More pictures....

Okay, I promised that I was going to try and update alot more and add pictures more regularly...so here I go.

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that Jayde and Doogie are playing coach pitch on the same team this year. Doogie has improved sooo much since last year (Jayde as well). I think it helps that Doug is here this year for it. Last year when they played he was still in NJ. They try to get out every evening after school and work to throw the ball around and maybe practice that swing. Doug was showing Doogie how to pitch last night...he has quite the arm! I think if he really wants to and works hard at it he could be a great pitcher! Jayde has this natural athletic ability where if she decides she wants to play she does great! But if she doesn't want to play there is absolutely nothing you can do about it! I still remember when she played soccer for the first time and she would just stand there on the field stubbornly and not play on some days while on others she would run around on the field and kick the ball. Guess that just goes to show how different each child is from.

For instance...Miss Ryann...what am I going to do with that girl, we still don't have her potty trained yet. I think I have tried every form of bribery that I can think of and still nothing works. Part of the problem I think is that she just got frustrated and discouraged with it last summer when we were trying to get her trained. That was when her diabetes started showing up...though we didn't know what it was until October. She would go potty for me, but then just 5 minutes later she would wet her pants. That was a sign of high blood sugar...course we didn't know that! And I think that is why she still has some issues now. Because when her blood sugar is high she wants to drink more fluids, which then of course causes her to go to the bathroom alot more. And not to mention the fact that she still probably remembers how it was last summer when she tried. Of course I can't discount the fact that she is also very very stubborn! So when you mix all of those combinations up it has been quite a trial! Our newest game plan is every hour to go and put her on the potty...of course that doesn't always work, sometimes I swear she goes potty on purpose right before I get her to the toilet! She does have an onry streak in her! And then there are times we forget to take her to the potty as well, since we get distracted by other things! But I guess there really isn't anything else we can do except just keep plugging away at it in hopes that something will just finally click into place for her and she'll decide she wants to do this!

I have to say so far as potty training, boys are alot easier to get trained than girls! Jayde was really stubborn about getting trained as well (though she was alot easier than Ryann)! Guess we got spoiled with Doogie since it only took him a week! Jaxon has been starting to show an interest in it (probably because we've been making such a big deal of it with Ryann). So maybe a little competition will get Ryann started!

Jaxon is such a fun little guy! He's become quite the chatterbox and has a great sense of humor! He is really starting to slim down and lose that baby fat. He's looking more like a little boy than a baby. For a while there he was wanting me to spike his hair (in the front) for him. Doogie wanted me to do that for him for a while because he thought it was pretty cool! Jaxon saw me doing it and decided that he wanted it too. I have to say it makes him look even more grown up when I do it. He is still very into Blue's Clues...I think we watch that a million times a day. It's always Blue and Joe, Blue and Joe with that boy! Maybe we should of named C.J. Joe instead! I'm sure Jaxon would of loved that! LOL!

Happy Birthday Ryann!!!

It's been a while hasn't it! Yikes! I really need to do a better job at keeping things updated. I promise I will try harder in the future! Things have been pretty crazy over here with trying to get the house finished up so that we can move in. It has been slowly coming along though. We got the kitchen, living room and hallway painted and got the wood flooring down (it looks really nice). Doug's got most of the cupboards done in the kitchen and we just have to get them put in and then we can order the countertops and appliances. Then we have to finish painting all the rest of the rooms. So hopefully soon we will be in our own house again...it's been over a year since the kids and I have had a home of our own!

Lets see other happenings have been sickies!! Jaxon had an ear infection and an upper respritory infection, the upper respiritory infection came back a couple days after his medicince was gone so he is now back on some stronger stuff and feeling lots better! C.J. is getting over his first ear infection as well, I think he had pretty much the same stuff that Jaxon did. We also took Ryann in this week since she was complaining about ear pain and though she didn't have an ear infection she has a bunch of wax coming out of her tubes. It was pretty interesting looking...the doctor let us look at it. So he is refering us to an ENT so that we can get it checked out. But for now we are putting some of her ear drops in to see if we can't jar that wax loose so that she doesn't have any ear pain. Weight wise....Ryann weighed in at 43lbs, Jaxon 38lbs and C.J. a whopping 22lbs 11.5 oz! So you can see he isn't a little light weight anymore! LOL! He loves to eat and he loves his bottles!

Okay, and now the big news for the day is that Ryann is now 4!! Can't believe she is 4 already! She is just growing up on me and his such a fun kid to have around. We are going to have her party on Sunday at the gymnastics place, so that should be alot of fun. I'll have to get some pictures up of all the kids soon!

