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Cloudy skies, rain throughout the weekend in the Wyoming Valley

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<p>HUNLOCK CREEK &#8212; As Jessica Crawford chatted with a visitor on a recent afternoon, she held her 2-year-old daughter, Tessa, on her lap and simultaneously snuggled with 3-year-old Jemma, who was playing with Jessica&#8217;s hair.</p><p>Across the family living room, 14-year-old Cassidy Crawford fielded questions about her participation in the upcoming Scripps National Spelling Bee that will take place at the end of the month &#8212; Yes, she is feeling a bit nervous &#8212; and her 10-year-old brother, Tucker, freely admitted he knows Cassidy is really smart, especially at spelling.</p><p>Seven-year-old Hartley, meanwhile, lit up like a sunbeam when her mom mentioned the daughters outnumber the sons in their bustling household. You could almost read the child&#8217;s thoughts: &#8220;Yay! The girls are winning!&#8221;</p><p>So far, we&#8217;ve mentioned four girls and one boy. That means we&#8217;re halfway through naming all 10 of Jessica and Michael Crawford&#8217;s children.</p><p>Happy Mother&#8217;s Day, by the way, to Jessica Crawford, 36, who married Michael, 44, when she was 20 years old.</p><p>&#8220;He said he wanted eight boys &#8212; and I laughed,&#8221; Jessica said.</p><p>Seriously, she said, she&#8217;s delighted that the family has grown to include 15-year-old Hayden, 14-year-old Cassidy, 13-year-old Kaelyn, 10-year-old Tucker, 9-year-old Cooper, 7-year-old Hartley, 5-year-old Harper, 3 year-old Jemma, 2-year-old Tessa and 8-month-old Jasper.</p><p>&#8220;We just kept going,&#8221; she said with a smile.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m just like any other mom,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;I have days when I feel like everything is falling apart. That&#8217;s when I just have to re-center myself. You just learn to let go of the little things.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I actually think it&#8217;s harder to just have one child, because with one child, it&#8217;s &#8216;Mom, Mom, Mom,&#8217; but when they&#8217;re all home, they buddy up and keep each other busy.&#8221;</p><p>Nine-year-old Cooper confirmed there&#8217;s almost always a buddy to be found.</p><p>&#8220;If you fight with one kid,&#8221; he said sagely, &#8220;you can always go play with another kid.&#8221;</p><p>The family has a 12-passenger van they use to drop off six children at Bear Creek Community Charter School every day; oldest son Hayden is already at Northwest Area High School, and the three smallest children are too young for school.</p><p>Their dad is a Wilkes-Barre city firefighter, and the family runs a tent rental business in the summer. Jessica gave up her job as a medical secretary years ago to be an at-home mom.</p><p>Parenting &#8220;has never fallen squarely on my shoulders,&#8221; Jessica said, explaining her husband pitches in with child care and household chores. &#8220;He&#8217;s amazing.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;She&#8217;s amazing,&#8221; Michael Crawford said in a telephone interview, sending the compliment back toward his wife. &#8220;She stays on top of everything, with the kids&#8217; homework and doctors&#8217; appointments. She knows who has to be where and when.</p><p>&#8220;On top of everything she does with the kids, she pretty much runs that (tent rental) business. She gives me a schedule and says, &#8216;This is where you&#8217;re going.&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;Just this past week, I was off training and she handled everything. I&#8217;d call home at night and she&#8217;d still be laughing and in a good mood. She has that personality and special touch. I couldn&#8217;t be prouder of her.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We make a good team,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I take care of her; she takes care of me, and we&#8217;re lucky to have her.&#8221;</p><p>To help manage a full household, the couple buys groceries in bulk &#8212; &#8220;I&#8217;m on a first-name basis with the people at Sam&#8217;s Club,&#8221; Jessica said.</p><p>They also streamline the task of driving children to extracurricular activities by dropping several off at one time for the same activity. &#8220;We have soccer in fall, basketball in winter and gymnastics in summer,&#8221; Jessica said.</p><p>So, how was basketball?</p><p>&#8220;We were really bad,&#8221; Cassidy said, laughing about her team&#8217;s recent season.</p><p>Over the past several weeks, Cassidy has been recuperating from a broken ankle &#8212; but she didn&#8217;t hurt it during a basketball game. &#8220;I rolled it at recess, when I was playing soccer,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I thought I could just walk it off.&#8221;</p><p>While she couldn&#8217;t just &#8220;walk it off,&#8221; Cassidy expects to have her cast off in time for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which will take place May 31 at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center, outside of Washington, D.C.</p><p>Cassidy won the right to represent Northeastern Pennsylvania in March at the regional spelling bee sponsored by the Times Leader and The Medicine Shoppe pharmacies.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been going over 50 words a day,&#8221; she said, explaining she likes to use a computer app to see if she&#8217;s spelling difficult words correctly.</p><p>Jessica plans to accompany Cassidy to the National Spelling Bee and the week of activities that surrounds it, with Michael joining them at some point. That means there may be a need for babysitters back home.</p><p>&#8220;We have my mom and my sister-in-law,&#8221; Jessica said. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to call in every favor I can.&#8221;</p><p>Jessica and Michael are proud of their daughter, with Michael spelling it out this way: &#8220;She&#8217;s smart as a whip. They get that from their mother.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Sometimes, Jessica Crawford said, she thinks it&#8217;s more difficult to care for one child than for a larger group of children. Here, she is with four of her 10 children, from left: Hartley, 7; Tessa, 2; Jemma, 3; and Cooper, 9. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL051417cassidyandmom1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Sometimes, Jessica Crawford said, she thinks it&#8217;s more difficult to care for one child than for a larger group of children. Here, she is with four of her 10 children, from left: Hartley, 7; Tessa, 2; Jemma, 3; and Cooper, 9. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL051417cassidyandmom2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Three-year-old Jemma Crawford and 2-year-old Tessa snuggle with their mom, Jessica, as she reflects on having a large family of 10 children, one of whom will soon represent Northeastern Pennsylvania in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL051417cassidyandmom2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Three-year-old Jemma Crawford and 2-year-old Tessa snuggle with their mom, Jessica, as she reflects on having a large family of 10 children, one of whom will soon represent Northeastern Pennsylvania in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. </caption1><photoCredit1>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL051417cassidyandmom3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Times Leader Regional Spelling Bee winner Cassidy Crawford, 14, is studying 50 words each day as she prepares to participate in the National Spelling Bee outside of Washington, D.C. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL051417cassidyandmom3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Times Leader Regional Spelling Bee winner Cassidy Crawford, 14, is studying 50 words each day as she prepares to participate in the National Spelling Bee outside of Washington, D.C. </caption2><photoCredit2>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_spellinglogojpg.jpg">
<div class="neCaption"></div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_spellinglogojpg.jpg</photo3><caption3></caption3><photoCredit3>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>National bee on family to-do list</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>SCRIPPS NATIONAL SPELLING BEE</strong></p><p><strong>When: </strong>May 31 to June 1</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center, 210 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Md.</p><p><strong>Local representative: </strong>Cassidy Crawford, 14, Bear Creek Charter School</p><p><strong>Additional information: </strong>Spelling bee will air on ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPN 3</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Hunlock Creek mother of 10 delights in bustling household, good speller