Nathaniel and Sarah

Almost a month

2009-04-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

It is so hard to believe that Ella will be a month old tomorrow. The time goes so fast! She is growing so much, I just wish she could stay little forever. Although the sleeping thing would have to improve. She is doing better at sleeping, she sleeps about 4 hours and then 2 and then 1, almost every night. I love the first 4 but the 2 and 1 gets old.
Last week we got to use our stroller for the first time. She slept the entire time, what a surprise. Looks like nice weather this week so we will get to go out again.

I just can't take enough pictures of her.

Look at me I learned to smile yesterday. It was the cutest thing. At first I thought maybe it was just a fluke, but then she did it a couple of times. Nathaniel hasn't seen it in person, but I am so glad I got this picture :)

One other thing that she has learned is how to projectile poop. Last week I was changing her diaper on the couch and as I am cleaning her she explodes and shoots poo all over me and the couch. Then at 6 this morning she did the same thing on the changing table, but about 10 times worse. It was all over the changing pad the table and even the carpet. I bet it shot 3 feet, no exaggeration we will probably have the stains in the carpet. So if anyone has any tips as to how to get it out let me know. Oh the joys of motherhood.

Hopefully this weekend we can figure out the video camera and actually get some video posted for all to see, so check for that.

More Ellla

2009-04-08T16:05:00.001-07:00

Here are some more pictures of Ella since we have been home. We are all doing well. We are now on our own without family, but a big thanks to both of our mom's for coming and helping out. First day home sitting in the sun to get rid of my jondice.

Snuggling with my Daddy

Wow! My eyes are actually open!

How cute am I?

My cute Easter Dress

IT"S AN ELLA!

2009-03-23T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a nice long post written up that detailed the whole delivery process, but this crappy blog software wont let me undo an accidental delete of the text, so every one gets the Readers Digest version :P .

This morning (3/23/09) Ella Grace Spronk was born. She weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces and was 21 inches long. As for the delivery process itself, we went in Sunday morning at 7:30 am to be induced. Every thing was going well, but slowly. Finally around 9 pm they started to let her push. After 2.5 hours of pushing they tried to manuver Ella through the pelvis by using the vacuum. That didnt work, so the only option left was C-section. It wasnt a long process. Just over 2 hours from when we left our room till we returned. Both Sarah and Ella are doing great. Sarah is just tired and a bit sore. Sarah's mom is in town this week to help, which is really nice now that Sarah wont be able to do as much as she would like. I can't wait till I can take my two cuties home.

Nate

2008-11-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

We had our first ultrasound today and found out we are having a girl. We are very very excited. I know it has been a while since I have updated this thing so I hope there are a few people that still check this. I appologize for the lack of updating, for those of you who don't know my first few months of pregancy were not pleasant. I was so so so very sick and threw up at least 4 times a day until I was admitted for dehydration and got and IV. I then got put on some strong medication to take care of it. I am doing much better know and am looking forward to the rest of pregancy hopefully feeling well.

If you look at the ultrasound pics, the top one is the face and arm, the second one is a profile of the face and the last is a foot. We had a hard time seeing the facial features because she was all curled up with her face at her knees. It was amaizing to see her though, her heart beating and her moving all around. We can't wait until March 25th!!

2008-07-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

So I realize that I am so bad at keeping this thing updated, here is a little bit about our 4th of July weekend. Nathaniel and I both wanted to get away and do something. I suggested a trip to the outlet mall about an hour away and he came up with St Louis. I have been bugging him to go there so we decided at 9:30 to go and we were out the door by 11. We had such a great time!

First we went to the arch. Very Very cool. But you do have to wait for quite awhile to be about to go up the tram to the top.

It was a little squishy in the little tram. It takes about 4 min to get up 640 ft.

The cardinals stadium from the top of the arch

A view from the top looking down at all the people waiting for the fireworks.

A view of the Mississippi River

Fireworks under the arch, Very COOL! and they have very big display. But you have to suffer the consequences of terrible traffic. We sat in the parking garage for about an hour trying to get out and then another 30 min or so to finally get on the interstate and get moving. UGGH

The next day we went to the Bush plant to see how beer was made. It is very cool to see all the buildings and the tour is completely free.

One of these tanks holds enough beer that if you drank a 6 pack a day it would take you 130 years to drink all of it.

The bottling plant, which unfortunately was being cleaned when we walked through. We did get to see the can line.

Free beer at the end of each tour, well Nathaniel had some and I had sprite.

That same day we went to the St Louis Zoo, not as cool as Omaha, but free (besides parking)

You could get so close to the penguins. If we really wanted to we could have reached out and touched them. We were getting wet from them jumping into the water.

Then on Sunday we went to the botanical garden. They had absolutely gorgeous lilies in bloom.

And then there were all kinds of strange statues. This is a picture of an old couple walking a spider. (you cant see the spider in the picture) The one below, you can only imagine. I guess I don't get art.
Needless to say we had a great weekend and would recommend St Louis to anyone.

More pictures

2008-06-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Introducing LEO! Yes everyone we have a cat. It was a deal I (Sarah) made before we got married. He is cute some of the time, but since I am home more than Nathaniel is he wants attention from me. This usually means scratching at me and trying to eat my lunch. Nathaniel is very thrilled to have a cat, wish I could say the same. Sometimes he can sit very nicely and just purr, but then he wants to play and the claws come out. I am hoping my furniture is fine until we can get him declawed.

