Baby Hudson!- July 2.

The 10th Seibert grandkid was born on July 1.  And when you're the 10th grandkid and the 5th kid in your family, sometimes you've got to do something spectacular to get noticed.  

 Hudson Joseph was was in Ann Arbor, weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces. 

 He was born in the Children's Hospital in Michigan because during Aunt Elizabeth's pregnancy, it was detected that he had a heart defect known as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.  In short, half of his heart was severely undeveloped.

  On July 2nd, mama drove up from Marion and met Grandma and Grandpa Seibert and the rest of the Seibert kids to meet new baby Hudson.  

  Enjoy your quiet time, little brother, because it's going to be crazy when you get home!

 I don't want to make any bold statements, but I'm pretty sure Hudson said I was his favorite aunt.

Fast forward 6 months and we're very happy to say that after 2 months in the hospital and 2 major open heart surgeries, Hudson is home and doing great.

July visit to Marion.

At the beginning of July (well, really for most of the month), we took a trip to Ohio.  we started out in Marion with Grams and PawPaw.

Aunt Katie and Uncle Adam had just returned from Germany and brought us all back a present!

Look at our cool marionettes!

PawPaw and Papa spent some quality time together.

Everyone was abuzz about the birth of our newest cousin, Hudson, on July 1.  (More on that to come.)  The girls set up their own nursery on the porch.  Mostly, the care of the babies involved tucking them in and giving them kisses.

June, Sadie and Henry spent hours out in the yard building fairy houses.  It went well until we discovered they pulled all of the tiny green tomatoes off of Grams' plants.

While the big kids were reeking havoc in Grams' garden, the little ones were singing songs with Grams.  

And making goofy faces.

For July 4th, we headed into Columbus to see the big fireworks display shot off from the minor league baseball field. 

We got there early and spent the evening having some good, sweaty fun.

How's about a ride, Pawps?

As the sun went down, we all rocked out to the sounds of "Phil Dirt and the Dozers."

The fireworks were great!

The only downside was that the traffic control wasn't great and we got stuck in our parking garage for the next 3 hours.  Georgie and Henry sat still in our hot car and June laid on the floor and fell asleep.  

At Uncle Adam and Aunt Katie's house, we tried out sparklers for the first time.

The kids did well and no one lost a finger.

Jo and Dash got hosed down in the bathtub.

Kissing cousins!

We ended the week with a big cookout.

I don't know if PawPaw knew he was part of this squirt gun fight.

Watch out for the goof behind you, Uncle Adam!

We turned on the sprinklers and the kids had a good time.

Especially when they came up with a great way to wash the grass off their feet.

June round-up- iPad pictures.

Let's get this going again.  

June's hair hit an all-time length record this summer.  This was also right about the time we discovered all the kids also had head lice.  Hooray!  Actually, I got pretty good at finding those little buggers AND still managed to preserve June's long locks.  

We did go through a LOT of conditioner during our daily comb outs.

Thanks for these awesome Reds jackets Grams and PawPaw!

Georgie dabbled in potty training.  She really wanted to sit on the potty.  And I thought it was great until I realized she was sitting on her blankie!  (We don't have a washer and dryer!!!)  Luckily, we caught this after we posted this picture to facebook, but before she actually did anything on the potty.

Our friends Mister Zac and Miss Liz came down for a visit the weekend we discovered the headlice.  We hope they're still out friends.  (They didn't catch it.)

The kids were playing in their room and we heard Jo yell for help.  Look what she got herself into.  What a stinker.

After school was out, Georgie started a trend in which she'd only wear her bathing suit- every day.  Luckily, she's super cute.
 
It makes the cheese dance even cuter when she's in the bathing suit.

We did get her to wear this cute frock to celebrate a very tiny tea party.

Mama felt some pinterest inspired guilt and figured she should do something fun with the girls.  Let's start out with something simple- cheerios on yarn.  Snack necklaces!
 

Which quickly turned into this.  June was back in the bedroom in timeout for crying about how hard it was to string the cheerios.

Still feeling quilty, we tried out blowing paint bubbles.  It was pretty fun once the girls figured out not to suck up the soap through the straws.  

Grandma Seibert made these dresses for the girls.  June was the only one who would model it.  Thanks, Grandma!

This is how we do family affection in this house.  With knees and elbows.

We started collecting boxes for the move back south and were storing them in the kids room.  They took that chance to pull all the mattresses off the beds and use them to construct a super fort.  You can imagine how easily they went to bed that night.

Look who lost her second tooth!

June spent the beginning of her summer break deep in play.  This also meant a lot of time in creative play.  we hosted many pony funerals and this post-funeral church buffet.  

Strawberry farm-June 19.

We tried to extend strawberry season one more day by visiting a pick-your-own berry farm.  Jo and I went with Miss Leah on the first day of the season and picked 26 pounds to make into jam.  

Alas, there weren't many strawberries left, so we headed over to the playgrounds instead.  And we found the best set of slides ever made!

I'll be honest- some of the slides looked a little scary from the top.  You dropped almost straight down.

That didn't seem to bother Henry and Georgie.

The first few times, Georgie didn't want to go down alone, but soon she worked up the courage.

June, on the other hand, stuck to the smaller slides and couldn't be persuaded to go down a big one, even with someone else.

All that running up hills on a hot day made for some sweaty kids.

The girls took temporary respite in a strawberry tunnel. 

What else can you do after a hot day in the sun but go out for ice cream?  There's a Seibert for you.  I'm sad to report that June not only takes after papa in looks, but also in propensity for ice cream headaches.  Henry and Jo continue to take after me and can gulp down gallons without harm. 

Just what the doctor ordered.  In this video, Jo shows off her yodeling, complete with a deep squat during every yodel, June gives us a dramatic portrayal of her love for ice cream, and Henry shows us how to eat Seibert style.