A Chat with Alex

I asked Alex to put some leftovers into the fridge. He asked what was in the container, so I joked, "your face". He thought about it for a few seconds then said, "No. My face is bigger than that."

Matt got some songs from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and there is a song called "The Kraken". I was trying to stifle my laughter when Alex asked us to play "The Crackhead".
Matt told me, "Just a few minutes ago he asked for 'The Crack.'" No more stifling, I had to hold onto the fridge for support.

We were explaining to Alex about marriage (like why he can't marry Keturah). We said that it is between a man and a woman. He says, "Or you could say between a Dude and a Mrs."

"Why is it called a loveseat?" I told him because there is room for two people so you sit on it with someone you love. He goes over to the rocking chair and says "And this is where you sit if you hate somebody."

While we were exploring the bay, we came upon another stretch of beach. We had told the kids we were going to the playground, but we stopped there for a quick peek. As we were preparing to get out of the car, Alex wanted to know what we were doing. Matt told him there was a beach there and "we just want to see what it looks like". Alex queried, "Why? We already know. Sand. Water."

Baywatch Babe

Baywatch

Babe

We went to explore part of Michigan last weekend and camped for a bit. The road next to us was gravel so I told Bekah to be careful because if she fell, she'd probably get cut. She asked me if rocks had blood in them. When I said no, she asked if they had scrapes in them. Just keep blaming the rocks, honey.
By the way, she did fall. No surprise there.

Bekah does her marshmallows "raw" or black and flaming. Nothing in between.


S'more Alex

Lay by the bay...

Make things out of clay...

I just may, whaddya say?

I guess if you haven't seen Happy Gilmore, that isn't funny, but I'm leavin' it anyway.


More happy people
Out on a hike, and Keturah is lovin' life.



What a good dad...



We found a sweet playground by the bay. Matt and I got out of the van, ditched Keturah in a corner and went to play. Oh, yeah, the kids were there, too.Yeah, baby!

The Biter

Lemony Snicketts had that little toddler girl that was "The Biter". That is Keturah to a tee.

First boyfriend

First solid meal

Not the first lower lip jut

The next part is just for fun. Some pictures of all three at about the same age. Surprisingly, Keturah doesn't look as much like Alex as most people think.

Alex

Bekah

Keturah

Fun to the 4th

Yes, I am a math nerd. I meant "to the 4th power". Laugh all you want.
We took a little road trip for the 4th and visited our previous neighbors from Kirksville. We just couldn't last more than 2 weeks without seeing them again. The parade we went to was very long, but entertaining in parts.

Tab and Alex, happy to be together.

Sarah and Jenny, happy to be together.

Keturah and Paisley, not caring at all if they're together.
However, they have matching bows, thanks to Jenny.

Some pirates from the parade. I was trying to get a good one for Jenny because Tab loves pirates (hence the themed party for the boys' birthdays), but to no avail.

Hanging out at their house, which included yummy food, interesting (read: often very strange) conversation, and some napping. Sounds like vacation for sure.

We also went to a little town shindig with some fun and games for kids. Here are some glimpses of the fun:

4 kids partying on the 4th. Now do you see where the math comes in?

While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, these spazsters got a lot of energy out by running around and wrestling. It was more fun to watch them tackle each other than to watch fireworks.

Alex is about to take out Tab's legs.

The men with the babies

Bekah and Keturah watching fireworks. Keturah is wearing a burp rag to ward off mosquitos. Who knows? The fashion may catch on.

And everywhere we went, the Crellins had to tote Alex and Bekah with them so the 4 chillens could be together.

Saying goodbye. *Sniff*

We officially live in Michigan. Land of half of a percent milk. Our move was not as eventful as the one to Missouri, but not without incident. We learned last time how the tiniest piece of metal can cause $4000 worth of damage, so we were a little fearful for the drive. I'll need some skin grafts from peeling myself off the seats because the air conditioner went out, but that's not too bad.
When we lived in Utah, we heard the thunderstorms were really cool. They were cool. Then we saw Missouri's storms and learned that Utah had nothin' on them. Then we drove through the mother of storms in Michigan and realized we had it good in Missouri.
Once here, we had to get 3 major appliances fixed, and now we sort of feel at home.

Here's what it was like in our last moments in Kirksville: Dirty.




Keturah was a little neglected for a few days, but she is so mellow so she took it well.

Father's Day was the day after we moved all our stuff in, so we weren't very prepared. Matt got beef jerky and snickers. So awesome. The fun activity was unpacking and to top that off, we had hot dogs for dinner. Matt says he'll never forget it.

