Photos: Halloween & Other Fall Fun

Here are pictures of Winnie the Pooh (Cameron) and Tigger (Nathan) too!  Also some other fall pictures.

Nate in the leaves

Nate buried in the leaves

Cameron buried in the leaves



Cameron feeding cows while at Cozy Nook Farm with his preschool class

I love feeding cows Mom!

Wild turkeys in our backyard



Winnie the Pooh & Tigger

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!

Photos: Summer Silliness

Cameron's First Day of Preschool Breakfast:
Smiley Face (Raisins) Pancake

Cameron celebreated his return to preschool with a yummy breakfast and a Green Bay Packer jersey to taunt his teacher (a Vikings fan).  While Cameron was in school, Nathan and I went to Hart Park in Wauwatosa to play soccer and relax.


Chilling on a rock at Hart Park

 

Future Lionel Messi?  (Note the left footedness...)

Testing out my new goggles - I swim all by myself now!

Monkey see, monkey do!

 

Long Overdue

Nate

Nate is growing up quickly.  It’s hard to believe he turned 2 in April (yes I realize it’s been a while since I blogged if I’m just getting to this highlight now in October  November…). He weighs almost as much as Cameron (maybe about 29 lbs vs 31 lbs for Cameron) and is almost as tall (maybe about 35" vs 37" for Cameron).   Their feet are the same size and share some clothes.  In fact, I get asked almost weekly if they are twins.

He now sits at the kitchen table on a chair just like the rest of us.  He also gave up naps in August (though in July he stopped napping every day) and is no longer in his crib (a sad moment for me to realize my babies are no longer babies…).  Though the first time we let him sleep in a big bed, he climbed out and slept on the floor - goofball.  He also slept in his tent in the playroom quite a bit before we finally put his toddler bed up on July 15.  The first night he was in his toddler bed, he fell out at least two times but did not wake up either time.  Then in September he started preferring the large bed in the playroom over his much smaller toddler bed.  After a massive bloody nose incident in early October that required the sheets to be stripped, and therefore making the big bed unavailable, he moved back in to his toddler bed in the room he shares with Cameron and has been there since.  Knock on wood, but the boys have also started going to bed great when they share a room rather than playing until they got separated.

For a while this summer, Nate would sometimes uses the toilet but that was short lived.  Maybe this winter we will work on it more as I think he is physically able so it's just a matter of will.  It has been interesting watching Nate develop.  He has the advantage of a big brother who likes to show him how to do things, but Nate is also more impetuous and tends to just try stuff on his own terms.  Therefore he likes to do things, but doesn’t take the time to learn how to do them properly.  Cameron is a more deliberate and observant learner – he likes to watch and figure out how to do it before he tries it himself.  So it took him longer to try a lot of the new things like potty training, but when he would finally try it, he usually was able to do it well quickly.

Another cute quirk Nate had for a while was he would insist on saying good night to everybody before going to bed or naps.  It was sweet while it lasted!  Then he started protesting if anyone other than daddy tried to give him a good night kiss or hug.  Silly boy.  He was definitely in a daddy's boy phase from around his second birthday until the end of September.  Now he is a mamma's boy on many days but still a daddy's boy on others.

Because he tends to be much more driven by emotion than logic or rational thinking, Nate loves to display affection and will say "I love you" at random times which is so sweet.  But his tantrums are much longer and obnoxious than his brother's because it is harder to use logic and reasoning to calm him down than it is Cameron so being so emotional has some challenges!

Hiking in the Kettle Moraine

Cameron

Cameron finished up his first year of preschool in May and it was really exciting to watch his growth, both socially and physically.  One of my favorite activities of the year was an egg drop.  Much like the high school exercise, the kids were asked to come up with a way to protect an egg from breaking while dropped from high up (in this case, Cameron’s 6’+ tall teacher climbed a ladder to drop the containers the kids created).  The guidelines were the kids had to have the egg in a cardboard box.  Cameron suggested many different ideas including ice (we used a plastic container to test that theory out and then I let it melt and we tested the water).  He finally settled on using blankies since they are “soft and keep me safe”.  Sure enough his blankies protected the egg enough!  What a great activity to encourage creative thinking and experimentation!

