Drumroll Please....

Baby #3 is......



.......wait for it........





.......wait for it........





IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!

Due date Oct. 19th.

Snap, Snap

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I did NOT teach my son this. How could I? It doesn’t work when I do it, all I get is a punch in the face, okay maybe not the face, but at least in the arm, but it still hurts. But my point is, since I can’t do it how could I possibly teach it to Austin? Remember also that he’s an absolute sponge (http://crawford-crew.blogspot.com/2008/07/absorbent-and-yellow-and-porous-is-he.html). I have no idea where he gets half of the things he tells me. Now, on with the post.

The Date: March 18, 2009
The Time: About 9:30 AM
The Place: Downstairs family room at the Crawford residence
The Setting: It’s the first day of NCAA March Madness 2009. The brackets have been filled out and the tournament’s first games are just beginning.
The Players: Austin – 4 yrs. Old; Mom – “Not a day over fast cars and freedom”

Mom: “Austin, guess what today is?”

Austin: “I don’t know, what?”

Mom: “Today is the day they start playing the basketball games. So you will find out if you picked the winners or not.”

Austin runs and jumps into the brown recliner situated in front of the TV showing the games just starting.

Austin: “Mom, Mom! I need help. Mom, hurry, I need help.”

Mom [freaking out at first because that’s what she does]: “What is it?”

Austin: “I need it to recline!”

Mom reclines the chair. Austin situates himself so he can relax and watch the games.

[A few minutes go by].

Austin snaps his fingers loudly twice. Mom ignores, not knowing what he’s doing.

Austin: “Mom, when I do this [snaps fingers again] that means I need a blanket.”

Mom: “Did your no-good, low-down, dirty, rotten, [expletive], [expletive], [expletive] father tell you to say that? I’m calling him right now and giving him a piece of my mind!”

THE END

I Don’t Snore…I Speak Wolf

Hello. My name is Jason. This is my first meeting, and I’m a little self-conscious about being here. I love my family and they say I need help, so here I am. I suppose the first step is admitting I need help. That’s why I’m here. I need help because I snore. I thought I could control it, but lately that’s not been the case. Not that it excuses my behavior, my choices are my own, but I grew up in a home where both my parents were chronic snorers. Sometimes they got out of control and I would hide under my pillow at night. I told myself I would never be like that. I would never be like them. But then I started snoring too. Just a little bit at first. I’d snore on the weekends with my friends, when I’d sleepover at their house. Our parent’s had no idea we were snoring into the early hours of the morning, and late morning/early afternoon when we could get away with it. We thought it was cool. But then I just couldn’t get enough. It wasn’t long before I was taking it to the next level. I began snoring every night shortly after going to bed. And when I woke up in the morning, all I could think about is laying back down and snoring some more. It escalated from there. Now I frequently snore alone, sometimes starting as early as 10 AM if I can sneak away for a nap that early. I know it’s a problem, but I just like how I it makes me feel.

But it’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. Now I see that my problem has started affecting my family, and I swore that I would never let that happen. This morning was the last straw. It started off normal enough. I woke up to find two kids snuggling between my wife and I. They’ve become quite adept at sneaking in during the night and climbing into bed with us. Neither of us wakes up so they get away with it. My oldest, Austin, knows it’s alright to come into Mom & Dad’s room when he wakes up in the night, but that he’s supposed to sleep in the sleeping bag on the mattress on the floor next to our bed. Yet most mornings we still wake up and find him there between us. My wife asked him this morning why he climbs into our bed instead of sleeping on the mattress on the floor. “I have nightmares,” he replied.”It scares me when I sleep on the floor and Dad is making those wolf sounds!”

I won’t let this happen! I won’t raise my kids like this. I won’t be that kind of father. I need my family more than I need to snore. My name is Jason. I snore, and I need help.

Bitter Bachelor

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I DO NOT WATCH THIS SHOW!!! Why don’t I watch it? Hopefully that will all be made clear after reading this.

Second, why am I blogging about it if I don’t watch it? That’s a great question. For some unknown reason my otherwise completely sane, normal, beautiful, intelligent wife made me watch the finale last night. Literally, she had me bound and gagged with toothpicks keeping my eyes open, sitting in front of the TV watching. I had no choice in the matter.

After watching perhaps 30 minutes of the show I predicted the rest of the entire nights events. That’s why I don’t watch the show. It’s always the same and it’s always very, very lame. Also, I think the entire premise of the show is flawed from the very beginning. I absolutely do not believe that the proper way to go about finding someone with which to spend the rest of your life is to make out with as many strangers as possible. It just doesn’t work like that. I also believe that if a person is truly honest with themselves, deep down they will know that you can’t love two different people as much as they (the contestants) always say they do at the same time. Over the course of a lifetime you may in fact love several different people with the same intensity and passion as to want to spend the rest of your life with them. But to do so at the same time is impossible. You will always prefer one person over the other. That’s why I think this shows a complete crock of crap.

