Halloween

Well, here is the whole gang! We have the Peter Pan/Star Wars/Spider Man theme going. We were at the Hundens (friends from Wesley's soccer team) home for a Halloween Party on Friday night. Bethany won the best kid's costume and we all loved the Haunted House that they made in their garage. Well, Cameron actually cried and Carter wouldn't go in :)

We made this jell-o and used whipped cream to make a spider web and then put a plastic spider on it. We also made "ghost" cookies out of Nutter Butters and "witch's hats" with cookies, hershey's kisses and frosting to take to the party.

On Saturday, we went to the Library where they were having Harry Potter activities. We did a Harry Potter Scavenger Hunt, played a Quidditch game and attended a potions class. Then we went trick or treating in Gram's neighborhood. They had so much candy because we had also gone to a trunk or treat at our school the night before that someone in our ward had organized. I think they actually had more fun after trick or treating watching for trick or treaters and giving out candy. A great lesson that it is more important to give than to receive.

Bethany in Ken's Captain Hook wig with adoring brothers. Luckily this wasn't her real costume.

Another cute Halloween outfit, but not the real costume!

I know I am biased, but isn't she just the cutest Tinkerbell ever? She is about the happiest as well. No wonder she won the costume contest. We like to call her TinkerBeth!

She actually fell asleep about half way through both the Trunk or Treat and Trick or Treating!


Earlier this month at Carter's preschool, they had Western Days where they got to dress up and do all kinds of cowboy activities. He wore Wesley's old Woody costume and it worked out perfect. Doesn't he look like he is having a blast?

Cameron wanted me to take these pictures of him next to Jesus so that we could post it on our blog. He said, "Then everyone will be able to know about Jesus." He often prays, "please bless that everyone in the world will know about Jesus and have the spirit with them." What a great missionary! He also invited his whole 1st grade class including his teacher to our Primary Presentation in Sacrament Meeting just a few weeks ago.

He also took this picture of the temple that Ken and I got married in so that "everyone will know that it is important to get married in the temple." What a sweet boy!

He also took this picture of his feet which I thought was kind of funny and about 30 other random pictures of our house that I decided not to post :)

A few weeks back, I had all 4 kiddos home sick from Mon-Thurs. with lots of breathing treatments, couch potating (shown by Wesley), fever checking, medicine giving, and germ cleaning going on. It was fun to have them around for the first two days, but by Thursday we were all stir crazy and driving each other nuts!

Daddy and his "moo." When Bethany was first born, I kept accidentally calling her "buddy" since I was so used to boys. Finally, I started calling her Missy and then Missy Moo. Well, Ken has to shorten everything and so he now calls her "Moo." At first, I resisted. But, now I am used to it and even find myself calling her "Moo."

Beffers snuggling up in our bed after her bath. Notice how much hair she is getting now. I can't put the headband bows on her head anymore because her hair just goes crazy.

We can actually get a pretty good mohawk going on her. We call it her "Moo"hawk.

The last couple of weeks I've been putting a pig tail on the top of her head, well today I had to put two little pig tails because her hair is getting so long. It looks kind of funny, but cute.

Bethany is such a happy smily baby! We get comments from everyone wherever we go about how they can't believe how happy and smily she is. Honestly, you can't help but be happy when you are around her. Almost everyday, one of the three boys is either crying or mad about something and they can't stay sad or mad when I bring Bethany around them. She just smiles and coos and claps for them and within seconds they are smiling again. We are so blessed to have such a darling peacemaker in our family!

Fun at Gram's

Every Sunday, we go over to Dick and Rhonda's house for dinner. The boys call it "Gram's house." We are so blessed to have them live close and that we get a wonderfully home cooked meal every week. The boys love to jump on the trampoline, collect acorns, look for caterpillars and lizards, watch movies (with popcorn), play games, and of course get lots of fun treats from Gram.

Whitney (Ken's littlest sister--17) got hold of the camera and took 162 pictures of the kiddos. Here are about 60 of them.

Enjoy some of our moments at "Gram's house."

September 2009

Fall Updates

She is already starting to pose for the camera--what a model!

She started sitting and clapping at about 6 1/2 months!

And is getting close to crawling!

But I still like to hold her alot!

So remember how we told you that Ken got poison ivy from taking family pictures. Here is a shot of what it looked like. This was before it got real bad and this was on several places of his body. Doesn't it look fun?

Carter had a hard time letting go of Mommy when dropping him off at his new preschool (mommy did too). So, I bribed him. If he didn't cry when I dropped him off, I would get him a McDonald's ice cream cone. He did it on the third day of preschool and now he really enjoys going and is learning a lot.

Yes, it is true after seven years of living here and planning on moving in less than a year we finally had someone come and do our landscaping. I should have taken a picture of before and after because then you would realize why I am thinking this is the best landscaping job around. I guess I appreciate it more because I waited so long to get it. I will definitely be looking for a house that already has a nice landscaped yard when we start house hunting.

We also got a new bedspread set since the kids destroyed the last one and we have new rules about children getting on our bed--like they don't!

Cameron had his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese (despite his parents trying to get him to do it somewhere else--oh well, it is fairly inexpensive). He really enjoyed his cake as you can tell and he got lots of Pokemon toys from his friends.

Ken was the best man for his good friend Frank James' wedding. He got to wear a tux, be in charge of the rings (luckily he didn't lose them) and give the first speech/toast at their reception (with his glass of water).

