More Papa...

This is what the kids call their Great Grandpa on Doug's side since he is also Papa. We went up to Seattle this weekend to visit and to also celebrate More Papa's 92nd birthday. It was great seeing everyone. The last time the kids and I had gone up there was a couple months before CJ was born. So they hadn't seen CJ in person yet. Doug hadn't seen them since before we moved to TN! So it had been quite sometime since he had been there. We will have to try to get over more often, now that we are in WA again! We tried to get a good picture of the 4 generations of Ralph Douglas Crowes. This is probably one of my better pictures (I'm hoping one of us, there were 3 of us taking pictures, got a good shot!) So Happy 92nd Birthday Papa! We hope we are able to celebrate many more birthdays with you!

Apple Orchard

Yesterday I got the great honor of being one of the chaperones for Jayde's field trip to the apple orchard. It was alot of fun to go and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do it with her. We got a tour through their factory and saw how the sorted and cleaned and boxed up the apples. Then they took us out to the orchard where our guide quizzed us a little on apples (such as did you know that the granny smith apple came from Australia?) I think the funniest part was that they let everyone each pick two apples to take back home with them. So we learned the proper way to pick an apple, which is 1. lift the apple up 2. twist and 3. pull this way we don't ruin the bud for next years crop. Jayde was of course excited about the fact that she technically got to take home 4 apples since I was there. We haven't had a chance to taste on yet (I still need to wash them really well) but I'm sure they will be delicious! I'm hoping that maybe we can take a family outing out to the apple orchard sometime to pick some apples. The next field trip is in November for Doogie's class, they get to go watch a musical (The Twelve Dancing Princessess). Doogie isn't super excited about going to it (because he thinks it is s girl show!) but I told him that I would be going too and I thought that he might be surprised and actually enjoy it!

Pumpkin Patch Pictures!

Okay, I just flooded my blog with pictures of our outing on Sunday to the Pumpkin Patch! And if you think that this is a lot, keep in mind that I took almost 400 pictures! The kids had alot of fun, especially CJ who was really enjoying running wild! The girls and CJ loved the horses (that is until one of them gave Ryann a little love bite on her cheek!) The pictures of the cute couple and the other cute blonde child are of my brother and his girlfriend and her little boy (him and Doogie have really hit it off!) We were talking about the fact that it was a year ago in the same place that we first met Melissa and Christian when Chris finally decided that we wouldn't scare her away with our crazy family! Hahahaha! So anyways, as you can see from the pictures, we had a good time and we had a bunch of tired kids that night!

Fun times on a Saturday...

I just had to share these pictures of my two little guys. It was just too darn cute! CJ had dumped all the legos out of his lego box and than preceded to drag the box out in the living room where he than climbed into it and sat down and played in the box. Jaxon who witnessed the event decided that that looked like alot of fun too, so he went running into his room where I than heard a crash (the sound of legos being dumped out) and next thing I knew he was back in the living room carrying his now empty box, set his down next to CJ and climbed in as well. Myself, watching all of this thought to myself "well that's just too darn cute, I need to grab my camera!" I didn't get the greatest pictures of them, they were having a blast wiggling all over the place! But I thought they were cute anyways!

Tomorrow we will be heading over to the pumpkin patch so I will be sure to bring my camera along and get a bunch of pictures. I will than try to get them up on the blog within the next couple days!

I think I jinxed us...

On Tuesday at clean-up night at Ryann and Jaxon's preschool I told everyone that we were all healthy.... Well now everyone is starting to sniffle, myself included. I'm hoping that it is allergies since it was really windy Tuesday night, but I've been coughing a bit too and I heard some of the kids coughing as well. With all of my children having something unique about them (atleast the three youngest, health wise) I have to keep a close eye on them all. Ryann because of her diabetes...so when she gets sick her blood sugars go all over the place and it is a chore to keep them in her normal range. Jaxon, now that we know that he can have breathing problems when sick we will have to watch that closely and use the inhaler when needed. And of course CJ who we now know can have siezures when his temperature gets too high, so I have been frequently checking his forhead to see if he feels warm. Ahhh...the joys of being a parent! Though I guess I should be thankful that we were atleast all healthy for a week or so!

