Spring pictures.

The kids brought home their spring school pictures.  (Come on- fall and spring?)  Of course, we're too cheap to spend $20 on a single sheet, but we did want to give you the chance to see them.

June, as always, took a super cute shot.

 I don't know whose idea this was, but June was very pleased with the result.

 Oh, how I love those crazy tights and high-high top sparkly shoes.  I wish I could put June in a bottle and keep her this age forever.  She is hilarious, is really picking up reading and writing, and has mostly taken control of her emotions.  She still has her moments, but some of you might remember how she was a two and know she's come a long way.

We finally retired Henry's epic school picture shirt, but he found another plaid shirt so he could look nice.

I guess t this point the photographer had given up trying to pose kids naturally.  Henry has reached a significant point in his life where he feels older than a kid, but is not allowed to be an adult, however much he may try to tell the girls what to do.  But he is quite useful around the house and can do pretty much anything we ask.  But we haven't been able to get him to change any diapers yet.  He still prefers to spend any available moment playing Minecraft.  

 I'm not usually tempted to buy school pictures, but I almost made an exception for this one.  What a stinker Georgie is.  She loves school and they seem to love her- at least when they can get her to stop talking.  She is very anxiously awaiting the arrival of her 4th birthday.  Then she gets to go to school every day.  It will be nice to have a set weekday schedule, because Georgie is constantly asking what we'll be doing next.  "And then what?  And what after that?"  Tuesdays and Thursdays are quite hard for her this year.  She has no intention of sitting around at home on her days off of school.

She is very quick to announce that she's a big girl. And even quicker to add "Because I pee and poop in the potty."

April 26-30.

Bea continued to sleep most of the time and loved her nukie.  These little ones with the stuffed animals attached are especially popular since they are harder for a baby to spit out and launch across a room.

 Sometimes she woke up and gave us some sass.  (We think she learned this from Henry, who has been discovering his lately.)

 Central had its Model Train Festival.  It was really hot and the girls burned out, but Henry and I stayed all afternoon looking at the models in air conditioned buildings.

 Beatrice finally lost her umbilical cord. Coincidentally, it was at the same park in town where Georgie lost hers.  Since we no longer had a good excuse not to give her a bath, we threw her in the sink for a quick soak.

 Even with the large audience, Bea didn't seem to mind her bath. 

She still likes to take a bath and spends most of her time kicking water everywhere.

After that soak, she was ready for another nap and even the Tacodile Supreme couldn't wake her up.

Meanwhile, Georgie went the way of all little girls and is obsessed with Frozen..  If I hear never here "Let It Go" again, I don't know if I'll be sad.  But it is pretty cute when Georgie sings it.

The great kitchen remodel- Week 1.

We sure love our house.  It's sturdy and well-built and we even like how it was painted when we moved in.  There was just one problem.  The kitchen was old.  It looked good, but the original particle board cabinets just weren't holding up as well as they did 40 years ago.  I painted the counter tops 4 years ago to cover up that awful white, but we were getting to the end of the usefulness of that temporary fix.

So this spring I started shopping around for contractors to update the kitchen.  Brandon scoffed at the idea as he unloaded dishes and as he shut a drawer, it fell apart in his hand.  (I'm not going to lie- that old coil stove up there didn't help either.)

So on April 20th, a week after Bea was born, our contractor came in and started dismantle the kitchen.  Why right now, when everything was in turmoil?  Well, I had a few good reasons.  First, I had no intentions of cooking any great meals while I was recovering from childbirth.  Next, we live in a wonderful town where people band together to provide meals whenever a baby is born.  (It's the end of August, and I still have left-over food in the freezer.)  I couldn't think of a BETTER time to have a kitchen out of commission.  

Our contractor Patrick, was the most methodical and tidy person to dismantle a kitchen.  No sledgehammers here.  

Notice how he took the wall out?  No more pass through! And look at all of that beautiful paneling!

He even found some great treasures as he dismantled.  A recipe for Queen Elizabeth cake and instant grits!  And my pani puri mix!  I think he also found a Barbie shoe that didn't belong to us.  

And by Day 4, we already had new cabinets!  (To be fair, they were built offsite and brought in and installed while Bea and I took a nap upstairs.)

I love my new Lazy Susan, pull outs and drawers on the bottom and top cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling!

