Elk--a forgotten post....

I meant to post this last month when it happened, but time has past! I am now getting to it. This picture was taken off our bedroom deck. You can see all the elk, lots of them. We have had lots of snow this winter, so the elk have come down to eat. This is our backyard. After the big snow it looked like a winter wonderland, so beautiful, pristine, so pure and clean! The next morning we woke up to this, a disaster zone! The elk decided they liked our grass and plants, they really like red hot pokers!

After the snow finally melted, we found more proof, this is right on our deck!

Lots more on the patio, all over our front lawn too and the walkways!

We caught a big, lone elk the other morning just eating at our grass. I tried to take a picture through the glass and got mostly reflection. We spooked him though and he jumped right over our 8 ft fence from a stand still, it was amazing to watch. Your Dad has been waiting with his gun loaded with these elk pellet things from the forest service to scare them off, but they haven't been back!

B-day Weekend

Milea turned 3 and loved ChuckieCheese's

Kaemon turned 5...wow! He wanted a superhero cake with a road and a house.
Milea's favorite animated character is Dora the Explorer and she wanted a Dora cake; not bad I must say so myself. I've been peeing estrogen the last couple days.

Our two birthday kiddos were spoiled by their grandmothers and mommy!

Milea sporting her new stylin' sunglasses and playing with her "laptop".

Quiz Results

Good job family on the quiz. Here are the results and the answers that I came up with. Feel free to double check my scoring, or dispute my answers.

1st- Kari- 14.5 + 2 bonus questions= 87%

2nd- Lisa- 15/19= 79%

3rd- Mom- 14/19= 74%

4th- Tied Bret 12.5+1 bonus question= 71% Reed 11.5+2 bonus questions= 71%

5th- Mark 9.5/19..

Correct Answers

1. Cinnamon toast +1

2. "Tis the Season" +1

3. 1978 Toyota Corolla +1

4. Charles Barkley +1

5. Sneezy +1

6. Mutt +1

7. Country Cousins +1

8. Eat it, or wear it! +1

Don't try it, you might like it. +1

9. Tex +1

Misty +1

10. Mom- 12/23 +.5

Dad- 3/11 +.5

Anniversary- 1/21 +.5

Mark- 3/24 +.5

Anniversary- 10/10 +.5

Chad- 12/29 +.5

Bret- 12/30 +.5

Anniversary- 8/19 +.5

Lisa- 8/3 +.5

Anniversary- 6/6 +.5

Kari- 6/6 +.5

Anniversary- 11/14 +.5

Reed- 4/19 +.5

Anniversary- 10/25 +.5

Tami- 4/4 +.5

Anniversary- 5/9 +.5

Total Possible- 19

Bonus questions- Lake Powell or China

Family History Fun!

So yesterday I was asked to speak in church. The topic I was assigned was "Family History". As I sat pondering on the topic, I realized how much learning about my family history really has impacted me. Elder Ballard says, "There is much focus on family, genealogy, and personal family history, providing young and old with a stronger sense of roots, identity, and belonging." Sister Mary Ellen Smoot, a former Relief Society President said, "I am convinced that as we study the lives of those who have gone before us, we are influenced by their testimonies and strength. I know that family stories can become legacies of faith in our lives." Growing up hearing all Mom and Dad's stories about our ancestors helped me do just that; develop a stronger sense of identity and belonging and strengthened my testimony. I was thinking of how awesome my family is, not only my ancestors, but my very own parents and siblings. I decided that I am going to start a binder of stories for my children. In this binder I want to include short stories that can help my strengthen my children's testimonies, help them know who they are, and find worthy role-models. Sooo, what I am asking, if you so decide to do it, is to write some sort of little story about yourself/your family that I can include in this binder. This can be something like a day in your mission, a time your prayers were answered, a time you received a prompting from the Spirit, your testimony, or just about how you and your spouse met. Anything really! I just want something about each of you that I can include in the binder for my children to better get to know you. Click HERE for two examples ( "The perfect cup of hot chocolate" and "Jesse Wentworth Crosby"). Feel free to make your story a page, a paragraph or include pictures. P.S. this includes my brother and sister-in-laws! Won't this be fun?!

