Christmas

It took me a while to post these, but here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. One of my favorite memories of when I was a kid was of my Mom frosting cookie after cookie for Eric and I to decorate with the sprinkles. I so want to pass that memory on to my kids, so we tried it this year. Spencer's first cookie was very quickly eaten, but after that first one he got the idea and started just putting the sprinkles on them. It was fun...probably more for me than anyone, but we had a good moment as a family and that's what matters most. Christmas Eve with Dean's family. All the kids circled around the tree waiting to get their presents. Even the dog, Mitsy, was waiting so patiently for her turn to get a surprise too! :)

Aubrey dressed up in the bling from Grandma and Grandpa. Nothing makes a princess happier than new jewels!

Of course, when the girls get to wear something, Spencer has to take his turn too.
Our house Christmas morning before the kids woke up and chaos erupted!

Got some good morning snuggles in with Daddy before brother woke up.

Start with the stockings!

Uncle Eric got the kids some silly string...all I can say is watch out! Payback is coming!

They both asked for guitars for Christmas this year...Aubrey was very specific in her request for a purple guitar. They were so excited!

Spencer got a blue guitar and is actually pretty good at it. There is not much cuter than seeing both kids sitting on the arms of our chair facing each other with their guitars singing and playing their favorite songs. (I'm trying to get a video of it, but they stop when they see me so I have to be sneaky!)

Auntie Hollie and Uncle Paul gave Spencer the monkey hat and Aubrey the beautiful pink tutu. Who says a princess can't wear a monkey hat every once in a while!

Cousin Justin got Spencer this bubble Mater. To say that this was a big hit doesn't really come close to how Spencer felt about this toy...still loves it!

Uncle Eric with our great niece Madisyn.

Uncle Paul and Aunt Hollie also got them a Smart Cycle. We need to work on the pedaling though, because they only know how to go backward so it makes the game kind of hard. They do like to sit and pedal even when the game isn't on.

Not only did they get guitars, but they got a tambourine as well. It was a very musical Christmas at our house this year.

Auntie Dusti and Uncle Eric got them a fort set, big fun for Daddy who gets to build them all kinds of fun forts.

Aubrey is funny, she would pretend to be a princess in a tower like in the movie Tangled.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Crossons. We had a great time this year dressing up the kiddos and taking them to our church for the Trunk or Treat festivities! I took a stab at making their costumes this year and feel pretty good about how they turned out. I want to take advantage of the limited number of years I will be able to dress them in coordinating costumes, so this year we went with milk and cookies. Waiting oh so patiently at church to get in to the Trunk or Treat area. There was a lot of people there again this year! Kind of got overwhelming trying to keep an eye on two little ones by myself, but we managed to make it around all the cars without losing anyone!They finally made it to their first car!

We met up with my nephew Justin and his little baby girl Madisyn there too. She was an owl and was just too cute!

We decided to take them to our neighbors houses this year too. We live on a dead end street back behind a church with only four houses on it so we know everyone pretty well. It is a good thing too, when they opened their doors to give the candy, Spencer just walked right in...guess we should have explained how things work a little bit better!

This is just too much fun!! Got to dress up, getting all kinds of candy...talk about a great day!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

We took the kids to a pumpkin patch today...great fun! We tried to get a good picture of them on the bench...this was the best we could do! They are kind of over getting their pictures taken. Dean with the kiddos.
Me and the kiddos...love them more than I ever thought possible.

Love this one of Dean and the kids walking through the maze.

My sweet little girl...she is quite the princess!

Me and my little man!

We found the best pumpkin!!

He gave it a good try, but wasn't able to pick it up.

This one is more his size...he actually put it in the wheelbarrow and went back for more! We had to keep taking out the little ones when he wasn't looking.

She wasn't interested in picking one up...she just kept saying "Eww, yucky!"

The Crosson Family, the kids weren't looking, but I didn't feel like asking the nice stranger to take another one when the chances were pretty great that the next 4 will look exactly like the one we have! :)

I love this little guy! He is looking so big to me...kind of sad, I'm not gonna lie!

Mommy and her little girl.

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but the scene at the farm was just beautiful with all the fall colors. God is just amazing to have created something so breathtaking!

She was so excited to get going on the carving of the pumpkins.

Spencer had to take a peek before he went full force in pumpkin cleaning!

She did pretty good, but did say "Eww, yucky!" a few times.

He looks like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Spencer's finished pumpkin thanks to Daddy. A great Thomas!

Aubrey wanted Foofa from Yo Gabba Gabba. Those of you who don't know who she is...consider yourself very lucky!

All lit up! Great job Dean!

We had a great day today with the kids. There was no rain, it wasn't too cold and there were no meltdowns! :) Now the countdown to Halloween and for me to finish making their costumes!

My 3-Day Experience

It took a while, but here are the pictures from my Seattle 3-Day walk. I will do my best to describe what is going on in the pictures. The first one was taken at opening ceremonies. There were so many people dressed up with all kinds of pink...men included! I definitely felt a bit under dressed! The pink balloons were so pretty in the early morning hours of opening ceremonies. Kind of made you forget that you were up very early about to take off on a 20 mile walk!

The Seattle skyline during opening ceremonies.

This was very touching. They had a white flag that you could write the name of someone you lost to breast cancer. They took the flag, raised it up and had a ring of survivors gather around the flag. Very touching to say the least.

Crossing the I-90 bridge from Seattle into the Bellevue area.

