2.5

Well, two weeks ago on Oct 30th Casen turned the big 2.5! Does this mean we are half way through the terrible? JK! Casen weighs in at about 35lbs and is about 37 inches tall! He has really found his sense of humor lately and is super funny! He likes to make jokes, scare people, dance and just laugh! I so LOVE that he has a great sense of humor! 2 of the things I wish most for my boys are to know God and have a sense of humor! I think with those two things you can get through anything!

Here are a few things Casen really likes right now:

dinosaurs
for me to read him books
to wrestle
Play-doh
to swing "high"
to jump off of anything as tall as he is
his pacy (or bay as he calls it)
to say No when you ask him to do something...everytime
to brush his teeth
floss picks :/
He has recently really gotten into Santa!
trains
watches (or tick-tocks)

Casen can say anything and pretty much do anything except he has absolutely no interest in potty training unless he can go outside and pee on things in the yard. Whatever, if I could, I probably would too!
He also likes to put the word "Super" in front of things like "I'm super cold" or super hungry! Trever recently told him not to play with knives because they "will make you die" and now Casen says this after everything. He told me this morning not to go outside because it was "super cold and would make me die" SO dramatic!! He raises his little blond eyebrows up as high as he can when he says it too!! SO funny!

He has trouble with "ing" he says things like Gonin (going) doonin(doing) and his latest words are somebody and something! I love love to hear him talk in his quiet voice or sing! It is a rarity that he is not booming something out in that loud voice of his but he really does have a sweet voice when he is quiet! He has also began to learn the words to "Jingle Bells" and his favorite part is yelling "Hey!"
As always, he is still very addicted to chocolate or any candy for that matter! He LOVES chocolate and will be relentless about getting some daily! He has also mastered his name! For a long time he wouldn't say his name but I overheard him saying to a little boy the other day "What your name, me Casen!" Precious!

Casen is my sweet but very loud, 90mph 24/7, daredevil, super stubborn but really clever child! He is still very very much a Momma's boy and I love it (until I try to go to the grocery store by myself and he stands at the door for hours)! We are very blessed to have this little boy and he fills my heart completely with joy every day!

Here he is roaring at me!


Here, he is telling me that he is not sure what happened to the middle of my cake! Uh huh, sure!

Happy Halloween!!

This is my favorite time of year! Not Halloween necesarily but the Holiday Season! I love the Fall weather, football, get togethers, eating, hot chocolate, eating, buying Christmas presents, eating, Christmas (for it's true meaning), and most of all...making memories with my kids and family (the drama free ones ;) during all of it! Since this is our "family blog" I need to add that Michael loves this season too....hunting season that is! Trever has been obsessed with Christmas from the very beginning! He wanted to be Santa for Halloween and his favorite colors are red and green! Casen just likes all the desserts and presents!

Happy Halloween!
This was probably our most fun Halloween yet! Both of the boys were big enough to enjoy it! In past years, Trever would say trick or treat and then push by the homeowner and go set in front of their tv. :/ He was way more interested in seeing other peoples houses and what was on their tv than the candy. I have tried to make their costumes go together in theme but this year gave them the option to pick their own costume (from the clearance rack in Target might I add bc we are not into paying $40 a piece for a one time thing and we are not super into Halloween bc our family doesn't get into all the scary monster demon part of it) Anyway, Trever chose a ninja turtle which he calls an "engine turtle" and was thrilled with it! He saw the Ninja Turtles for the very first time on the way to the beach and has been "haya-ing" ever since! Casen saw the Thomas costume and started yelling "Choo choo train". He loves trains!
We were able to see some of our family that we normally wouldn't see just because of driving time which was really nice! The kids all really enjoyed Halloween this year! If you know Casen then you know that he is obsessed with sweets! Needless to say he has been relentless about eating all of his and everyone else's candy!
We carved pumpkins the week of Halloween and it was an event! Trever has always enjoyed "gutting" and pumpkin and designing one. Casen didn't see the fun in it...at all! I will post pics below for you to see!









Here are some of our past Halloweens! I like to see how everyone has grown...sorta! Shouldn't they both still be babies?!