First Flight in T-34c

So yesterday was my first flight in the T-34. Obviously this is not a picture of me. Although I was in the front cockpit, I had my instructor in the back (those last 2 sentences are for mom). I got to control the plane in flight, practice some touch and go landings (where you land and then immediately advance the power control lever and take off again) and fly the coastline of Alabama and Florida. In fact we did aerobatic maneuvers right above our house. We did a loop and pulled a couple Gs, some barrel-rolls, an aileron roll and some wing overs. Fun stuff. We stopped at a small airport, gased up and got some lunch on the house. It was pretty sweet. I couldn't believe how uncomfortable the seat got on my hiney at the end of the day. We did 2 flights yesterday and I'll get 5 more before I switch to the helicopter squadron to do my helo flights.

Crosby Family Quiz

Just for Fun

Simple Rules: You must answer the questions BEFORE reading any comments. Once you have come up with your own answers, then you may go to the comments section, and type in your answers, without being influenced by other answers you may see. This is based on the honesty policy :)

1. Complete this breakfast:

Hot chocolate, canned peaches and pears, and ______________.

2. Which Christmas song did dad like to sing year round?

3. What is the make, model and year of the "little car"?

4. What NBA basketball player did Grandma Crosby say our cousin Mitch looked like?

5. If we (the 7 kids) were the seven dwarfs, which dwarf would Chad be?

6. What kind of dog was Chico?

7. What was the name of the Clogging Group that dad toured with, in his younger years?

8. Finish these two common dinner table phrases

"Eat it or ___________"

"Don't try it, ___________"

9. What are two names of Ostriches we had?

10. No looking these up! Give the birthday and wedding anniversary (If applicable) of Mom, Dad, Mark, Chad, Bret, Lisa, Kari, Reed and Tami.

Bonus Question- Where did I (Tami) always want to go on a mission to when I was little? Hint- two locations are correct.

Kiddos

Our 3 kids playing together... Kaemon and Milea before their first day of gymnastics. Milea loves her leotard!

Have you ever seen a cuter bootie?!

SNOW, SNOW, AND MORE SNOW!

It all started on Tues. we had to leave for Snowflake at 5am and it was snowing a little in Eagar, but by the time we got over the mountain we were going 30 mph and ended up being late for our meeting. By the time we got done at noon, there was no snow anywhere on the roads. Wed. morning we woke up to about 3-4 inches of snow, but then it cleared up and was sunny and nice and most of the snow melted. So much for this MAJOR storm that was supposed to hit. Thurs it started raining and rained most the day and into the night. We just thought the storm and gone around us like it usually does! However, we woke up to this today!! A winter wonderland!

We measured about 14 inches of snow and that's not counting all the rain we got! Mesa is getting lots of rain and our friend said that Roosevelt Lake has risen 8-9 feet since last night! My friend in Nutrioso has been without power since 8:30pm last night, at least we are not dealing with that. We are staying nice and warm by the fire and just enjoying watching it snow! School has been cancelled for the second time this year! We are going to venture out on the 4-wheeler to get the mail, just for fun! This is a record breaking snowfall in the mountains and one to remember!

Is It Possible?? 33 years??

