Boy or Girl?

According to BabyCenter.com, our baby is slightly more likely to be a boy than a girl. They claim that on average in the United States, 1,048 boys are born for every 1,000 girls. Does this influence your vote?! If you haven't already, don't forget to vote on our online poll (to the right of this post). Do you think it's a boy or girl? (Don't worry, it doesn't cost any money to vote and I'm sure this poll isn't, in any way, related to gambling. It's totally anonymous and we're having a lot of fun getting responses!)

An update of what Maida is doing now was requested! It's hard to sum her all up in a blog post, but here we go... Maida can run, jump, walk backwards, walk sideways, walk on her toes, climb on anything and has no fear of trying anything new. She loves to explore and is great at entertaining herself. She loves to sing and hum and dance to music. She can say anything you ask her to, but her favorite words that you'll hear her spontaneously saying are: mom, dad, Bump (for Bumpa), Gaga (for Grandma), bird, bug, boat, book, box, duck, dog, car, card, church, go, cracker, hi, milk, more, ahhh (for all done), horse, socks, shoes, side (for outside), fish, yes, yeah, nine (for no), Bible, cheese, glasses, and eyes. She also does sign language and can say these things in signs: more, all done, hi, bye, pray, I love you, outside, please, thank you, and milk. It's so cute when she walks up to you and asks in sign language, "more please," it just makes your heart melt! She loves going swimming in the lake and loves to swing. It's hard to get her out of either! She sleeps nine to twelve hours every night and takes one three hour nap every afternoon. She's more of a momma's girl than daddy's girl, but isn't too attached to either of us. She knows where the new baby is (in mom's tummy) and likes to give the baby kisses. She's a picky picky picky eater and somedays won't eat anything. Her favorite place to be is outside and she even busted through Bumpa and Grandma's screen door to get out one day. She loves to hide and play chase. She looks for trouble all day long, you never know what you're going to find her in. She loves to pray and asks us to pray with her all day long, and sometimes all night long! She raises her hands high up in the sky when you say, "Praise the Lord," and loves to go to Sunday School. Her best friend is Barkley! and they both love to cuddle together. She tells me "pa" after she's gone poopy or poddie in her pants and I've kind of started poddie training her, but she's scared of the poddie!

I think that about sums her up! She's growing up so fast and seems so old already. I love being able to communicate with her, and her tell me what she wants. It makes life a lot easier.

I'd like to end with a prayer request. My Aunt Pat, Uncle Merlyn's wife, had a stroke last weekend. She is still in the Intensive Care and there are a lot of unanswered questions. Little brain damage was noted, but her speech is still far from normal. She mumble things, but gets frustrated because she can't say exactly what she wants. They've had her up walking around and trying to read children's' books, but there is still a lot of progress to be made. They have linked the stroke back to her Lupus and have discovered that her body is eating its own plasma, causing the blood to thicken, causing clots, which caused the stroke. So they have her on a machine (kind of like dialysis) to cycle plasma back into her blood. They have no idea how long or how often she'll need to be on this. I know it will be a long road for them. Please pray for the Kinkel family! Thank you.

I'm 25 years old today!!!!

25 things I have done in my life so far that I'm thankful for...
1. Getting to know at least two of my grandparents before they died
2. Growing up with pets
3. A mom who made sure our house was always clean and put a home-cooked meal on the table every night
4. My passion for ice skating
5. Traveling down to the Vikings Training Camp for numerous years and enjoying many of their games in the Metrodome
6. Going to Germany/Austria in high school (and skiing in the Alps!!!)
7. Going to a Christian college
8. Having the most amazing college friends that I will NEVER lose contact with... YOU GUYS ARE THE BESTEST FRIENDS I'VE EVER HAD!!!
9. Going to college far away from home
10. Saving my first kiss until college
11. Marrying a Christian husband
12. Getting married on the beach
13. Our FREE honeymoon to the most romantic places
14. Swimming with dolphins (even though I was scared to death!)
15. Working with children with Autism (and feeling like I made a difference)
16. Having kids young
17. Having a girl first
18. Being a stay home mom
19. Having a husband who would sacrifice anything to make my dream of staying home with my kids a reality
20. Traveling to Australia in college and getting to know the Hartman family
21. Going to Nicaragua with Erik and Brandon (and the Richfield congregation)
22. Living in several different places (and still not being ready to settle yet!)
23. Getting baptized and always having a church family to lean on
24. Going to Disney Land, Mexico, and Canada several times while growing up
25. Piano lessons (even though I hated them, at least I can play!)
25. Learned to speak a different language
(I know, I have two 25's, but that's okay cause it's my birthday!)