Halloween 2009





Halloween 2008



Halloween 2007

Just Checking In...

Hi all! I have not forgotten about our site here or our beloved friends and family that keep up with us! I know I say that we are in a busy season often but we really were! Things have really slowed down now and so we have a little breathing room to, well breathe (and update our blog)!
Here are a few of the latest Cramblit Happenings:

- We have decided to homeschool Trever this year! God really put it on our heart that public school was not going in the direction that we wanted our family to go, we also feel like it is more of a family's responsibility to train and educate our kids and so we have sought out other options and this year we are homeschooling! I am not saying that my kids will not ever go to public school (bc we have been blessed that New Market is a good school) but we are just going to try to go the homeschool/Christian Academy route if possible. Trever is doing GREAT!! We love our curriculum (Horizons by Alpha Omega Publishing) and he is already reading pretty well and beginning to write his own sentences! This is the main reason that we have been "busy". It's actually more busy at home adjusting to a new school schedule, entertaining Casen so that Trever can get his school work done and making sure we have field trips and an equivalent to PE that has kept us busy rather than going going going!
- Trever played Fall T-ball in Lincoln Co this year and his team won the Championship!! We were so excited for them (and suprised ;)He is a good little ball player and Michael is an excellent coach (and pitcher ;) I am so proud of Michael! He makes sure that he coaches or assis. coaches all of Trever's stuff and I just think that is AWESOME!!

That is a lot about Trever so here is some happenings with Casen :

- He is stubborn. His new thing is to say "Funny" after each whipping.
- Yesterday he took his diaper off bc "there were balls in it and I wanted to throw them"...and he did. I spent 30 minutes going through our shag carpet to find all of his "poop balls".
- He is obsessed with knives. We have gone throug 2 locks on the knife drawer and were going to put them on top of the refrigerator until he climbed to the top of the refrigerator yesterday and ate some medicine. Poison Control will be getting a Christmas card from us this year! The ceiling is not safe with this kid!
- He has learned how to climb onto the bars of Trever's bicycle and perch so that he can ride with Trever. (no training wheels) I caught them last week trying to see how fast they could go before Casen fell off. Tough little booger, he never fell!
- Casen loves Play-doh. This has become his "school work" for when I am schooling Trever and I need him to sit a.k.a. stay out of medicine cabinet and knife drawer.
- Casen definitely keeps me on my toes, tippie toes but we love him dearly and couldn't imagine life without him! We have truly been blessed with 2 precious boys!

- Michael and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary this month! We had a small ceremony where we renewed our vows! It was great! We just had a handful of friends and family and our boys got to see us "get married" again!

- Oct 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day! I don't think that our "family blog" would be complete without remembering our 3 Cramblit angel babies that we have in Heaven! We will see them one day! Until then, we just put our desire to have more children in God's hands.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.” Ecclesiastes 11:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. Do not be afraid… for I am with you… declares the Lord.“ Jeremiah 1:5,8

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.“ Proverbs 3:5,6

Beach or Bust....

We FINALLY went on a family vacation! Yay for us!! We managed to go to the aquarium earlier in the year but that was just small potatoes. We left out last Fri morning headed for Gulf Shores!! We were able to get a great deal on a super nice condo on the beach. I cannot explain to you how excited everyone of us was about this trip! We were there for 5 wonderful nights!
I have to mention that we did have some van trouble. Apparantley our wheel bearing was about to break....I don't even know if I worded that right but you get the idea. We had to order a part when we got into GS and schedule it to be fixed with a shop down there first thing. Of course the part wasn't going to come in until 2 hours after our check out time so a big thanks to the lady managing the property that let us check out late so I could keep kids at our condo and not entertain everyone at the tire store for 5 hours! That is a serious Thank you Lord!
Anyway, we had an absolute blast!
We went to the beach and pool (our building had a zero entry pool with fountains for the kids woot woot) multiple times every day except for Tue. A storm had come in and brought some oil with it so we went to the GS Zoo that day and we visited the pier! I will post pics of those later!
Here are some pics....they speak more than I can explain to you!


Casen had the right idea of relaxing from the first night that we got there! That's my boy!