Cameron and I camped out in our backyard earlier this summer and then he joined Greg and I when members of our softball team joined us for a campout at Kruepke campgrounds (Nate couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to sleep in the tent or inside so after making several trips in and out of the house, we finally decided to leave him inside for the night and brought the monitors out by us).  Cameron loved the campfire, probably because of the s’mores.  And he did great sleeping in the tent his first time until about 4:45am when the sun and the birds both came out so we finished sleeping inside.  Plus I was kinda cold (it was in June when the nights were still getting down into the 50s and 60s) so I welcomed crawling into a warm bed.  He slept in until closer to 6am the second time around which I definitely appreciated!  I am excited to take both boys camping again sometime!

Some other Cameron highlights:

• He is finally wearing 3T (for tops at least; still 2T for pants).  He picks out his own clothes and gets himself completely dressed and undressed each day.  Sometimes this new freedom leads to interesting fashion sense – a collared light blue plaid shirt w/ red shorts.  But he is usually pretty particular about matching.
• One morning he made his own breakfast (took a clean bowl from the dishwasher, poured cereal, flax seed and cranberries and got out yogurt and added it to his bowl)
• Started 4-year preschool at the same school (Christ the Life) and is pretty good about telling me about his day (what he ate for snack, who he played with, what books his teacher read and on Wednesdays what was discussed in church)
• He started peeing standing up in July and now does it regularly and most proudly - does not make too much of a mess!  He even lifts up the toilet seat before peeing. 
• He is taking a soccer skills class and is pretty good at dribbling (and shooting) but is still working on passing!  He has played a little tennis with mom and her friends.  
• Cameron also is taking swim classes by himself - no more lessons w/ parent.  Though he will jump in after lots of prodding, he still does not want to go underwater.  Even with his cool new goggles.  But he sure likes swimming around on his own with his swim belt on and had the opportunity to go swimming at his great grandma's house several times this summer with his brother and also with his friends Ben, Abby and Lorelai Burie.  One afternoon we were even joined by a baby bunny who hopped in and started swimming with us.
• Cameron's newest antic - mimicking Aaron Rodgers and his "Discount Double Check"/Championship Belt thing from the insurance ads.  Anyone in Wisconsin knows what I'm talking about.  
• He was playing with a rock this summer and named it Rachel.  Yet when it comes to naming stuffed animals, etc, they never get names.  They are shark or monkey or puppy, etc.

It has also been so neat seeing Cameron's creativity blossom.  He loves coming up with new games to play.  For example in August, he was playing with 5 small wooden frogs from a fishing game he got at Greg's company picnic.  He lined 4 of them up facing a 5th frog that he called the teacher.  Then he started playing "preschool" with them.  I think he was anxious to start school again!  I think he is a bit like his mom - a huge fan of school!

He also came up with his version of "Angry Birds" that he calls "Mad Birds".  He stacks up empty egg cartons and then throws balls at them to knock them down.

And finally, from my perspective, the accomplishment I am most proud of is Cameron read his first word!  While Cameron and I were taking a virtual tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (http://www.mnh.si.edu), we went from the Butterfly Garden to the Insect Zoo.  When I went to click on the arrow to go to the zoo, the words "Insect Zoo" came up and Cameron said "We're going to the zoo".  I asked him how he knew the next room was a zoo, he said "Because it said zoo by the clicker" (the arrow I clicked to go to the next room).  This is the first time I knew for sure he was reading a word rather than just dictating it from memory like he does with lots of his books.  In fact, when I went to email our family about Cameron’s achievement, he kept asking me why I was writing the word zoo.  There is something magical about watching a child learn to read!

