Crouch's Conundrums

Thunder!

This weekend kicks off all Kentucky Derby Festival activities here in Louisville.  For the rest of the world, the Kentucky Derby is a 2-minute horse race that interrupts their regularly-scheduled programming on TV every first Saturday in May.  For Louisville, it's a 2-week long celebration that includes air shows, fireworks displays, hot air balloons, bed races, strange hats, displays of roses and lilies at the local Kroger, three foot races, and 'chowwagons' that have live music, good entertainment, and most importantly, corn dogs.  Lots and lots of corn dogs....yum!  (No, Papa, they never go on sale...no need to buy 3 dozen of them for four kids under the age of 8.)

Well, the kickoff to this monstrosity is this Saturday, and it starts at the Louisville Riverfront.  It's called Thunder Over Louisville, and it's absolutely amazing.  We've been planning on going for a few months now, and so have a few others that we know.  Carrie's brother Jake and his family are coming up on Friday to go with us, and so are Jimmilyn and her son Hunter.  We've got some others from here in Louisville that are meeting us down there.  We'll have coolers of food and drinks, bags of toys and blankets, and a big tent to throw all the kids in for naptime.

So, last year I wrote about this same event and told you how much fun we were planning on having.  Well, not this year.  I'm not going to describe the fireworks and airshow and all the other goings-ons this weekend.  I'm not going to tell you how much of a good time we plan on having.  Nope, this time I'm asking you for something.  We need LOTS OF PRAYERS.  We're going to have at least 5 children with us all day long, between the ages of 2 and 6, sitting in approximately a 10' X 10' area, outside, with about 200,000 other people milling around us, and the weather forecasters are calling for a slight chance of storms. 

Yeah, that's right, we're absolutely nuts.  No doubt about it.

(P.S.  More pictures posted to the right today, if you haven't seen them already. Please forgive the green stripey pajamas....Cooper's Uncle Keith and Aunt Kathy got those for him.  He asked not to be photographed in them, but CB insisted and told him that his Uncle Keith's feelings would be hurt if he didn't see him in them at least once.)

It's Easter!

And what is Easter without cheap egg coloring dye, plastic tablecloths, hard-boiled eggs, and enthusiastic kids?  I submit for your review Cooper's attempt at the grand tradition of Easter egg dyeing...see the pictures to the right.  He and his momma sure made a mess.....and I got it all on camera.

Oh, check out the 'Faces' pics too....there's couple of new ones in there that are sure to please the grandparents at least.  CB and I really like the last one with Cooper and Aunt LoLo.

An Easter Basket full of stuff

I've had a few people ask if I'm ever going to update this blog again.  So, here it is.

Cooper's doing just fine.  We were without him for a week, as he went to Florida with Mim and Pop, but he's back now and doing quite well.  He is talking prett much non-stop these days, and the vast majority of it is intelligible, understandable, and in context.  Pretty impressive for such a little guy.  In case you missed it, there's new photos on the right, feel free to jump in.

Lest you think that I've been shirking any and all duties lately, since I haven't put anything on here in a while, let me give you a little run-down of the Crouch family life as of late.  Last week, while Cooper was gone, Carrie and I neither one got home before 9:00 any night.  It was truly that crazy.

In the past two weeks, we've shopped numerous places for Cooper a new bed, and finally settled on a bunk bed style that we think will fit really great in his new room.  Yes, we're moving him to a 'big boy' room here in the next few weeks, complete with full airplane decor, and even a large model airplane hanging from the ceiling.  Shh...we haven't told him yet, we're keeping it a surprise for now.  (And for those of you who are wondering, no, he doesn't have any siblings on the way that is forcing the change.  We're just ready to get him out of the nursery and into something a little more age-appropriate.)

Carrie has also got herself a new pantry cabinet ordered.  I don't think she's going to know what to do with all the shelf space she's about to have available.  It'll cost us an arm and a leg at Kroger just to fill the thing up.

Also, in the past two weeks, we've had two babies born to couples in our Sunday School class.  That is always a big deal for us, we just love babies.  Actually, these two births are just the first of about five that are all due within a few months of each other.  If you don't want babies, stay out of our class and don't drink the water.

Another thing that has occupied a bit of my time lately is my new toy.  I bought Carrie an iPod Nano for Christmas this past year, thinking that I'd never want one, and that she really wouldn't use it much either.  However, we both got hooked on it's features.  We found ourselves fighting over hers for the past few months, so I broke down and got one of my own.  I'm hooked.  I can listen to music, radio broadcasts, sermons, lectures, audiobooks, really just about any audio media you could think of, and I can do it when I want to, not just when it's being broadcast.  Once set up, it's amazingly simple, and extremely powerful and versatile.  Can you tell I enjoy it?

In addition, I actually have been writing online quite a bit lately, just not here.  For instance, I got into a fairly lively debate here on Shane's blog, where I think I lost...or maybe it was a draw, I'm not sure.  Either way, it was a great discussion, one that I'm sure has been debated for ages, and will be debated again.  The last comment on the post summed it all up pretty nice I think, so we all just dropped it.  While you're at Shane's site, check out the blog post about the Element and the crab...funny stuff.

So, anyway, we're still alive and doing well.  We're still plugging along, and Cooper is growing up right in front of our eyes.  I do want to take this opportunity to brag on my wife a bit.  In the past week, she received a substantial raise and nice bonus from her company, all based on merit.  I'm very proud of her, and just wanted to say that.  She works very hard, and it's nice that her efforts are recognized for that.