June plays baseball- Mama.

We missed the sign-ups for Smart Start baseball. It's a program for 3 and 4 year olds designed to introduce them to baseball in a practice setting with no games. Lucky for us, they still let June participate if we could round up our own equipment.

June liked hitting the ball off the tee, but that was about it.

Obviously her mind was on other things.

In true June fashion, she did not like being told what to do, even though some of her friends from preschool (all boys) were there and willingly following instructions.

No amount of persuading could convince June to participate.

Here's how practice ended. Maybe next week will be better. If nothing else, it was worth it to see Junie's skinny little legs in pants. That's something that doesn't happen often.

Jazz party- Henry.

The world almost stopped turning last week. The two nicest people we know where in the same room (patio?) at the same time. We took Grams to Greenville to meet Miss Laura at a pizza place for supper. Her brother, Mister Matt, is a professor at Furman and has a jazz band that was playing that night.

We LOVE Miss Laura. the last time she came to our house, the evening ending disastrously when I spent 20 minutes wailing from my bed "I didn't get to KISS her goodnight!" We REALLY love her.

Mama and papa were delirious from the pizza and the warm breeze and let us stay out way past our bedtime. Georgie took a short power nap and was wide awake at 9:30.

Too bad we had the camera on the wrong setting. Here's blurry proof that Grams was there.

This cool jeep was in the parking lot and I insisted on getting my picture beside it when we left at 9:30. Mama and papa learned their lesson when they let us stay up. Junie and I were grumpy the next day and Georgie barely slept all night. I have a feeling we won't be getting any late nights in the near future.

Grams is here!- June.

Grams came back to us!

It was so nice outside we decided to pack our lunch and have a picnic at the botanical gardens. (Or more likely, Grams and mama were looking for any excuse to go back to their favorite bakery to get stromboli.)

I had a great time showing Grams the scenery.

Come on!

Mama wanted to go to the pond to feed the ducks, but I had other plans to go to what mama calls "the most boring part of the garden."

It's a courtyard where Henry and I like to engage in creative play. Henry likes to lay on a bench and pretend to sleep. Then mama has to ring the bell and we all pretend to run out to put out a fire. I prefer to pretend to run a ticket counter for a train station. Mama knows she should encourage this, but after 100 ticket purchases, it gets old and she wants to go look at some flowers.

This way to the train!

We didn't have to buy Georgie a ticket because she's the engineer of this caboose!

It's hard to believe, but there might actually be some hair growing in on that big round head.

Back at home, Henry built a special circuit board to show PawPaw.

Here he is explaining it.

Horsie farm!

With a lovely spring in full bloom, mama's been trying to get us outside as much as possible. Part of her efforts include running me to school twice a week. It's a nice 3.5 mile round trip.

On Thursday on our way home, we walked Grams home past our favorite horse farm. We pass this way often, but for the first time, a horsie came out to greet us. Mama has a general distrust of all animals (especially the kinds that are bigger than her), but she petted this horse for me. Eventually, I want to get out of the stroller to see it, but I refused to touch it.

He sure loved mama!

Hanging around- Henry.

Georgie's literally been hanging around.

We set up our cardboard playhouse and mama let us have a picnic lunch inside. It was great! Then we moved it so the door lined up to the bookshelf. Now we have a library inside the house!

Tuesday was picture day at school. One of my teachers told us to look handsome for the pictures. And somehow I got it in my mind that clothes with little squares (plaid) are the ultimate in handsome. So I picked out this spiffy number. Mama briefly tried to get me to change my pants, but let me go with this. It's such a great outfit, she may end up having to spend a small fortune to get school pictures after all.

We went to the second "Read-a-Rama" event at the Arts Center and made bird hats!

Mama had much more fun this week. She dropped George off at Miss Juliet's in exchange for John. And John and I were so excited that we joined a small group and bid her and June farewell. June wanted to be in our small group, but mama knew we'd probably behave better if she wasn't around. (Why are kids so much more well behaved when their parents aren't there?) So mama and June joined their own small group and had a nice time making bird hats too.

