My First Memory Verse

So recently we were given Steve Green's "Hide Em In Your Heart" album, and we were thrilled. Because Addie is such a verbal kid and also loves music, we were glad to get this CD, which is full of catchy little tunes with words straight from scripture.

And there is one song in particular we sing A LOT.
See, Addie is a whiner. I know I'm her mom and not supposed to say things like that, but folks, it's true. That is the issue we talk most about, discipline most for, and some days I feel like that's all I talk about with her all day! BUT We are learning Philippians 2:14, which says "Do all things without complaining and arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God..."

She is now singing the song on her own, and identifying situations that it applies to (sometimes). She was watching a video the other day in which two cartoon ducks were quacking angrily at each other, and I heard her say "Oh no! Arguing!"
I was so proud.

So here it is! Addie reciting Philippians 2:14

Cute Saying of the Week

Last night, after Greg and I had finished our dinner and we were still waiting for Addie to finish, the busy day finally caught up with me and I went to lay down on the couch. Greg stayed in the kitchen with Addie and asked if I'd like a cup of tea (yes, he IS the best). Addie then proceeded to give a running commentary on everything Greg was doing. "Daddy make Mommy tea," "Daddy stir," "Daddy put in honey." Greg finished the tea and was in the process of walking it over to the couch when we heard a squeeky little voice say,
"Here you go, Love."

Evidently, Greg says that regularly, since Addie knew that was what he was about to say (and it WAS exactly what he was about to say). You never know you're predictable until your two-year-old can tell you what you're going to say next.

Six Great Kids

Fun At The Kaneversky's

On Easter, we were priveledged to spend the afternoon with our friends, the Kaneverskys and the Kropfs. After a wonderful morning praising God and rejoicing that Christ has risen from the dead and conquered sin and death, what better thing to do than enjoy good friends and good food?
The Kaneverskys hosted us for a big ham dinner, where we were also joined by friend Archie Fukushima and some new friends, Michael and Jessica. The kids had a great time playing, and the adults fellowshipped all afternoon.
Here McKenna shows off a jellybean she found.
Colter and McKenna almost destroy their mom's flowers in the desperate search for more jellybeans!
Addie swings on the porch
Addie and Clayton- how old are you?

Jelly Bean Hunt

On Easter, it is a Spangler tradition to have a jellybean hunt. At this point in Addie's life, we have large plastic jellybeans, much like the eggs, for the hunt. We thought as a special bonus, we'd post this video from last year, Addie's first jellybean hunt.



Now for this year- Here are Addie and Grant hunting for jellybeans in the Kaneversky's back yard.
Ready, set, GO!
For those of you in colder climates, I would like to point out that on this warm and beautiful day, the kids were outside running around barefoot in their shorts and T-shirts. We love the spring weather in Southern California!
No, they're not holding hands, it just looks like it. They were more interested in beating the other one to a jellybean than working together. But they both had fun, almost as much fun as their parents did watching them.

The Easter Dress

Okay, so some of you (NIKI'S SISTER) have told me the pictures from Easter are now overdue, so here you go!
Addie's dress was a hand-me-down from our clothing benefactors, the Myers family, who have given us almost everything Addie wears. We are SPOILED. We loved this little dress, and the daisies in her hair to match.
See? This is a jelly bean! I have loved playing with my jelly beans all week!
Happy face. She is finally learning to smile for the camera!
And my favorite.
What I wish you could all hear was Addie's muffled voice coming from the basket saying "I'm hiding, I'm hiding!"

Chicken Dance Addie

Here is Greg and Addie, doing the chicken dance with Elmo (you can't see him, just hear him).
As an added bonus, you get to see Addie in just her diaper and Greg flapping his wings.

A Wee Bit 'O The Nasty

St. Patrick's day brought a special surprise to our home- a touch of food poisoning!

