Wednesday, March 31, 2010

101 uses for a garden hose

Hi all-


Where to start? Hmm...camera is downstairs, I'll get some more pics of baby Luke up tonight. We are totally enamored with him....he's a wonderful addition to our family and I want to brag.

But first, I want to share something else with you. Until today, Mike and I have been working toward the goal of getting our house on the market for viewing next week. That means it needs to be 1. Uncluttered, and 2. Pretty. Both of which it is most certainly not. ONe of the things we need to do to make it pretty is to "touch-up" paint the front. We had saved some paint from when we painted the thing five years ago...in the garage. Apparently, latex paint doesn't tolerate freezing very well...and it turned into a nice sedimentary rock in the bottom of the bucket. So, Mike went off to the paint store and bought some in a "matching color" (ie. the code on the bucket matched.) Unfortunately, when he painted over the spots, the color was obviously different than the original.

So, it was another trip to the paint store. Mike loaded up the van with the paint to be returned. Since I haven't slept much in the last week, I was thrilled that I finally got to lie down for a nap at around 3:30. I had to make the most of my time: Luke was down for a nap after nursing for 90 minutes straight. I left the breakfast dishes undone and raced upstairs. I was just getting comfortable when someone lifted the pillow off of my head and woke me up. Husband looked terrified and flabbergasted and baffled at the same time. Uh-oh.

"Woman, can you come downstairs??? I need your help."

"What did you do, honey?"

"Um,.....I spilled some paint in the car."

"Well, get a rag and a squirt bottle."

"Um....I need you to come. I um,....I spilled a GALLON of paint in the car. How do I clean it out?"

.....

that was the end of my nap.

I spent the next two hours of the afternoon with the garden hose in hand, spraying gallons and gallons of water into our minivan. After the initial shock, awe, and horror subsided, I realized the potential joy of my new project. It was actually very, very fun. Especially since Mike is the kind of person who gets irritated when he sees a dog hair in the car or catches me feeding chicken nuggets to the kids while they're in their carseats. The irony of the whole thing is quite amusing. I stood there blasting the inside of the car with the hose on as high as it would go. And paint was splattered everywhere...and there were painty rivers flowing down the carpet and round the plastic doorway cover things....and down into the crevices..... Eventually the rivers joined together in a huge painty lake next to the sliding door that overflowed into the alley below. After a couple of hours, the rivers went from khaki-colored to clear, and the van looked like it had simply gone through the car wash with all of the windows open.

Mike, I hope you forgot to read this post. And I am happy to announce that your van, albeit a bit saturated at present, is cleaner than it has ever been. Good thing the exterior of our house is a similar color as the interior of our minivan. !!

Naptime




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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Here he is...

Luke Michael Roger Sprengeler
Born 11:15 pm March 26th
11 lbs, 5.6 oz, 22.3"



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Friday, March 26, 2010

Still waiting...




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Thursday, March 25, 2010

.....

Thanks for all of the well-wishes, everybody! "Ed" is happily swimming around in his or her amniotic fluid...but not for long. Induction is set for tomorrow. Pray that it goes well! We'll keep you posted.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

...and the verdict is in!

Hey all!

After a long-anticipated announcement today, we now know where we will be moving! I have been accepted into the Ob Gyn training program at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan! We are excited about the turn of events, although moving out of Minnesota will be a big challenge for us....we are both homebodys. And we have The Grandkids. However, the program and the community we will be moving into are both fantastic and I think we'll fit right in.

More info to come....

PS: Grandmas: we will only be 20 minutes from the DTW airport....we'll be there to pick you up as soon as you land. :)

PPS: Baby "Ed" is still in the cooker. We are due a week from tomorrow, induction is set for Friday the 26th is he or she isn't born by then. That gives me a week to pack up some stuff so we can get ready to sell the house! Our goal is to have the first showings on Holy Saturday. That leaves us with not much time and a LOT of cleaning to do!!!

PPPS: Just in case you were wondering...nope...we're not bored. We have enough going on to keep us "occupied." ;-)

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Glacier

No, this isn't some glacier in Norway, or a panoramic of the Grand Canyon. It's the ice in the alley behind our house. That's a good six inches you're lookin at, folks. It's been a good year for the ice, apparently. Thank God it's finally melting.


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Thursday, March 4, 2010

STAY-cation



On Monday evening, the four of us moseyed over to the waterpark hotel in town (the "edge") for some family time. It was fantastic. A cheap Monday night rate, lots and lots of swimming, pizza by the poolside, and a hotel room that was TWO rooms....so the kiddos could sleep on one half and Mama and Papa could watch endless South Park and Scrubs without worrying about little ears. What a great time.


Mary and Papa tried out the kiddie waterslide. Mary got a mouth and nosefull of water...and she grinned anyways!



Here's Mary's other favorite attraction: washing her hands. We don't have a sink at home where she can lay on the counter and put her hands in the water. She LOVED that sink. Almost as much as the pool.




If you can see it, please notice the digital clock on the back of Mary's chair. Mama and Papa were so eager to have some time alone that we put the kiddos to bed at 7:30 without a snack. Bad move, parents. At first, we simply heard giggles from their room. This turned into whines, and eventually into all-out wailing. After trying to get them to sleep for two hours, we waved the White Flag of Parenting and let them into our room. Then we enforced their victory by giving them chips and cookies.
Julia and Mary: 1
Mama and Papa: 0





Late-nite snack of victory.






Here are more waterpark pics. If you look carefully above Julia, you can see an orange cone. That thing held about five gallons of water and it dumped sporadically. Julia was terrified of it. Once she got up the stairs, life was good. You can see her crouching in terror.
















Juila was terrified of the orange cone, but the waterslide was FUN! She even mustered up the courage to go down by herself. She did not, however, have enough patience to hold still for a picture of her face so this is all you get.






Mary loved to stroll through the water. We couldn't let her walk alone or she would trip and go under. Despite her efforts to drown, she never did show any sign of fear.