures of themselves. It was a pretty hot day.

Georgie loves her BFF!

How's come the bald kid isn't wearing a hat?

I was the only productive person and I tried to dam up the space between these two big rocks. Easier said than done.

The summer of fun- Georgie.

Maybe it was the graduation ceremony from preschool, but mama got it in her head that Henry won't want to hang out with her anymore next summer when he reaches the ripe old age of 6. So for the 4th summer in a row, she's declared this summer to be the "Summer of Fun."

Essentially, it boiled down to not enrolling Henry or June in summer camps that spanned the entire summer. (They are still going to vacation bible schools and one week-long camp each.)

The Summer of Fun started out strong with some quality Play-doh time. And this time, mama let them mix colors. That's seriously one of mama's detractors from playing with Play-doh- that gross brown color that results.

But they all had fun making creatures and mama managed to loosen up a bit.

Henry made this tunnel. Maybe Play-doh isn't so bad after all. It does manage to keep June occupied for a while.

During one Play-doh session, mama decided to clean out the craft dresser in our dining room. She found these dry-erase boards that became the second hit of the summer.

June takes hers in the car and LOVES drawing on it. She also loves these tiny plastic bugs that she got at her friend McKain's birthday party. She carries them around in a paper bag and lines them up according to species then pretends that the baby bugs lost their mama bugs.

Henry spent a few days working on a puzzle floor before he lost interest and mama made him clean it up.

Mama may have turned on the air conditioner, but she still keeps it pretty warm in the house. So Henry has taken to wearing only pants to bed. Pretty cute stuff. He's also finished 35 books in the Magic Tree House series. The first 28 books are each 65 pages long and the rest are over 100 pages each, so he spends a lot of his time reading.

There are only 45 books in the series, so we need a new series once Henry finishes them. Any suggestions?

And what am I up to? One day (May 27th, for the baby book) mama left me in the toy room watching Henry park cars while she laid down for a few minutes. This seemed like a pretty safe choice as I couldn't do anything but sit and watch Henry. Suddenly, Henry started yelling for mama to come quick. Mama was so surprised when she walked in to find me standing next to the train table! Mama sat me down and I pulled right back up. Looks like you can't trust me alone anymore. Not that I ever let mama have a second alone anyhow!