You would think it would be from something like green-dyed corn beef, which would make you all say, "well of COURSE you got food poisoning!"- but it was actually something as simple as some funky ground beef. At least that was the only common denominator we can figure out!

It hit Addie the hardest, and she puked a couple times that night. Greg and I were relieved to have nothing more than a gross feeling in our guts for the next day or so.

We're fine now, and Addie is recovery slowly. She's mostly back to her same spunk, but just doesn't want to eat. She has existed the last few days on Cheerios, a few grapes, a little banana and some rice.

You'll forgive me, I'm sure, for not taking pictures of this latest adventure.

We're just glad that we'll probably be feeling great in time to celebrate Easter this Sunday! We've been using "Ressurection Eggs" this year to teach Addie about the Easter story and we've done one or two eggs each night before bed. She is loving them! (If you're not familiar with Ressurection Eggs, they are a set of a dozen plastic eggs and inside each egg is a little symbol of part of the story of Jesus' crucifiction, burial, and vistory over death. For instance, a little crown of thorns, a donkey, etc.). We are looking forward to opening the last egg with her on Easter morning, an empty egg, talking about Jesus' empty tomb, and then celebrating with praise at church Sunday morning. Of course, there's all the other Easter fun like a new dress, the Spangler jellybean hunt, and the ham dinner at our friend's, the Kaneversky's house! We will take lots of pictures!

Just thought I'd let you all know why the blog has been quiet this week.
Hope you all have a blessed Easter!

A Post From Grant

Hey folks- Grant Kropf here. Since I'm staying with the Spanglers this weekend while my parents are out of town, I thought I'd hijack their blog for a minute.

See, being only 2 I haven't lived much yet, but this was my first weekend home alone without my parents, which is a big moment in a young man's life.
Sure, we told my parents that the Spanglers were watching me, but I just paid them to say that. It's amazing what grown-ups will do for some chocolate.
So tonight I had a few friends over, had some good times.
I really know how to party, so I gave them all an education!
Here I am showing them how to do the wave!
Get your hands up in the air! Wave 'em like you just don't care!












Alright, so before anyone calls the authorities, or the Kropfs have a heart attack, here's the real story. Rebecca Stockwell had a birthday party tonight and while all the kids were together, we paraded them into the Kropf home and staged a few pictures. Greg made sure everything precious or breakable was removed from the danger zone before any children entered the scene. The Kropf home is still standing and in good condition. The adults of the complex all had a good laugh knowing that Brooke would just about die when she saw these pictures.

My Hoopty-Ride

Grant takes his peeps for a car ride.
"Hold on folks, I'm still learning to steer."
"What does this thing do?"
And my favorite, and this is for Chris Kropf....
"This car seats three, right?"

What We Let Him Do...

"Let's see.. what's in this new juice the Spanglers gave me?

caffiene- good
carbonation- good
sugar- goooooood"
"Oh yeah, that hits the spot.
Why don't my parents let me have this stuff?"











(A disclaimer- no 2 year olds were actually allowed to consume sugary sodas in the making of these photographs. In reality, they were given green beans, chicken & rice)

Story time in the jammies this morning
Happy Grant

Addie and Claire

Well, even though I didn't take any pictures while we were in Seattle, my mom did, and sent me these pictures of Addie with my cousin's daughter, Claire.

They are close in age, just 1 month apart, and I think they looked a lot alike.

Here they are, sizing each other up.






Here is Addie putting an olive on her finger for the first time. This is a tradition on my dad's side of the family- every holiday meal we used to put olives on our fingers!

Also notice Claire's eyes.... I have been giving credit to Greg's side of the family for those eyes, but now I'm not so sure! Wherever they came from, I sure do love them!

And the Answer

Well, we would like to award Tyler and Melissa Spaid with the Astonishingly Brilliant Award. We thought none of you would guess in a million years what we were doing, and they figured it out. Reading their comment, Greg and I were SHOCKED that they guessed right.