Oh and Mr. C.J. has been all over the place...this kid just doesn't slow down unless he is asleep! He pulls himself up on everything and has started climbing up on things as well. He walks all over the place holding on to the furniture. I don't think it will be long before he is just taking off. He wants to do what everyone else is doing! I don't remember any of the other kids being as busy as he is.

So that is all that has been happening with us recently. And I promise I will be more dilligent in updating more often and adding some pictures for you all to see!

3 Staples...

We had to take poor Jayde to the emergency room last night. I tell you, it always seems to be her that has to get the stitches (or staples in this case...) First when she was only two and took a header into a wooden step and had to get stitches by her eye, then again when she was 3 and got her finger slammed in a door (split her poor fingertip in half, not a pretty sight!) And now to add to the list she has 3 staples in the back of her head. Don't worry though she is doing just fine and you would never even know we were in the emergency room for 2 hours last night.

So here's what happened.... Her brother and her were wrestling around right before bed (after I had just told them no wrestling) and somehow in the all the chaos Doogie pushed her off of him and she went flying backwards and fell and hit her head right on the corner/edge of the wall and cut her head. I didn't even realize she was bleeding until I was rubbing the back of her head and my hand came back covered in blood...and of course you know how head wounds like to bleed. So I had to search through all of that thick hair of hers and see where the blood was coming from and she had a gash about 3/4 of an inch long. So to the ER we go.... She was such a brave girl though and actually slept through the entire process. I had to hold some numbzit stuff onto her wound for about half hour 45 minutes and by then she had fallen asleep on my lap. So the doctor came back in and washed and irrigated the wound and popped a few staples in her head without her ever being the wiser. So we are just hanging out at home for a couple days, since they said no strenous activity for a couple days (though she keeps telling me she wants to go to school!) I just have to keep an eye on it and clean it a couple times a day and she can't get her head wet for a few days. And then we will go and get her staples removed in a week.

So anyways, that was how we spent our night last night! I told her next time she wanted to stall about going to bed to find another way to do it! And of course poor Doogie just felt horrible about the whole thing! And he was pretty worried about her. The first thing he asked to do this morning was to see the staples in her head! I told him that it was just and accident and that we know he didn't mean to hurt her. And we had a talk about how when mommy and daddy tell them not to do something it is usually for a pretty good reason!

Happy (early) Easter!!

Okay, I'm back to finally get around to finishing up my update from last week. We just signed papers for the house today, but it will still be a couple days or so before it is officially ours. We are all excited about having a place of our own again. I'm sure we will all think it is Christmas again when we get all of our stuff moved in, the kids and I haven't seen that stuff for about a year now! So lets see, where was I....

I forgot to add one new thing about Jayde.... She lost her very first tooth last week! She must of swallowed it or something and didn't realize it, because it wasn't until she was brushing her teeth before bed that we noticed it had finally fallen out! At first she was a little upset because she didn't have the actual tooth and I think she was worried about the tooth fairy not finding it. I reassured her though that the tooth fairy is very good at that kind of thing!

So now lets move on to Ryann. We just got back from Spokane today for her check up at the endocrinologist (I think that is how you spell it!). Everything looks good and she is doing well. He gave us a couple tips on how to manage her blood sugar when she eats certain types of food, so we will have to try that for next time. She has been gaining back all the weight that she lost and is weighing in at 44lbs and was 3ft 4 1/2 inches tall. So she's a growing girl! She is such a funny girl...her teacher at preschool gets a big kick out of her. They have been doing some "plays" at school this month and she was just loving how into Ryann got. She thinks Ryann has a stage life ahead of her! LOL! But anyways, she is loving school and I love hearing about her day and listening to the new songs she has learned. Her best buddy is a little boy named Dylan, and she already informed me that she is going to marry him!

Jaxon is turning into such a big guy! I took him in for his 2 year check up in February ( I know... a little late!) He was about 39lbs...and I'll have to look up his height again. But he was over the 100th percentile in weight and also up there somewhere with his height. We laughed because he almost weighs as much as Ryann does. He is really turning into a chatterbox as well, and stringing his words along into 4-5 word sentences. He is such a little ham and charmer and can usually wrap anyone around his little finger.

C.J. is growing like crazy! I took him in for his 6 month check up in February with Jaxon. He ended up being in only the 5th percentile in his weight (I know, strange for any of my kids to be small!) And his height was in the 5oth percentile. So we have been working on getting him fattened up. We started him on formula and baby food...and boy is he loving it. His personality has totally changed to a happy little boy. I need to take him in for a weight check...but according to the scale here we think he has gained around 5lbs in a month! So I don't think we will be calling him skinny boy anymore! So he is doing really well. He is working on crawling. He gets up on all fours and will rock back and forth...then he will lunge forward. So he hasn't quite figured out how to get everything moving at once but I don't think it will be too much longer, I think he is very determined!