25 things I hope to do before my time runs out...
1. Have a natural/vaginal delivery
2. Breastfeed all my kids
3. Show my kids the world and all the many different cultures (and teach them to appreciate them)
4. Pay for my kids' college
5. Go back to Africa with Erik
6. Be a missionary/live in a different country
7. Travel to Alaska (because I've never really wanted to go there, but Erik does!)
8. Invent something
9. Visit all 50 states
10.Write a book
11. Pet a Polar Bear
12. Adopt
13. Go back to school
14. Run a Marathon (or maybe just a half!!!)
15. Exercise regularly (and actually enjoy it)
16. "Go green" in more areas then I have already
17. Promote healthy child rearing habits/products in the US and in other countries
18. Build a house
19. Write a song
20. Have grandchildren
21. Grow old with Erik and spend our retired life doing everything we've ever wanted to do
22. Make it through Erik's residency and keep a strong relationship (we've heard that it will be hard)
23. Climb a mountain (or maybe many!)
24. Experience as many cultures as I can and appreciate each one (even if it means eating rice and beans for EVERY meal!!)
25. Learn another language

Happy EARLY birthday to me!

There are two things that happened this year to make my birthday PERFECT.

ONE: I really wanted a pedicure for my birthday, and I got one!!!

I never told Erik, or anyone, that all I wanted for my birthday was a pedicure, however Erik must have been reading my mind because today he told me to be ready to go by one. I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing! He brought me uptown where we shared a Blueberry Malt at MinneSoda Fountain and then got a "couples" pedicure. Can you actually believe that Erik got a pedicure?! And if that's hard to believe, listen to this: he actually admitted that he LIKED it!!! He's the best! :)

TWO: I got to celebrate my birthday EARLY!

I have never really been into my birthday. If we celebrated, then great, but if not, then that was okay too. I just get really embarrassed that it's my birthday and so I don't tell anyone, even if it means getting a free dessert at a restaurant. Every year I stay really quiet on my birthday and see if everyone will just forget. Last year I almost got by with it. It took until 2:00 in the afternoon before someone remembered! And it was great. This year, however, my birthday falls on a Monday, so since Erik will be at work, he decided to celebrate my birthday with me today! Which is perfect because I didn't have to be embarrassed about it being my birthday! I know, I'm weird, but that's just how I am.

So, to recap, my birthday was entirely more than I ever could have wished for.

THANK YOU ERIK!

Oh, to be a kid again...

My cousin Melody got me thinking the other day about old times that we used to have here in Park Rapids during the summers. So I went downstairs to look at some photo albums to stir up some more memories! I found these pictures and couldn't help but post them.


Melody and I had matching outfits with our cabbage patches! My Aunt Becky made them. I often wonder what happened to these outfits!



More matching outfits! (And yes, I had a mullet! Laugh all you want!)



Apparently this was the fastest way to give us all baths!



Michael (Melody's brother), Darin (my nephew), Melody, and me out at Grandpa's swimming. Grandpa had this old red boat that we'd occasionally go in.


We used to have the Parks family from church out to go swimming too! Myra (Melody's sister) is the little baby in the front and Crystal and Amber Parks are on the right. Do they even make torpedoes anymore?



These were the best days. I miss being a kid!

K9 Dog Trials

W-O-W! We just took part in one of the coolest events of the summer. The K9 Dog Trials were held here in my parents hometown and I have to admit that when we were planning on going to the trials, we had NO idea what was in store for us!

Erik and I just couldn't believe how cool the trials were!! We took lots of pictures and even a video (as we got to witness a Black Hawk helicopter landing RIGHT in front of us and Pax, one of the K9's, jumping out of it, attacking a "robber" and taking him to the ground). HOW COOL! I posted some pictures from the trials, but honestly I was too in awe of the show to take many pictures. You will not believe how cool this was!

Bumpa's Tractor: Maida's New Obsession

What a summer we're having! It seems as though I've only had the time to upload some of our pictures, but to tell the story of the pictures gets put last on the list, behind swimming, boating, and playing with the family. However, I'm trying to upload a video of Maida driving Bumpa's tractor and that's taking a while, causing me to sit at the computer a little longer than normal. So, therefore I'm going to try to catch you up on our summer...

After the Fourth of July, my sister and her family stayed for a week. It was nice to have them here and for them to get to know Maida a little better. We only see them about once a year or once every-other year, so it was nice to catch up. While they were here there was a lot of shopping, fishing, and boating going on... our view of the perfect summer vacation!

