The Kriz Family » Lukas

Finally, some sun!

jim — Sat, 07 May 2011 01:06:22 +0000

We finally had a sunny day today. I think we’ve had about 3 sunny days in the past 30, it is getting a little ridiculous. What better to do than play outside and climb a tree!

It’s tree-climbing time!

Happy Easter!

jim — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:02:02 +0000

Happy Easter everyone. He is risen!

I can’t believe how fast this year is going by. Just a few months ago, we celebrated Elsa’s first birthday, now Easter Sunday is almost over and we’re heading in to May. It’s been a while since our last update (as usual lately…), so I thought today would be a good day to finally post something out here.

Last weekend was busy. We went to Kevin and Erin’s to celebrate Kevin’s birthday on Saturday. The kids had a great time over there, and the parents did too. (Thanks for having us Kevin & Erin!). The next day, we went to Palm Sunday mass, then had two Easter Egg hunts. We were all tired at the end of that day! Our little Elsa has started walking (just last weekend, actually), so she was able to walk around and get some eggs. She’s still pretty clumsy, but it is fun to watch her. She really gets going, and her big belly is always leading the way – and keeping her balanced when she starts to topple backwards

Yesterday, we colored Easter eggs. Elsa is still not quite old enough to have any interest in this, but Lukas was excited about it. Then in the afternoon, we went to Kevin & Erin’s again to celebrate Caroline’s birthday. Once again, a fun time for us all. And of course, we celebrated Easter today. We went to church this morning, then had Heidi’s parents over for Easter dinner. All through the service this morning, Lukas was talking about how Jesus’ body wasn’t in the tomb when they rolled the stone away. And where did he go?? He is risen! I love that he is so interested in this, but just wish he had a volume control for places like church, the car, at home, pretty much everywhere. We asked him today to turn his volume control down about half way, and he responds (loudly), with a laugh, “But daddy, I don’t have a volume control! That’s silly!” “I know Lukas, I know…” I replied… And this evening, we started to notice that Elsa is probably just as bossy as her brother. Granny took her shoes off and had them in another room. Elsa brought them over and tried to get them on Granny’s feet as best as she could. Then pretty much every time Granny took her shoes off after that, Elsa would bring them around to put them back on. Everything has to be in its place!

Anyway, I have some videos I’ll be posting soon, but in the meantime, here are some photos from the past few weekends.

Lukas found an egg – collecting in the Home Depot bag

Green egg in one hand, other hand holding on to Mommy… Now how do I get this yellow one?

I have a bunch of eggs now!

Mommy loves when I make this face

Checking out the loot

Just out for a stroll…

Checking out the colors – orange is almost done!

Always putting on a show for the camera…

Elsa in her Easter outfit

So ladylike

Happy Easter!

Cutting Down Our Tree

jim — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:03:16 +0000

We made our annual trek in the 4-wheel-drive sleigh to cut down our Christmas tree today. This year, we tried a different tree farm – Big Tree Plantation in Morrow – and it was a perfect experience. To start off, we had the first real snow of the year, so that made it really feel like Christmas. When we got to the farm, we bundled up, grabbed our camera, and loaded the kids up on the wagon (in tow by a red tractor) that took us out to the tree farm. After that, we got a saw and a sled, and hiked around to find that perfect tree. It didn’t take long, they had some really beautiful trees! Once we found it, we cut it down, dragged it in the sled back to the wagon, and then went to the barn to warm up with some hot chocolate and candy. It really was a perfect day – the weather, the wagon ride, everything made it a truly memorable experience. A great way to kick off the Christmas season!

Heidi, Lukas, and Elsa, ready to pick out our tree

Found our tree, just have to cut it down now

James and Elsa by some future Christmas Trees

Lukas and Elsa in the sled

Hauling the tree back

Smart Phones?

jim — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:20:05 +0000

Now that Heidi and I have our supercool new Android phones, it’s like a whole new world has opened up to us. We can sit on the couch next to each other and send text messages to each other. And we can browse the interwebs while sitting on the couch watching TV. And we can play Angry Birds while sitting on the couch watching TV and sending text messages. Real quality time I tell you, everyone should get one of these. (Interestingly, I’ve made and taken a total of about 10 phone calls in the month that I’ve had the phone, so obviously most of my use of this device is not for it’s telephony “feature”). Anyone seen the new Windows Phone ad? What a bunch of nonsense.

