{the Shower}

I love finding an excuse to get together with some gals and eat some yummy food. My friend Brooke is having her second baby, which is a boy, in September so we had to throw her a shower. My good friend Kels helped me out. Thanks Kels!
It was so fun to do this because I got to know some pretty amazing girls. Most of them are M2 wives and I just haven't had the chance to get to know them yet. I know, bad.
I didn't really do a good job at taking pictures because Kels had to work, Jake was on call for pysch, I know really, and the boys were crazy throughout the shower. I wish I could have taken a picture of the food before everyone started eating. It looked so yummy!
I've decided when I do stuff like this I totally over plan. It's like I plan on feeding a dozen football players. I don't know why I do this. We had so much food. My husband always says that if I'm planning it for girls that they won't eat a lot in front of each other. Which was so true! Lesson learned.









Jake got home half way through the shower, thank heaven. He took the kids in to the boys room and played with them. Nola and Eliza were having so much fun.


I just have to say that I would love it if Nolan married her, actually lets just start with dating. She is beautiful and has such a sweet personality. She couldn't hurt a fly. I love the pic Jake got of her. Too cute! And of course Lukie was just trying to get in on all the action.






All-in-all the shower was a success! I hoped you liked your stuff Brooke! It looked so cute and so many of the girls made their own stuff! Really talented. I think I need to take up sewing.....

{bouncie, bouncie, bouncie}

Here's our cute little Lukie being as fun as ever. He is always happy and loves life. I bet you grandparents can't wait to see him again!

{very clever}

In the morning when I need to get in the shower I let Nolan choose a movie to watch while I get ready. He picked out his favorite and I got in the shower.
When I was done I went out to see how he was doing and if the apartment was ok. And this is what I found. The clever little dude. He went in to Lukie's room and took the stroller out and rolled it over to the tv so he could watch the movie sitting inside it.
This boy makes me laugh. Also, many of you won't be able to tell but he is wearing his jammies with his cars shirt and I think it was his Walle undies over the jammies. He won't go to bed without them. A very stange obsession but cute at the same time.

{8 months}

It's that time again! Lukie is 8 months today. What a cute little kid. He is so much fun to have around.
Luke has officially perfected the army crawl. He hasn't even tried to do the normal crawl since he figured out this whole army crawl. If he only knew it would take so much less energy.
He loves to be held and will snuggle up in your neck still. He laughs at about everything, except when you need him to the most for family pictures. We had family pictures taken on Tuesday and we got nothin' out of this kid.
He of, course, sits up on his own, has three teeth and two top ones on the way. His poor gums are so big and red. Hopefully they will break through soon. He rarely fusses. Pretty much when he needs to eat or sleep or if he was slapped or punched or kicked or picked up by Nolan. I really wish Nolan would lay off him for awhile.
Can I just interrupt for just one second. As I am writing this post, Lukie is sitting in his door bouncer because he woke up from his nap and wouldn't go back down. Well, I guess he is super tired because he keeps falling in and out of sleep. It is the cutest thing to watch. I will try to get a picture and post that later.
Ok, back to his 8 month stats. Luke has said his first word. I'm not to happy with his choice but what do ya do. He said "dada" the other day. Now he can't stop saying it. BUG! I totally wanted him to say "mama" first like Nolan did. Maybe though, since he said dada first he will love me more. I only say this because Nolan said mama and clearly loves to be with Jake more. Let's hope for the best. Anyway, we love our Lukie. He is so handsome and smiles and giggles so much! We are so lucky to have him.

{the FAIR}

The Wisconsin State Fair is one thing I look forward to out here in the "land of the good earth." If you are a people watcher then this is the place to go.
This years big food item was chocolate covered bacon. To me, YUCK, to everyone else, they seemed to like it.
We were so lucky to get free tickets from the Barber's. Thanks guys!!!! This was a very good thing considering what I'm about to tell you all.
So we get to the Fair and it is incredibly hot and way too humid for my liking. We got as far as the tractors, which is one of the first things from one of the main gates. Nolan wouldn't leave. Finally we got him to venture over to the animal part. He loved it!! The sheep were so funny. For some odd reason they kept sneezing. One sneezed right on my shirt, gross!!!!
Some of the places were air conditioned but most were just full of huge fans. Of course, our little Nolan boy was hooked. He kept pointing to the top of the buildings and saying, "did you see that fan?" This kid is so weird some times.
After we had seen some cool animals and the fans we walked out just in time to see the official Budweiser Clydesdale horses being washed. Those animals are so huge!!! The guys washing him was on a stool.
After the horse I took a cute little pic of Lukie just sitting ever so nicely in the stroller. Not making a peep.