What we were doing with the Frankenstein machine (that's what Niki called it) was reconditioning the antique skillet we brought back from Phoenix. Now, based on the reaction of some of our friends here (who think we're totally nuts), we're guessing an explanation might help.

The skillet we were given in Phoenix was from Greg's Grandpa's farm in Pennsylvania. It was at least 50 years old, and had been in his parents garage for awhile, so we weren't comfortable cooking in it as it was. But we did think it would be neat to have a family antique around for cooking... soooo.....

Here is a glimpse at some of the stuff on the outside of the pan.
We scraped and chisled and quickly realized it wasn't coming off, so Greg did some internet research.

We learned you can restore an antique pan like this one of three ways:
#1 You can bake it in your self-cleaning oven. Well, we don't have one, and the instructions online warned that it is VERY stinky for a long time. So we didn't want to use someone else's oven and stink up their house.
#2 You can treat it with lye. This didn't really make us comforatble either. Plus, lye doesn't treat rust, and the pan had some rust to go with the grime.
That left us with #3- Electrolysis.
So Greg learned how to make an electrolysis machine (so to speak) that would cook that grime right off.
Here is a shot of the bottom of the pan before....
And after!
It took almost 2 days of simmering in our garage, but it worked!
The pan looks brownish in the pictures, but black when you see it in person. All the grime is gone, and it looks fantastic. We are planning to cook with it tonight!



By the way, we do not plan on posting about cast iron skillets again after this for a long time. I know some of you are wondering if we've lost it about the skillets! We'll try to go back to more "normal" subjects like cute children, holidays, and the like.

A Little Guessing Game

Well, we're back from our whirlwind trip to Washington. Forgive me for not blogging about my Grandma's memorial service, but it's not really an event for taking pictures, nor does it contain fun stories to share, so just sufice it to say, we're back. It was nice to see the family, and especially my cousins who I rarely see. Addie had a great time playing with her cousin and second cousins, even though she is still a bit of a mess from reflux, traveling, and a time change.

I have been looking forward to blogging the following post for some time, and now that we're back and settling in, I can finally get to it!


At first I thought I'd just tell you guys about the fun we had with the elements to the left, but now I'm thinking it would be way more fun to make you guess.

What did we do with these things?
If you're not sure what they are, it's a battery charger, cast iron skillet, some pool chemicals, and a coffee can.
Here's another hint:
Macgyver meets Antiques Road Show, inspired by Alton Brown.
Yes, our TV favorites found a place to meet in the middle.
Need more?
Do you see the look of glee on Greg's face?

I will not reveal the answer until at least 3 of you post comments asking for the explanation!

Glendale Glory

So last Thursday night we were hanging out, eating pizza and playing Settlers with our friends the Murrays, when we discovered that both Greg and Nate would have the next morning off of work! This is a rare occasion, since both Greg and Nate really work hard, so we all decided to go on a field trip. And on a weekday! Oh the joy!

The Murrays were good enough to take us to Porto's, a bakery in Glendale they have raved about for quite awhile. It was DEFINITELY everything we hoped it could be.
Here they are with Addie, you can see she is thrilled. We made them push the stroller and slacked off in our parental duties, since they'll be welcoming their first child in August. I'd say they need the practice, but they don't. They're going to be great parents.
So here it is folks. Drool away. Let me tell you that as good as it all looks, it tasted even better.
Here Addie enjoys her pineapple and cream cheese danish.

We also put away an apple strudel, a guava & cream cheese danish, a meat pie (sounds so base, tastes soooo good), and a cherry and apple pastry. We stuffed ourselves for less than 10 dollars.
Then we bought two enormous cinnamon rolls for $3 for next day's breakfast. They were better than Cinnabon. I am not kidding.

Good food, cheap, what more could I want?

Porto's- we love you!


We then strolled up and down Brand and perused a used book store, then a Salvation Army that was having a 50% off Leap Year sale.

It was a really great day, and we'd like to thank the city of Glendale for being so.... great.