Luke's preschool group went on a field trip to the fire station. They're running low on volunteers, they'll take pretty much anybody who's willing, so Jensen signed up! Anybody recognize this lady? She's the new mascot for the Ankeny fire station. Is it any wonder why? Luke just showing the ladies around a fire truck. He was in his element. Some of the preschool kids. Pretty cool statue...I mean the yellow one. Jensen's pretty cute...who am I kidding, he's adorable! He keeps getting more teeth and more wispy hair! Then he comes at you with a sword, and you can't help but pick him up and kiss him - not the reaction he was hoping for. One of Luke's favorite meals: pancakes with chocolate chips. Oh yes, they're good. Then Austin makes Luke a Y pancake for BYU, this completes his perfect meal. Dr. Austin Alan Kramer...how ya like me now - boom shakalaka Like his Grandma Kramer, Luke LOVES puzzles. He's recently started doing the 24 piecers which he's pretty proud of. FHE at the Kramer home. Second portion of FHE - peanut butter cookies and sliding around the kitchen floor in a laundry basket and box. Gemtek All-Star Team photo shoot Austin and his new gun.
These pictures are completely out of order, but at least they're up, at least that's how I justify it to myself. Jensen's first ice cream cone... "Bubbles, bubbles everywhere but not a drop to drink"...or at least I tried to get Jensen not to drink this troth full of bubbles! This was at the Science Center and the boys were covered in bubbles by the time we left - what a great bathtime they had when we got home - they were the bubbles. We went to the Science Center here for the first time the other day - thanks to some great friends. Luke examined this snake to make sure it was real - he was pretty hesitant at first. l A good friend bought me a little birthday cake for my birthday. It came in the packaging you see on Jensen's head. Yeah...it had a lot of sugary frosting on it... a Luke is a superstar on his basketball team - go owls! I am basically the only parent that claps and cheers during the games. I like to cheer Luke on as he's running in no particular direction all over the court. It's hilarious! These kids have no idea what they're doing. The rim is 6 ft. tall and it's so cute to watch these kids try to make it! Mostly they just run in whatever direction "coach" tells them. Once I yelled out to Luke from the stands, "Get the ball, Luke." I didn't even think he could hear me. Apparently he could because he ran right up to a little girl, who happened to be his teammate, and grabbed the ball right out of her tiny hands. This guy is for reals about his sports. Austin was planning to do an FHE on his mission and the importance of missions, etc. So he decided to make a Chilean dinner for us including main dish and salads to go along with his lesson. He made "completos" - the complete hot dog - a dream dinner come true, as you can see on Jensen's face in the background... Jensen got this cool shopping cart from Mom Kramer. It's got so many uses! The boys absolutely LOVE the capes mom made them of Batman and Superman. Though they have never seen a cartoon about these "superheros" so they claim Superman is a really bad guy and Batman saves the day. After the votes were counted, the winners for hottest sister starting with the all time hottest at the top of the stairs: Heather followed by Bethany, Haley, Ashley and Cassidy (6th and 7th place winners Whitney and Sarah are not pictured) We went on a fun hike while in Idaho for Christmas. Austin of course brought his new machine BB gun. He literally had to hide it when we were near civilization because it looks real! Best picture of all time for Haley. Talk about "bad pictures of good people." Thank goodness Greg already proposed... I'm not sure who this picture is of...can't quite recognize the person... I know, what happened to the rest of mom? Seriously, she's lost a ton of weight and looks wonderful and is so happy. But true to most of the pictures in her life, she does of course have a monster cold sore in this picture. Pretty much the cutest cougar fan. On Christmas break, we were able to see some of our great friends in Idaho - the Montanos! It was short but so fun! We are excited to see other friends this summer! Go Cougs! Luke and his cute cousin Grace - BFF! Luke wore this to the NHL game that he and Austin went to in Dallas, as they missed the end of the BYU vs. Utah victory! Austin is addicted to the Tampa Bay Lightning and many of our vacations are planned