It was definitely too hot for us to really enjoy the people watching because we were constantly fanning ourselves or going to places with air.


Before we even got to the fair Luke had woken up from his nap with a tiny little rash on his leg. I thought it was from his shorts so we changed those and headed out. After we had been at the fair for only about an hour Lukie's rash had completely taken over his entire body. It was bright red with white blistery patches all over. Immediately Jake and I thought we need to leave. So we head out of the Fair, with me kicking and screaming because I didn't get my corn or my deep fried oreos. Seriously, I'm still sad about it. On the way to the car Lukie was just babbling like crazy and started saying, "dada." What........he was suppose to say mama first! Anyway, we got the the urgent care and he was put on benedril for a few days to help with the rash. They don't really know what caused it. He was on amoxacillan (i don't know how to spell that)but they don't think that was the sourse.
So we didn't get to enjoy the Fair this year the way I had anticipated. We are glad that Lukie is fine and didn't stop breathing or something. I am still, however, bummed about my corn and deep fried oreos. I can taste them they are so good. Hopefully next year will be better.

{my OLD man}

Jake has been playing on an outdoor soccer league all summer with some buddies from his class. I'm all for Jake getting out and doing what he loves. Although, all of his games happen to be on the same night that I have mutual activities. When he first told me I wasn't too fond of the idea but there was nothing we could do because he had already paid for it. So I endured through the entire summer with the kids at mutual.
About a week and a half ago Jake was playing in his last game of the season. I guess the team they were playing were big time hackers and were out of control because a lot of Jake's teammates got hurt. And of course, Jake was one of them. When he got home he looked like an old man. He was sweaty, I'm sure because he has to use so much more energy now that he is older (wink, wink, love ya honey), and was limping in to the apartment. I didn't really ask him anything, I just figured he played really hard and was sore.
But after he had gathered all the pillows and started elevating his knee I asked what was up. He said he had torn his MCL. Seriously! He went to see the Doctor the next day and sure enough, it was. He has to wear a knee brace and do physical therapy now. Good thing he has good insurance.
Poor Jake, he is just getting too old. No not really, I just like to give him a hard time. I told him the reason he got hurt was because his games were on the same nights as my activities. He didn't find that too funny.
He is doing better now and hopefully he will be in mint condition for softball in the fall. Lets hope so because his buddies will be mad since he was the MVP of the medical vs dental game. Get better soon honey!

{it's what big brothers do, right?}

Poor little Lukie. He just gets picked on all day long from the Nolan boy.
I was blow drying my hair this morning and heard Luke crying. I ran in to the room to see this.....Nolan had put his blankets over Luke! What a mean big brother. Sometimes I think that Nolan doesn't like Luke at all. But then I talk with Jake about it and he tells me that he got beat up by Ben (his older brother) and then Jake beat up on Blake (his younger brother). It's what brothers do.
Really? I wish they weren't so mean. I know it's good for them to wrestle around but sometimes Luke gets the short end of the stick because he isn't old enough to fight back yet. Gosh, I really hope that Lukie is bigger than Nolan and gets him good when he is older.
Lately, when Lukie is sitting up just chillin', Nolan will come right up to him and hit his forehead so that Luke lands right on his back. I seem to recall Mr. Blake Rabe doing that to his little sister when he was young. What is it with these Rabe boys? It's a good thing they are so cute or else!

{i'm so glad when daddy "is" home.....}

We love it when Jake is on post call. That means he gets to hang out with us all day long! Well, sort of. He first needs to get a little bit a sleep and then the whole rest of the day is ours.
We are so proud of Jake and working so hard on this ob/gyn rotation. It is coming to an end, which we are so excited about, the end of this week!
I have to say this rotation wasn't nearly as bad as everyone was telling me it was going to be. It was ruff sometimes because Jake was on-call every 6 days. Which meant he would leave to the hospital @ 5:30 am and get back the next morning around 9:00 am. What a trooper he was. This rotation made Jake very sleep deprived!
Sunday was Jake's last post-call of his ob/gyn rotation, which was a good day. After I bravely took the boys to church, ALL BY MYSELF, with some much needed help from the Barber's, (thanks guys) we played with Jake the rest of the day.
Lukie was particularly fond of Jake that day. It was so cute to see him smiling and laughing at Jake. And can I say that Luke is getting so big. Don't you think!?
He is almost 8 months! I really think they grow up way too fast.
We tried to snap some shots of Lukie balancing on daddy's hand just like Nolan did. I think they turned out pretty cute.








