The Latest:  Here is Maggie in action.  She's becoming quite the mover.  When she's not going for toys she's busy laughing at her older siblings, saying "dada" and trying to eat our food.  She isn't crazy about her own food, but I found out today she likes M&Ms.  (Don't tell Tricia)

Kate's latest:  As uncoordinated as Kate was in that last video, she's actually quite the little gymnast, following in her mother's footsteps.  Here she is jumping on the tramp and doing the balance beam.  When she's not busy with gymnastics, she keeps busy telling people about the disney princesses and the mean mean villains in the disney films that she watches whenever she can convince us to turn them on for her.  There's little mermaid and the mean mean shark, Belle and the mean mean beast, Cindarella and the mean mean cat, Sleeping Beauty and the mean mean dragon etc.  We can't decide if she likes the princesses more, or the mean mean people.

Sam on Doctors:  Sam has had a rough couple weeks.  His asthma has been acting up and he's been coughing incessantly for most of the last 2 weeks.  He's had 2 nebulizer treatments at the doctors office, he's on an oral steroid, inhaled steroid, albuterol every 2-4 hours, as well as a daily leukotriene inhibitor.  Needless to say, he has seen his fair share of the doctor and had his fair share of medicines recently.  It is obvious that he doesn't think too highly of doctors or their methods.  Besides stickers, he doesn't see them as a source of anything but pain and suffering. The other day we heard him playing with Kate.  "Kate let's play doctor. I'll be the doctor.  You can either have a shot, some medicine that you don't even like, or howabout just a poke in the nose."  Not quite sure where the poke in the nose comes from besides one more unpleasant thing a doctor could do to someone.  Kate decided not to play with him. 

When we took the kids for flu shots a couple weeks ago, we had Sam go first to show Kate how to be brave for her shots.  He tried so hard to be brave for his sister.  He cried of course during the shot and then when the drama was over we said, "See Kate, he's all better now.  Sam tell Kate how easy that is."  

"Kate", he said trying to comfort her, "it hurts really really bad."

Sam has been exhausted recently.  This is him last night falling asleep on me while we were waiting for Mom to come say prayers with us.  He also has a huge apetite.  He's the first one to clear his plate each night, and the other day wanted me to order him another hamburger at Wendys.  I think it's the roids.  Here are some other recent pictures:Going for an Autumn walk with Maggie.Playing in the leaves.

Since we are more of the binge-type bloggers, here is a quick update since our last blog, 6 months ago. We spent two of them in Utah doing some away rotations at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. I loved my rotations, and my family loved their vacation. While there, we blessed Mags,

went to Bear Lake with Tricia's family,

Had a family reuniion with my extended family

and got to spend plenty of time with old freinds and family. We already miss you guys.

And one last video of the family. Since we only post about every six months, I thought I'd include one more video of us just hanging out the night before Sam starts school. Here's to another six months.

Here is our recent family picture compliments of Tricia's sister Laurie. Tricia is an amazing wife and mom. Recently she threw out her back but is slowly getting better. But even disabled, when she isn't busy helping me and the kids, she's busy helping the neighbors or doing kind things for someone else. She keeps me sane and the kids alive.
I just applied for a residency in radiation oncology. It's a tough one to get, but we are going for it and if it's meant to be, it'll be. People tell me the interviews should start coming by Halloween. Then I interview from November to January and then wait until March to know if I was accepted anywhere. Currently I am using a vacatoin month to study for step 2 of the boards which I plan to take at the end of the month. So the next few months will be exciting and stressful. Here is the rest of the family.

This is Sam the man. He's going to school, making new friends, and growing up incredible fast. The other day I bought a new football. When Sam saw it he said, "Well you know dad, now you have two footballs...and I like football too...and I don't have a big football like you... and I don't know if you can play with two footballs...hmmm...what should we do with your other football?"
"Would you like to have my old football Sam?"
" Okay, I guess I'll just have it dad."
Then he ran and got his little football and said, Here Kate, you can have this football cause I got a big football. Kate didn't care. Her hands were already full with her other stuff.
Lately Sam's been walking aroud saying, "I'm Barack Obama, and I approved this message." I'll be glad when the election is over and we can watch TV in peace again.