Yep, its been 33 years we've been married! On Jan 21'st we were married in the Mesa AZ temple! I remember it was quite the ordeal. We were supposed to fly from Salt Lake City the day before, but because of fog, our plane didn't even land! We now had to drive all night, about 16 hours to get there in time for our wedding the next morning. Luckily our good friends, Mike & Sigrid Jones, offered to help us drive, so we could get a little sleep on the way. I remember getting to Sonja & Randy's house that morning, getting ready, heading to the court house to get our marriage license, then to the temple by 9am. It was pretty wild, but a good, funny memory. It was a rainy day in Mesa. We took pictures, then we went to visit his grandparents who weren't able to attend. LaVerl had planned a great honeymoon in Mexico, we went to Alcapulco, where we stayed in the most beautiful motel, the Alcapulco Princess, -Mexico City, where we saw the piramids, -Puerto Vallarta, on the beach where I took a parachute ride out over the ocean, then we took a ferry ride across to Cabo San Lucas, after that, a short flight to Lapaz and by then we were feeling a little sick, so we skipped Mazatlan and flew home to Phoenix. I tell you all this because after we went to visit family, met everyone at St. George's for dinner, we realized we didn't have a place to stay in Mesa before we left for Yuma and the reception there the next day! We drove around and everything was full, then we finally found this little dump of a motel and they only had one room left because the carpet was wet from cleaning. We took it!

Another interesting note, we drove back to fly out of Phoenix the next day and met Dave & Mary there who had just gotten married a month before us, and they also went on their honeymoon with us!! Fun Times! Its been a great 33 years, lot of wonderful memories! Thanks honey!

Tagged, too....

Tami's & Lisa's posts were so cute and well done, with alot of thought put into them, with pictures, etc, that mine is almost embarrassing. I wrote these last Sunday and put them in my journal and wasn't going to post them, but here goes....

10 Things that make me happy--

1-My husband! He is so good to me! For our whole married life, I've been able to be a 'stay at home mom' and have gotten very spoiled because of it, hence the reason I'm still not working and have no more kids at home! He also will eat about anything I put on his plate and not complain, how can a wife beat that!
2-My Children! What joy and happiness they bring into my life. Now I have 6 more to love and best of all---I get grand babies!!! I will never understand how they all turned out to be so wonderful and good!
3-My testimony! It brings me such comfort and peace knowing that I have a Heavenly Father that knows me, loves me and has a plan for me to return to Him. He has restored his gospel back to the earth and I can't imagine how my life would've turned out without being raised knowing this to be true!
4- My home! I love living in Eagar, in a house my husband built for our family. Best of all, its paid for and LaVerl is making us more self-sufficient with our cow, chickens, well, and now solar and wind power!
5- My health! I've always taken for granted that I never get sick and that I just seem to always wake up feeling good!
6- A rainy or snowy day makes me happy. Rain reminds me of Tillamook, my home town, where it rained almost everyday! It also means I can stay home and relax!
7- A clean house! I don't like clutter or dust or dirty dishes left undone. However, I'm not a fanatic or a 'germaphobe', and what I can't see doesn't bother me to much.
8-Cooking for others! I love to feed my family and have people enjoy good home cooked meals.
9- My parents! I'm so happy to still have them and for them teaching me my good values.
I thank them for a wonderful childhood and for all they did and still do for me!
10- Chocolate! Its last on my list, but it did make the top 10! Any kind makes me happy--dark, milk, bars, chips, candy, hot fudge, hot chocolate, chocolate ice cream, Lenna's truffles, Extreme chocolate blizzards at DQ, etc. etc.

Now- 10 Honest things about myself-- This was harder because sometimes we don't want others to know our secrets!

1- I'm going deaf! Its true. I can't hear alot of what people say to me. I like to watch all my movies with the subtitles! Drives my kids crazy, except Chad, he likes them too!
2- I'm always on a diet! My cookbook has all kinds of diets in the back and I've tried them all.
Refer back to #10 on happy list!
3- I'm cheap! I can't stand to pay full price for anything. Name brand doesn't mean a whole lot to me.
4- I'm a hoarder and hider! (Tami must get this from me!) I stash away stuff for later and them most of the time, can't find it. For instance, our neighbors gave us 2 1lb chocolate bars for Christmas. I've eaten most of them because I've hidden them and LaVerl doesn't know where! I bottle jars of pears, peaches, applesauce, etc. and then they stay on my pantry shelves looking pretty! Saving them, of course!
5- I'm basically very lazy and a time waster! I can 'piddle' away a whole day and wonder what I did!
6- I love to read fiction and romance novels! It's a curse, I've had to stop! Refer back to #5
7- I love to eat! I love fast food, I love nice restaurants, I love junk, I love ice cream, etc.
Refer back to #2
8- I'm hooked on Sci-fi shows! I like fantasy and superman and vampires! I love my new DVR, now I don't have to miss to many of them!
9- I've always been self-conscious of my big, ugly false tooth and my short, fat, cut off finger! I try not to be vain and let it bother me to much, but sometimes it does.
10- I cry easily. It can be while I'm singing in the choir, hearing someone else sing, saying my prayers, reading a touching story, or watching TV, or if I get my feelings hurt, etc. It doesn't take much and the tears start to flow!

