HALLOWEEN 2012

Something is wrong with my Halloween gene.  I have never really loved the holiday and it seems every year the celebration gets bigger and bigger.  I use to love helping my boys figure out their costumes and loved having the tradition of our first chili dinner for the year, but I just didn't love the holiday.  I remember one year when Andrew was about six, he ask me if we could put up some decorations so I got out a little scarecrow holding a pumpkin and he was thrilled.  I kind of feel badly about that now.  Poor little guy had to beg his mom.

This year I decided we needed a Halloween celebration at the Crowley home and I even found myself getting excited about the preparations!  Who said you "can't teach an old dog or maybe that should be old witch new tricks".  We do have four amazing tricker treaters in the Crowley Family who were very excited so here are the pictures of our celebration!

My name is Andrea Crowley and I am a recovering Halloween Hater! 

. 
Here is one of the pictures from one of the boy's scrapbooks a few years back.  Matt is sporting a good look as a punk.  Andrew is a pirate and Jeremy is a scarecrow!  These pictures are hilarious.  Thanks Rich for this great picture.  I do remember having fun with Matt's hair and painting Jeremy and Andrew up.

The other cute trickers are my cousin, Bob Farmer's kids.  Mark is the cowboy, Bjorn is the baseball player, Antje and Ingrid are little princesses and Soren is a cute little Swiss boy.  Matt is about 10 here so Jeremy is 8 and Andrew is 5.  Yes, I admit it is a fun memory. 

So here are two of my boys just a few years later with kids of their own to dress up for.  My boys the leaf people.  Look how excited they are in their costumes.

 

Charlotte is a cute Jedi warrior and Audrey is a witch - I almost cut this good witch out of the picture.

 

Here is the gang!  Gabe, Matt Andrew, Nathan and the Grandpa Towel Monster.

Audrey, Lottie Jocelyn (who couldn't take her eyes off Gabe) and Melanie

 

T

 

The sublime - Princess Harper's first Halloween

 

To the terrifying Zombie Gabe!

Cute as can be,  Charlotte the Jedi, Audrey the witch,  Jocelyn as Minnie Mouse , and Nathan the engineer.

The Donut Game!  The kids loved it.

 You can see how concerned Jocelyn because Nathan ripped the donut off with his hands.  Notice her hands are behind her back.

Nathan ripped his donut off right away.  He came back later for the last piece.

 

Here's the towel monster reading to his little engineer and Minnie Mouse.

 One more shot of the gang minus Melanie who was taking the picture. 

We had a great pre-Halloween party.  We had our bread bowls with chili, played the donut game, tootpick game and decorated cookies with candy corn!  What a fun day.  Good memories.

August -- new baby girl - Harper Elizabeth

As you can see my blogs are still way behind the dates of when these events occurred.  BUT, I am determined to get everything recorded.  This is August 9th.

We are the lucky ones!  Our sixth granddaughter was born on August 9th in Resron, Virginia.  She is Andrew and Melanie's third daughter.  Yes, Andrew is sitting on the porch with his shotgun across his lap.  Oh wait a minute Andrew doesn't own a shotgun!  Well he will need something when the boys come calling,

Audrey and Jocelyn came to stay with Grammie and Grandpa for a couple of days while Harper and Melanie were in the hospital.  Melanie has to stay extra days so  Grandpa and I were busy busy busy.  Ha Ha and I thought I was ready for them.  Jocelyn spilled milk on her nightie at breakfast.  I forgot about it and  after the little girls had a bath that night I went looking for the nightie.  Of course it was bedtime now and the nightie was as stiff as a  board.  Yes, it could stand up alone.  Well, I am out of practice.  I found grammie shirts for the girls to wear and they loved the idea. 

They were adorable and had to wear them the next night also.

                                  Here is Audrey ready for gymnastics on the bed.  Of course that is not allowed.

 

Audrey (4) was so happy I let her show me tricks on the bed.  This girl never slows down.

 

Here are Nathan and Jocelyn.  Both are about 2 1/2

 

 

 

Then we made the trip to Reston to see the new little sister.  What excitment!

 

Harper Elizabeth Crowley just hours old.  Melanie and Andrew with their new bundle of joy!

 

Andrew and Melanie were so happy that Harper is finally here. 

 

Grandpa Crowley with Harper

 

 

 

Jocelyn with Harper

 

Grammie with Harper

 

This new little granddaughter is our 6th girl.  So now we are up to 10 grandchildren.  Very appropriate after all of the boys we raised to have so many granddaughters.

We feel so lucky and blessed to have Harper in our family.  You can imagine the mauling she gets from their two older sisters.  I didn't get a pictures of Audrey at the hospital with Harper, but Audrey was just full of joy.  All of the pictures of Audrey are videos and I can't get them to download.  Darn. 

 

So we brought the girls home for a couple of nights. We needed to be a little worn out but we were flying out of town on Monday so on Saturday evening we delivered the girls to Andrew and we came home to get packed.  We were heading back to the West for my school reunion and Mom's family reunion.  Phew!

 

One more picture of Harper.  When Andrew called to tell us she was here, he said she was bald and had no hair.  After I met her for the first time, I told Andrew she was definitely not bald.  He said well, I meant in comparison to Audrey and Jocelyn. 

 

What a beautiful new granddaughter!

 

 

Congratulations Andrew and Melanie.  We love you.