New Videos on You Tube

Brian posted 2 new videos on You Tube. If you want to see them and don't already have access, email us at spratke@blueskymi.com !

:)

New pictures!

Brian posted "3 months" and "Holiday" pictures of Isaac...

...and also yesterday, Brian and I went with some local CMU alumni to the Motor City Bowl at Ford Field. Central played Middle Tennessee State University...and won 31-14! The pictures for this are on our website under "Spratke Adventures".

We had a great time while Gma and Gpa Spratke got to babysit!!!!

Christmas in Flint

Christmas in Flint....we had an untraditional holiday this year. We celebrated Christmas Eve at my brother's house - merging the Freeman's and Compton's for the first time on a holiday....Christmas morning we still had our traditional breakfast with Mom, Dad and the siblings (minus Tim and Missy who were at her parents)...then we came home for Christmas Dinner (lasagna!) with Brian's parents. Tomorrow, B and I have an exciting day of heading to the Motor City Bowl with some other CMU alumni to cheer the Chippewas on! We are very thankful to have B's parents here to watch Isaac so we can go!

Michael, Leanne, Mom and Isaac
Perry, cook extrodinare!
Mmmmm....
El-franko, The baby whisperer
Mom, Isaac and I

New arrivals!

Belated Congrats to Chris and Mindi on the arrival of their little one, and Brian's newest god-daughter - Kayla Nicole! She arrived December 14th!

Also, we owe belated congrats to Brian and Christine on their new little boy - Chase Alexander. He arrived on December 16th! We hope we will get to meet him sometime soon!

Random Isaac Photos

Just a couple random photos from the last month... the top is of Issac in the hat from Rita, our neighbor...the second is on Christmas Day...the third is on the couch at Dad's house...

Faux Christmas....

Faux Christmas was a success this year. For the first time, we had an "alternate" christmas gathering to accomodate everyone's schedules...Everyone was able to squeeze into Mom's house - the kids went wacko with presents, the white elephant presents were a hit, and fun was had by all.
As you can see, Michael is already enjoying his gifts.... :)

He rolled over!!!!

Today, as I was trying to address a few of my EXTREMELY behind Christmas cards...Isaac decided to ROLL OVER! Just like that. So, I put him back on his belly again...and he did it AGAIN! Now, overall, he is being sort of fussy today, so I don't know if that aided in his wiggliness...but still...how cool is that!?

We had a good weekend....after Linda's funeral, we returned home for my company Christmas party at my boss's new house...which was loads of fun. Then, Saturday morning, we returned to Flint for "fake" Christmas with the family. We had a great time and Isaac got some wonderful gifts!

Sad news....

After fighting lung cancer for almost a year, my Dad's girlfriend, Linda passed away yesterday. My heart goes out to her daughters who are now parentless - having lost their father when they were young. Her funeral is Friday, so we are heading to Flint tomorrow.

Isaac and I visited with Linda for the last time just before Thanksgiving. I think I will always remember her holding him and repeating over and over..."such a beautiful baby". I am glad she got to meet him.

I truely hope when people say "they are in a better place" that Linda is. I don't think she was ready to go...and she was still young and had a lot of life ahead of her yet...so a better place...I hope.

Monkey, anyone?

For those of you who know me well enough, you know I call babies "monkies". Alas...here is my little monkey, doing his "monkey thing".

:) 

Three months...

It's hard to believe that this little guy has been in our lives for 3 months. He has more and more of a personality each day! Isaac is approx. 12lbs now and has just moved into his 3-6 month clothes. I was so sad to retire his preemie and newborn clothes...but 0-3 month too!!! He is growing so fast!!!

This past weekend, we put up our christmas tree and did chores around the house. It wasn't too exciting of a weekend, as I have been down with a cold, but it was a good one. One of the best parts was that Brian brought me a bouquet of roses, for absolutely no reason at all! :)

We are starting plans for our 4th semi-annual new years party. In the past, we have had such themes as "mardi gras" and "happy new beer"...however, this year, we will have a slightly more family friendly theme...yet to be decided on, but definitely focused on kids! It remains to be seen whether kids will make more of a mess than the infamous confetti incident of '01...ha ha.

That is all to report for now... :) 

Weekend with Moyle's

We spent the weekend with Jon, Dawn and Sam....fun was had by all. Isaac slept through the night a couple times, got to meet Audrey (aka, "Grandma B" and had his first experience in a restaurant! 

Visit with Ethan!

Tuesday we went to visit Heather and Andy's new arrival Ethan. He is so tiny and sweet - hard to imagine Isaac was ever that small...or smaller! 

