Newsies fans UNITE!!!

My good friend Melanie reminded me of this fantastic show on her blog, so I went searching for some clips on YouTube. Foget Batman Begins, this is definately Christian Bale's finest work, IMO. And among the top 10 best shows of all time! SO if you find yourself singing (or dancing!) along to this song, leave a comment in tribute to the Newsies!

I am still trying to convince Tim to sit through this whole show with me- something about watching men sing and dance for an hour just doesn't sit well with him. Don't tell him I said this, but I think deep down he really likes it. How could you not? It is so sad... he is so uncultured. I can't believe I don't own this show anymore. We owned it growing up and me and my sis Angie watched it ALL.THE.TIME. We both had a crush on Spot Collins, though looking back I am not sure why. Probably because he was the tough Brooklyn newsie leader, but really he is not that good looking. Jack and Dave are much hotter.

This is definitely my next movie purchase... Thanks for the reminder, Mel!

Big news...

VERY exciting news for our family- we are the proud owners of a brand new 2008 Toyota Sienna! Perhaps you are saying to yourselves "What's the big deal? It is just a minivan." Oh no, my friends. It just so happens that inside this bad boy is the same v6 engine that comes in the fancy-shmancy Lexus. I am sure that is what the Toyota salesmen tell all of their mini van buying clients to make them feel better about driving a minivan. It definitely worked for me! After all, aren't we always told it is what's on the inside that counts? And let me tell you, it feels good to drive a Lexus!

In all seriousness though, we are so excited about this! Well, at least I am. I think Tim is still getting over the shock of it all. This is our first brand new car- I never thought I would see the day! And with a 6 year/100,000 mile warranty on this, it is so nice to know that we will actually be able to drive a car without the worry that it is going to break down (and if it does, it is covered!). I won't bore you all with the endless problems we have had with past cars, but gosh this feels good!

I hope I don't sound like I am bragging- it has taken us a while to get to this point where we could take the plunge and get a new car so we are just really excited. And having a real car payment (since paying off Tim's $1500 Tercel hardly counts) is going to be a little painful. But with good care and luck, this car will be with us for a while. And I am so excited that I can actually fit my barrel and my big yellow chair in this vehicle- showing up at photoshoots with a chair half hanging out of the trunk, tied down with bungee cords just wasn't cutting it.

By the way, no, I am not pregnant. I have had a few people wonder that since hearing about our upgrade to the minivan. But we are just thinking ahead, since it probably won't be too long before we have #3.

It was a little sad saying goodbye to our Malibu, though. Last night we were watching TV and Tim had this faraway look on his face. I asked him what was the matter and he said he was just thinking about our Malibu, sitting there all alone in the McGeorge Toyota parking lot, surrounded by fancy Toyota's and Scions (who were probably mocking him), wondering what it did to deserve this abandonment. We went through so much together. It is a little sad...
Naahhh, I'm over it.


One other item of big news- My new site is LIVE!!! Check it out at mandycarroll.com and let me know what you think. I am so very happy with it! I will be putting up a big contest in the next few days on my bus blog, so be sure to make your way over there to give your non-biased votes!

And now, I am off to find an excuse to go drive my new van- Hmmmm... We can always use something from food lion, right?

Accidents will happen

Yesterday morning I woke up determined to do one of my workout videos. Yes, I am a workout video person. Go ahead and laugh if you must. The thought of me in front of a TV doing squats and karate kicks is pretty funny, I will agree. Anyways, I put Ethan in his high chair with some breakfast and popped in Cindy Crawford: the Next Challenge (one of my favs). I had just started on the cardio when Ethan started fussing, so I got him out, brought him into the living room with me and he just played around while I worked out. I was just finishing the cardio with some squat things where you squat down and do kick backs with alternating legs and apparently I lost track of Ethan (the last I remembered was that he was just off to my left playing with my hand weights, which probably wasn't safe either, but he can't pick them up and I thought I was watching him so thought he was okay.) Anyways, I am sure you can guess where this is going. I did a kick with my right, then a kick with my left only to feel my left foot made contact with something and HARD. Then I heard a THUD and a shrieking cry. My heart dropped- I kicked my own child, sending him sprawling on the floor! What kind of hideous mother am I? Tim (who was just getting ready to leave for work) came running in to see what happened. We both held Ethan to see if he was okay, and he looked fine. No blood or even any signs of where I had kicked him. After I realized that he was okay, my concentration turned to myself and I felt SO AWFUL! I turned off the TV and tried to keep the tears from coming. Tim said it was okay and to go ahead and finish my workout, but I just felt sick. Tim took Ethan(who was fine by now) in to finish breakfast and I spent a few minutes sulking and feeling bad about and sorry for myself. Then I started to feel frustrated and angry- can't I even have one measly hour to myself to workout without interruption and catastrophe? Good grief, it is hard to be a mother sometimes. By now I was irritated and I wanted to do some more kicks. So I finished my workout video. And it definitely helped.