Other Kruepke Family News

The boys welcomed their newest cousin, Harper Marie Andrus, on September 28th.  They have seen Harper a few times via Skype and will get to meet her this December.  They also enjoy playing with their other two cousins, Caroline and Natalie, especially when we go to the Madison Farmer's Market and meet them there or when they come visit us and we go to the train restaurant.

Kale from our garden

We also had a garden this summer.  Our kale went gang busters in the crazy dry, warm summer we had.  We also grew strawberries, asparagus (only in its 2nd year so won't be able to harvest until next year), carrots, beans (complete failure - think the animals dug them up before they sprouted), peppers, broccoli (destroyed by Japanese beetles along with our basil) and leeks. The boys have become more adventurous with their vegetable consumption and I think it is because they grew their own and we also are part of a CSA and Cameron especially will try almost anything from "Farmer Tim".  In fact, one of Cameron's current favorites is brussel sprouts - he loves peeling the outer leaves off after I cut them off the stalks.  We've made them several times (crusted with cheese and bread crumbs; with maple syrup sauce; sauteed with bacon) and he ate them each time even declaring "I love them so, so much".  Nate will plow through mixed vegetables like they are candy.  Both recently tried grilled asparagus and ate several stalks of it.  And the boys will eat just about any root veggie (radish, turnip, beets, sweet potatoes, etc) if we thinly slice them and bake them with olive oil and a little seasoning.  We were at a preschool potluck dinner last week and the family at the table with us commented on how well both boys ate vegetables and were willing to try many different things.  That was a compliment I felt really proud of as it is important to me that they learn good eating habits and embrace a variety of foods.

Sunrise from our yard

Greg and I continue to play summer softball and also played fall softball again this season.  Our summer team was almost as successful as last summer (we lost once in the regular season and in the championship game to the same team so only 2 losses in the last 2 seasons).  We play fall ball in a different league and though we weren't quite as successful (4-4), but at least we were still playing ball this week unlike the Yankees!

I spent part of the summer recovering from a nasty calf strain that landed me on crutches for several days.  I initially injured it playing tennis, though managed to finish the match.  Then after taking it easy for 10 days, I thought it was healed and was running from 3rd to home in a kickball game when it felt like a snap in the back of my leg and I hit the ground.  I had to be carried to my car by a teammate and couldn't bear weight on it for about 4 days and had to stay off of it for a few weeks.  No fun, but at least it seems healed now (knock on wood). 

Both boys also thoroughly enjoy going to "Nards" (Menards) with Daddy and get excited on Thursdays when we go to pick up our CSA vegetables at Good Harvest.  They also are still best buds and it's so fun watching them play together (though they have their share of spats - usually fighting over who gets to play with a particular toy).  One afternoon before they gave up their naps, they were supposed to be napping, but all I heard through the monitor was Spanish music (they had changed the radio station to the Spanish music station) and lots of laughing.  If they are not busy doing goofy things like that, they are usually playing hot wheel cars (or hot tire cars as they call them) smash-em-up or racing trucks so it is rare that our house is quiet.  And if it is, that means they are usually up to no good!

A few other family highlights:

• A trips to State Fair with our friends the Diels, the Maritime Museum in Manitowoc and Bay Beach Amusement Park where we met up with the Burie family - all in the same busy weekend!  I highly recommend Bay Beach for families with young kids as it is affordable and the rides are age-appropriate.  Plus for the older kids and adults, there is the Zippin Pippin roller coaster.  I was very fortunate that Ben Burie let me take him on it so I could experience it.  A fun roller coaster!
• I (Kristi) got to go home several times, including twice by myself (my grandma's birthday and to meet Harper) and once with the boys.  The boys did fantastic considering we drove almost 6 hours between my grandma's house and my grandparent's house one day.  We visited many parks while we there, went up to Snolquamie Falls, visited Lake Washington and saw family and friends.  If I get to it, I may add a separate entry with pictures later this month.
•  Lots of hiking - mostly at Retzer Nature Center (the boys love the bridges) but also in the Kettle Moraine.
• Greg will be graduating in December with his Master's in Mechanical Engineering so he is working on his last class right now!!