Welcome Ethan...

As of 12:37am this morning, our friends, Heather and Andy are the proud parents of Isaac's future softball buddy, Ethan. He was 7lbs, 1oz and 19 3/4" long (if I remember correctly). Mom and baby are doing well. Congrats!

Isaac Smiles!

Here is Isaac at 11 weeks - smiling and cooing! 

Will at Thanksgiving...

Will, 14 months.

I just love this picture! 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We spent Thanksgiving in Flint with our families this year. It was so nice to see everyone. We spent the holiday at Mom's house drinking cosmo's, cooking turkey and playing with the wee tykes- Will and Isaac. Will is all over the place and becoming more of a little boy each day! I will download the pictures and try to get them posted by the end of the week!

As I write this, Isaac is sitting next to me in his boppy, chatting up a storm with his red crab rattle. Yes, he now smiles and chats like you would not believe. He is 11 weeks old today and it is amazing how much he is getting interested in the world around him. He notices the color red a lot (funny, because that is my favorite color!), laughs, gruns, coos and smiles.

As of today, he is 11lbs, 10oz. Can you believe it!? He is still gaining about an ounce a day. At this rate, he will be a giant!!!...or at least a really fat little monkey. hee hee.

I have started back to work a little...yes...a little - only about 8-10 hours a week for now. In December I will start to do slightly more, ramping up to part time. In January, I will return to the office 2 days a week, while Isaac goes off to a place where he will break some other women's hearts...(I am convincing myself that is what is going on, not day care).

Also, Congrats to Barb and Paul - a cyber friend from CMU and her husband, who live in the Flint area, who just had their twins this weekend!!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving!

Pictures From Christine's Shower

Here are some pictures from Christine's baby shower on Oct 7th.You can see how tiny he was at the time! Janet (as shown below) was kind enough to email them to me!

New Pictures!

As I write this - Brian is putting up more pictures on our webpage!! Check it out!

Weeks 7-9 - we had Halloween, a visit from "aunts" Courtney and Kathy, dinner with friends - after which we got perhaps our last "prego" photo of Mindi and Heather, and of course, Isaac being a rock star in his NIN onsie from Kev and Mon.

Baptism - St. Matthew Church, Flint MI, Nov 11th, 2006. Father Frederick Taggart officiating. Godparents Michael Freeman and Molly Proctor. Afterwords, we returned to Mom's where Perry made an awesome meal! Everything went perfectly!

Last week, Isaac had his 2 month wellness check. He was 10lbs 8oz, 21" inches long! Meaning, now, he is over 11lbs! So hard to believe that he has gained more weight in 9.5 weeks than he weighed when he was born!

This weekend, we stayed home. We were supposed to go to my brother's house so Brian could hunt, but they caught a nasty bug. We stayed in and watched the UM vs. OSU game with friends.

This week is Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday!!!! Since I am off work, I will be heading to Flint early to get things ready, and B will come when he gets out. It will be so much fun to see Will and Isaac have their first holiday together!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Isaac's Baptism!

Isaac Joseph was baptized at St. Matthew Catholic Church on Saturday, November 11, 2006.
His godparents are Michael Freeman and Molly Jones. We had a wonderful party after with friends and family! :) More pictures to be posted soon!

Visit with Courtney!

Courtney came to visit us on Thursday! She brought us the soon to be infamous christmas carol screetching monkey. :) Ha ha.

Isaac's First Halloween

Here are pictures from Isaac's first Halloween!

Weeks 4-6...

Here is a picture of Isaac in a onsie from Monica. We thought it was pretty funny (ok, at least Monica and I did!)

Sometime today, we will have pictures from weeks 4-6 on our webpage...

www.blueskymi.com

Isaac is doing very well. We have survived the 6 week growth spurt - time of constant feedings and a lot of "mommy, hold me!" time. Isaac is getting very close to 9lbs! His personality becomes more and more noticable every day - and I can't believe that time is flying like it is! Hard to believe, on Election Day - I will turn 31, and he will be 8 weeks old! WOW!

Aside from that...Brian has been working a TON lately...poor guy! and was greatly disappointed by the outcome of the World Series. At least he got to attend the one game that they won! Myself, I have just been putzing around, visiting with friends, helping my buddies at work a little bit, and enjoying experimenting with new crock pot receipes.

For those of you who are interested in Isaac's baptism, it will be November 11th, 4:30 mass at St. Matthew's. We will have a little informal get together at Mom's house afterwords if you are interested in meeting Isaac!