He just was not sure about the whole ocean thing. This was about as far out as he got! He did really enjoy chasing sea gulls and kicking his ball around!



Michael didn't think this trip would be complete until he buried the boys! Trever was pumped...Casen, not so much (see his hands..he's just not sure)

Buried!!

We baptized Trever while we were there! JK... he went under and was choking...he just flails around like this everytime he gets choked or the sun is in his eyes...LOL!

Trever "surfing"! This little guy had been on a mission to do this since a week proir to or trip! He LOVES the beach!

This was a water spout that we had been watching come across the ocean!

Trever's face after Michael explained to him what a water spout was and that it was headed for the condo next door to us....haha

I saw these crabs out on the sand bar the first day and had been on a mission to catch one...my boys were super impressed ;)

We are Still Alive...

I know that I have completely sucked at updating our blog over the Summer. I am one of those perfectionist people but the type that if I can't do it like I want to or get behind then I just get overwhelmed with it all and just don't do it. SO...it all started when the twins came to live with us for awhile. I started slowly but surely getting deeply behind...on everything! Trever's 5th birthday was right in the middle of that. It was nice for his siblings to be here for that but I didn't get to blog about it and about him like I wanted too so I have just avoided this whole thing until I could get him on here.
Well, I'm not going to do it in that order bc it is going to take me awhile to go through my pics and decide which ones I want to put up so I am going to just skip over most of the Summer and go straight to our beach trip (in the next day or two)that we just got back from. Let's just all pretend that I am completely caught up so I can move on and keep this blog going ;)
I will give you highlights of what I am skipping just so you will be "in the know"! Most of you are my friend on Facebook so you already know most of this!

-We had some of Trever's biological siblings staying with us for about a month
-Trever turned the big 5!!! My baby is officially big! (sorta)
- Trever finished out his Summer Tball season...Go Pirates!
- I was able to go on a beach trip with our youth from church!
-We have decided to homeschool Trever this year!
- Michael was in the Homes and Land magazine and we are SO very proud of him!!

I think that is about it....if I remember more I will update you!

By invitation only....

Obviously you have recieved an invitation to read our blog! I hate to make it private and have to "invite" people to read about our life happenings and share our pictures with but some things you just have to do. It was just recently brought to my attention that when you googled Michaels name, our blog came up. This wouldn't be such aa big deal except that Michael has been in the Homes and Land magazine in a full page spread ;) for 2 months now. Not the best thing when you have pics of your kids and your house on here. We all know that there are creeps out there and I don't want my kids pics floating around plus we have a situation with our oldest where things about his life are purposefully kept from some people. So, here is our effort to keep our little life, well, little. I think in the end this will make for a more personal blog about our family because I will know who is reading it and won't hesitate to put many things on here. Glad we know you, thanks for caring enough about us to want to read about our "moments"!

Trever Graduated Pre-K!

Again, I know that I am super behind on posting some of our pics but I thought that y'all would want to see pics of Trever graduating from Pre-K! He has learned SO much this year! They took a test at the end of the year to see where they were acedemically and he did great! At first I had read the results wrong and thought he was in the bottom few but then Michael pointed out that I had pretty much read it backwards and he was 10th in the whole Pre-K of about 30 something kids I think. We are SO proud of him. He really loves school! He loves school so much that we have bought a homeschool Pre-K curriculum to do this Summer. We are using Horizons from AOP. So far we both LOVE it!





Here is Trever and his teacher!

Blanket Time!

I will start off by apologizing bc my posts are starting to be few and fffaaarrrrr between. We are indeed in a busy season right now and VBS starts this morning so we are buckling in and preparing for this crazy week. I will try to post more regularly after this week bc I have so many pics and things to share!

