Wednesday, November 28, 2007

...after the baby sleeps


After Julia went to bed tonight, daddy and mommy had a quiet house...and some time alone.... What better idea that to have some family craft time?

We had to take a picture of the "fruits" of our labor. Ah yes, we spent an hour making a popcorn cranberry chain. I think we ate more popcorn than we strung. And then it was bed at 9:30. Whoa. I remember in college when 9:30 pm was quite literally the middle of my afternoon. And stringing cranberries? Well, yeah...I probably would have done that in college...if I had a cranberry martini or something to go with it.

I'm going to blame this early bedtime and excellent choice of activities on our current (and concurrent) viral illnesses that are Julia's latest present to us from daycare. (Mike closed his eyes for this picture because he's feeling self-conscious about his pink eye.)
I don't have that one.........yet.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Saturday, November 17, 2007

A Saturday off!!!!!!!!!

Hi Everybody!
I had Saturday off! That meant daddy could get some projects done and Julia and I could have some quality time together. We started out our day by making Daddy some pancakes while he was in the shower. Julia shakes some cinnamon into the batter. If you look closely, you'll see that Julia is already wearing pancake batter on her new jammies. She loves to eat batter.....who doesn't?After breakfast, Julia and I went to Cub to buy a turkey. (Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dick are making the trip to Duluth for thanksgiving dinner!) Then, it was PETCO....our free zoo....where Julia gawked at the turtles and parrots. Her favorite animals: the mice. She was fascinated that seven of them can all run on the excercise wheel at the same time.

After we got home, Julia took a THREE AND A HALF hour nap!!!!! (mommy and daddy had no intention of waking her up). She woke up just in time to "help" me knead the bread for supper. We had homemade chicken noodle soup, which Julia fondly calls, "noosoop."

Then, after dinner, it was dancing! Julia is quite the dancer...here she gets down to "Baby Beluga," her current tune of choice. What's up, G?
Julia is jammin...

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Mommy is catching up....

I apologize....I have been a delinquent blogger. Furthermore, I have no recent pictures of my child to upload to this thing. Before I start telling myself that I am a negligent parent, I must remember that I have hundreds of pictures of Juila plastered on this website...and a thousand more photos (some of them incriminating.....;) on the hard drive. So, here's what we've been up to in the Sprengeler household. I also must promise this: later this week, we'll be posting a picture that you will certainly get a kick out of. I promise!

FRIDAY
Friday was the day before my birthday, and since I was on call on the actual BirthDay, we celebrated the night before. We went to Red Lobster (YAY for cash back bonus gift cards!) and ate some seafood. I didn't know what to order, and I knew Julia was hungry, so we got the "all you can eat" shrimp special. Good thing I did! As soon as the food came, Julia's cute little brown eyes turned into little red daggers: "SHRIMPY SHRIMPY SHRIMPY SHRIMPY!!!!!"

What little toddler doesn't adore.....shrimp? By the time I got her plate loaded up with shrimp scampi, she was already helping herself to the fried shrimp on my plate. I gave up cutting them in half. It was good enough to pull off their tails before Juila-zilla gobbled them up. The waitress came back two minutes later to refill our drinks and noticed that my entire order of shrimp was gone. I think I had about two, which isn't much when you're eating "shrimp." The clincher: when the waitress said "hi" to Julia, all Julia could say (with a mouth full of shrimp, mind you) was "more." Needless to say, we got our money's worth that night.

After that, we went to this indoor arcade down the street to play some games. Julia discovered DDR. (Dance Dance revolution, a Nintendo game where you follow cues from the TV and dance to a songg...for those of you who haven't had the pleasure). She jumped right up on the stage and started Jammin. She was bobbing her whole body with the beat and occassionally would shake her little diapered butt for us. I have NO IDEA where she learned that. (Perhaps daycare? Miss Barb, her teacher, is not likely the guilty party....) At any rate, Julia had a crowd of teenagers watching her Jam! If you have ever been to an arcade and seen those little asian people doing amazing moves on DDR and there are a million people standing around gawking....you can get an idea for the audience this girl could generate.

SATURDAY
Well, we did manage to make it to Target even while I was on call. Julia picked out a pair of purple boots and refused to take them off for the remainder of the weekend. We also learned to avoid the toy section at all costs.....

SUNDAY
This morning was Sunday school and church. Julia was being "active" during the service, so I held her and started pointing things out at the altar like the big picture of Jesus, the candles, the pastor, etc. I thought I had done and OK job...she paid attention for five whole minutes. When we were done, she pointed up toward the front of church and said, "Jesus....love you!" (Mommy smiled).... Anyways, after this divine and beautiful moment, I took her up to communion. When we were sitting at the rail and pastor Franck came to give us the host, Julia pointed at him and said, "Jesus...Jesus...Jesus!" Oh dear. He took it in stride, blessed her, and went along his merry way. We have some work to do.

Today, after Juila's nap, we took a trip to the Menard's in west Duluth. Our Menards is notably the largest Menard's in the world! Wow! What a claim. Daddy was very excited. He had a whole list of things to get and it was my job to babysit. Julia noticed the "Christmas Land" display they had set up.....aisles and aisles of Christmas stuff. They had a kids play area with (I am serious) a kid-sized plastic roller coaster thing. Julia discovered it and fearlessly jumped into the car and off she went. It was all fine and dandy until she drove her roller coaster car into an unsuspecting eight year old boy. I'm sure he was fine, but I'll never know...he ran off screaming in terror. I feel kind of bad about that.

I threw Julia into a plastic demo wagon and we went looking for Christmas lights to put on the outside of our house. We don't have any outside outlets, so Mike was trying to figure out a way to rig up an extension cord from the lone outlet in the garage. Julia was trying to be helpful and was grabbing any lights she could find. I was putting away some of her discoveries when I saw it: solar-powered Christmas lights! No outlet needed! We were sold.

Sunday night at our house means pizza and TV (Veggie Tales; Rack, Shack, and Benny) and then bed. Well, that was for Julia...Mommy and Daddy uploaded a couple episodes of Desperate Housewives while she slept.....

Have a good day everybody. I'll get a picture or two up later this week!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Rosie's Wedding

Last Saturday, we drove down to "da cities" for a friend's wedding. Rosie Daak, our buddy from college, married Andy Olson. We had a naughty toddler at the wedding (think "Pretty! Pretty! Hot!! Hot!!" in the middle of the ceremony) and a hilarious toddler at the reception. We as a family love dancing. Perhaps we should start partying with the college kids in town on SAturday nights. We could go out dancing...the three of us...and scare all the scantily clad drunken college coeds off the dance floor. Ok...I was getting side-tracked. Here are some pictures from the wedding. Thanks, Joy, for the use of your camera. We forgot ours in Duluth. :)

Julia is rockin out on the dance floor. She likes to find her own spot on the floor and get down with the beat.....Julia and Joy.
Our family dances to Love Shack
Julia Jams down another piece of cake. At our table, we ate our cake so fast that the waitresses thought they had missed us! So, they brought another round of cake without realizing we were having a second helping. ha ha ha. Good thing round #2 was chocolate!