Finally, here are some more pictures from our summer fun:

At State Fair with Calan

On a submarine at the Maritime Museum

Cameron & Abby Burie on the train at Bay Beach Amusement Park

Fighter pilot Nate at Bay Beach Amusement Park

Nate & Lorelai Burie at Bay Beach Amusement Park

Kristi & Liz Sanchez running the Dirty Girl

Living up to the Dirty Girl name!
(L-R: Kandice, Kristi, Liz, Stacy)

Reading maps while hiking the Ice Age Trail in the Kettle Moraine

Kids Say the Darnest Things

CAMERON

Some recent quips from Cameron:

After spilling his smoothie, I asked him how it happened.  His response: "Gravity!"

"I got pointers on me"  "I got moles" - both references to his nipples.

While eating his whole wheat gnocchi with pesto (so brownish lumps with green sauce): "More broccoli chicken please"

Cameron's word for yesterday or any day in the past: "Last day"

"I'm pointed with Jesse" (translation: I'm disappointed with Jesse) after Jesse licked the sock covering his stitches right off his leg (Jess had surgery earlier this year to have a tumor removed from his paw which fortunately was not cancerous and he recovered just fine except for the constant licking of the wound site).

Asking about our softball game the night before, "Was Daddy dressed in his umpirate costume?"  No, Daddy was not an umpire nor a pirate - he was a softball player!

Cameron's underwear he was about to put on was inside out so he fixed it and turned it "inside in" as he called it.

When talking to our friend Lisa about her husband Scott, Cameron called him "your daddy" (instead of your husband).  You could tell he was trying to figure out what the right word was because he looked at Scott and then back to Lisa like he was trying to figure out what to call him.  As if that wasn't confusing enough, both boys sometimes call him "Uncle Scott" too since he is "Uncle Scott" to our good friends Ben, Abby & Lorelai

Cameron didn’t like that he had to share 1 of his 3 golf balls w/ Nate so after giving 1 to Nate, he said “This is not enough” and threw down his bucket with the two remaining balls and walked into the house saying “Whatever”.  He came back a couple minutes later with a “ping ball” (ping pong ball) to trade for a golf ball.  Very clever!

NATE

Nate also has some extremely cute sayings and boy does he talk!  I don't remember Cameron talking himself to sleep at this age as much as Nate does.  In fact, some afternoons Nate will talk for 2 hours before finally falling asleep for his nap.

Nate's word for music: "mucus"

When entering a room or wanting to know what's going on "What you doing guys?" - this was the first phrase that made me realize how much of his language development has been influenced by Cameron because this is the same phrase Cameron often uses in the same situation, but is not one Greg or I commonly use!

One day after he woke up from his nap, we could hear him through the monitor listing various family members ("Uncle Scott, Uncle Keith, Grandma, Grandpa, Cameron, Daddy, Mommy, Aunt Kali" etc and then he would go through the list again sometimes in different order and sometimes adding or omitting people).

"No,  Daddy do it".  Just like that Nate became a daddy's boy.  He was always a mama's boy when he was little, but right around his second birthday he changed and suddenly he will only let Daddy do stuff for him if both of us are around (which I don't mind if it's something like changing a diaper!)   Fortunately he still lets me help him if I am flying solo.  Otherwise weekdays would be very long and agonizing!

Kids really do say the darnest things (fortunately most of what they have said so far is cute and not too offensive...)

Adventures in Atlanta

I took the boys to Atlanta for 11 days and Greg joined us for the last 4.  The weather was (mostly) beautiful and the boys were much better behaved at Grandma and Grandpa's than last time (when Cameron would tackle Nate anytime his brother glanced at him and neither wanted to nap regularly).  However, getting there proved to be quite the adventure.