I frequently watch The Duggars and all of their 19 kids..for many reasons. The main reasons that I watch them is to see how their family functions with so many kids and so many chances for disasters. Kids didn't come with a handbook you know so we have to just watch other people and learn. They have a thing called "Blanket Time" where their kids have to set on their blanket and play with a toy or read for 30 minutes. She mainly uses this for the smaller kids while she is homeschooling other bigger kids. I had considered attempting this but it honestly was very intimidating and so I didn't do it. Then, my sister from another mister Sarah (who is one of those Moms that literally was born to be a Momma) told me that she did this with her kids. Anyway, she motivated me to at least start trying it little by little and it has been a success and such a wonderful thing! I have incorporated our Bible Time into Blanket Time. The boys each have thier Bibles and "read" through it and we talk about different stories and then they will usually play with a toy or eat a snack. We do not do this every afternoon but we do it several times a week. We are up to 15 minutes now which is amazing to me! I took these pics back a month or two ago (see jeans ;) but you can at least look at them as proof that my kids can sit still for 15 minutes!

Garden Update

Well, our garden is growing! Honestly, I am just happy that everything didn't die. After we had our big "plant", we had about a week of torrential rains and storms so we weren't sure how much actually made it through. It seems that everything made it except a few cucumber and squash plants (which we re-planted last week). Granny blames this on a big ole dog footprint and another one beside it that says "Crocs". Not sure who she is trying to blame that on! What do you do? haha! Up until the other day I was thinking that this garden stuff was not really that hard. That is until we were at the garden "checking it out" and Granny hands me a hoe. I look at her and she says "I'm going to show you how to do this so you can show Michael. We've got to get all these weeds out of here." So, Michael has been working a lot of extra here lately. We are very thankful for business but I know that the last thing he wants to do is come home after working from sun u til sun down and me tell him Granny said he needs to hoe the garden....I'm assuming that's how you say it? I get to it and let me tell you, that is hard work!!! My shoulders, back and arms def. felt the burn! We got it done though! Another thing we have going is cherry trees. Between our house and Grannys, there are two cherry trees that have really grown and have begun to produce lots of cherries in the past few years. Granny gave Trever the job of checking the cherries early on and he has been faithful in checking that tree everyday! Cherry picking is one of the boys favorite things to do right now! Yesterday was the first day we picked enough ripe ones to make cobblers with. There is nothing like Granny's cherry cobbler to eat after supper! I love living in the country but right now we really just can't get enough of it! (Trever and Michael were at t-ball practice in case you are wondering why they are MIA)



Granny's helper!




Dollar Tree was out helping in the garden too!

Casens 2nd Birthday Party!

I still can't believe that Casen is 2! His 1st birthday party (outside) was rained out and we ended up with about 80 people in our house (you know, the one that the 3 of us are busting out of). It was cramped, but fun! For his 2nd bday, it rained again! We had cut our guest list in half this time (hello, 80 of y'all gets a little pricey) and decided to only invite immediate family (which there are a ton of btw) and Casen's 2 yr old friends. We were going to do a moon bounce and I wanted him to be able to actually jump with his friends. Of course, here came the rain so we rescheduled it for the next weekend, which actually seemed to work out better anyway! He had a great time except that he would absolutely not get into the moonbounce. It never fails that if you actually spend money on something for your kids and have in your mind a way something is going to go you might as well set it on fire and throw it on someone's porch bc it won't be happening that way ;) It was so good to see everyone that came and to catch up with them! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! Here are a few pics!



This is his new face that he does when he is concentrating....

Cramblit Craziness

Ok, so it has been a minute since I have posted something new. When I say we have been busy, I feel like that is an understatement. This has just really turned into a busy season in life for us right now. Just to give you a brief glimse of the latest happenings: Michael has been super busy at work, we have started a construction company on the side that keeps him busy in his spare minutes, he is also coaching Trevers' t-ball team, I'm not going to go into the schedule of practices and games, we have entered the "Cramblit Birthday Stretch" bc Casens is the last day of April, Trevers is in June and mine is in July so here come the parties, Trever is also finishing up his first year of "big boy" school. He graduates from Pre-K Thursday and has had many school activities. I finally finished up my class at the "Houn" and now Casen is home with me everyday and not in daycare (ok, that right there is enough reason to be behind on blogging -jk ;)Michael and I have felt led and decided to not be so "comfortable" at church and have joined a new ministry team and we will be teaching High Schoolers (he co-teaches 9th grade boys and I co-teach 11th grade girls) this big "Promotion Day" as we call it, takes place this Sunday so we have been trying to gear up for that. I think I will stop there...just wanted to give a quick update. Now on to trying to post all the pics and what not ;) Thanks for checking in!