So I think that pretty sums things up! Doug got around to downloading all my pictures of my camera yesterday, but they are on the other computer so I can't get to them from here. So I will try to update again later with some pictures. But anyways, we hope that everyone has a great Easter weekend!

Bad blogger!!

Sorry everyone! Looks like I've been MIA for a bit. I guess chasing around 5 kids, turning the big 30, and looking for a house to live in has kept us all pretty busy! I'm ashamed to say that I still have pictures that need to be downloaded off my camera from Christmas! I know, I know pretty bad! So let me see if I can get everyone up to date on what has been going on with the Crowes!

I turned the big 3 0 in February. Can I really be that old already??? Maybe I can just keep telling people I'm 29....do you think that would fly? Though in truth I feel way older than 30, so I guess actually being 30 isn't that bad!

Good news! It looks like we have our house in NJ rented....just need to work out a few bugs. And we have found a house here in WA!! As long as everything goes as planned we are going to try and close by the 20th of this month. We won't be moving in right away though since we are planning to do a little work to the house first. It is an older home and was a repo, but it is actually in reasonably good condition...we are just going to do a bit of updating. So we are all pretty excited about moving in to our own place again, getting settled and getting back on to some sort of routine again.

Doogie is still growing like a weed! We had his teacher conference on Monday and even his teacher was impressed with how much he has "grown". He is learning to deal better with other kids (the ones that "annoy" him) and finding better options. I think it helps that he has a wonderful teacher and she is really looking out for his better interests and trying to help him to succeed. I will be sad to be moving to a new school next year (since the house we are buying isn't in that school district). However we talked to his teacher about it and she said the other school was a really good school (her own kids went there). So that was reassuring. So he is doing really well in school.

Jayde is still Jayde! She has shown alot of growth as well in school and her teachers and school friends just love her. They always say Jayde is like a ray of sunshine everday she comes to school just so excited to be there and to learn. We laugh and just say you should see her at home! Naw, in all honesty she is a good kid and a ray of sunshine in our lives...just like all of them! They were also sad to hear about us moving to a new school district for next year...her speech teacher told us we couldn't take her away from them! One of the big things I was worried about was changing speech teachers (since I absolutely love the one she has now), but she reassured us that the speech teacher at the new school was excellent...and she said she would tell us if that wasn't the case. She has been wonderful for Jayde and is always looking out for her. She fought to get Jayde a extra helper in her class, that comes in for 30 minutes mon-thur and helps her with her reading and writing during their writing time in class. And she is getting her quailified to recieve help over the summer as well. So we will miss her next year.

Well it looks like I'm going to have to finish this update a little later. It's bedtime over here (actually pass it) and one of my little guys is having a hard time falling asleep... But I will try to update the rest tomorrow (or very soon!!!) I promise! And hopefully I can get Doug to download my pictures off my camera for me so I can show off the kids! :)

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! The kids had a blast opening up all of their Christmas presents and playing with all of their new toys. They definitely have alot of stuff to keep them busy for a while now!

We have as usual been keeping busy with things. I took the kids bowling for their very first time last week. They had a lot of fun and we will have to do it more often now. They all ended up getting atleast one strike and a few spares...not bad for a first time bowler! I forgot to bring my camera though and I could just hit myself for it! I missed out on getting alot of great shots! I will have to remember to bring it for the next time! Then the day after bowling we took the kids over to the gym (gymnastics) to run around and play (Doug's friend is the owner and we were the only ones there because they were working on stuffing mats). The kids had a blast playing!

Jaxon is now a big 2 year old! His birthday is New Years Eve....that boy is going to have some fun parties when he gets older! We went and celebrated over at Dairy Queen and then had ice cream for desert (and I forgot the camera again!!! UGH!!) Afterwards we headed over to Doug's friend's house for New Years and brought the kids home around 10:00. Jaxon and Jayde crashed soon after, but Doogie, Ryann and C.J. hanged out in our bed and watched movies until they fell asleep. Doogie almost made it to midnight...he finally crashed around 11:30, maybe next year!

Anyways, nothing super exciting happening over here at the moment. The kids are on winter break until the 7th, so they are enjoying the no school! Ryann's blood sugar has been a bit goofy the past couple days, we've been getting alot of lows. So we are trying to get her situated and back where she is supposed to be. Doug is at the doctor's right now with Jayde...we think she has a bladder infection, though ever since Ryann's diagnoses I always think what if it isn't! But in this case I'm pretty sure that is what it is!

So anyways, the picture is one I took of my sister-in-law and the kids. It was a present from her to her parents for Christmas. I think it turned out pretty well...considering how many people are in the picture. Not to mention Ryann was being kind of a stinker at the time too (we than figured out that her blood sugar was getting low and that was why she was being so onry!)

Pictures...finally!!