Now that that's done, I tag Kari and Dad!

Hey, we started a blog!

So Kirk and I always said that when we started our family that we would also start a blog. So shout hooray, we have indeed done just that. Here is our site http://kirkandkari.blogspot.com/ Hope you enjoy!

Christmas in Texas

Here's our 6 month old Bubba Baby Zauwen (what Milea calls Zallen). Here's Kaemon on his fast, new Lightning McQueen bike - he loves it!

Our excited kids before opening presents

Santa and Mrs. Claus...shhhhh, don't tell the kids!

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!

HAPPY DAY, WONDEROUS SURPRIZE, JOYFUL NEWS!! KARI IS PREGNANT!!
She is actually a little farther along than her baby sister, Tami!! (see Tami's blog!)
This is how they tried to break the news to all of us, while we were all together, with T-shirts that spelled out "Daddy" & "Mommy"! However, it took awhile for us to notice what they said!
We have all been praying and fasting for this for awhile now, and consider this a miracle and an answer to prayers!! I'm posting this picture because Kari was actually pregnant at Thanksgiving, but didn't know it yet, but the pose just seemed natural, like they already knew!!

WE'RE ALL SO HAPPY FOR YOU BOTH! AND FOR TAMI AND RYNE TOO.

Their babies will be born weeks apart, won't that be fun!!

Two Birthday Boys!

Chad turned the big "3-0" on Dec 29th! We all went to the Snowflake Temple that morning and then headed as far as Roosevelt later that day. As you can see, the beautiful water fountain was almost frozen over! Instead of baking a cake, Chad got a giant cookie to eat! Good thing he's easy to please!

On Bret's birthday, all the kids came over to play games, eat pizza and enjoy some good desserts! Later we all went to see 'Blind Side' at 10:30pm! We had the theater to ourselves!

These boys have almost always had to share their birthday parties! Good thing they like each other!
This was what Bret wanted for his birthday! His backyard patio poured. He and his dad worked long and hard, building the forms, leveling everything, hauling 80lb. bags of concrete, mixing it all in a wheelbarrow, working the concrete, etc. It was a long day and he still has one large form to pour! They can't wait to get grass growing in their backyard!

Christmas 2009

Christmas at the Crosby's was fun only because Bret's family was able to come. We would've been pretty lonesome without them and Chad. We missed all our other kids, but now that they are married, we have to share! It was sad that we couldn't dance the 'Christmas Polka' because our old record player stopped working, imagine that, its only 30 yrs old! We managed to keep a few of our other Christmas traditions- Mexican food on Christmas Eve, homemade PJ's, lots of games and food to eat. This year those that came got snowman pajama bottoms, to go with all the snow we had!!

We got Kingston all bundled up in my kids' old stuff, yep I still had the snowsuit, the snow boots, hats, gloves and the jacket that fit! It was really cold, the snow didn't melt for days!

Chad and London dancing to some of the Kingston and the Train!

old music LaVerl got for Christmas!

