Little Stinker

Our "little stinker" was a skunk for Halloween this year as you can see by the picture. The little stinker title suits our man just fine especially during the cutting teeth stages. On October 29th Turner cut his first tooth, he was not a very happy camper. Two days later he cut the other bottom tooth. I love seeing his new smile but I have to admitt that I miss the gummy grins he used to give us. At the six month mark (I am writing this a bit late) he continues to amaze us. He is now rolling over, only when he wants to however, he is sitting up pretty well and is developing his own personality. From what we can gather, he is going to be quite a ham! He loves to smile for the camera, loves to laugh and thinks having stinky feet is the funniest thing around. He loves to give hugs and kisses and is starting to discover his wonderfully loud voice. At times he just lays in his crib and goes through his entire range of noises, the unfortunate part is that this is usually at 2:00am. He still likes to wake up at least once at night to eat, sometimes even twice. Needless to day the night when Neal and I sleep for 6 hours straight will be a cause for celebration.

Like father like son

We recently got some pics from a sitting Jenny brought turner to. She picked the poses and when we got the prints back we compared his photo at 5 months to mine when I was about the same age. We were amazed at the fact he really does look like his dad. Wow

he really has been amazing lately. We have introduced him to so many people that if I were in his shoes I would be overwhelmed, but not my turnpike. Nope, he just smiles and talks to everyone of them. He is so social that it amazes me. He amazes me.

I do not babysit my kid.... I am his dad

Ok, I have a rant to pick with some people. Lately when I go out alone with my son I am asked a stupid question " oh so you are babysitting your son?"

What an asinine comment. He is my son, I can hang out with him, I am not a babysitter. They do not ask his mother this question. Why ask me? Am I not capable of taking care of my boy?

ok now that that is off my chest......

What are we feeding that kid

Hey, I haven't posted in a bit ... been really busy lately. In the past few week my wife has had surgery to remove her gall bladder. I will now forever listen to her when she says " honey I think I have a bad stomach ache". Since Now I am paying for it, since I told her to suck it up and that she just ate something that didn't agree with her. Bad husband!!! But how was I to know?


Turner is getting huge and still will not sleep through the night. He seems to have developed quite a schedule though, he gets up every night at midnight and three o'clock am. I hope I will get some sleep soon.

We have started a few times to feed him his first baby foods. To start him out we had pears ..... Big hit... He loved them. He still does not get the concept that pulling it in with the tongue is important but he sure does love the taste..

And as you see from the pictures he is starting to be a little ham.

two pieces of birthday cake.

Yesterday we when to two children's birthday parties. First was my friend nate's daughter Lauren. She turned three and was in her tierra she had fun hitting the piniatta and pinning the tail on the donkey. My wife and I got her lego's (duplo) and she seemed to like it. Nowadays it seems that kids birthdays and events revolving around our kids are the main reason to get together. It is always great to see everybody and find out what is new.

The second party we went to was for my wife's niece Annie. She was, as usual all over the place in true Annie fashion. I love Annie she is soo cute. Her big secret as we walked in the door was "mommy has a baby in her tummy"... yep my sister in law and brother in law are expecting their third child... The blessed event should happen in April right before turners first bday. This will be their third kid Annie, Molly and now a new baby burns.

this family I married into is growing again, and this event has spurned the ongoing discussion of whether or not jenny and I will have another..... But alas, that is for another day. Right now, after all those kids I am yearning for some adult interaction.

pictures to come shortly

one million american refugees

Never before have I heard the phrase American refugees. When you hear the word refugee you think of Bosnia, Iraq or Cubans riding makeshift boats to make it to Miami; not the population of new Orleans. I have been sitting and watching the news reports, looking at desperate people faces who simply want fresh water and a place to sleep that is far away from rotting corpses. The one vision of this is the pictures of the person at the superdome in new Orleans who had a sheet draped over them and a note as to whom to contact because they were dead. A human being, and American was shuffled in a corner tagged and covered. I don't even know who to be mad at.

A human being should not die that way, our society has more respect for livestock than to let them rot in a corner.


Another thing I have heard over and over again has been a sentiment that new Orleans is a lost city, that we should not rebuild it because it is vunerable to a natural disaster. Oh yeah, no other city is vunerable to a disaster such as this. There is no city in California built on a fault line. Nowhere in the Midwest can you find a town in an area called "hurricane alley". Here in the northwest we have cities where they are built in the shadow of an active volcano! Even Seattle is on a fault line and combined with that half of the city is built with fill dirt that will liquefy if; not if; when we have an earthquake big enough.
would you say the same thing about rebuilding Seattle or Olympia? If a catastrophic event happened here?

like most people I talk to about this tragedy, I am in shock and dumbfounded. Dumbfounded by the destruction, the chaos, and the lack of support these people have received.