Anyway, back to last night. Let me first explain my background knowledge on this season, what little there is, before seeing last night’s episode. And let me also explain that the only reason I know any of this is because that idiot is from Seattle so he’s been all over the news everywhere up here, such that I couldn’t escape him no matter where I went. Prior to last night I knew that he was down to two girls and I knew that they decided to shoot the “After the Rose” show in private because of the extreme drama and emotions it would be causing. I had also seen the commercial showing his complete meltdown after telling Molly goodbye, although in the commercial it wasn’t divulged yet over whom he was crying.

That’s it. That’s the extent of the knowledge I had about the show. As soon as I saw the dates with Melissa and Molly, I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew he was going to choose Melissa. I knew that his major breakdown from the commercial would be when he told Molly that he hadn’t chosen her. I knew things wouldn’t work out with Melissa. And I knew that the “After the Rose” segment would be devoted to the breakup with Melissa and the subsequent attempt to mend things with Molly. It was all so obvious and thus all the more painful to actually sit through and watch. Not emotionally painful, but physically painful, as in torturous.

Here’s the politically incorrect portion of my ranting. Right about now you’re asking yourself, how did I know all this? Well, I have seen one prior season of the show, and, as a reality show fan, I’ve seen plenty of other reality dating shows, and they all end the same way. They always, ALWAYS choose the “hot” girl and never the “beautiful” girl. It doesn’t take long, a couple of weeks in this case, to realize that you don’t really want to marry the “hot” girl. You might think you want to, but you don’t. You just want to fool around with her for a while, show her off to your friends, and perhaps even your family a time or two. But that soon wanes, and you quickly realize that you actually want to marry the “beautiful” girl. And deep down, this is something you’ve always known, you just weren’t honest enough to admit it (e.g. compare his reaction to letting Molly go where he was doubled over in pain, tears, and sorrow to his reaction when he dumped Melissa where it seemed like he couldn’t have cared less). Time will tell if Molly really is a “beautiful” girl, because, as I also contend, anyone who would go on a show like that isn’t really looking to get married and settle down for life, but rather some face time on camera, but in this scenario where each has to play one of the roles, Molly was definitely the “beautiful” girl and thus the better choice. It was all so very, very predictable.

For what it’s worth, I think Molly should’ve kicked him to the curb too, after what he did to her! Not that they’re showing their real feelings anyway, after all, it’s just a show right?

Is That a Banana in Your Pocket?

We were out and about this weekend running some errands. Austin had informed me that McDonald’s now had Spiderman toys and that he definitely needed to go there and get one. So we made a deal. If he was good during all of Mom and Dad’s errands, we would stop for lunch at McDonald’s and he could get a Spiderman toy.

As it turned out, the errands didn’t take quite as long as expected so we had some time to kill. So off to DI we went (that’s Deseret Industries for those who don’t know, and it’s roughly equivalent to Goodwill, only this one’s run by Mormons). At any rate, there’s a DI in Federal Way that’s only about 15 minutes from our house, and we sometimes go there to kill some time. Our trips there usually end up with a new board game coming home with us. They cost at most $2, and we’ve come home from DI with some of our most often played and entertaining games. Austin gets to pick the game, and I enjoy picking through the book section where paperbacks are $0.50 and hardbacks are $3-$4.

This particular trip we ended up with an armload of books and the game Jumpin’ Monkeys (for a total cost of $13 – YEAH!). Austin couldn’t wait to get home and play it, after McDonald’s of course. Upon arriving home we put the game together. It’s a simple 4 piece tree with holes for the monkey’s to swing on. You simply place a monkey on your launcher and flip them up onto the tree, hoping one of their arms will catch in one of the holes. 4 players, 4 monkeys each, the first to get all their monkeys on the tree wins. This is the part of the game Austin loves. I found this picture of the game online which shows perfectly how it works:

The part that Luke loves is the bananas. Aside from flipping the monkeys onto the tree, every time you successfully land one, you get a cardboard banana. Thus, whoever lands all their monkeys in the tree and collects all their bananas wins the game. Luke could care less about the monkeys, but loves playing with the bananas. And this weekend he was wearing a little hoodie that has a pouch in the front. He loves to put things in his pouch and then show off what he has. He soon had all the bananas in his pouch and went running into the kitchen to show Angie.

“Mom, look. Is that a banana in my pocket?” he exclaimed. Sure enough, it was. A whole bunch of them!

Skate Connection

The last time I went roller-skating was the best day of my life. I didn’t know it then. I didn’t even know it shortly thereafter. In fact, one could argue that to this day I still do not yet fully appreciate that day. What day was it? I have no idea! Boys don’t remember silly little things like that. What I can tell you is that it was 2001…I think. Okay, what I can definitely tell you is that it was late October. That much I know for sure. Because the last time I went roller-skating was on a blind date. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. It was a blind date. And the theme of that blind date was Halloween which inherently tells me it must have been late October…I think. At any rate I was set up by a girl in my FHE group in my singles ward in Provo, UT whilst I was attending BYU. That’s Family Home Evening for all you who don’t speak “Mormon-ese”. There was a group of at least 10, and we all met at this girl’s house. That’s the day I met this nice young lady named Angie. She was taken with me right away, I could tell. I must admit though, I did have an unfair advantage, but that’s another story entirely. Hint – it had something to do with a retro 70’s shirt I had procured from a friend for the evening (cut me some slack it was Disco Night at the rink…but then, isn’t every night Disco Night at the roller-rink?). At any rate, I’ll leave that story for Angie to tell, but don’t let her fool you, she was hooked from day one.