All kidding aside, it is really handy – for instance, if it is a Sunday night, and you are out getting groceries, and really need to get some Sudafed (the real stuff that’s protected behind the counter, not the “PE” garbage on the shelf) for your cold, you can do a quick search to look for all the 24-hour pharmacies around you. Granted, you may discover that there are none within a 20 mile radius, but it is still handy.

And I really do like having a pretty decent camera nearby too. You can capture some moments that otherwise probably would have been lost while running to grab the DSLR from the camera bag. And Lukas doesn’t automatically come running up to look at the screen on the phone like he does with the real cameras (yet), so it is actually possible to get pictures of him doing his thing without him realizing it.

Here are just a few of Lukas and Elsa that I’ve gotten recently. Enjoy!

Monkey Boy

Oh yes, this is how most meals go when there are vegetables involved

1 9-month-old + 1 serving of Pureed Carrots = 1 Big Mess

Elsa sure loves Lukas – wherever he’s playing, she is always close by

Long time…

jim — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 05:20:08 +0000

It’s been quite a while since we last posted anything here. So long that grandparents are saying “Will you please put some new pictures up here already?”, and friends are saying “Can you give me the new address of your web site, kriz.net seems to be dead, it hasn’t been updated since February”.

The site hasn’t moved. We’ve just moved. Twice. This year. And we had a baby in February. And we decided it would be a good idea to do some remodeling in our new house before we moved in June. This year has moved by so fast, but we do have a lot of memories with Elsa and Lukas that have made it a very special year amidst all the chaos. Even though those little stinkers are the driving force behind most of the chaos…

So here are just a few moments we’ve captured – there are plenty more this year, but it would probably take me a year to get them all included here… We promise that this time it will not be so long before our next post. Really, I’m serious, you just wait and see.

Our little Elsa is sure growing up fast!

Smiling 3-month-old Elsa

Just chillin’ in the pack-n-play on the deck

Elsa escapes from her PJs like Houdini escaped from a straitjacket

Not too sure about these carrots mom, you have any fruit for me?

Happy little girl in her Marshall gear

Sometimes we wonder what happened to “baby Lukas” – he’s all boy now!

And he sure loves his sister, and she can’t get enough of him and his antics either. It’s so much fun to watch them together.

Can’t you just see the love there?

Riding in the helicopter at King’s Island

Just out for a drive

Having a snack by the fountain

And just a few shots with mom and dad – this was our trip to the pumpkin patch.

How do we look? I’d have to say not too bad, considering…

Mom and Lukas and Elsa at Shaw Farms

Dad and the kids and the pumpkins

Oh, and I just had to post this – Lukas has become quite the daredevil on his Strider bike that Maria and Marcos gave him last year. Once he gets pedaling down, he’ll be ready for a “big boy bike”, no training wheels required! (You’ll have to excuse some of the baby sounds and general shakiness in the video – I was holding Elsa in one arm and the camera in the other, while Heidi was rustling up Boone since he was going nuts outside)

Our Musical Boy

jim — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:33:18 +0000

This weekend, Lukas dragged out his drum and decided to start singing. It was pretty cute. We caught most of it on video, and while I don’t want to share all 15 minutes of it, here are a few of his favorite songs. If you can hear him over the banging on the drum (with maracas, of course…), he sings “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep”.