But now I am wondering if workout videos are not the safest way for me to exercise. I am sure it is only a matter of time before one of my kids gets karate kicked again or Jace drops a 5 lb dumbbell on Ethan or something. But I don't know what to do. I would start running again, but I still struggle with ITband in my left knee every time I start to run and it drives me nuts. And I hate public gyms- I have issues with working out in front of other people. And I always feel so dumb around the weight machines because I either don't know how to work them or I hate the embarrassing and depressing feeling when I get to a machine and I have to move the peg from the bottom 200lb setting which the last user had no trouble with all the way up to the second from the top, like 15 lbs. And then I can only do 5 reps. Besides, gym memberships are expensive. So maybe I will just go back to doing what I seem to do every few months- which is nothing at all. Not because I am lazy, but because I am thinking of the safety of my children...



By the way, Ethan never did show any signs of where he took the blow, so it must not have been as hard as it felt to my foot (and my heart). Thank goodness, how would I explain that to my pediatrician:
"Yes, I am concerned about my sons eye which is so swollen he can't see."
"What happened?"
"He got kicked in the face."
"Oh, that is too bad. By who?"
"uh... by me"
(Dr. snaps her fingers and in comes a man in a suit holding a clipboard followed by a police man with a gun and chain cuffs in hand.)


Please do not call the DCFS on me. I do try to keep my children safe, but as my title says, accidents do happen.

Still here...

My oppologies, my poor abandoned blog and blog followers. We are all alive and well, I have just been taking a much needed break from the computer. I was beginning to feel like a slave to my computer and just walking by our office made me groan, so since I have not been too busy lately with work I thought this was a good time to just give the computer a break(other than emails). Most of this is my own fault and non-photography related, since I cannot seem to stay off the internet. Seriously, sometimes I think there is something wrong with me- I can be so stinkin' unproductive! I will sit down during Jace and Ethan's two hour nap with a whole laundry list of things I need to get done, but before I know it my two hour alarm of a crying Ethan or hyper-the-minute-he-wakes-up Jace sounds and all I have done is read through some entertaining but useless controvery/info on ILP or browsing through book reviews on Amazon.com. Sigh... If only there was enough time in the day to waste time AND get stuff done, though more than likely I would just spend more time wasting time. Until yesterday, I hadn't been on ILP for nearly two weeks which is UNHEARD of for me! My FA membership even expired without my knowing it. It has been kind of liberating, actually. I think one of these days I will get my schedule organized and schedule in occasional computer break days/weeks.


This break also has meant giving the 'ol camera a break too (because camera=computer time). So that also means that my new years resolution to take a picture every day of this year is in the trash. And I have decided that never again will I make a New Years resolution- I can never seem to keep them and I hate the feeling of failure that follows and knowing that I brought it all on myself. I knew from the beginning that this would be nearly impossible to keep and that it would likely turn into a chore, and I never want taking photos to feel like a chore. So, from now on I am only taking personal pictures when I feel like it. But, the one month and one day that I DID this was fun. These are just a few of the shots I took in Jan/Feb. I just love that third picture- the way Ethan is looking at Jace is so priceless and totally fitting of the way Ethan has always felt about Jace. He is fascinated by him! And that picture of Jace and Ellie in their Fantatic Four costumes cracs me up! They are fiersome!


Some other news/updates:


Ethan is WALKING!!! He took his first steps a few weeks ago, but just this week he has really started taking off. I need to get some video footage soon- it is so cute! He is so stiff and wobbly, but you can see in his face how proud he is of himself!


I finally got my new site and it is just about done- I just need to take some product pics which I will do tomorrow. Then I will request to go live (which knowing BluDomain will take another month). I'll post here when it does so you can all check it out- I am really happy with it. I have placed a few adds in some local High School newspapers for Senior portraits, which I am trying to add to my business. We will see how that goes, but I am really excited about it! If I was a senior, I would want to hire me (I keep telling myself that to calm my fears of failure!).