around going to one of their games. Boston, here we come! We let Jensen take the wheel on the way home from our Texas Thanksgiving party. He really is a good driver - Dillon and Cassidy should take lessons from him! Thanksgiving was tons o fun at Justin and Kelsey's. They are the perfect hosts and every part of the trip was a blast! Haley and Bethany's family came too. Haley was the favorite aunt reading to 6 nieces and nephews. For Austin's birthday, Austin's mom got him this incredible diploma frame! He was so excited! It really is beautiful and classy. It will look perfect in his future podiatrist office. But for the time being, it doesn't quite fit in with my diploma's frame which was $2 from WalMart. Jensen is getting taller and his fine motor skills are getting better, so Luke is having to be more creative with the stuff he doesn't want Jensen to touch. Luke has started using the refrigerator as his personal space. At first, he stuck a car or two in there on the bottom shelf. These were his favorite cars that he didn't want Jensen to even think about touching. Next it was some candy, then he added some spoons and now he's sticking his favorite junk mail on the top shelf! Just a little out of control. We had a crazy ice storm last week. When we moved here, people warned us of them. I couldn't imagine what an "ice storm" was: rain that froze as soon as it hits something because it's so cold? Why not just snow? Anyway, it was crazy and cool. Everything was covered in ice including side walks, patios, trashcans, you name it. Icicles were hanging from everywhere and coated everything. They froze power lines and left over 28,000 people without power. We lost power for a few hours. This is a picture of the antenna on the truck. So bizarre. Hey, I have never claimed to have any artistic ability whatsoever - so yeah, I'm pretty proud of this cake. It does in fact say "29 Happy Birthday Austin" though you can't really tell so much. Also, Luke spent half an hour putting on 29 candles, plus 2 "decorative" ones. Incidentally, the decorative ones must have been soaked in gasoline or something because they went up in flames right away, leaving wax all over the prize winning cake. If you like frosting with an inch of candle wax on it - you would've LOVED my cake! This was Luke's reaction to Austin's masterpiece of a "Herbie car" birthday cake. I hate to remember the way Austin reacted when I presented my birthday creation to him. The words disappointment and embarrassment come to mind. I like to leave plenty of room for improvement.
The other day Jensen climbed up on one of our "dining room chairs" and grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl. He just started chowing down - where did this kid come from? Definitely not from the Flake side of the family. We only chow down on hohos and maple bars - ha! He does it just about every day now - it's so cute and so funny! Do you want to hire this guy as your pharmacist? Ha! I have started to let Luke fill my medicine box every week. He loves it and is so careful to make sure each slot has one of everything and then counts them, etc. He's pretty thorough - I'd highly recommend him to anyone and his labor is cheap. This is the picture we'll put on the flier to advertise his services - such a trustworthy face! Here is a picture of the beautiful and SAFE deck Austin's dad made for us! Thank you so much! It has changed our life - seriously. Austin got yet another cold sore on his face. He couldn't shave for a week or two as he didn't want to spread it all over his face, unlike some people (Joel). The week or two that he had a beard completely reaffirmed my severe hatred for beards - ugh! It's a very long and embarrassing story (for me) but here is a picture of our two riding lawn mowers. The smaller one is the one I bought - without having Austin look at it! Stupid, stupid, stupid. The bigger one actually works well and was a great deal! We just had to get one. With Austin gone all the time, I have to mow the lawn with the boys and it's just impossible. We have about half an acre and it takes me over an hour to mow the lawn with the push mower, so we bought this baby. Now Austin MAKES time to mow the lawn! Sweet deal for me! If you're a mother, you've probably felt the temptation to take a picture of you precious, cute, perfect baby when they are asleep. I couldn't help myself... of course, when you give into temptation, you have to deal with the consequences when I woke my sweet baby up from his nap too early! Woops!