"Perfect 10" in 2010 Challenge

So Family- a new year is upon us, and of course with new years come new resolutions. Ryne and I have come up with ten things that we want to work on. These ten things are pretty basic, but we feel like we can do better and we want to challenge all of you as well- its always nice to have a good support group! If you accept the challenge I will e-mail you a nice little check list for you to keep track. I think it would be awesome to call 2010 a perfect year in these things. Here they are:

Daily:

1. Personal Prayer

2. Family/couple prayer

3. Personal scripture reading

4. Family/Couple scripture reading

Weekly:

5. Family home evening

6. Journal writing (mine is our blog)

Monthly:

7. Attend the temple

8. Home teaching/ Visiting teaching

9. Fast and give a generous fast offering

10. Pay a full tithe

"In the Savior’s parable of the ten virgins, each young woman had a lamp. Clearly, this parable has both a temporal and a spiritual application. Oil can be purchased at the market. But another kind of oil, spiritual oil that is not for sale, can be accumulated only by our daily good works.

The parable tells what happened as all ten young women waited for the bridegroom. The bridegroom came at the darkest hour, when least expected. It was midnight, and the foolish five had run out of oil. You might wonder why the five wise virgins could not share their oil with the other five. It was not selfishness on their part. Spiritual preparedness cannot be shared in an instant because we each fill our lamps drop by drop in our daily living." - President Faust

Spencer W. Kimball defined those drops of oil for us when he said:

“There are oils that keep the gospel burning brightly. One type of oil is the oil of family prayer. It illuminates us and makes us bright and cheery but is difficult to obtain at midnight. One drop or two will not keep the lamp burning long.

“Another type of oil is the oil of fasting. The last midnight is late to start disciplining our lives in preparation for the great day of the Lord. …

“Another oil that is not available at midnight is the indispensable oil of home service. This rare oil of service is accumulated through visits to the sick, through lending a helping hand. …

“There is another oil that all will need—rich or poor, sick or well. Its light is brilliant and increases with use. The more that is used, the more that is left. It is easy to purchase in the day but not available at night. This is the tithing oil."

My new flight gear...they were handing stuff out like candy. It was like Christmas. I've now finished the academic part of flight school, which I enjoyed a lot. We get 2 weeks off for Christmas break after which primary will start where I'll get 5 flights in a helicopter and 7 in the training turboprop plane. Should be fun. Merry Christmas to all. Wish we could see everyone.

Christmas in Eagar

This year Barry and I are spending Christmas in Gilbert. It will be the first time in my life that I haven't spent Christmas at home and there is so much i'm going to miss.

Christmas polka
Snow
sister pictures
Mom's yummy dinners
Home made matching PJ's
Snuggles
the wii
My family

I miss Mark and Holly

Thanksgiving Week with the family!

Thanksgiving was a few weeks ago, but I've been busy until now. Plus I didn't get many pictures for some reason! The kids all went up shooting clay pigeons and had fun doing that. On Sat. we stomped through the snow and found a couple of really nice Christmas trees, but I forgot my camera! Check out Lisa's blog, she got some with her phone! Here's Chad, Barry, Ryne & Kirk! Kirk and Kari showed up to dinner dressed as pilgrims! We were all impatiently waiting for them to come to the table, and wondering what was taking them so long! While we were watching movies the night before, Kari was sewing away, supposedly for a 'school project'! It was so cute and just made our Thanksgiving Feast all the better!

My girls are sooo buff!! They all did this HARD kick boxing workout that lasted at least an hour and half! They did this every morning too! Chad & I joined in on Sat for about half an hour and that was all we could handle!! At least they worked off their Thanksgiving Dinner!!

Special Day!!

It was a special day for the Dawes family on Nov 21st! My twin sister, Sherry was sealed to our Mom and Dad and the rest of us in the Mesa Temple. I told her, now we are all stuck with each other, forever! It was a happy day! Here's a picture of some who attended. Those that came, but somehow missed getting in the family photo, were Ryne & Tami and J'net & Bryan.

Shelly & LaVerl Crosby, Sherry & Steve Welker, Lillian & Don Dawes, and Sonja and Randy Lee.

Mom & Dad with all their girls!