Nathaniel and I living through the flood. We are now able to take showers every other day, and I-380 and I-80 are all open again. Unfortunately that means that there is even more traffic on the roads. Our 10-15 commute to work has become a 45 min commute in stop and go traffic. We are hanging in their waiting for more bridges to open and for people to stop slowing down to look at the damage. Luckily most of the water is back in the banks so there aren't people stopping to take pictures. We are also down to only seeing updates on the regular news times instead of 24 hour coverage.

Just amazing how high the water got.

That Dairy Queen was one of the most popular buildings to show on the news. When the water was at it's highest it was up to the top of the awning.

There are supposed to be bridges in this picture, you can kind of see the light poles sticking out.

Where ground and railroad tracks used to be

Behind this railroad bridge is a bunch of boat houses that floated away and are dammed up behind

The Quaker Oats plant, we won't be smelling Lucky Charms for a while.

It really is hard to imagine from pictures how much water there really was. It was jaw dropping to see it in person.

Well that's all for tonight. I will soon put on some pictures of the house with furniture in it, but I need to get some cleaning done first.

Surviving the flood of 2008

2008-06-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

We have had quite the experience here in east Iowa. Most of it started Thursday, I tried to get to school to tutor, and got one block in 5 min. I decided it wasn't worth it and turned around and came home. Out main street to the interstate is especially bad because it is the first open one past downtown where all the flooding is. So everyone on the south side of town takes that exit now, including police, fire men, and national guard. So anyway I came back home and Nathaniel decided to stay home from work until the road cleared a little, and then we lost power. So we were without power for about 3 hours in the morning. We played a lot of hand and foot (a card game for those who have never played). We got power back around noon, so we quick made some lunch and watched all the news coverage to see what was going on, and it was crazy to see downtown and all the houses just covered in water. There were refrigerators and couches floating down the "street". Needless to say we did not get out on Thurs. We again l0st power in the afternoon for a couple more hours. By then we were getting worried about the food in our refrigerator, but so glad that we had none of the problems others were facing. Then Thurs. night we are told that we only have 25% water capacity for Cedar Rapids and that we are to only use the water for drinking only. So we had the motto in our house "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." We also got about 5 1/2 in. of rain that evening. It was amazing how hard the rain was coming down.

Sorry this picture is blurry but I was getting soaking wet, it is the water spewing out of our rain gutter.

Friday Nathaniel went to work at 6:30 to beat the traffic and I was home watching the news, still without using water. That night I wanted to go travel across the 380 bridge, the only bridge open in the town by this point. So we get on our road heading for the interstate and we get about a mile in an hour. By that time we weren't going to make it by the time it was dark so we turned around and went home.

So Saturday we went in the morning and this is what I saw.

Sorry, I will post more pictures later, the website is not downloading my pictures. So check in later for more pictures of the flood and the kitty.

So by Saturday night I was really wanting a shower. So we had a nice friend from church, who was not on a water restriction, lent us his shower. It was the best shower.

So that leads us to today. We went to church, without a minister, because he is in SD, so we had an elder read a sermon. We had a lot of singing and some testimonies from people, so it was an hour and a half church service plus a half hour after to explain how we as a church will be involved with all the clean up.

On our way home from church we notice even more devastation. On of the towers near the railroad tracks was cracking from the foundation shifting and corn was all over. It will be a long time before Cedar Rapids is the same.

But on the up side we are up to 50% water so we can shower and wash dishes every other day. YAYAYA! Really we are only supposed to use water on odd days since our house number is odd. That there was of trying to control the water. I don't care at this point. My kitchen is now clean again.

Flood

2008-06-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

To anyone who is checking this, just a quick note that Nathaniel and I are fine. Our house is quite a ways from the flooding. We have been loosing power and it would take us a long time to drive any where, but we are thankful our new house doesn't even have any water in a the basement. We will post some pictures of our house and of the flood at a later date. Oh and our new kitty. Yes, we got a kitty.

First Weekend at House

2008-05-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Busy painting with Sarah's Mom in the living room.
Our attempt at home improvment. After partially dismantling the huge mantle we then reassmebled it into a more normal size and painted it black.
Nathaniel busy doing some yard work.
Nathaniel's first use of the lawn mower. The new lawn mower.
Relaxing making some lunch.

The new office all painted and beautiful, after painting the wall 3 times thanks to the man at lowes who mixed our second batch wrong. At 9:30 in the evening we put the new can of brown on the wall thinking it was the same and it dries darker, leaving a fun streaking affect. You think we would have been smarter since we had just opened a can of blue that was supposed to be the same and it wasn't. But after painting for 12 hours you just want to be done.

The kitchen all painted a lovely shade of blue. All the applinances are in, our new fridge is so great!

Our finished living room wall and our improved fireplace!Our bedroom, more blue and more brown, can you tell what colors I like?

We are very happy to be moving in, we should have more pictues as we move in more stuff and get more painted.

2008-04-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Our New HOUSE!

The back of the house

The kitchen

The kitchen with one of the new appliances, they are all going to be black

View of the dining room/living room from the kitchen

Living room

Bounus room which we are going to use as an office

View of the langing upstairs, door on the left is master bedroom, door on the right is a bathroom

Our masterbedroom, with 2 closets that you can't see!

Master bathroom vanity

Our basement

There are an additional 3 bedrooms and 1/2 bath that are hard to take pictures of.

We get the keys on May 15, we can't wait. We are so excited to paint and put our touches in.