Sunday, February 8, 2009

BOYS WILL BE BOYS (& SOMETIMES MEN)

Super Bowl party at Chris & Kelly's house. Alex's favorite party of the Super Bowl -- the 3-D commercial boy, thus the eyegear. The girls left 1/2 way through the game for a pedicure.Father and son beannie boys for Chris and Dylan.
Owen and Dylan, as long as something is in their mouth, they are happy boys.
Alex, is a black stripe boy. They add the stripes to the brown belt. After 11 more tests, he becomes a black belt. He has been taking martial arts for 4 years.
Kevin got a dart board last year and he finally got it hung up yesterday.
First shot hit almost on the bullseye.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CRYSTAL ARIN

TWENTY NINE YEARS AGO, on Feb. 5th, Crystal Arin Coverstone was born, in Albany, Oregon. She weighed 6 lbs. 3 oz and was 18". She was a tiny 5 lbs. 13 oz when we brought her home from the hospital. She has always been small and is our only child that is shorter than me (thanks Crystal). Here she is at 1 day old.

Easter morning at 2 months old. This is right after we told her she couldn't eat any of the candy in her Easter basket. (not really)Crystal was a "master climber". She climbed in the kitchen drawers. Below she is in a bucket. She would take books off the bookshelf and climb in and lay on the shelf. She went into a twin bed at a year old because she started climbing out of her crib. She walked at 10 months old.

Two years old.

About 8 months after turning 2, Crystal became the "middle child" with the birth of her brother, Kevin. Some photos of the "middle child".
There were 3 things Crystal loved: BABIES
BARBIES
and ANIMALS.
But her favorite animal was her chicken, June. She had her for 8 years (a Guiness World Record for longest living chicken, I would guess). When June broke her leg in the bicycle chain, we took her to the vet and had a pink cast put on the leg. The bone healed a little crooked, so June hobbled a bit afterward, but she was one happy chicken and Crystal was a very happy chicken owner.
Crystal had some good little buddies over the years. She played with our neighbor, Edward all the time. This is Josh, he was a good friend too.
Crystal's 7th birthday party. The little girl in red is Lesley Jean and the little girl in the blue stripe is Jessica Jean. Crystal remains good friends with these girls today.

The years pass by so quickly, here's Crystal at 10 years old.
This is Crystal in 4th grade and Kevin in 1st grade (notice the height difference).
We went to Disneyland when Crystal was a freshman in high school (notice the chipmunk is even taller than Crystal).
Crystal played the piano for 5 years. She really liked doing duets with Kelly.
Here is Crystal doing one of the things she does best, clean. She has always been a cleaning machine. She had to share a room with Kelly for 17 years. Kelly was like "Oscar" and Crystal was like "Felix" of the Odd Couple. It drove Crystal crazy. She would get so mad at Kelly for not cleaning her half of the room. Then Crystal would finally give in and clean the whole bedroom(Kelly's no dummy). The interesting thing is that now both girls have their own homes and they are always very clean.
Crystal was a cheer leader for all 4 years of high school. This is freshman year.
In this photo I told the girls to do a "cheer leader move".

Crystal had long hair forever. She loved Aunt Patty's long hair. Kelly also had long hair, but in this photo it was recently cut. Kelly is 14 and Crystal 12.
Crystal started cutting her hair shorter after that. Then in 10 grade, Crystal cut her hair the shortest it has ever been.
But by 11th grade it was long again.

And at graduation from West Albany H. S. it was medium length.

Crystal graduated from Western Oregon University with her Bachelor Degree in teaching. She taught preschool for a while. She even has her CA teacher lisence signed by the Govenator (Arnold).

Crystal is a beautiful woman, a great wife to Ryan, and super mom to Alex, Payton and Owen.
She will always be a wonderful daughter to us. Wish we could be there to watch you blow out the 29 candles. If you would like to wish Crystal a happy birthday, e-mail her at crystalarinsmith@gmail.com . We hope your birthday is fun, love mom and dad