I have to appologize to the Patchetts, the winners of the Alien contest, and everyone else who has been waiting to see the drawing. I started to make the digital drawing, but honestly it looked so ridiculous that I am not sure I want to give you guys that as a prize, let alone post it here on the blog. I thought that maybe it might look ridiculous in a funny sort of way, but no. It is just stupid ridiculous. It looked like Jace got a hold of my mouse and digitally barfed on the page. Will you guys settle for a print instead? Or a mini storyboard or something? But if you absolutely want to see it, let me know. I will finish it and show it to you if you swear on your lives to not show it to a soul.


I am sure most of you who talk to me regularly have heard of the Pinehurst Rd. Power Outage of '08 that occured here last week, so if you have feel free to just skip ahead(because this is a saga). But if you haven't, let me just tell you it was a nightmare. I always felt sorry when I heard of people who have gone without power for days, but now I can really empathize with them. Sunday Feb. 10th we had a big wind storm here in central VA. As with all major storms out here, lots of trees fall down so we were not too surprised when Sunday at about 9pm our power went out. We get lots of power outages, but usually they only last an hour or two max. Jace, of course, was thrilled because he got to break his AND dad's flashlights and the light sticks. I bet that boy didn't fall asleep for hours he was so excited. We just went to bed thinking it would come back on while we slept. We woke up at 2 am to a freezing house and a crying Ethan (I think it got down to 19 degrees outside that night). We called the power company and they said the power would not be back on until 6pm Monday night. So we piled some extra blankets on Jace and on our bed and brought Ethan to bed with us to keep him warm. The next morning it was frigid so we headed over to the Patchett's to spend the day and keep warm while Tim went to work. When he got home, still no power, but the new estimate was 10pm, so we went home to sleep in our own beds hoping that it would only be a few hours before it came back on. We bundled the kids up and put them to bed. Monday 10 pm passed, still no power. Then at 11pm Ethan woke up with a sudden, horrible cough like I have never heard. He sounded like a 75 year old chain smoker. I have never delt with my kids having coughs like this so I was terrified. And it was so cold in our house. We bundled Ethan up and brought him to bed with us, but he woke up again at around 1am coughing again. I was ready to rush him to the emergency room, thinking he had RSV or something. So I called my Dr. and he listened to the cough and said that he had croupe. Yikes! He told me to bundle him up and take him out in the cold air to soothe the cough (which I had to laugh at since it was probably almost as cold in our house as outside) and if he didn't calm down in the next 30 minutes and had trouble breathing to take him to the emergency room. He did fall asleep shortly after that, but woke up very 45 minutes or so coughing again. It was nice and warm under all our blankets, but we had to be up walking with Ethan every so often so it made for a long and VERY COLD night. And when we called the power company at 2 am for an update, they said 6pm Tuesday night. ARGGGHHHHH! We made it through the long night and Tim built us a fire in our fireplace, even though it doesn't give off too much heat. Then he pulled out our propane camp stove and boiled hot water out on our back porch for Oatmeal and hot cocoa. I felt like mountain men(and women) in our own home. Then we headed over to Aprils to store our frozen meat that was beginning to thaw and use her shower (which was a heaven send!). Then we took Ethan to the doctor and thankfully his croupe was much better. Then we headed to the local library to kill some time and when we called at noon our power was finally back on! I felt so grateful when we got home, I almost started crying. Normally the sound of our heat pump running just irritated me because it was so inefficient and noisy, but now it was music to my ears! And warm water and a light in my closet so I can see my clothes and internet access- all such blessings that I have completely overlooked and taken for granted! But above anything else, this experience made me so thankful for so many wonderful friends and kind people who are so willing to help! Even Ethan's nurse offered to house us and feed us dinner when she found out! I feel so blessed to have such great friends! Thank you Amy for letting me and my kids crash at your house for a full day and for feeding us lunch and dinner and offering to house us for the night! Thank you April for offering your help, for the brownies, your freezer space and ESPECIALLY your warm shower! And I know that dozens of other wonderful people would have gladly lent us a hand had we needed it. In so many ways it feels like we do have family out here- our friends are like our extended family and it is so awesome!


Okay, saga over. I had to document it though. That is about it for now! I will try to be better about updating the blog- I really like doing it, sometimes I just get tired or busy or lazy or lazy or lazy.


I hope you are all well! Thanks for checking in on the Carroll fam! And forgive any spelling errors- the spell checker wasn't working!