Let’s bring this full circle now. It’s been just over 7 years since that first night. We’ve since been through 2 graduations, 2 job promotions, 1 job retirement, 5 moves (1 really big one), 3 apartments, 1 condo, 1 home, 2 kids thrown in there somewhere…oh and there was a wedding in there somewhere too. And finally, last night we got back to where it all began, at the roller-rink.

It was a Ward Activity so that was fun, and by fun I mean free. And it was obviously the first skating experience for both Austin and Luke. Well, not so much Luke, but we’ll get to that. We had our neighbor kid, Peter, with us as well. Here’s Austin and Peter with their skates on:


After they walked me around a little bit…

I was ready to be on my own, thus freeing them up to go have fun. I was really surprised how quickly both of them caught on. Much quicker than me, I can tell you that much.

Here’s another one of Austin’s friends. His name is Jared:

And finally, here’s what Luke did all night:

Notice that he has no skates on. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the skates. The closest we ever got was getting him to take his shoes off (notice no shoes either). Now, herein lies the problem. Having no skates on actually made him the fastest one in the entire building. No one could catch him because we were all in skates. And once he realized this, he had a fantastic time running all over the building, from the video games, to the middle of the rink, and back again. His favorite thing to do was run the length of the rink (right down the middle that is) with his head flopped back, looking up into all the flashing lights, and cutting off countless skaters as they tried not to plow over him. Luckily everyone there was in our ward so no one really cared.

So there you have it. That was our first family roller-skating adventure. Who knew so many years ago that one little blind date would result in all the fun we’ve had. Happy 7th Rink Anniversary Angie! Now go blog about that awesome shirt I was wearing. Everyone’s dying to hear the story now. Don’t forget the part where you totally fell for it!

Anyone Have a Spare Ark?

You ever get to the point where you have so many emails in your inbox that you just delete them all and resolve to do better? Is that called email critical mass? Well, as you all know, I have a bad case of blog critical mass. It’s just too much to try to really go back and catch up on. So you all get the following update on the past 2 months of our lives:

Austin turned 4 – Happy Birthday!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Luke turned 2 – Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Happy Birthday Myr!

Happy Birthday to Me!

See, you didn’t miss much. And now we’re back to today, or rather last night, which prompted the post today. Seriously, does anyone out there have an extra Ark your not using? We could use one in our house.

By my calculations we pumped out 1,260 gallons of water from our basement last night between the hours of 5 PM and 3 AM. And, as you all know, when I say “we” I really mean Angie. She’s amazing. I had a late night at work last night and didn’t get home until 10 PM. By then she had been sucking up water for 5 hours while watching the boys and cooking dinner for them, only taking a break to call a friend to see if we could borrow their shop-vac to use in conjuction with ours. Again, have I told you she’s amazing?

We had our 14 gallon shop-vac and our friends 20 gallon shop-vac running constantly from 7 PM to about 1:30 AM. That’s when it stopped raining (FINALLY) and we were able to keep up with just the one shop-vac running. From 5 PM to 1:30 AM each shop-vac took 5 minutes to fill up and it took us about 1 minute to empty it outside down our driveway. Thus, we were making 10 trips an hour with both shop-vacs and still just maintaining with the incoming water. We knew immediately when it stopped raining because we didn’t get wet when we went outside (ha ha – that was a joke if you didn’t catch it). But honestly, we could tell when it stopped raining because we finally started making progress on the water. Over the next hour and a half the seepage slowed dramatically, until finally the last bucket took 25 minutes to fill and after another 20 minutes there was no visible puddle of water under our stairs. So at 3 AM we finally called it quits and went to bed.

Cross your fingers, knock on wood, say Hail Mary’s, whatever it is you do, we need no rain for a while. We have 2 spots along the edge where the basement floor meets the wall in the unfinished portion of our basement that allow seepage to come up. The one in the back of the house isn’t too bad, a slow trickle that if left unchecked will produce a decent sized puddle overnight. The one in the front of the house, just under our stairs at the front door, is like a lake. When we’d shut off the shop-vacs to empty them, you could sit there and literally watch the water level rise in seconds. It seeps in along an 8 foot section of wall right in that area. There’s not just one noticeable spot that clearly lets the water in, it just kind of oozes inside all along that section.

So there you have it. By the way, the boys were awake that entire time. With two shop-vacs running there was no way they were going to sleep. They were wide awake eating ice cream at 2 AM watching Kung Fu Panda and loving it. Of course they had to sit in the bean bag directly in front of the TV with the volume cranked way up to even hear the movie.

Now, about that Ark. Anyone?