Some videos of Jensen eating an apple - so funny and cute! The other video is of Luke, Austin and Jensen (kind of) playing with this hockey game we got off craigslist for free! I love that page!! So many hours of entertainment! Thanks to the wonderful family who gave it away for free!
This is a little late, but we had a wonderful Halloween!
Austin made Luke an exact replica of a 1909 Boston Red Sox uniform. Jensen was a skunk, another costume Austin made. He's pretty talented. Luke with his loot! Why does this picture make me think of Pepe Le Pew in tap dance shoes? Jensen is really cute anyway, but skunk is just a great look for him! This picture took some coaxing, but we couldn't find any red baseball socks Luke's size and we thought tights would be warmer - makes for a great picture! The boys wore their costumes for three days in a row. The first day we went to Austin's school Halloween party (yes, he is in medical school and not elementary school). I guess they put on a little Halloween party for the students' kids every year. We never got a good shot of Jensen's costume. At DMU, painting pumpkins. I think Austin got into it more than Luke. Halloween isn't complete without decorating Halloween sugar cookies. Can you guess which ones Austin made? I think he was trying to make up for not carving an awesome pumpkin this year. (Austin did the ghostbuster, the cheat (from homestarrunner.com) and an eagle.) The artist at work. This was the first time Luke actually frosted the cookies himself. He LOVED it and got really into it...literally! Just kidding...sort of.
We had so much fun on Monday! We left right after Austin took his final for his Biochemistry class (he's done with his first class in podiatry school!). We headed about 30 minutes north to a place called Cambridge, Iowa. We had heard from many people that this was the best pumpkin patch to visit, and it did not disappoint! They had so much to do there and it was so reasonably priced. First we visited the petting zoo complete with incredibly stinky pigs, goats of all shapes and sizes, Clydesdale, chickens, roosters, turkeys, ducks, rams, etc. It was fun and the boys loved it! They had exact replicas of the houses of all 3 little pigs - one of Luke's favorite stories lately as he loves to say "Aaaaaachooooo." Kids. Then we all learned how to milk a cow (there was no real cow involved so I'm not sure how different the real thing is.) Next we let Luke lead us through the kid's corn/hay maze; he loved it! Then there was this awesome slide (very reminiscent of the Alpine Slide in Utah, except not on a mountain) down a hill. We had races and the boys had a blast. Then we took the "10 minute walk" over to the pumpkin patch. On the way we passed an old "Herbie Car" which was so exciting for Luke. He didn't want to leave it. When we got to the pumpkin patch, it left quite a bit to be desired but it was fine I guess. Lastly, we went and played in their huge barn of corn kernels. It was so fun! After 3 fun-filled hours, we bought one of their home grown, homemade caramel apples and we were ready to go. We were all famished on the way home so we stopped at a place in Ankeny that we had a coupon for from the Entertainment book. It was a buy one get one free thing and we got meals for all of us at some delicious BBQ place for less than we would have paid stopping at fast food. A perfect ending to a perfect day.
I suppose we could have paid the 25 cents to buy some food to feed the animals. But why do that when Luke loved finding corn on the ground and letting the baby goats eat out of his hand. Luke and his new baby goat friend. Luke (and Austin) found the perfect pumpkin in the not-so-perfect pumpkin patch. I say that because I have such vivid memories of the awesome pumpkin patches I went to as a kid in West Virginia. This one was really barren and picked over. It wasn't too fun because it was pretty gross. The pumpkin patch was probably the least fun part about the place. Austin put his fingers through the fence to feed these turkeys - not the smartest thing he's ever done. They almost snapped his fingers off! This was the face he made as it happened. We all had a fun time swimming in the corn! Luke let us cover him up like burying him at the beach. They had slides going into the corn. The "rules" for playing in the corn were to make sure you took out any loose items in your pants, etc. because if you lost it in there, it was gone for good. Jensen couldn't decided between the many pumpkins they had to offer. He put a lot of time and effort into pondering which one to pick. Finally found a winner! "I'll take this one!" Although the corn bath was probably Luke's favorite part of the pumpkin patch, Jensen was not quite as entertained by it. I think he got too much corn in his diaper to be happy about it. Luke was ecstatic when he saw his beloved "Herbie Car" in the distance. He went running for it. He was a little disappointed that it was almost completely hollow inside, but as you can see, it didn't phase him for too long. This was probably my favorite part about the place. They set up this awesome slide down this big hill. You take a sled to the top of this baby and hold on for dear life sliding down this thing. It was so fun! (click on the pic to see how excited Luke really is) All Goats Go to Heaven Austin and Luke learned to milk a cow on this specimen. Dad, you would have been so proud...you too Ben!