After Luke was done of course Jake moved on to the next crazy....Nolan or as we refer to him now as "CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS!"

I swear they wrestled for ever! Nolan could have gone all night long. You see why I am so tired at the end of the day? This kid has so much energy and takes it all from me and Jake. We sure do love Sunday afternoons at our place. Especially when we get to spend them with Daddy!

{captain UNDERPANTS is at it again}

He's a maniac!!! Nolan has some thrill issues. (I'm sure he gets that from Jake and not me) We were terribly bored after church on Sunday and couldn't go outside because of the rain so what did we do.....we threw Nolan boy around!

Nolan loved it! He kept making Jake do it over and over and.... Of course he was dressed for the occasion in his underwear and holding his car shirt. I really tried to get him to wear something else but he can't let go of that cars shirt! Isn't the picture above so cool? It looks like Nolan is part of a magic trick.

Of course we weren't letting Nolan fall on the ground. (I'm sure you were all wondering where he was landing) We pulled out the trusty big bag and went to town.

I can't wait to see what other crazy things these boys will come up with on a rainy day. Oh, and Nolan's new favorite song to sing....."It's raining it's poring. The old man is snoring. He went to be with a bump on his head and couldn't wake up in the morning." I never realized what that song is about until I sung it for Nolan. Poor old man! He's dead. Kind of a depressing song.

{captain UNDERPANTS}

I was speaking with Jake the other day about our fun and most energetic boy Nolan. Jake was telling me that people will come up to him all the time and ask how Nolan is doing. Confused, Jake would respond with a simple, "fine?" After so many times of this happening Jake finally put two and two together. He thinks that when people read our blog that they think Nolan is this horrible little kid all the time. Which is so not true!
The things I put on the blog are just moments. That doesn't mean that Nolan is crazy or naughty all the time every day. So I just want to say sorry to my little boy! He is such a good kid. He does have his moments, but what 2 year old doesn't? Nolan is just a very passionate boy. He knows what he wants and works hard to get it.
I'm going to take a moment to brag about how cute my Nolan boy is. We were at Target the other day to get some essentials and he saw a little boy picking out "big boy" undies. He thought that was cool and decided to do it himself. Mind you, I was not paying attention when he was picking them out or had any idea that he was even doing this. After he had picked the underwear of his choice he brought them over to me and asked to buy them. I couldn't resist! Heck, maybe he is getting closer to becoming potty trained.
So we get home and he immediately wants to put on his cool, big boy undies. I think the main reason for this was because they were his favorite things. Each underwear was either "cars," "incredibles," "walle," or "nemo." So Jake put them on him and Nolan, within seconds, peed out of them. So we decided that he wasn't ready for this quite yet. But he really, really wanted to wear them. I'm such a sucker for cute obsessions so I gave in.
Nolan has been wearing them over his diaper for the last week. In fact we went swimming just yesterday and he wanted to wear his "walle" undies with his swim trunks. Ok, whatever.
The cutest thing about it is Nolan has to see the undies. Every night when he is getting his jammies on he asks to wear his cars, walle, or incredibles undies. Rather than have Nolan throw a big fit right before bed we gladly put them over his pj's. He thinks it is pretty cool! Just yesterday he was jumping and flying around the apartment. Jake and I have now named him....."Captain Underpants!" All he needs is a cape.
I really love my Nolan boy! He makes me laugh all day long. He is getting smarter and smarter everyday. I love that he is putting sentences together and speaking to us so clearly! I love when he tells me, "mama, come sit down. want a snuggle." I hope he always asked me to snuggle. It makes me so happy! I am so lucky to have my crazy boy Nolan.
I hope after reading this you all won't think that Nolan is this horrible kid. He just has his moments. Like we all do. So no more asking me or Jake if Nolan is doing ok! We love our Nolan, or shall we say, "Captain Underpants!"

{baby Graham!}

Jake's brother Ben and his cute wife Kendra just had their second baby on Friday, July 31st! They named him Graham Christian Rabe. Isn't that the cutest name? He weighed in at 7 lbs and 12 oz and was 20 inches long. BIG! Well, to us at least. We are so happy for you guys!!! Congratulations!!!!!

{baby Graham!}