It was a fun night and the first time we left all the children to go out since Bethany was born.


They had a traditional wedding cake, but Ken and I really liked this one they had made. Frank is from Canada and Erica is from the United States. It tasted really good too!

Family pictures 2009

Here is a link to our latest family pictures. It has been a while since we have had them taken as a whole family. Ciera Boyd (one of my former seminary students) took our pictures and she did a great job...we love them. A few crazy things happened however.

We took the pictures by a little stream in the woods and Wesley, of course, fell in. He also could not stop throwing things and managed to throw a rotten horse apple into the water right by all of us. Yes, Wesley is our oldest child! My new WHITE jacket (that I spent a lot of money on--way more than I ever do for clothes) got rotten horse apple stains. It went through the dry cleaning process 4 times and there are still small stains that you can barely see...thankfully. Ken and Ciera also got horse apple on them.

Second, Ken and Wesley picked up poison ivy. Ken got it so bad that one of his arms was twice the size of his other and he has been on oral steroids for almost two weeks. He had to bathe twice a day and put several ointments on and we got to do laundry non-stop, washing everything he wore or touched for over a week. Gratefully, Wesley's wasn't quite so bad, but he did have a spot on his face that everyone at school asked about constantly.

Good thing we like the pictures :)

Family_Pics_2009

Utah Trip

We had a great time spending two weeks in Utah with family and friends. Enjoy the pictures:

Utah 2009

Mons and More

So, we went to Iowa so Cameron could visit his betrothed. Not really, but aren't they cute together and we wouldn't be sad if it happened. It was so good to see our great friends--the Mons family! Thanks for letting us stay at the Mons B&B. The food and accomodations were great!

Although, it didn't get much over 70 degrees the whole time we were there, we had a great time making a campfire and cooking smores and hot dogs. Here is some of our firewood:

Do you think he got enough?

Playing at the beach...

We slid down a cool rocket slide (you can't see the rocket--it is at the top)!

We went to a minor league baseball game (where our two older boys got scared of the fireworks at the end of the game--yes I did say the OLDER boys).

Then a trip to the zoo (isn't that cute)...

Yes, Wesley is letting the fish suck on his fingers. That's our boy!

The grand finale of the visit was the rock band party with costumes and everything...

And we oohed and aahed at our cute little Beth:

On our way home, in true Crow tradition we had to make a trip to the ER in Tulsa, OK. It was for daddy this time and he had food poisoning. Some missionaries and members of the church were there and gave Ken a blessing. It is so nice to have church members anywhere you go. He did survive and we rolled back into Dallas a day late and only a few hours before his third interview with JC Penney. Despite his sickly look, he must have passed the interview because he got the job. We feel so blessed! He was only out of job for 1 week.

Braxton, our nephew (Camie's oldest child), came to stay with Rhonda this summer. We had fun getting to know him better and the boys had a blast wrestling and fishing with Braxie. I know he doesn't look related since he can actually get a tan.

The Putnams also came to visit to celebrate Carter's birthday (we have a big 4 year old now). Carter really wanted his buddy Erick to come to his birthday party, so they came up and we played for a few days. We are glad that they are still fairly close and we can visit a few times a year! Thanks for coming Putnams.


The boys finally got new P.J's (Mario Kart Wii--which they loved) since their old ones were developing holes and paper thin.

And Carter is sporting a new hair style...the pull up look!

Bethany is starting to eat veggies now. One day, I put this cute bib on and I couldn't resist taking a picture of our little flower. The bib is so cute I decided to take it off and use it for looks only. It would surely get stained with gobs or bright orange veggies.

Nauvoo

We all had a great time at Nauvoo. There is such a peaceful and wonderful spirit in Nauvoo. Even Bethany had lots of fun--listen to her brothers make her laugh.

The boys got to make a rope...

Played pioneer games...

And even dressed up like pioneers. Aren't they cute?

Even though it was 90 degrees with lots of humidity, Cameron kept his pioneer costume on for about a half hour. We thought he was crazy, but he would have been a great pioneer.

Mom, Dad and Bethany even joined in the festivities!

We all took a ride on a horse drawn carriage and got a tour of Nauvoo. We were in awe of how much they worked and worked each day just to provide the basic needs of survival let alone their faith and dedication to God and the church. We are honored and grateful to belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints with such amazing pioneers that started it all for us.

Statues of Joseph and Hyrum Smith--martyrs of the Savior and His church.

It was so neat to see this beautiful temple. Last time I was in Nauvoo was over 15 years ago and I remember just seeing the few lone stones that remained from the original temple. We were able to see the Nauvoo Pageant (which was very inspiring and well done) and at the end it was dark and they lit up the temple while a recording of President Hinckley very poetically spoke of how this magnificient Nauvoo temple which was Joseph's temple faced west and over 1,000 miles away another amazing temple, the SLC temple, Brigham's temple stood facing east. Both temples served as book ends where volumes of sacrifices and events have taken place.

It was very emotional for me to hear President Hinckley's voice, see the Nauvoo temple and hear his spirt-filled words. The spirit was strong and I know that re-buiding this temple was inspired. When we first pulled into Nauvoo, you turn a bend and you immediately see the temple. When we saw it Wesley said, "It's even more beautiful than in the picture." And Carter pointed it out to us every time he saw it, which was quite a bit since Nauvoo is fairly small. I am thankful we were able to have this time and experience at Nauvoo.