The Parachute

Auntie Mia sent Sadie this parachute for her birthday. (Thanks Auntie Mia, we all love it!) It turns out that it IS a very good indoor toy. I had my doubts because the parachute is 10ft. in diameter and our living room is not 10 feet across. But, it turns out that you can jerry-rig it so it makes a pretty good fort.Peek-a-boo, I see Sadie.We put balls on the top of the parachute and kicked them from underneath. Good times at the Sperle household. Eli discovered that the parachute makes an excellent car ramp. The cars go super fast over the slick material.

Conversations with Sadie

A conversation with Sadie after finding something red, probably clay (thank you Robert and Michelle!) ground into the carpet.

Me: Now, what is this on the carpet?
Sadie: Ummm... Cat poop.
M: Cat poop?
S: uh-huh, cat poop.
M: But, we don't have a cat.
S: It's my poop.
M: You have red poop?
S: Yes.
M: Nooooo. What color is your poop?
S: Blue!

Eli the Photographer

Eli took a couple of pictures of me and Sadie the other night before the kids went to bed. First he took this one:

Then he took another one saying, "This time, I want to see more teeth."

OSU Hockey

Tonight we took the kids to see an OSU hockey game. We walked (of course) to the Schott, just a block from our house. The kids were enthralled. They enjoyed the band, the zamboni, the popcorn, the cheerleaders, the scoreboard and the hockey game wasn't so bad either. Yes, monkey came too!So it seems that hockey in Ohio isn't as big as hockey is in say Canada or Grand Forks, ND. I just took this picture so you can see the sparse attendance. This would never ever happen at a UND hockey game, not even if it was in the middle of a blizzard and it was 50 below zero. Plus, OSU does not have turkey bowling... bummer!

Glasses in the Bathtub

Grandma sent these old glasses to the kids to wear for dress-up. I can't get the lenses out so tonight they were walking around saying "This looks fuzzy. This looks fuzzy. This looks fuzzy." Doesn't this mess up your eyes or is that an old wives tale?

Sonic

**I can't believe I'm posting pictures about Sonic, but if you want a post a day for all of November, then you're going to have to put up with it.
It was 72 degrees in Columbus today. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain all day and Saturday the high is 42. To celebrate the end of our Indian Summer, we rode our bikes to the Sonic that just opened up about 1/2 mile from our house. For those of you who don't know what Sonic is, picture a modern A&W, a '60s-esque drive-in, or a Scotty's (that's for the Sperles, I've never actually been to Scotty's, but apparently it's pretty great). They serve the usual fast food with a large selection of ice cream treats with seating outside or you can pull up and eat in your car. They even had balloons:

Delivered by a roller-skating carhop:This guy was actually pretty good on his roller skates. Eli kept saying, "that guy goes really fast" because all of the other carhops were pretty wobbly on their wheels!

Because There Are Election Results To Watch...

... all you get is one lousy picture! A fuel effecient jeep? Sure, it runs on man power!

Storybook Park

We stopped by Storybook Park (OK. I'm not exactly sure what this park is called so I'm just going to call it Storybook Park for now) on our way to the Obama rally. This is actually a neat little statue park where you walk around and each mythical animal statue tells you part of the story. At the end of the story, you reach through the fountain and with all of your courage pull the lions tail. In the summer the fountain is running and the water is running through it. After all, that is sort of an integral part of the story. But, whatever. It was fall. It was seventy degrees. The kids just had fun climbing on mythical animals.

I'm not going to promise a NaBloPoMo, like last year. But, I'll give it a shot.

On a complete side note: don't forget to vote tomorrow, unless you're voting for McCain.

Obama Rally

Barack Obama came through Columbus today with 2 days to go until the election. We all went down to the State Capitol to see him. (And by "we all" I mean about 60,000 of our closest friends.) We rode bike and parked down by the river, and then walked through half of downtown trying to find the end of the line. You can kind of see in this picture how the line wound back and forth on our way to the rally. It took over an hour, but we were constantly moving--and eating PB & J sandwiches--so the kids did great.