The Pumpkin Patch

jim — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:28:18 +0000

We took our annual trip to Shaw Farms in search of the Great Pumpkin. Lukas had a good time there last year, and we figured that being a year older, he’d really have a blast. They have all sorts of decorations, little houses and boats for kids to play on, and of course, a huge selection of pumpkins. How fun! Boy were we wrong. There was this big jack-in-the-box thing, which was really just a huge plywood box with one of those inflatable decorations (you know, the ones that have the air pump running all the time) sticking up from it. Lukas took one look at that and clung to me the rest of the time. When we managed to coax him to go look at pumpkins or play, he wouldn’t go far, and never really took his eyes off the big bad jack-in-the-box. Poor Lukas! What’s funny is that as soon as we got in the car to go home, he started talking about how he had fun with the jack-in-the-box. Hmmm. I think all this stemmed from the previous week’s traumatic experience at Kroger – there was a “scary witch” and an inflatable cat decoration at the front of the store, and those gave him a pretty good scare for some reason… He still talks about the scary witch, and even though we tell them they are just decorations (which he seems to understand), he is still scared.

Anyway, we did manage to capture a few moments from our outing.

This was actually a big yawn, but looks like a scary face

Come on Lukas, lift that pumpkin up and put it in the wagon already

That’s a heavy wagon full of pumpkins

Granny is helping with that heavy wagon

Now we’ll load up some mini pumpkins, and we’re all done

Playing in the Rain

jim — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:24:30 +0000

It was a rainy day, but Lukas really wanted to play outside. So we gave in and let him play outside. I think this was the first time he’s played in the rain, so we had to take pictures of course.

Our little helper sweeping off the driveway

Future Heisman Trophy Candidate

First we swept the drive, then played some football, then swept the porch

Seriously, have you ever seen a cuter boy?

Lukas the Comedian

jim — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:15:17 +0000

Lately, we’ve noticed that our son is trying to make jokes. It mainly involves a couple of his favorite books – Dear Zoo, and My Big Truck Book. The jokes are usually calling the animals in “Zoo” some of his favorite truck names, or calling trucks some of the animals. He’ll point to the giraffe and say “Car Transporter”, then say “Noooooo”, and laugh with a big smile on his face the whole time. Well, tonight I was asking him if he was a Skid Steer, or a Giraffe, or a Car Transporter or an Elephant. Each time, he’d have the same big smile and say “Noooooo daddy”. Well, the funniest thing was when we were saying “night night”. After he gave Boone a hug and gave me a hug, he was shoving me out of his bedroom so mommy could put him to bed. (Yes, when it’s Heidi’s turn, he literally shoves me out the door, sometimes telling me “Go in circles daddy” as he pushes me out). Anyway, as he is shutting the door in my face, I say “Night Night Skid Steer!”, and without hesitation, he responds back “Night Night Dumper!”, and slams the door and laughs. I cracked up – he made a funny and meant it! I wish I had that on tape.

Gym Tots on Monday

jim — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:31:57 +0000

Lukas has been going to “Gym Tots” at the Y this summer. It’s mostly just to get him to be with other kids and follow directions. He loves being with other kids, but doesn’t follow directions so much Heidi’s been taking him, so I have not actually seen him in action, but we finally have some photos of him playing at Gym Tots. Heidi captured each activity, and I think you’ll notice a common theme – that either Lukas does his own thing (to the beat of his own drummer, you might say…), or that he is actually participating, but he is right on top of the teacher.

This is before class starts, we just play on a rocker with the other kids.

Here they have some sticks they are supposed to cross, raise up, etc. Notice how the other kids are lined up nicely, but we have to be out in front, right on top of the teacher.

Ok, this isn’t too bad, at least we’re not the only one out of line…

Ahhh yes, playing with the radio. Apparently we were really bad about this for the first few weeks of class.

“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”

Smile!

Stomp your feet!

Now we’re chasing after the balls and putting them in barrels. I love how he throws his arms in the air when he runs.

Popping bubbles.

Already charming the ladies

This is the parachute ball game – we’ve gotten a lot better at this one.

Now we’re cleaning up. Lukas is really good at this, surprisingly. At home, he likes to clean up his toys before we leave, or before he eats, or whatever. This is good.

Holding hands and singing

And finally, we get stamps on our hands before we leave. Once again, notice who is right on top of the teacher (and who apparently also shoves other kids out of the way to get there…)