After they left, we had a semi-quiet week (thank goodness) of just enjoying being at Grandma and Bumpa's house. Maida had five cousins over for a slumber party, which she thoroughly enjoyed (however mom regretted the lack of sleep the next day)! Erik took some time to plan his trip to Mongolia (which is pretty much all finalized) and he is now patiently waiting to go! In the meantime he's really enjoying his internship at the hospital and comes home with a big smile on his face every day. It's nice to see him doing something he loves. This past weekend he had drill at Camp Ripley and really enjoyed, what I call, his "man time" with the other soldiers. (If I haven't said this before, I really appreciate Erik's service in the Army. There would be no other way for me to stay home with the kiddos. Erik is a husband who is never afraid to sacrifice and work hard for his family. I appreciate him so much!)

We took a trip to Minneapolis two weekends ago where Erik attended a not-so-wild bachelor party (...at least that's what he tells me...) and I got to spend some quality time with my friend Kristin and her husband Bryan. They just bought a new house, so it was fun to see all the work they've been doing on it (and dream about having a house of my own someday!). While in Minneapolis we also got to catch up with some old college and church friends. We sure can't wait to move back there! As much as we love Duluth, we sure miss the cities too.

This weekend, my brother Tony and his son Kellen, came up from Colorado. Maida is sure having fun with Kellen. They both love cars and have been playing non-stop since Kellen arrived yesterday afternoon. I will post pictures of that later!

Other than all of that, there's not much else to update on, however I do want to mention that we got new (used AND free) furniture and a set of china (used also)! I'm really excited about it though and will post pictures of my goodies later. We have another doctor appointment back in Duluth tomorrow and my mom will be going with me to Duluth since Erik will be at work. The baby's been moving around so so so so much and my belly is getting so so so so big. To keep up with our pregnancy, we journal at http://www.babycrowd.com/jr/online/scharrerbaby/ and it's always fun to have people stop by and sign our guest book there.

I think that about catches you up on our life and just in time because the video just got done uploading. Enjoy!

Swimming, sunning, boating, grilling... the many funs of summer!

HELP!!!!

Oh my goodness. I thought I'd be all professional and try to edit our blog in HTML and make it all unique. Well, the only thing I did do was screw up our webpage! Now I can't change the background color from white! Oh well. I got some comments that the black background was depressing anyway, so hopefully white is better! If anyone knows how to help me, HELP! (The only thing I did was change the "body" section in the HTML editor. I'm not sure what I changed it to and I don't know what to change it back to... all I wanted to do is put a picture as the background instead of the same-old templates.)

Summertime At Grandma's

10 Week Ultra Sound Pictures!

Here are the pictures of our ultrasound, finally! They aren't the best quality because of the way I had to put them on the computer, but I think you'll be able to see the little peanut. The head is on the left side of the picture and the little rump is on the right. You can see a white line on the face and the tech said that's where the nose was forming. You can also see a little hand in the air, fingers and toes should now be separated and little fingernails have started growing! The baby was moving all around during these pictures. It was great to see!

To read the updated baby journal, click here.

Our July Fourth

Happy Fourth of July everyone! We hope that you all had as great of day as we did, celebrating with friends and family.


Our day started out at Heartland Park for a footrace in which all of the kids in our family participated in the Kids' Fun Run. They all had to run a mile and my niece Sarena came in first place for the girls! We had so much fun watching them run.



After the race we all met at my parents' house to watch the Floatilla of decorated boats go around the lake and down the river. After the kids decided to jump in the lake for a swim, we headed downtown for a pie contest at the bookstore that my cousin Jared entered. He didn't win anything, but they auctioned off all the pies and our family came home with some great desserts (Jared's pie went for $90!!!!)! The money from the auction went to support the local public library.





Shortly after the auction we walked to the candy store to get some candy to munch on during the Fourth of July parade which we watched later on. It was a great parade, however Maida got a little tired after eating her sucker and fell asleep on Auntie Kim's lap. After getting sunburned like never before, we headed home to take the speedboat out on the lake.


Erik, Sadie, and Sarena all were brave enough to jump off the boat to cool off. Kim and I stayed dry and later enjoyed cruising the lake as fast as we could go, jumping the waves (don't tell my doctor)!




The whole family came over for hotdogs on the grill for dinner and then we were off on the boat again. This time we took it down the river into town where we docked it next to some friends' and family's boats and watched the fireworks which were shot off right across the river from us. This was Erik's first time on the boat with the Kinkels to watch the fireworks and he said that it was the best fireworks he's ever been to. He couldn't believe how close we were and how loud it was! Maida, on the other hand, didn't give one care about the fireworks. She watched a few of them, but the big bangs didn't even phase her. She entertained herself by running up and down the boat, sneaking candy and snacks from anyone that would give them to her.

We ended the night by saying goodbye to my sister Kim and her family, who left early this morning. We had such a great time with them while they were here and it was sad to see them go.