By the time we got there, Sadie was tuckered out and could take no more. (She eventually woke up and returned to her usual Obamaniac self, cheering for Barack with the rest of the crowd.)

Eli took it all in as Michelle and Barack took the stage. He was probably more interested by the police guys standing on the roof of the Capitol across the street.

We never really could see Barack live and in person, but the big screen video was very helpful. And maybe someday Eli and Sadie can wow their grandkids by showing them pictures of when they went to see Obama. (I'm feeling quite confident that their grandkids will at least know the name President Obama.)

Halloween

This year, the kids were pretty much Halloweened out before Halloween even got here. There were so many parties; we had the playgroup Halloween party on Sunday, Buckeye Village Halloween Party on Wednesday, school Halloween party and parade on Thursday (I forgot my camera, darn it) and yesterday they finally got to the actual day of Halloween.
Every year Buckeye Village hosts a Halloween Party that has crafts, lots of candy and other treats, plus police officers, Brutus Buckeye and McGruff the Crime Dog. Here are some pictures from that night.
Funny how sometimes they can move so slow and other times you can hardly keep up.Here they are at the community center getting lots and lots and lots of candy from their police officer friend:Sadie loved her costume so much that she wore it every day this week. She didn't even want to take it off to sleep. Our own little Sleeping Beauty.The official trick-or-treat night finally arrived. We went around Buckeye Village with Sofia and Dario. The kids got so much Halloween candy for only going to a few houses. Whatever happened to getting one piece of candy at each house? They were getting handfuls! Here's Eli with our neighbor Noory.Noory, vamire Sofia and Sadie:

Enjoying the loot at the end of the night:

Happy Birthday, Sadie!!!!

Can it be true? Is Sadie 2 already!?! The past two years have gone by in a blur and now Sadie is a little girl. A little girl with a big smile, a loud scream, and an independent streak. If you haven't had the chance to hang out with Sadie lately, you really should. She's such a blast. I guarantee she will make you laugh. Here's to my sweet little Sadie!

We started the day out early, a little too early for my taste, but when the birthday girl wakes up, we all get up; there's too much excitement in the air. She opened presents first thing because that's what little girls want to do after they wake up, come down the stairs and see presents!

The first present she opened was from Dennis and me. We got her a tea set. I was worried that she wasn't going to like the tea set because I really really liked the tea set. (Much like her crown. I really really like her birthday crown. Sadie does not enjoy her crown as much as I do, but she did wear it for a little while, at least.) I made her little sugar cubes complete with sparkly glitter and little felt tea bags that really smell like tea because I figured if I was going to spend hours drinking tea, I wanted to at least have some tea and sugar!The good thing is that she really liked the tea set. She made tea for Monkey and me all day long. She even took a nap with her teapot and some sugar cubes.
Eli got Sadie this horse stable and horses. Mostly, he picked it out because it's what he wanted, but Sadie loves horses too, so we agreed that it would be a good gift. Eli played with it all day. It turns out that Sadie likes tea more than horses. Maybe she can serve her horses some tea?!?
Then we had birthday pancakes. Birthday pancakes are special not only because you get candles and we sing "Happy Birthday" but because the pancakes contain chocolate chips.Then Sadie had a long day of waiting. We took Eli to school, went to music class, got some groceries, went to the toy store, made a few returns, picked up Eli from school, went to lunch at a friend's house, took a nap, decorated the house, got into a pretty dress and then waited and waited and waited some more for 5:30 to roll around so Sadie could have her birthday party.

Poor second child, gets a small, un-themed birthday party with a few friends, not to mention, ahem, a store-bought cake. But, I enjoyed Sadie's party more than I've enjoyed any party I've ever thrown because I got to enjoy Sadie, her friends and their parents and because it was low key, it was also low stress. Yessssssss!!!!!!