This week on GFAM

If our life were a t.v. show, these would be the highlights:

• Matt had to pull Alex aside at church several times to convince him to be a little nicer to people around him. As we were walking across the parking lot to our car, Alex wanted to hold his dad's hand. Matt says, "Alex, I thought I was the enemy." Alex quickly retorts, "No, I'M the enemy." Hmmm...we'll have to quiz him on his vocab again.
• Bekah says, "My feeling hurts."
• The appearance of Keturah's first tooth. Yes, she is only three months old. That is not the alarming part. I really tried to get a picture so you'd believe me, but it is too tiny and she is too wiggly. This white protuberance is jutting out from where the third or fourth tooth to the right of the midline would be. Oh yeah, and it is coming out from the side of her gums, not the top. I'm not sure if that description makes sense, but all you need to know is that it is most definitely NOT NORMAL. She's got a crazy canine gene or something. Actually, the gene comes from one of her parents (ahem, not me). But I don't think the culprit would like me posting or even taking a picture of this particular anomaly, considering the protests that something like that "is not genetic". HOWEVER, I for one, love this feature now present in two of my favorite peeps.

Just to clarify, you can't see it in this picture. That white thing on the pic is just the light reflecting.

• Last, but not least. Oh, I should have labeled this post, "Please don't kill me, Matt". It might seem like I'm picking on the man, but I'm not. This is just so darn laughable, I mean, loveable. Loveable.

So Matt and I had some movie passes to use up before we skip town, so we picked Star Trek, because we heard it was good. There is a female character that is all green like this:

So my favorite part of the movie was when Matt was bugged about how bad her fake tan was.
If you're color blind that horrible green must turn into a horrible brown.

A Tale of Two Parties

We were having a birthday party for Alex in a huge corn field that hadn't been planted yet, so it was more like a huge mud field, when someone suspicious walked towards me. He was coming to "help" with the party. He distracted me from watching all the kids running around because he was very odd looking. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I just walked over and yanked on his shirt sleeve. His bare shoulder revealed his appearance-- it was that of a skeleton with skin on it, and nothing more. I gasped. And then I realized that it was awfully quiet.
I looked around and noticed the kids were gone. I ran up the embankment and saw an old couple speeding away on motorcycles, with like 7 kids somehow crammed in the storage compartment.

I want to point out that in my dream (I hope you figured that out by now), it was important that I knew that they were Ducati motorcycles. Holy Random.

Here is the best picture I could find to match the story:


Anyway...So I start running down the dirt road after them to rescue the kids. For some reason I could run way faster when I was on all fours running like a dog, so that is how I caught up to a Ducati going 50mph+.
After grabbing the kids, the old man (who looks like Jon Voight with a heavy beard) threatens me with a knife. Yes, the motorcycles have disappeared at this point.
I snatched the thing closest to me to ward him off. May I remind you that we are in the middle of nowhere.

Naturally.

Well, a laundry basket was the perfect weapon for this guy, because after promptly placing the device on his head, he was completely incapacitated.
What great hero work. Yay for me saving the kids and the party.



Okay, so you want to know what really happened?
My friend Jenny has a son who is Alex's friend, Tab. Tab's birthday is just a couple days before Alex's, so we threw a little shindig for the two of them. We went with a pirate theme and we probably had more fun with it than the kids did.
Here is Jenny's awesome cake with the birthday boys behind it.


We were supposed to swim, but soccer will do when it is only 65 degrees out.


As you can see, Alex is so used to wearing a patch, that he wore this pirate patch the whole time even though he didn't have to.


I mostly wanted to do this so Alex could play with all his friends one more time before we all move, but he did make it home with quite the pile of loot. That's my pirate.

That was all on Thursday, so on his real birthday we went swimming and had lunch at good ol' BK. After we got home, a once-in-a-year thing occurred: Alex took a nap. What? Are we that boring?


He was seriously lacking in sleep the last couple of days, so he and the new Batman snoozed his birthday afternoon away.
He only got off the couch when he noticed I was doing this:


Yeah, the handwriting stinks. It's because my 3rd grade teacher sapped me of my confidence by giving me a "C" in that subject (if that is what you want to call it).
BUT...the rest of it I'm a little proud of, considering I had to draw that sucker.


After cake come more presents, of course.


More transformers to add to the collection. This one talks and he's got a very menacing laugh that cracks us up. He also got a Wolverine toy that talks and he likes to make them have conversations, but that laugh always ends the dialogue perfectly.