The Sperle Reunion

It seems like we always seem to miss the weekend of the annual Sperle Family Reunion held at Greg's house in Park Rapids, MN. Well, this year I took action and requested that the reunion be held at a time that we could actually attend. And what do you know? My wish was granted. We had such a blast playing in the water, hanging with the family playing games, singing songs, doing crafts and making icecream and eating 3 pounds of gummy bears! Eli loved having so many cousins around that he could chase and boss around and bother. I'm surprised that I don't have any pictures of him with Ashley as he called out her name all weekend "Ashee" and wanted to be everywhere that she was. It was pretty cute, but I'm pretty sure that Ashley found it pretty annoying.
Sadie also loved all of the attention that she got from cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. In fact, she loved it so much that she didn't want to go to sleep! Here she is being spoiled by Emily.


Eli and Gabe share a love of cars. Here they are trying to share the cars.


Aunt Paula had a special craft planned: Hats!! All of the kids personalized their own visor. Here's the girls looking pretty in their fancy hats. (Don't tell Mary that her daughters are posted all over the internet in their bikinis.)


Who has the patience to play Ring-Around-The-Rosie 100 times? Cousins. Ahhh, Eli loved every minute.


And they all fall down!

Pictures From Uncle Darren's Wedding

Uncle Darren's wedding was beautiful. The kids are so excited to have a new aunt. Talia is beautiful and sweet and we are so excited to have a new Zeman. We celebrated the joyous occasion by dancing into the wee hours of the night. (Seriously, Eli is quite the dancer. Now I know what they mean when they say "cut a rug.") We all survived sleeping in the same hotel room and with each of us having a cold. Sadie was a little cranky because of the cold and fever keeping her up most of the night before the wedding and I felt like she wasn't representing herself very well as she's usually so content and happy. Here's a few:


Eli refused to button his shirt all the way up so he could wear the tie that went with his outfit.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Elton John

Fun In the Sun

Because I Can't Just Post About Sadie's Fingers This Week

A little brother and sister time.

P.S. Only 10 more days until our trip to North Dakota.

As Promised, Sadie's Fingers

Sadie must be double-jointed or something. I notice quite often that Sadie has an unnatural spread to her fingers. I often try to replicate her finger spacing with my own fingers and it involves me straining with all my might, then using my other hand to help move my fingers into the same positions that she does naturally. Maybe she's Mork or a fan of Star Trek. Either way, it is an unusual talent. Here are some close-ups of her fingers from some random pictures I took of her:

Holding Hands

Sadie has grown out of her baby carrier so we did some rearranging of carseats. Eli got a big-boy booster seat and Sadie moved into Eli's convertible carseat. In order to fit both of them into the car with one rear-facing we had to put them next to each other. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon, but for now they are both enjoying being so close to each other. I'm sure Sadie will get a foot in her mouth soon. But, on their first car ride in their new seats, this is what I caught them doing:

Ahhhhhhhh... So sweet!

Summer Is Almost Here: Watermelon and Swings!!

Ahhh, summer... Long, lazy days filled with nothing to do but play! Eli has been enjoying his first watermelon of the season. Sadie's been enjoying the swing. I posted lots because she was being so silly. Her face was so animated. Plus, it shows the phase she's in: the I-grab-everything-and-usually-put-it-in-my-mouth phase. I was trying to get a good picture of her teeth (yes, teeth. She now has two!) but her mouth wasn't cooperating.

Notice how she spreads her fingers, I'm going to post just about that one of these days.

TRUCKS!!!!

Saturday was Touch-A-Truck day at a local park. Boy, was Eli excited. I had told him that we were going to see trucks in the morning and he asked about it saying "Truck? Truck?" (Actually, Eli cannot say truck. He usually calls them an expletive used to refer to roosters.) constantly until we got to the park to see them. He not only touched every truck, but he got to "drive" every truck. Each truck was just as exciting as the last and each truck got a giant "WOW!" It was a very good day for an almost 2 year old boy.

Focused on the road.


The tractor.


The army truck. (Actually, this was taken the next day at a blood drive for soldiers.)


The carrier.


The dump truck.


In front of the fire truck.


The semi.

What's Eli Eating?

Chicken drumstick.


Asparagus.


Peanutbutter and jelly.


Gyro (with a rubberband holding it together).

Sleeping Issues

It's no secret, Sadie is an absolutely horrible napper. (I refuse to write about her nighttime sleep as I'll probably jinx myself.) I truly think she's a cat. She usually naps for about 20 minutes, if I'm lucky it'll be 30 and wakes up ready to go only to want to nap again an hour later! We currently have a very elaborate napping routine. First, I rock Sadie to sleep and put her down, she sleeps 15-20 minutes. Then, she coos and plays for 5-45 minutes. Followed by crying for 1-30 minutes. Then maybe sleeping for another 15-20 minutes. Sometimes, she's awake for an hour, so then I'll just go and get her. Today, this is what I caught her doing instead of taking a nap:

Sadie's Getting A Little Red

I think Sadie's hair is getting a little red to it, just like Eli's. In fact, Sadie's hair is doing exactly what Eli's hair was doing at this age: getting lighter and lighter and lighter. She doesn't have as much as he did at 6 months, but her hair seems to be filling in quickly.

In other news, Sadie got her first tooth last week. It was a very trying week and it seems to be continuing this week as the tooth next to it seems to be wanting to pop up too. And we're a long, long way from the 20 she's going to end up with! But, when you look into these big, brown eyes, all is forgiven.


Kind of starting to scoot. Actually, she likes to roll from place to place.


My little hippie.

Why I Love Craigslist

For those of you who don't know, Craigslist has on-line classifieds listed by city and state and further broken down into categories and sub-categories. I frequent the "for-sale baby + kids" section everyday and my children's wardrobe, toy box, and our storage unit is all the better because of it. Recently, there was an ad posted for a 6 month old baby needed for a budding photographer to take pictures of. I volunteered Sadie and her brother, of course. It turned out to be a great deal. The photographer spent over two hours with us, taking hundreds of pictures for free and gave me the rights to them so I can post them all over the internet and not worry about copyright infringements!! Here are some of my favorites:

Another Trip to Hocking Hills

How could we not enjoy the beautiful spring weather and spend the day at Old Man's Cave? We had a great time exploring the gorge and the waterfalls. Our pace is a lot slower than it used to be, but much more enjoyable especially when Eli shouts "Wow!" at every turn.

Sadie in the sling.


Eli in the carrier. We need to get one of these for Sadie.


Eli enjoying his favorite pasttime: throwing things in the water and saying "Splash!".


Peek! Just waking up from a nap in the cool of the shade with dad.