Who is this little bird? As June would say "I'm not a bird- I'm a ga-ril." (girl, for those of you not versed in Junese.)

Aunt Jenni, here's a mega dose of Juner for you. We dare you to watch this and NOT immediately jump in your car to come down and snatch this little girl up. Take note of the Dora dress. June has been incessantly asking to wear her Precious, though she now calls it her "brown and pink and red dress." Mama let her wear it for 7 days straight then hid it, insisting it was dirty. So her go-to backup is now the Dora ballerina dress.

7 month checkup- Georgie.

My parents are so concerned about my welfare that my 6 month check-up didn't actually come until after I was 7 months old. (Henry still hasn't had his 5 year check-up.)

Mama forgot to post the numbers, but for my 5 month check-up I was 26 inches long (90th percentile), weighed 14 pounds 9 ounces (50th) and had a head circumference of 16.5 inches (50th).

This month I was 28 inches long (still 90th percentile!), weighed 15 pounds 14 ounces (down to the 25th) and had a head circumference of 17 inches (25th.)

The doctor took one look at me and said "She's long, but she certainly doesn't look too skinny. there's plenty of soft tissue on her." I store all of my baby fat in my thighs. But my wrists and ankles are still very skinny. Mama thinks a lot of my low weight might be because I don't have huge cheeks like Henry and June. (But I do have a perfectly round head.)

I must be a shrimp though. Mama tried to hand down some clothes to my second cousin, Malayna, who is not even 4 months old. But Malayna's mom said that she's already in 6-9 month clothes, while I'm still hanging out in 3-6 month stuff.

I still having a great time sitting up. I don't want to try and crawl and you better not put me on my belly to try and get me to crawl. I still prefer to be held and hate it when I'm left alone in a room. Mama's dreading when I start getting attached to just her and papa. Right now, I'll take anyone who is willing to hold me.

June accompanied me to my check-up and has been quite interested in pretending to be a doctor lately. Mostly, she takes everything out of her doctor kit, sticks the tools in my ear, pretends to give me a shot, and slaps a band-aid bracelet on me.

This must be the look she gave the real doctor when they measured her giant head and proclaimed it to be in the 1000th percentile.

Half marathon!

So about 3 weeks ago, Miss Juliet invited mama along on a long run as part of her 10k training program. They ran for about 60 minutes and had a really good time.

So mama got it in her head that maybe she could be a runner. And if running for an hour was easy, maybe she could go longer. So she signed up for the Easter Bunny half marathon in Clemson for two reasons:

1. After Boot Camp, mama may never be in better shape, so she better do it soon.

2. Mama likes to run- in the spring. Come May, it's going to be WAY too hot, but spring in the south is beautiful and it helps to see everything blooming outside. Also, mama didn't want to spend weeks and weeks training. So get it done soon.

Here's the big finisher! She finished the race in 2 hours and 6 minutes, which is just around a 9:40 pace. (Though there was some debate about whether the race course was a full 13.1 miles. All of our runner friends have these cool GPS watches and many of them thought it was only a 12.9 mile course.) Mama said the worse part was when she had to run a slight uphill on a boring road for a mile and a half at mile 11. Luckily, the last mile was downhill to the finish line.

So now mama's debating about her future as a runner. The hot summer weather may dissuade her from any outdoor running this summer. She knows she's not going train for anything longer. Long distance running takes a lot out of you! First, training takes a huge amount of time away from us. (Big thanks to papa for letting mama pretty much check out every for training runs and naps!) Next, mama's not sure if it's worth feeling crummy after every run- sore legs, upset stomach, extreme fatigue.

Then again, running burns a tremendous amount of calories and after mama's 4 hour nap, papa treated her to the best indulgence they could think of- Long John Silvers. Say what you will, but mama maintains she works out so when she goes out to eat, it can be awesomely delicious. You've outdone yourself, John.

A big congratulations to Miss Juliet, who won 2nd place in her age group for the 5k! And congratulations to Miss Kerri and Miss Jenny for running half and thanks for running the first 6 miles with mama.