Finally Posting Alex's birthday pictures

2 yr old Alexander Hamblin Crawford

One yr ago at age 1. Birthday present, notice how short he is standing inside his new "kangaroo climber"

One yr later on 2nd birthday standing next to "kangaroo climber" He has grown so tall in one year.

Second birthday wearing his Colorado "jak-ket" from his Aunt Suzzie. He loves wearing it.

Finally he has his own John Deere tractor. Best birthday present ever. He especially likes his wagon to haul his things around it. Taken out in our front yard.

He loves the trampoline, he calls it the "jumper" He especially gets put on it to burn up all that extra energy he has.


All in all he had a good birthday. He had his friends over and got new things and especially his tractor. His birthday weekend also included carving pumpkins but will post those pictures later. We are all well. Watching Alex makes me think of the same things that John is doing right now. Even though I don't get to watch John go through these phases I use Alex's actions as a gauge to what John is doing.

Angela's 23rd Birthday

Today is a day of thinking about and remembering Angela.

Hard to believe it was 23 years ago. It seems like Angela is that old but it doesn't seem like it has been that long since I brought her home from the hospital. Of course I had to fly home from the hospital.

Brought her home to her big sister and big brother. She was born in Naples, Italy, we lived in Motta, Sicily. Angela was our little Italian Baby.

Angela a few hours old at Navy Hospital in Naples, Italy. Also a brand new crib waiting for Baby Angela.

A few months old. Look at all that hair.

Not a good picture but Mommy and Angela. Angela all excited looking at our Christmas Tree lights.

A Christmas in San Antonio, TX. Angela's Daddy was in the Persian Gulf at this time, he was gone for a whole year and was there during the war.

Roller Skating with big sister, Erin, in Anchorage, Alaska.

More memories and pictures than this blog can hold.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGELA.

Alex's Birthday Weekend

Well Frances is exhausted from the weekend. I'm glad that I'm just Nana now. I got to help with what I wanted and just sit back and enjoy the rest. We are all doing great and tomorrow looks like it will be the beginning of winter here. It is suppose to get a low of 52 and a high tomorrow of 53. With a low tomorrow night of 39. There is sure to be frost then. We now have a clear property line all around our 10 acres. With a little work we were able to find the old poles for the property line and it saved us $500 we didn't have to pay a surveyor.



I keep forgetting to put 2 more wild animals that we have seen that live here. Wild turkeys, and I mean, HUGE wild turkeys also Armadillos. I could not believe it, silly me thought of them mostly in TX as that was once our home. But not only do you see them as road kill all the time but one night a live one snuck up on Drew while he and Clay were trying to shoot raccoons that had attacked our chickens. Drew was looking toward the back "yard" and he heard rustling coming up behind him and he jumped around and saw it was an armadillo and I'm not sure who was startled the most, Drew or the armadillo, it took off toward the storage trailer and Drew was running right behind it. It did get away though, ran under the trailer.



Not only that but this summer we found blackberry bushes all over and have fresh ones in the freezer right now, waiting to be made into a cobbler and also grape vines everywhere. The grapes didn't grow very big but we will be cutting them back so we will have new growth and will be watering them more so next summer we'll be able to pick our own grapes. Still didn't get in a strawberry patch or asparagus plants but will do that next year. Those take 2 years of growth before they produce fully.





Enjoy the pictures.



After he blew out his candles the first thing he did was grab his John Deere tractor off the cake and ate his cake first off his tractor wheels.

Well the blog site is having problems and pictures can't be uploaded. I don't won't to lose this part of the post so I will get this online and post the rest of the pictures tomorrow.

missing and loving all of you.

Mom/Nana/Connie

Long Hard Day

Yesterday Clay, Alex & Frances worked hard in the woods, ok, mostly Clay but Alex was as exhausted as his Pappy was last night. Frances loves the outdoors, she is always finding something to do outside plus she is always cleaning inside, plus on top of that Alex keeps her running after him all day. We found the true property line on one side of us that is closest to the house and they went out and spent the day clearing trees and underbrush and locating all the posts that have been set up to mark the line. Now that we have found the posts we are going to start setting up a fence.

This shows them deep in our woods. I wanted to share this one because if you look closely you will see all the curls Alex has in the back. Because his hair is so blonde, just like his daddy when he was little, when taking a picture from the front it is hard to see all the hair and makes him look like he doesn't have much. We are wondering though if his hair will stay curly or if after he finally gets his first hair cut all the curls will be gone? We will see.

The last 2 pictures above is Alex finding mushrooms growing on that tree stump.

We found this one really funny because it looks like Alex is peeing behind a tree. You know working in the woods and needing to go kind of thing. When in reality it is just a candid shot Frances took. Years from now we will probably see this and think, "oh he must have been "going" in the woods."