I don't think Sadie minded too much:Sadie and her friends: Sofia, Eli, the birthday girl, Dario, and Satya. We ate pizza with lots of olives, had some cake, then ate a whole bunch of those orange puffy snack things that I never buy for them, but that they love so much. Sadie's so much neater at eating now. Remember last year??
And then we opened presents, again...
It's another horse, a horse that comes in it's own bag and and it's own comb, which Sadie was very very excited about. And she got a cute dress with a butterfly necklace.

It was a great day for a two-year old. Happy Birthday, Sadie!

Halloween Party

We hosted our annual Halloween Party at the Buckeye Village Community Center for Eli's and Sadie's playgroup friends and their families. There was too much food, lots of cute kids, and a lot of three year old craziness. Dennis went as Waldo of "Where's Waldo" fame, I was a farmer, Sadie is a Princess, and Eli is her Knight in Shining Armor.Here's a better look at Waldo, er, Dennis. He makes a very believable Waldo.

Of course, Monkey came.Yes, there was even a pinata. Look at the form Eli has. He's pretty good.
The rest of the party got a little crazy. Eli and Jackson doing a little wrestling. I'd like to point out that Jackson is double Eli's size and Eli held his own. I think Eli's got a little wrestling blood in him.

More wrestling.

As the night wore on, the sugar high began to show. Jackson, Eli and Jake showing off their bellies.

A little belly bump.

Even Sadie had to get a little bit of the belly showing action.Now, close your eyes really tight and then picture this same party 20 years down the road. I think we're going to be in BIG trouble.

Another Grandparent Good-Bye

Virginia Urbatsch, my mom's mom, my grandma, and Eli and Sadie's great-grandma passed away on Monday, October 20. It is bittersweet as we know that she was ready, but it doesn't make saying good-bye any easier. It's just nice to know that she and grandpa are together once again. They're probably arguing, but they're loving every minute of it. Grandma met both of the kids when we were home in September, but she didn't want to have her picture taken, so here she is with Eli when he was 4 months old. I have fond memories of Grandma. She loved staying up late watching old tv shows and she's the one who introduced me to Mary Tyler Moore. She was a great story teller and made everyone laugh. She's going to be missed by her 9 kids, their spouses, 16 grandkids and 9 great-grandkids.

The Circleville Pumpkin Show

This is our 4th year living in Columbus and every year we've said that we should really go to the Pumpkin Show. Since this is our last year in Ohio, we decided that if we're going to go, it's now or never. We loaded up the kids after Dennis got home from work on Thursday and headed south to Circleville to the 102nd annual Pumpkin Show. And there were a lot of pumpkins. Big ones, little ones, pumpkins in the shape of faces, pumpkins with weird things growing on them, pumpkins in all sorts of colors... the list goes on and on and I'd love to show you pictures of all of them, but like most important events, the camera battery decided to die after three photos. At least you get to see the biggest pumpkin and the pumpkin tree.
Here, Eli and Sadie are eating corn, not pumpkin. It's not even pumpkin flavored corn. It's just corn. Eli didn't even eat his corn; he just licked off the butter and salt. We did have pumpkin donuts and pumpkin cheesecake though. We were tempted by the pumpkin brownies and the pumpkin ice cream. The pumpkin burger didn't sound too appetizing though. There were more food vendors than the Ohio State Fair. I was amazed by it all. Blocks and blocks and blocks of food vendors selling everything pumpkin.
There were rides and games and art booths and singers and dancers and pumpkin artwork. But, the highlight was the parade. The Pumpkin Show has seven different parades in the five days that the pumpkin show is held. We went to the "Parade of Bands" where all of the local HS marching bands come to play and march. I think it was the best parade I've ever been too. (Sorry Dad. It even beat the Shriner's parade.) The kids had a blast! Sadie waved at every Princess, cheered with every cheerleader and danced with every band. Two kids fell asleep on the way home and one kid even slept in 'til 7:30. Yea for pumpkins!