Doesn't it look great without that wall there? 

Getting to know you- April 21-24.

After Easter, we bid farewell to Grams, PawPaw, Aunt Jill and Sam. We were able to hold on to Grandma and Grandpa for a few more days.

Believe it or not, Bea actually spent a few moments in her bassinet and not in someone's arms.  

you can see the burp cloth underneath her.  This kid is a tremendous spitter.  In her first few months, there was rarely a day that she didn't wake up crusted in spit up. There was also one memorable afternoon when she and I went upstairs to take a nap.  First she spit up all over the sheets.  So I took those off and just spread out the flat sheet over the mattress.  Then she spit up all over the flat sheet.  (Keep in mind, these are incidents large enough to warrant a sheet change.)  By the third sheet, I was sure there was nothing left to spit up, but sure enough, she did it again. By that time I was 25 minutes into the 30 minutes I told the kids to give me.  And Bea seems very pleased with herself.

Who? Me?

June has no idea that in less than a year, this little baby will be terrorizing all of her setups. 

If Bea is good for one thing, it's snuggling.  No one is nicer to nap with.

I don't think Henry was actually asleep, but at least he's not making a goofy face when I tried to take his picture.

Bea and mom.

Bea and Grandma.  

Bea wouldn't be a Seibert if she didn't have a collection of silly photos as a baby.  Look what the Easter Bunny brought us!

Seriously, this is so embarrassing.

Without the eggs. The number one question we got from all kids was "Why is she so red?"  She is one bright pink little girl.

Disaster struck as Grandma and Grandpa were preparing to leave.  June came down with a high fever and was just in the dumps.  Luckily, it didn't spread to anyone else.

You can tell she's not feeling well as she posed for pictures. 

Tongues out!

And a goofy one for the road!

And now we begin our journey into 4 kids.  

Easter Sunday- April 20th.

We had a very fun Easter Sunday.

Bea got her first Easter bunny from Great Aunt Mary Ellen.  I convinced the kids that if I ate it, Bea would get some chocolate milk.  This has come back to bite me because now whenever I drink anything besides milk (i.e. beer), the kids scream, "You can't feed that to the baby!"

The kids also got their Easter bunnies.

Per our tradition, they ate them for breakfast. 

Surprisingly, I think Henry was the only one to make it all the way through his.  The girls saved theirs for later.

The girls were pleased their Easter dresses from last year still fit.  (You won't believe how much they're grown!)  The addition of the tie-dyed shirts and leg warmers really add a lot to the outfits, don't you think?

We had some fun with our eggs this year. 

 We made a paste of baking soda, food coloring, and water to paint our eggs.  Then we dripped vinegar over the eggs to set the color and create a little egg volcano.

June had no interest in painting eggs. Neither did Bea (in my dress and bonnet).

But I think Aunt Jill and I may have had the most fun playing with the egg paint.  

Later, we moved outside to enjoy the nice weather and an easter egg hunt.

Next year you can join the hunt too, Sammy!

I think Eloise Wilkins would have a nice time using Bea for a baby in one of her books.

June is ready to go!

 We made things easy this year and assigned each kid a specific color of egg.  This allowed us to make sure Georgie got some easy to find eggs and didn't end up throwing a fit.

Henry, on the other hand, had to work exploring the wilderness of our backyard to find his eggs.

It really does look like we live deep in the woods, doesn't it?  And when did this guy get so tall?

June was really feeling photogenic today.

June and Georgie work together to find more of Georgie's eggs.

One more cute shot of June.

Grams gets her turn with the baby.

Again, I was feeling so good, I took a shower, put on a dress AND pearls.  It is the South, after all. 

Grandma Seibert enjoyed the afternoon.

And PawPaw waited patiently for Brandon to put down the camera so they could toss the football.

I think we should do this every Easter!  If you can hang in there, thee's plenty more to go in this post. Brandon got a ton of great pictures.

I think you've got some candy on your forehead, Georgie.  Also, it was probably only 65 degrees that day.  And already Georgie is looking red in the face.  That poor girl can't go outside for more than 5 minutes without getting red and sweaty all over her head.

But it was worth it today!

Mom and Bea all cuddled up.

Finally Henry got his turn.

He's an old pro at holding little sisters by now.

Then we rounded out the afternoon with many rounds of the card game Authors.  

Happy Easter!