Trever's First Field Trip!

Friday was a busy but great day for us! It was Casen's birthday obviously but Trever was going on his first field trip! His Pre-K Class was going to Brown Farms to pick strawberries!! Michael had taken off for Casens' birthday so he took one for the team and stayed home with him while I went to meet Trevers class at the farm! I say that Michael "took one for the team" bc it seems that once you have more than one kid, the time you get to spend with each one individually gets less and less. I usually am with Casen since he's "the baby" and is much more "needy" (aren't all men? jk :/ ) and Michael and Trever get to do "big" stuff a lot of times. Example: Michael recently took Trever to work with him for "Take your kids to work day" ( I just now realized that we don't have a pic of that...just great :( Memories, all about the memories, not pics...ok back to my story. So I was very excited to spend time with Trever by myself. (More excited than he was because as of last week he informed me that I was "boring" - that will be another post soon) ANYWAY, I know this is bad, but I have never actually picked strawberries from there or anywhere. I have bought them from there before and been there for other things but never to pick strawberries. This is one of those things you do "when you have time" ya know. I have to say their strawberry "patch" or whatever it is was very ...beautiful! It really was! I have never seen strawberries that looked so juicy and just beautiful! They tasted excellent and I can honestly say that we will not be buying any strawberries from the store this year but will be going to pick or buy them from there. Obviously you want to support your local businesses, "home grown" type produce is better for you anyway and it's fun!! Trever had a blast! Another thing this made me think of as I looked around and noticed that not every little 4 or 5 year olds parent(s) were there, was that God has truly blessed me with the best job in the world! I am SO very blessed to be able to stay home with my kids to raise them and get to go to things like this. Not every parent is this fortunate. God has truly blessed us! I am also thankful that I have a great husband that works so hard to help make this happen! I took some pics and we (all the parents) laughed so hard at Trever bc he cannot stand for the sun to be in the vicinity of his eyes or he scrunches his face up and it is just funny! He just cracks me up!


You have got to click on this pic to get a closer look at this face he is making! haha


Obviously I am just cracking up at Trever by this time...




I don't usually post pics of other peoples kids but 1) this parent wouldn't mind and 2) it just shows how funny these kids were about the "morning sun"


You can spot Trever ....the one shielding his eyes! lol

Happy 2nd Birthday Casen!!

Well, 2 years ago today I was blessed with a beautiful baby boy that we named Casen Michael Cramblit. I cannot believe that he is 2 today!! 2! Time just really gets away from you once you have kids! I went into the hospital on a Monday night, was induced at 5am Tue and had him at 2:15 pm on WED. (yes two days later). He weighed in at 7 lbs. 12 oz and was 19 inches long! I will spare you all of my labor war stories like that I had 2 epidurals that only seemed to make my bellybutton numb (Can somebody please take this baby out of my bellybutton?) or that I threw up while pushing and Michael so wonderfully caught my puke in a cup...only to spill it back onto my face...it's funny..now ;) or that the reason I was even induced was bc I was allergic to the poor kid!
Anyway, over the past two years he has come to be quite the character. Casen is not a shy or timid person by any means of the imagination! He is stubborn, incredibly smart, witty, hilarious, a jokester, loving, and just a complete ball of fire and fun!! He really keeps everyone in our house on their toes! I am not sure of his height and weight bc we haven't had his 2 yr apt yet but I'm pretty sure he is about 37lbs and about 3 ft. tall. We all know that his build is not that of a slender person but more like that of a bull! God has truly blessed our life with this little boy and we thank Him everyday for this sweet and spunky blessing that we know as Casen!!
At 2 years old he can:
Pretty much do anything except potty in the toilet!
He can put his clothes on, talks in sentences, plays jokes on people, talk back, whips himself :/. My favorite things he says right now are " Luy u", "Cool dude", "Okay" (not no), and just anything when he is goofing off!

Here are some of my favorite pics of him from the past 2 years!





































This is him eating his breakfast this morning! On your bday you can pick what you want and so his favorite is biscuits and choc gravy on his Blues Clues plate with choc. milk! Love him!!!