Here he is...

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



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Still waiting...

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.....

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.

...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." ;-)

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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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.

Four weeks and counting!

Stressed. That's me. Since Mike has already gone to bed and is too tired to listen to me rant (worked a ten hour shift today starting at 6am, then handbells, church, and choir, baths, two sick kiddos, and has to be at work at 6am again tomorrow!!) I decided to rant to my friends in cyberspace via the blog. Sorry I haven't posted recently. Our laptop computer broke, and I rarely get time to sit at the desktop in our bedroom because there are two little ones who love to empty out the contents of my jewelry box if I devote any moment of my attention to the computer.....

I will be finished with 36 weeks' worth of gestating come Saturday. That means there's four weeks til my due date. Also means I have four weeks (or less!) to get my act together before another baby comes. Oh my. I realized today how much work we have ahead of us.

When Julia was born, we had the nursery all painted, clothes neatly folded in the drawers, boxes and boxes of diapers and wipes ready, blankets neatly folded under the freshly painted changing table, and a big box of brand new infant supplies from all of the baby showers I had.

When Mary was born, it was more of the same: neat piles of baby stuff, all ready to go, as good as done. Only thing different was there was less new stuff and I didn't bother buying newborn diapers. And we even booked a grandma to be at our house starting three days before my due date to watch Julia, just in case.

We have none of that ready for poor baby "Ed." (Reminder: Ed's gender is unknown. The girls call my belly "Ed," and the name has stuck. We pity poor Ed when she comes out a girl!) ANYWAYS, we have very little ready for baby Ed's arrival. Jenny's parents gave us a dresser, which is still sitting dusty in the basement, and we still have to buy the contact paper to go in the drawers. I have no idea where the baby clothes even are (in a tupperware somewhere, I assume...) and I haven't even BOUGHT DIAPERS yet! If Ed were to drop by unannounced tomorrow, we would be up a creek without a paddle. I would have to send Husband to Target with a list and a credit card whilst I birthed our baby. And I guess Julia and Mary would have to go with him, since we haven't made a plan for their care during the delivery, either. Better to have them destroy a toy display at Tar-jhay than witness the "miracle of birth." I should really call our babysitter.

To add more complication to the situation, we have a LOT of things up in the air right now: Match day is when I find out about if and where I will be resuming residency come this summer. That will dictate where we move to come end of May/early June. That also means we have to sell our house, which also should get done soon...but I guess it will have to wait until after "Ed" is born, given that we don't even know IF we're moving until Match day rolls around...which is March 18th. Reminder: Ed is DUE on the 26th, but I will probably get induced earlier given that "Ed" is off the charts in size (was 20 inches long at my 30 week ultrasound...which is quite large.) So, if I get induced, I'll probably be in labor on Match Day. Oh the glory! I'll have to get our laptop fixed soon so I can log onto the internet and find out where we'll be spending the next few years...between pushes, of course.

To make things even more exciting/crazy/ohmygoodLord, we don't know the sex of the baby, we don't know when the heck we're going to be able to have the baptism (Annie, our chosen Godmother, can't get any days off), and we have no idea how we are going to pack and move the contents of our entire house to some undisclosed location hundreds of miles away while taking care of an almost 4-year-old, an almost 2-year-old, and a brand new infant!

I think I might need prozac. Or speed. Or meth...or something. Caffeine can only take this woman so far. Perhaps I should invest in an espresso machine. I doubt I"ll be able to leave the house to hit Starbuck's or Caribou after Ed makes his or her gender and personality known to the world. I'd better start sleeping now. Gotta store it up.