I am sorry you hurt, I and many people I know are sending money, whatever we can to rebuild what you have lost. Not because we expect when this happens to us you will do the same, but because it is what we do as Americans. It is the right thing to do.

Friends who are family

now that you have met my wife and myself, I would like to introduce you to some of my friends , and turners friends. This picture is of turner and Lauren, one of the Jones girls. She is one of the bundles of joy that my good friends Nate and Christie are blessed with. Whenever these two are around each other you can count on two things
1. Lauren wanting to see turner and
2. Turner smiling like so at Lauren.

we need to keep these two separated in a few years.
Nate lives just around the corner and is a great moral support to jenny and I as we muddle through parenthood . Thanks Nate for letting me learn from your successes that flourish and the few foibles I see.

7...8...9...ready or not here I come

At least he waited until we were "moved into" our new home. April 11th was the closing date on our new house in Renton so we figured we had at least 5-6 weeks to get our home ready for our new arrival. Obviously Turner had a different plan.
On April 24th I went to work as usual. Throughout the day I was commenting to my co-worker that I felt different, I was having a lot of braxton hicks contractions however I figured them to be par for the course. After work, I went home unpacked a few boxed and went to bed. At around 3:30am I woke up suddenly and sat straigt up in bed. I knew at that moment that my water had broken. With calm prompting from Neal I called the hospital. My reaction was to go back to bed, I figured there was no way I was in labor already, after all I was not ready.... I did not even have a hospital bag packed! My son was throwing me off my schedule already! The on call doctor confirmed over the phone that my water had broken so off to the hospital we went.
When we arrived I was checked in immediately as my water had "ruptured", the nurses exact words. I was told to prepare myself for a long day, my doctor did not think I would deliver anytime soon. Boy did Turner and I fool her. My actual labor started around 11:00am and Turner Richard Schrepfer joined the world at 3:09pm. Present in the delivery room was Grandma Burns, Aunt Terrie, life-long friend and delivery room nurse, Joan, several doctors, several nurses, proud dad Neal (of course) and almost making it on time was Aunt Melissa. Aunt Melissa had left the deliver room to check in on her two girls, after all we figured we had a long day ahead of us and she wanted to get them situated for what was going to be a long night. She arrived in the room at 3:15pm, no joke. We are sorry she was not able to be there for the birth, however we want her to know how much she was appreciated that day. Aunt Terrie and Grandma Burns were wonderful, unexpected coaches! Grandma Burns was proud to cut the umbilical cord.
As they were getting our little man ready to be taken upstairs to the special care nursery, he was named by his father (mom was still groggy). Turner was a name Neal came up with and thankfully one we could finally agree on. Turner Richard Schrepfer was escorted up the the special care nursery by none other than his proud papa. As Neal noted previously, he was there for 8 long days. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with him while he got the care he needed in order to come home. We can not thank the wonderful staff at Evergreen, our incredible family and wonderful friends for all of the love, prayers and support we received especially during that trying first week. Thank You!

Schrepferworks........ Thy name is Turner

I guess it is a little weird to document your thoughts and history as a "blog" as it were. Who you are, family friends, events, wins, losses and general details about yourself. I actually like the idea, if for no other reason than it gives my son a history of our lives before he can remember it.
Ok on to the name Schrepferworks is a name I came up with long ago. It is like a woodworker or clock work.... Someone who builds something. As a parent I guess that is my job to "Build" or cultivate our little one into a amazing man. My name is Neal, his mom's name is Jenny and his name is Turner.
He was born on April 25th 2005. He was 18 inches long and weighed 5lbs 5 oz. His first week was the worst on me. I had to carry him up to the Newborn intensive care unit where he spent the next 8 days. The pictures of him with the tubes up his nose still turn my stomach. He had some problems eating and maintaing his temperature, but like any Schrepfer before him he was a tough little guy and his stubbornness got him through. Now he eats like there's no tomorrow and inherited his fathers internal heating mechanism.
Well, I just wanted to introduce him to you and tell you that like any father I love my son very much. It ought to be an adventure. Soon I will introduce the other players in his life. His mother, our friends and even me, his father.