Happy 3rd Birthday Jensen!

Jensen turned 3 years old last week. It is so fun to watch little kids on their birthdays. It's almost as good as watching them on Christmas...almost.


Dancing with excitment for his new batman clothes!

Birthday boy complete with birthday crown, compliments of Luke.

Austin spent 6 hours decorating this cake for Jensen. It was very awesome and loved by all.

One of the birthday chefs. Thank you so much Grandma Flake for the aprons! You've saved so many shirts!

Austin bought this little doll for Eliza when he found out he passed the boards. She LOVES this little thing and carries it with her everywhere, holding it close to her. It's so cute!

This "tongue" picture is for Whitney, who ALWAYS seems to have her tongue out in all her pictures. Get over your tongue, Whitney.

Look at those eyelashes!

We made cupcakes for Jensen to take to his preschool class. They were a hit with all the kids, especially Jensen.

Per grandma's request, Eliza walking...

Civil War This Way ------->

I just can't believe this cute little girl is mine! I kiss her a million times every day! I just can't get over her!


She went down her first slide and loved it!

Look at that cute wispy hair! She's such a happy and sweet baby.

Luke started pre-k this week. We are excited for him and he loves it! He started yesterday but already he's made a friend. We went there earlier this week for the open house. The teacher had a fun scavenger hunt for him to do. It ended at the school's new playground, which was really fun.

Jensen and Luke are best friends and Jensen is having a very hard time adjusting to Luke being gone for 3 hours a day. It's kind of cute and kind of sad. Today he cried when we dropped Luke off. I'm sure it will only take another few days for him to adjust. He's a good little boy and attends an art class at the YMCA. It's once a week for 45 minutes.

Jensen got a new shirt and new backpack for his first day of "preschool" at the YMCA. He is obsessed with super heroes so it was easy to find his new favorite shirt.

Luke wanted a darth vadar shirt for his first day of school. Those are pretty hard to find. Once we did find it, a few weeks ago, Luke has shown it to every single person who has walked through our door. It's pretty funny. He's shown it to visiting teachers, home teachers, missionaries, and other vistiors.

Luke and Jensen at the open house at Luke's school.

Luke's "locker"

Last Saturday we drove to Lamoni, IA. It's a small town on the border of Missouri and Iowa. The RLDS church used to be headquartered there. They have a university there, Graceland University, and give tours of Joseph Smith III's home. Pretty neat. Anyway, every Labor day weekend Lamoni hosts a civil war reinactment (totally free). People come from all over the country to participate in this. It's really popular. They have signs all over the town to show you where to go "Civil War" and then arrows pointing. I think they take the reinactment a little too seriously! It was really neat and the battle was amazing. Luke loved it, Jensen was kind of scared because it was so loud. Neither of the kids could wrap their brains around the fact that it was fake. They both thought we were actually watching people die on a battle field.

Did you know Abraham Lincoln had teeth like this?

Honest Abe. This guy recited a bunch of excerpts from some of Abraham Lincoln's speeches. Pretty interesting.

Look at how the women were dressed. It was so hot that day too. Neat dresses though. I have to admit I've always wanted to wear one. The host of the event said the average person there spends $1200 on their period dress and accessories. Pretty expensive hobby!

A few Saturdays ago we went to the downtown farmer's market. Living in the midwest, about 95% of the land in Iowa is farmed so every day of the week there is a farmer's market somewhere. The one downtown is the most talked about. It is really popular and trendy here and it did not disappoint. They had all sorts of farmers, including some Amish farmers, and vendors selling all types of foods and homemade jams, jewlery, elk meat, and on and on. Everyone had samples too of free, fresh watermellon and cataloupe and elk jerky and Indian food samples and on and on. There were tons of entertainers too playing music or free crafts for the kids. It was a lot of fun. We were there until it closed (about 3 hours). Eliza loved most of it, but passed out from all the partying.

They had a magician there doing free balloon animals for the kids. Luke got this weiner dog.

Jensen had an orioles had on so he got this bird in a cage. Really neat. These farmers markets are definitely one of the perks about living in the midwest. We can't wait to go again! Austin is already out of the homemade black raspberry jam we bought last time. Yum!

Surgeons in training

Jensen: all scrubbed in and ready to operate on his his first patient - Luke! (notice Luke has his eyes closed)

Would you trust this guy as your surgeon?

How bout this guy? Austin just finished a surgical lab where he had to learn the steps to scrubbing in and sterilizing to be ready for surgery. It's incredible how many times each spot on their hands are scrubbed and how many precautions are taken to make sure their "sterile field" is not broken.

Can you tell she's a daddy's girl?

More Church sites and the State Fair

We recently had my family's reunion in Nauvoo, but with all the site seeing and kids (19 grandkids mostly under 8) there was just not enough bonding time, so we headed down to my brother Justin's house in Kansas for some more family fun. We had a few stops to make on the way. First we went to Liberty Jail. I can't believe the horrible conditions they lived in for so many months. As the sister missionary was giving the presentation and tour of the Liberty Jail, she kept asking our feelings on certain things. Jensen kept responding to her, very loudly, "AWESOME!" Somehow it didn't quite fit with the spirit of the place.


Then we headed to Independence and saw the RLDS/Community of Christ temple and the cool museum inside with many artifacts such as Liberty Jail door and key, Joseph Smith's "dressing kit" and lots of other stuff. Then we headed across the street to the Temple Lot to see the temple markers (since they took our the cornerstones)


On the way home from Justin's, we stopped at Adam-ondi-ahman, which is very beautiful and different from other church sites I think. All of the roads were gravel and what there was to view or "site see" was just the beauty of the place.


We also stopped at Far West and saw the 4 cornerstones at that site.