Along the route there were people who set up "stations" where they would give you encouragement or treats of some kind. These guys were part of the "Save the Coconuts" group. They had loud island music playing and they offered us "gatoritas", or a gatorade slushie. On the last day they were set up at the top of a hill....a GIANT hill and let me tell you, a gatorita really hit the spot when I finally made it to the top!

This is the campground and the sea of pink tents. It was really not a bad situation having to camp....although next year I will be staying in the hotel! :) It only rained on Saturday night, but I managed to stay dry!

There were 60 Seattle police on bikes who volunteered to be a part of the walk. It was nice to know that they were around riding up and down the route. Another family out on the route to support us. It was overwhelming at times to hear them say thank you for walking...hard to explain, but it was so touching.

This guy was around all weekend to help with some of the crosswalks and to keep us safe in traffic. I'm guessing he had someone walking in the walk too with the pink flamingo team, because he had flamingos on him or his bike all the time.

Not only did we have the safety helpers on the bicycles, we had the help of some motorcycles too. They had their bikes all decked out in pink...not hard to know they are with us! :)

Here are some of the "bikers" who helped out. The one in the pink bra is the owner of the bike in the picture above.

This is the finish line coming back into the camp on the second day. On the route they have sweep vans that drive up and down the street and you can ride to the next pit stop or lunch or back to camp, whatever is closer, if you can't make it anymore. I was hurting pretty bad the end of the first day and I took a sweep van for the last little bit...very disappointed about it, but it was necessary. I had a pretty big blister on the outside of my heel and my lower back was killing me. After a phone call to Eric, I got my emotions back under control and was ready to tackle it all over again the next day. I was very emotional for me to finally walk across the finish line on the second day...nice to complete it!

This guy must have had walkers in the walk too, he was around all weekend. He would be parked somewhere on the route and have his music playing loud and words of encouragement. After seeing him every couple miles for three days, it was nice to turn a corner and hear the music and see that it was him.

Part of the last day's walk in Seattle. It was just beautiful with the water and all the green.

This was one of the teams on the walk. They were called "Chesticles" and the front of their jerseys said "Chesticles, the balls to fight breast cancer". Too funny!

After walking through some residential areas this was the first view of the Seattle skyline on the last day of walking. This was right before lunch I believe, so it was more than halfway through the walk for the day.

This was a killer downhill! It lead into the last part of the walk through Seattle. It was nice to walk through the city. I am sure I saw parts of it I would have never seen any other time there.

This was taken about halfway down the hill in the picture above. Just a beautiful skyline.

Another one of the bikes from the weekend.

The bike belonged to this very nice gentleman. He had some saggy boobs...but he said that is what happens when you turn 61. Too funny!

Some more guys who would show up at various places along the route to show support.

This was the last little bit of the walk. I came through pretty early in the day, not because I walked super fast, but I just got on one of the first buses to take us to the route, but as more and more walkers finished the street was full of people cheering.
This was team Lisa. I walked amongst them on the second day and was reminded of why I was walking and why I needed to get over myself and just do it. The woman on the far right of the group in green is fighting stage 4 breast cancer and she did the walk...the blisters that I had on my feet at that point suddenly seemed so little. They would heal, they weren't going to kill me and as my cousin so wisely share with me, they wouldn't need chemo to go away. When I saw her strength and determination, I knew that there was nothing that was going to stop me from finishing.
My victory picture with my victory shirt on! I did it!! Even though I took the sweep van, I still figure I walked about 23 miles the first day, 21 the second and 15 the third. It was an experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I hope to do it again next year!

Because I finished the walk around 2:30 and closing ceremonies didn't start until 5:30, I had some time to kill! :) They had music playing and some of the crew and walkers started to do the electric slide. The young girl on the right side of the front row with the pink pants on had her knee all bandaged up, barely could walk across the finish line, but found the energy to dance a bit! :)

I met this amazing lady, Debbie, on the first day. We kind of just paired up and walked together for most of the day but got separated when I took the sweep van back to camp and never saw each other until the last day right before closing ceremonies! She was very personable and would talk to EVERYONE we passed on the route...she very much reminded me of my Grandpa Becker.

Each of the sweep vans had a theme that they were decorated up like. The one I took was the S.S. Minnow and of course I had The Skipper and Gilligan as my drivers.

Closing ceremonies...I was really surprised at the amount of people in the stands. There was about the same amount on the other side and we were down on the field.

I tried to get a good shot of the crowd of walkers, but it was hard being all on the same level. I think someone said that there was about 2000 walkers.

When we lined up to walk into the closing ceremonies, they separated the survivors and had them walk in after us. We all took off one shoe and held it up as a tribute to them. Kind of like us saying we just did all those miles for you. So touching to say the least.

This picture kind of shows the layers of people. The white shirts are all walkers. Toward the center there are blue shirts, they are the crew. and the very center closest to the flagpole are the pink survivors.

Another ring of survivors around the flag pole.

This time instead of the flag of people who were lost to the disease, it was a flag that proclaimed the hope of all the walkers there, a world without cancer. I tried to get a good shot of the flag unrolled to show the saying, but just didn't happen.The last song that they played was "I will survive" and when the tempo picked up, everyone started dancing. I just thought it was kind of a nice shot to see all the survivors dancing...

Thank you to all that supported me on the journey. Like I said, it was an experience I will always carry with me. I hope to do it again next year...if you are interested in doing it with me let me know and we can start training now!!