In other news, I've decided to start working on getting Jaxon potty trained. He has been showing interest for a while now and I've just been letting him tell me when he wants to sit on the potty with occasional talks about using the potty (usually when I'm in the process of changing his diaper). With all the running around it's been hard to really get on a regular schedule of reminding him to use the potty and what not. The last few times this week that Jaxon has asked me to use the potty it has been right after he has already gone (well except for one, I had just changed him and was talking about using the potty when he told me he wanted to go. So I got him down from the changing table and told him just a second let me throw away this diaper...in that short amount of time while he was standing by the bathroom door waiting for me, he pee'd in his diaper...so we were close there). So this afternoon when he told me he needed to go potty, I said okay and took him into the bathroom (he's diaper was pretty wet, so I assumed he had already gone) I put him on the potty and than went to throw away his diaper, when I came back in he was really concentrating and looking down at the potty and next thing I knew we started hearing that very distinct sound of "tinkling"! He got a huge grin on his face and I immediately started cheering him on and praising him. Ryann even came running in to see what was happening and started to congratulate him and tell him that he was a big boy now. So, we will see what happens next! Hopefully he will keep recognizing in time that he needs to go and let me know and I also need to do a better job at reminding him to use the potty! But it would really be nice to get one more child out of diapers and only be down to one (not to mention or check book would appreciate it!)

Hmmm...can't think of anything else exciting that has happened. And I know I still haven't gotten up any new pictures yet, so I will work on that! Maybe tomorrow since the kids don't have school!

These are the reasons....

I became a parent. I love it when they all get along and play nicely with eachother. Today was one of those days...there was hardly any fighting (there's always some, but with 5 kids you come to expect some)! I really enjoy watching them play together, share their toys and other belongings and just being kind to one another. Doogie was excited about a new book I had found for him about Dragons (yes, he is still really into dragons and I sincerely doubt he will out grow it!)and he was looking through the book and sharing tibits with his sisters. Next thing I know they turned it into a game of where they were on "quests" or "missions" to go and save certain baby dragons and they would use the book as a reference. They were having so much fun with it, and it was fun to watch them interacting with eachother. So these are some of the moments I cherish, the times when they have fun with eachother and show eachother how much they really care. It's just heartwarming to see how much they really do love one another. My other moments are when they actually sit still long enough to cuddle or for no reason at all give me a hug/kiss and tell me they love me. These moments tell me I'm not a total failure as a mother/parent, that I do have 5 wonderful kids that have good hearts. Knowing this helps me to get through our rough days, when everything seems to be going wrong and everyone is grumpy (yes, including me! I know it's hard to believe...but yes I get pretty darn grumpy too...especially when I get my caffeine taken away!)

Anyways, though I just thought I would share one of our moments. And I also need to dust my poor camera off and take some more pictures for you all to see. I'm hoping to get to the pumpkin patch with the kids one of these days and get some pics. And Jayde has a field trip to the apple orchard coming up soon as well. Then of course there is Halloween! So I will try to get some fresh pictures up soon!

Step Out Walk to Fight Diabetes

Thanks again to everyone who supported as in this. I just wanted to let everyone know that there is still time to donate! The Step Out fund-raising website is open and still accepting contributions Ryann Crowe's Team Just click on one of our names and than click on the big red button that says sponser me and it will take you through the rest! The deadline is November 1st. Again thank you for your support! I know Ryann appreciates it too. One of my biggest hopes is that they find a cure for Diabetes in Ryann's life time. It's hard to have to poke your daughter's fingers numerous times and give her 4 shots a day. It about breaks my heart when Ryann tells me that she doesn't want to have Diabetes anymore, she's tired of being poked all the time. Diabetes has definitely changed our life and our way of thinking. I know for me when I hear about a child (or anyone for that matter) that is having some sort of health problem instead a pushing it aside for later or brushing it off/ignoring it I try to give whatever support I can. Because now instead of thinking that will never happen to me, I think how would I feel if this happened to my child, what would I like people to do to help. Because things can and do happen to you. So once again, thank you everyone for your support in any way that you give it!

October, already??

Is it just me or has this year really flown by? Fall is finally here, I love the crisp fresh smells of fall. Jayde asked me this morning if I knew what her favorite part of fall was. After making a few guesses she finally told me that is was jumping in the leaves! And you know what, that is one of my favorite things too! October also brings Halloween and the kids are really excited about that as well. This year the girls are going as fairies (Jayde of course will be a purple one and Ryann, yep you guessed it...pink!), Jaxon is going to go as Blue again and CJ will be Sprinkles (Blue's baby brother...thought that was perfect!). Doogie was a little bit more difficult to pin down. He really wanted to go as a "lizard shaman" (it's one of the characters from the video game he really likes to play), but Grammy just wasn't able to figure out how to make that for him. So I finally got him to drop that idea and he has decided to go as Luke Skywalker. So I am looking forward to seeing them all in their costumes this year and getting some (hopefully) great pictures!