We left our house at around 5:15 am on a snowy Friday to catch our 7:30am flight to Atlanta.  Despite the slow and slippery drive, we got to the airport just fine.  We even ran into Greg's cousin Kelly and her family at the airport as they were on the way to Disney.  We were about to board the plane when I realized that I left the car seat in the terminal.  Young kids require a lot of stuff when traveling and it was bound to happen that I would forget something, but that was an expensive (and challenging) thing to forget.  Fortunately a nice airport employee found the car seat behind the ticket counter in the gate area we had been in (different from the gate area for our flight) after looking two times in the terminal for me.  Apparently somebody found it and put it back there for safekeeping.  What could have been an awful start to our trip was resolved with only some anxiety on my part!

Once on the plane, I broke out breakfast - leftover pancakes.  Because of our early flight time, the boys were able to wait until we were on the plane to eat.  I like to have them eat while we are taking off and landing to help keep their ears open.  However, because of the weather we had to get our plane de-iced so we didn't actually take off for an hour and a half after our scheduled time.  Ugh.  One of the reasons I'm brave enough to take the boys on an airplane by myself is that the flight to Atlanta is non-stop and only 2 hours long.  By the time we finally took off, we would have nearly been to Atlanta on our scheduled timeline.  But the boys were hanging in there and were fascinated by the pinkish liquid running down the windows as they de-iced our plane.

We finally took off for Atlanta around 9am.  Before we took off, I talked to my parents and my mom mentioned storms were moving into the Atlanta area.  So not surprisingly, when we got near Atlanta we ended up in a holding pattern north of the city.  Ironically enough, we were probably flying over my parents' house as they are north of the city.  Then because the storms still had not passed and we were running low on fuel, we had to land in Chattanooga, TN for a refueling.  While refueling, a mechanical issue was discovered so now not only did we need to wait for refueling, we needed to wait for a mechanic to look at and fix the mechanical issue.  Ugh.

After sitting on the plane in Chattanooga for about an hour and a half, we were allowed to deboard the plane thanks to recent FAA rule changes about how long passengers can stay in a plane on the tarmac.  Chattonooga is a small airport and does not typically have passenger jets of our size land there so we had to actually walk down a ramp from our plane and across the tarmac to the gate.  The boys loved that!

We finally made it to Atlanta 13 hours after leaving our house.  I was very grateful and proud that my kids did not melt down.  In fact, several passengers complimented me on their behavior (wish I could take full credit, but they were troopers!)  I am known for packing way too much food when I travel, but this was one of the times it paid off.

Once in Atlanta, we had a relaxing time.  Cameron missed a week of preschool and the unit they were studying was on fish so we did some fish related activities to "make up" his missed school (well what really happened is we went to the fish hatchery in my parents' neighborhood and that inspired me to do other fish themed activities - some of which were a bit of a stretch).  When we got home, Cameron (with my help) wrote about his fish themed vacation:

"While on vacation at my grandma and grandpa’s in Georgia, I got to do a lot with fish too.  I made this picture of fish by gluing tissue paper on to represent the fishes’ scales.  I did this after going to a fish hatchery full of brown trout and rainbow trout.  These fish will eventually be released into the Chattahoochee River and other streams and lakes in Georgia.  We fed them little pellets made of fish meal and high protein feed.  The fish would jump and splash to get at the food.  There were some fish over a foot long and weighing more than 10 pounds!  We also went to an Asian grocery store and saw live crabs, lobsters, eel, flounder, and other edible sea creatures.  I even tried some lobster that my grandma made and really liked it.  Those were just some of the highlights of my vacation." 
He attached his story to a picture he made of fish.

A few other highlights of our trip included:

- The train set in grandma and grandpa's basement.  Oh boy did they have fun playing with it!  And thank you so much to the Burie's who brought over their old train set that they don't use anymore so now Cameron and Nathan can play trains here at home whenever they want.  And they want to a lot!