(Jensen giving the snowman a "high five." He was napping when we were building it.)
We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! The boys were so excited, including Austin! But Austin had to study, so I pulled out the snow pants, boots, gloves, hats, coats, etc. for the little boys and me. After half an hour of pulling gloves on as tight as possible and fighting Jensen to get the rest of the clothes on, the boys and I were ready to go! Luke was determined to build a snowman, Jensen was content making "baby snow angels" in the snow. Then we pulled out the sled and I pulled the boys around. Jensen loved it! Then we hooked the sled up to Luke's little 4 wheeler, though it didn't work all that well, it was still fun.
Austin was able to take a little break from studying to come help with the snowman! There wasn't a lot of snow, but it was perfect snowman snow. (Luke and I even had a snow ball fight!) Austin made the base of the snowman, I made his middle, and Luke made the head - that's why it's a little small. We didn't have the normal stuff for eyes and nose, etc. so we used dum-dum suckers for eyes and a nose (worked great!) and then a twizzler for a mouth. A real Flake Family snowman (made of candy!). Then we put on a cap and gloves that dad gave us last Christmas (it's for a girl so we never used it). Anyways, it worked great and Luke was so happy to have a snowman in his front yard! After we were done, we went in for some hot cocoa! What a fun morning!
In other news, Austin tore down the nasty old shed in our yard. It was such a beautiful day yesterday that Austin decided to take a break from studying for a little bit and rip down the shed. It only took him a couple of hours - he's a real man! He found a lot of weird stuff within the walls of the shed. Man was that place disgusting.
These guys were pretty proud of their work and understandably so
Luke gained a love for eating snow today.
Snow Struck Lovers
These mask/hats are so handy when it's so cold!
Look at the snow packed on those tires! We need to get this bad boy some snow tires! Luke starting the snowball fight. And yes, I did "accidentally" hit him in the face with a snowball. Luke tried his hand at pulling Jensen in the sled, but Jensen only weighs a few pounds less than Luke so he was struggling. I love the little snowflake on his long eyelashes. This swing was broken when we moved in, but Austin fixed it right up. BFFs First sled ride ever! Wow, what a gross place.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
My old roommate from college, Crystal, stopped by our house tonight with her three little kids on their way home from Denver to Champaign, Illinois. She is a trooper, she drove 15 hours all by herself (in one day) with her 3 little kids. Her husband was doing rotations at the hospital and couldn't go. It was SO FUN to see her. We only lived together for a year or two but she was such a wonderful friend. I learned a lot from her and grew a lot from my friendship with her. She is one of those people that will tell you what she thinks. She's not afraid to give you a compliment because she is confident in herself. She represents some of my favorite memories from college. She's so fun and funny and such a good friend. So many great memories! PLEASE come by again Crystal!
What is it about boys that, no matter the age or that they just met minutes ago, they love to wrestle.
Cute Jensen! He looks just like Austin and is just as fun!
Video: Luke helping prepare for Crystal's visit. Now that he is a "big boy" he likes to take on more duties. He started vacuuming today and vacuumed the whole first floor! He would have done the whole house if I wasn't in a hurry. He is such a good boy. He cleans up the toy room every night, though sometimes it takes him an hour. He cleaned it up tonight after Crystal and her kids left and let's just say it wasn't an easy task. What a trooper!