We had so much fun with Justin's family. We got to be there for Miles' birthday party and go to a lego exhibit and build some lego exhibits ourselves and go to a lake water park...it was a very fun weekend. Best of all, our kids got to play with their cousins who they love so much.

Yesterday we went to the Iowa State Fair. We were there for 9 - yes nine - hours. We got there around 10:30 and left around 7:30pm. We saw all sorts of amazing stuff including this pumpkin weighing in at 1295 pounds! Image carving that thing for Halloween!

Luke saw this roller coaster and had to ride it. Of course he's not big enough to go on it by himself so Austin went too. Austin and I were sure Luke was going to cry the entire time and be scared of roller coasters the rest of his life (this one was huge and known to scare people) but Luke did pretty well and actually loved it. He was proud of himself for going on it. I couldn't believe he wasn't crying by the end.

The petting zoo is always a favorite. They had all kinds of animals for the kids to pet and feed: camels, bison, yaks, apalca, antelope, goats, porcupine, zebras, etc. Really fun and neat.

Even Eliza got into it. I took this picture especially for Bethany as she loves this animal.

While at the fair, the kids got to see a gator show and got to touch one. It was pretty cold, so the gators were all over the place. I was afraid the guy was going to drop him on the boys.

Two proud conquerors of the "Crazy Mouse" rollercoaster.

Of course we saw tons of buildings full of horses (huge and miniature), cattle, pigs, "Avenue of Breeds" and of course huge boars. This guy weighed almost 1200 pounds! His name was Fatty. He's on facebook if you're interested in "friending" him.

Austin said that this ostrich nearly pecked Luke on the head while we were taking this picture!

What's wrong with that guy?

Austin, Luke and Jensen signed up for a "grape stomp" competition. They took a 5 gallon bucket of grapes and dumped it in a big barrell. Then Austin, Luke and Jensen took of their socks and shoes and climbed in to smash the grapes (see video at the bottom). They had so much fun. They smashed out 17 cm worth of grape juice and won second place in the competition! I can't believe how much fun they all had....they definitely changed my love for grape juice though!

We had so much fun at the Iowa State Fair. The kids were so good and loved every minute of it. Wish you all could have been there!

"Family: isn't it about...time?"

About 2 weeks ago we had a family reunion in historic Nauvoo, IL. It was a Flake (my maiden name) reunion and we had such a wonderful time despite the horrible heat and humidity.

Minus one brother on a mission, all of my siblings, parents and nieces and nephews were present. My kids LOVED having cousins to play with all day every day! They still beg for their cousins and tell everyone about them.
This is my family: Dad, Mom, Joel and his wife Melanie and their kids Ammon, Preston, Wesley, Natalie, Emery, Savannah and Morgan (on the way), Sarah and her husband Matt with their kids Merrody, Joel, Jackson and Norah. Justin with his wife Kelsey and their kids Eden, Jude and Miles. Austin and me with Luke, Jensen and Eliza. Bethany with her husband Paul and thier kids Grace and Alice. Haley and her husband Greg. Beautiful Whitney. Ashley and her husband Ben and their girl Cheyenne. Derek (not pictured as he is on his mission) Dillon (getting ready to go to BYU and then his mission) and the youngest, Cassidy. These are the best people you will ever meet.


My parents with their 19 grandchildren. My mom made all of the grandkids "Flake Cousin Power" t-shirts, which made them all even cuter than they already are. All over Nauvoo people were commenting about them.

The three newest editions: Alice (born 10 days before Eliza), Cheyenne (born a few weeks after Eliza) and of course cute Eliza. Hopefully they will be great friends.

Here they are again. So cute! Eliza was pretty tired that day. All that touring and not much sleeping. Still pretty in pink though.

The proud mothers: Me (Eliza), my younger sister Ashley (Cheyenne) and my younger sister (by 14 months) Bethany (Alice).

This picture is not of Nauvoo but was part of the family partiest, so I included it. Austin and I are standing on our favorite suspension bridge in Des Moines. You can see the capitol building in the distance. If you look really closely you can almost see Luke sitting just off the bridge on the sidewalk. He has recently developed a fear of walking over bridges...

Me and my older sister, Sarah. A few years ago I dyed my hair brown and everyone said we looked like twins. Now though, we just look like sisters. Good enough.

While we walked on the historica "Trail of Hope," Austin pulled our double stroller like it was a handcart. Pretty rough.

It was so beautiful out there, right by the Mississippi.

We found some shade under this big tree. It was SO HOT and SO HUMID!

Luke memorized a scripture about the Nauvoo House for the reunion. He gave it several times, very proudly. Here he is in front of the Nauvoo House.

Carthage Jail. My beautiful sister, Whitney and I by Carthage Jail.

Jensen was attached to my brother Dillon, so of course Dillon is in this family photo at Carthage. We wouldn't mind adopting Dillon. He's so great!

Inseperable...

My older brother, Justin and Eliza. He said she is his very favorite. (Was I not supposed to tell people that?)

Eliza loved the Nauvoo Pagent. She just hung out with Cheyenne the whole time.

Luke thinks he would have been a great pioneer!

Austin on stilts. Does he really need to be any taller?

On the way home from Nauvoo we got to have little Grace in our van. They all had a blast!

Greg was so good with the kids and even got Eliza to be friends with him. My sister Haley got a good deal!

My sister Whitney is good at entertaining kids...and getting them all excited and loud - ha!

Paul found out his "DJ Name Mixer" compliments of the Reese's Puffs box. His DJ name is Buckwheat Charlie

Bethany and Paul were so nice to stay for an extra day at our house after the reunion! Their daughter Grace loves liberty bells and Des Moines has a small one. She loved it though it "wasn't the real one."

We had so much fun with our family! We all miss them so much. Please come back!!