Kate Loves her Abby Cadabie doll. It is her only stuffed animal with a name, but only because it came with one. All 7 of her kitties are each named "kitty kitty kitty" and all 3 of her baby dolls are named "baby doll". Everywhere Kate goes, she carries with her some combination of the kitties and dolls along with her pink blankie and her "fippy pup". Each morning at exactly 6:00 we hear her get out of bed and begin walking to our room. It usuall takes her a few minutes and we know she's on her way because she keeps dropping things and has to stop to pick them up. Then she walks in to our room and one by one throws all of these items into our bed and then climbs up to snuggle with us and tell us that she wants to eat dinner and watch the little mermaid.
The other day when I was studying she walked into my room with her kitty. I asked her how her kitty was and she said, "Well, he needs a time out."
"Oh no, how come?" I asked.
"Well, he's not listening to me...and...he hit Sammy."
Apparantly she's become quite familiar with that process.

This is Maggie. She looks a lot like Sam. She hates to go to sleep, and isn't very fond of rice cereal. She loves to laugh at her brother and sister. She loves being tossed in the air. Her mother isn't very fond of her being tossed in the air. She's definately a smiler and a charmer and is actually very good natured most of the time, contrary to the fussy child she was for the first 3 months of her life. We all love this girl to death.

This is us at the Wisconsin Dells. Tricia requested to be the one taking the picture. The Wisconsin Dells is the Las Vegas of water parks. Instead of casinos water parks line the strip of this little town just a couple hours from our house. I was presenting a poster at a conference and we decided to make a mini family vacation out of it. The kids had a blast. We'll planning to return in January. Yes I am that white, and no I haven't done a push up since I began medical school.

Guess who started school? Its hard to believe I have a child old enough to start school when I haven't even managed to finish that portion of my own life yet. He only goes for 2 hours a day, and by the time they get done with snack time, nap time, recess, play time, and story time, I don't think there is any formal learning occurring at all. But he's developing his social skills and getting to know new people. He talks about one little girl in his class in particular. And so far he loves school which is good I tell him, cause there is a lot more where that comes from.

Kate was tired.

Ever since moving to Wisconsin it has been one of my goals to make the pilgrimage up to Green Bay to “worship” with the other Packer faithful at Lambeau Field. When a Monday night season opening ticket became available to me (thanks to a buddy who is friends with a former BYU now Minnesota Viking player) I finally got my chance. No Brett Favre, but we got to see Aaron Rodgers debut and a Packer victory.

Meet Miss Maggie Crosby!!

Born: 4/22/08, 8lbs. 3 oz., 20.5"

Mom greeting Maggie just after the delivery (which went so great!)

Sam is excited to be a big brother again. He keeps saying, "Oh, I just love you baby Ellie". We then proceed to tell him that her name is Maggie, not Ellie. He just tells us, "you can call her what you want, but I am going to call her Ellie". Ok Sam.

These are my most favorite people in the whole wide world. I can't believe that just a few years ago I didn't even know any of these people existed and now they are my life. Creating a family is the most amazing experience I have ever been allowed to be a part of.

And here is a close-up of our sweet little angel girl. We are so grateful that she is here. Thank you for all of your prayers and for all of your help. We love you all and are so grateful for you.

Love, Marc, Tricia, Sam, Kate, and Maggie

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Here is a video of the typical night at the Crosby household. After dinner Sam loves to wrestle with his dad and Kate loves to kiss everyone better. That is one of the major differences between boys and girls at our house!

Happy Birthday to Sam!

A mother's ode to her eldest son on his 4th birthday:

Sam,

You are the best son I could ever imagine. I love everything about you. You are so much fun and you love life with all of your heart. You are sweet and kind and you try so hard to do the right things. You are a great big brother to Kate. You are smart and handsome and the best 4 year old boy in the whole world. Thanks for letting me be your mom. I will love you forever.