 -  Not sure this is a "high"light, but while everybody back home in Wisconsin was digging out from the 4th Friday in a row of snow, we were huddled in my parent's basement riding out a nasty storm that spawned several tornadoes in Georgia.  My mom and I were out on the porch with the intention of bringing the chairs inside when the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard scared the bejeebers out of us.  I ran inside knowing that Cameron would be spooked since I had just put him to bed about 10 mins before.  Sure enough, he was already out of his bedroom looking for anyone to comfort him.  Poor guy.  The sirens went off shortly thereafter.  Fortunately my parents city was spared and it was just a long hour of waiting it out.  Nathan slept through most of it and Cameron talked through most of it (maybe his nerves?).  

- The boys tried some new foods.  Both enjoyed the pork belly we had a ramen restaurant.  Yes, there is a restaurant that features ramen, but it is not your college student Top Ramen.  It is a really rich, decadent broth made from simmering pork belly.  They also had the delicious pork belly appetizer that the boys devoured.  Cameron also woofed down a bunch of lobster at dinner one night.  He can be a picky eater, but he seems to really like seafood.  Shrimp and lobster are his two favorites right now. 

I will apologize again for my delay.  I start my entries on time, but then it takes me weeks to finish them so they are old news by the time I get them posted!

Kristi and the boys

Jingle Bells Part 2 - the Pictures

Cameron's Grinch Impression

Nate Claus

The boys made a gingerbread house w/ Aunt Kali & this was Nate's side - note the gingerbread man stuck on top of the other two gingerbread people.   I thought his decorating was too cute!

Jingle Bells

I know I have some catching up to do, so here is the first in hopefully a few entries to highlight the past several months:


As can be expected with a 3-year old and 20-month old, Christmas is a mix of excitement, chaos, meltdowns, and that magical feeling of anticipation.  And that was just Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve found us at Great Grandma Kruepke's house with about 50 other people.  The boys enjoyed playing with their cousins and of course got excited when it was their turn to receive gifts from Great Grandma as well as their gift exchange person.  However, it became a late night for them and we paid the price on Christmas day...


This was the first Christmas where Nathan was an active participant in the gift opening.  Cameron tore through his stocking and then "helped" Nathan go through his.  This was one of the few times where Cameron was more impetuous than Nathan.  Interestingly enough, the highlight of the stockings were the little boxes of raisins they each received.


We asked Santa to bring each boy only 3 gifts to represent how Jesus received 3 gifts from the wisemen.  No, the boys did not get gold, frankincense, and myrrh like Jesus.  Instead they each got a puzzle (a very popular toy in our household - more on that when I blog about our trip to Atlanta), a pair of slippers and a Tonka truck.  One of the last gifts opened was from us to Nathan.  We were very excited about it because for the weeks leading up to Christmas, Nathan would constantly talk about Cookie Monster.  Greg found a singing Cookie Monster doll on Amazon for a great price so it was a last minute purchase.  Nate started opening the gift and we figured he would be really excited.  Wrong!  As soon as he saw it was Cookie Monster, he dropped it and ran off crying and screaming and for the rest of the day would run away and cry if he saw Cookie Monster.  Not what we expected, but it definitely was the one thing I will remember about this Christmas!  It took several days, but he did eventually warm up to the doll and will actually push it's belly to sing the song.



Christmas definitely is a much different experience once you have kids old enough to understand it.  All the hiding of gifts, wrapping them at night (we fortunately wrapped them over several nights so we didn't have to stay up late on Christmas Eve doing massive amounts of wrapping), helping the kids write letters to Santa and his reindeer, answering questions about Santa and how he fits down the chimney, etc.  It's a lot of work, but it sure is worth it when you see the kids' eyes light up on Christmas Day.


Pictures and maybe even a video of Nathan opening his Cookie Monster doll will be posted later...