If you do decide to come and are contemplating a gift, Isaac has been blessed with many, many gifts over the past week - and we would love if you would make a donation to the church, or a local charity in his name. Afterall, the season of giving is just around the corner... :)

Take care, and thanks for stopping in to see our progress!

A pic from week 5....

Just because it's cute. 

Visits with friends....

The last few weeks have been filled with more visitors! The picture is us with Laura and with her kids Alex, Sarah (baby) and Emily.

The following week, Mike & Renee visited with their girls. Followed up by a weekend visit from Dawn and Samantha, while our husbands were at the World Series!

Life has been busy!

Right now, we are having a visit with Grandma Freeman. Isaac is now over 8.5lbs - almost double his birth weight! He has started working on his 2 month milestones, such as turning his head towards voices and tracking things with his eyes. He is very much a sleepyhead though - his most awake time of day is when Daddy gets home from work!

It's 27.7 degrees outside, and their is frost on the ground. But, the sun is out, so it should be a pretty fall day! 

Dumb Luck

Well I had another stoke of dumb luck today. On a whim I went onto ticketmaster and checked if tickets were available. To my amazement I was able to get 4 more tickets to game 1! I had promised my friends Jon & Rob that if I didn't go to one of the games I'd sell them my tickets. They got 2. And Becky's cousin Rob & Chris are going to take the other 2 tickets.

3 days until the World Series!!!!!!

World Series

Can you believe it? The Detroit Tigers are going to the world series. And so are the Spratke's. I was able to score 4 tickets to the Series. 2 for Game 1, and 2 for Game 2. Don't ask me how I managed to get lucky enough to get 2, let alone 4.

Lazy Saturday

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with the Galloway's. They were kind enough to invite us over for dinner. We also stayed and watched the Tiger game and X-Men 3. Today we have the Cretors coming for a visit, I'm sure there will be a few memorable moments from their visit.

Here is a picture of Isaac taking a nap with his blocks.

New pics!

There are new pics on our website of Isaac! Check them out!

www.blueskymi.com

:)

Week 4 - Holding head up!

Isaac is doing "tummy time" next to me right now....and I am just amazed that I am sitting here, watching him make all these little coo-ey noises and grunts, and he is holding his head up, and switching it from side to side.....WOW!

Week 3....

Here is Isaac, during "Tummy Time" on Friday.


Here are my guys. Brian and his son....watching a recap of the Tiger's game together :)

It's been a busy end to a busy week!

Yesterday, we drove up to Mt.P/Alma. I attended our friend Christine's baby shower - meanwhile Brian got to binge on some bw3 wings. We watched the Tiger game with our friend's Mike and Stacey, and his parents, the infamous Mr and Mrs Wise. Brian was elated that they won. :)

Today we are hanging about...doing some household chores...waiting for a visit from Grandma!

Due date visitors!

So, the weekend of Isaac's actual due date - we had lots of visitors!

Kev and Mon came to visit...and they brought us the coolest "custom made" onsies. Isaac is now the coolest kid on the block with his own NIN, Metallica, Red Wings and "I can't read" onsies. Definitely a cool kid.

Then, the next day, Uncle Tim, Aunt Missy and cousin Will (who is 51 weeks to the DAY older) came down to visit. The weather was awesome, so we went for a great walk, and ate some very yummy "take n' bake" pizza. I can't believe how BIG Will has gotten! Just think, in a few years, he and Isaac will be best buds!

It's a good week....

Not much to report this week...except I started taking some Yoga classes - it felt so good to be physically active again, and, the class was very relaxing. I can't wait to go again next week!

Currently, I am able to get back into my old clothes, but unfortunately, just because I can button my pants, doesn't mean I am comfortable in them. I am looking forward to getting active so I can loose these last couple pounds. I know, I know, it's supposed to take a while, but I am impatient!

Last night, I attended a baby shower for our friend Heather. Just before the shower, the hostess said "I have a baby scale, do you want to weigh Isaac?" - um...OF COURSE! So we weighed him, and he is at 6.5lbs! HOLY COW - can you believe it? He is growing so fast!

Now, we prepare for another day of visitors, and an exciting weekend adventure to another baby shower....and maybe, if we are lucky, a visit from Grandma on Sunday!

2 Weeks, 2 days!

Well, some people were harassing me for pictures of the nursery. Granted, I still haven't gotten anything up on the walls - there just hasn't been time! But here it is...





...and here is Brian and his boyz. :)

Well, another week is almost over, and Isaac is still growing like a weed! He has the cutest double chin! He will be over 6lbs before we know it!