Sam decided he would like a cheetah & great white shark party. Pretty random until you know that they are his favorite land animal and his favorite underwater animal without question! Here is a picture of a great white shark jumping out of the ocean (modeled after a video that Grandpa Crosby sent to us). Thank goodness four year olds are easy to please, right?

(Joel Townsend, Sam, Sam Tyson, Tyler Hansen, Mikayla Hunter, Sadie Townsend, Mike Kam). These are some of Sam's favorite people. He has such great friends and we were so glad they could come. Please take note of the amazing great white shark pinata in the background. Marc stayed up very late making it look as much like a great white shark as possible and Sam loved it!

And a post would not be complete without a picture of our little miss Kate.

She is always ready for a party!

**Not pictured here are two of the greatest people that I know-Amanda Hansen and Jill Hunter. They came and helped me with the party and I don't know what I would have done without them. Thank you guys-you are the best!

Missed Free Throws

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=355591250469095019

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8295131825286548614

Here we are completely missing our free throws.

Jazz Road Trip. The Jazz made their trip through the midwes visiting Chicago and Milwuakee in back to back nights. Thanks to a sweet hook-up from my cousin Scott (Thanks Scott) we had VIP pregame passes and 3rd row seats, got to talk to the players etc. Of course, they killed us so that kinda ruined the perfect night, but still a good time.

A group of us outside in front of the famous Jordan statue. I still think he pushed off. The ought to build a statue of that. Cheater.

Now we're in Milwaukee. Senator Kohl, owner of Kohls department stores also owns the team and since the half or my ward that isn't medical students are Kohl's employees, we got a special hook up to this one too. The seats were in the bleachers but we got post game access to the court to shoot a free throw. Here's Tricia with Boozer in the background. Tricia didn't care about the players. She just hoped to run into Bolerjack. Which she did. And we did win in Milwaukee, thank goodness because Milwaukee is horrible.

Sam does He Man

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2257081819353562779

Here's a video of Sam reciting the intro to his favorite cartoon, He Man. Cartoons today aren't as quality as they were back when I was growing up, so thanks to Youtube, I've introduced Sam to all the classics, like GI Joe, Transformers, and of course He Man. Here's the translation:

Hi. I'm Adam, prince of Eternia and defender of the secrets of castle Grayskull. This is Cringer my fearless friend (showing his toy lion). Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, "By the powers of Grayskull" (Sam adding theme music) "I have the power!"
Cringer became the mighty Battlecat (shooting Cringer with magic sword) and I became He Man, the most powerful man in the universe! (punching).
Only 3 others share our secret; our friend the sorcerous, Man of Arms, and Orco. Together we defend castle Grayskull from the evil forces of Skeletor (more theme music).

Kate wears glasses now. She is supposed to wear glasses anyway. She is far sighted, to a different degree in each eye which gives her a problem when trying to see up close and could lead to problems down the road if she doesn't wear her glasses. The only problem we are having now is getting her to keep them on her face and keep them from getting broken. She is currently on her second pair which is hanging by a thread after being bent back into shape repeatedly. We thought we'd hurry and post some pictures now since pretty soon her glasses will both be held together by duct tape.

On our way out to church this morning. The snow is finally starting to melt after a record snow season so far and more in the forecast.

Couldn't help but to make a WWII association with this picture which Tricia won't let me mention.

We thought getting her favorite Kitty some glasses would make the process easier. It didn't. She doesn't like Kitty to wear her glasses either.

Making the best of the snow this year with sledding...

snowmobiling...

more sledding...

and grilling.

Now that it's March, we thought we'd finally put up some Christmas pictures. Here are the kids Christmas morning.

Christmas eve.

Sam gets some transformers. He only likes the bad guys. The decepticons. No one else can play with Megatron.

Kate loves kitties. This book gets read often. When we see cats around the neighborhood, she calls them by the names of the cat they resemble in her book.