These are pictures of them cutting down small trees and clearing out the underbrush into a pile next to the driveway on the wooded side to make room for the bigger trees to grow.

This shows our driveway out front and the huge pile of limbs and underbrush. We have quite a few of these around the farm. This winter we will have bonfires. By spring we hope to have lots of woods cleared and stumps taken out so it will be easier to mow out front and close to the house in the back.

Alex's birthday is tomorrow he will be 2 yrs. Just this last week his vocabulary has changed so much. Since Monday alone he has lost 2 of his "baby words."

Pappy has always been pronounced as "pak-key" and now he is just "pappy" also for some unknown reason from the start he has called Frances, "momma" never mommy. Even though we always tried to get him to say mommy it always came out "momma" well about 2 days ago it just started coming out, "mommy." The other thing he does now is as you move around doing something he says the name of it. Such as if you are going into the kitchen to say get him milk. You walk into the kitchen and open the cabinet and he will say, "cup" then you open the fridge door and he will say, "milk" but yesterday after Clay poured his milk into Alex's cup, Alex then said, "cocoa" he wanted Clay to make him chocolate milk. It seems he remembers everything and makes continuing commentary on everything that is happening around him. His body and mouth run full speed except for a nap and sleep at night. Just like his daddy at that age, he can't sit still.

I love that Erin has been posting comments. It is like a quick email and both her and I are terrible at writing emails to each other. So feel free to post comments. Erin mentioned being able to open the pictures to copy onto her computer. I'm still new at this so hopefully these pictures will be able to be opened. If not let me know and I can email the pics as attachments to you.

I love all my family so much and yes that includes those who we have "adopted" and those who have "adopted" us.

Working On The Farm

It is nice that Isabella, John and Alex's birthdays are all close to together. I think it will really be easier the older I get to remember them all. Now if I could just get Erin, Angela & Frances to agree to always have their babies during that time....

Just wanted to share pictures of the farm and of course Alex is in all of them because as he would tell you, "life revolves around me" :)

Daddy and Son (Drew and Alex) staking out where their home will be built here on the farm.

I love this picture, no it is not a crisp clear picture but there is a simplicity about it that I love. You can't see Andrew's or Alex's face but the picture is the kind of remembrance that will always be looked back upon and say, "I remember this."

Alex watching the men from the electric company trimming the tree from around our light pole. He could not take his eyes off them and their trucks and buckets. The branches are being trimmed from the tree on the far right of the picture. The white shed and the enclosure on the left were here when we bought the place. The enclosed addition on the right connected to it was built by us and some pictures of that happening are below. It is the Hen House. We are going to paint the entire structure a dark red. It is big and roomy and has their nests, roosts and extra storage space for them. They go in before it gets dark and we close them all up to keep other animals from eating them at night. Our 18 hens out of the original 31 have survived 3 major attacks, the others did not.

Frances, Alex and Clay working on the Hen House.
Alex loves "working" outside. He differentiates between, "birds" they fly in the sky, "ducks" don't know how he knows they are different but he knows that they are not "chickens"

When he is riding down the highway now he knows and constantly says what he sees, but especially, "cars" "trucks" and of course his favorite, "tractor"

When he gets up in the morning he goes to the window to see who is home. If "pappy's truck" is there, then Pappy is at home, if not then he is "at work" the same for "daddy's car" if it is gone then "daddy at work" otherwise he will go through the house looking for them.

The Farm Blog

Alex helping Pappy work on the riding lawnmower. Alex calls it a "tractor" he LOVES tractors, all kinds.

I have created this blog mostly so that I can have a place to share pictures of things that happen on our little farm here. A place where all our friends and loved ones can see some of the memories and every day life that is captured here. A way to share our life. We love it here in Missouri. We love the country life that we live in and are so close to the city life that we like. We have some great neighbors. It is funny because being a neighbor here includes people who live 2 or 3 miles from us. Clay fixed up the previous owners truck that was left here and drives it everywhere. One day he is standing in a feed goods store paying for chicken feed and there were a couple of older gentlemen standing around talking and one of them addresses Clay, "aren't you the one who bought the "ol Pope Place" Clay told him yes and he said, "well I'm one of your neighbors" come to find out he lives down our road out onto our 2 lane highway and about 3 miles away, and he considers himself our neighbor and now we also consider him our neighbor. Clay became one of the "old" men standing around talking and anyway, our new neighbor will be helping us plow up the ground for our garden in the spring. The people that live right next door are terrific neighbors. It is nice to know that there is such a sense of community and care all around us.

In writing this I'm still not sure how to address things, I'm new at this so I'm not sure whether to write this as if a diary or a letter to a friend or just someone in general. I guess I will figure it out in time. So I hope that the posts and pictures are enjoyed.