Basketball

Jace's first year of organized basketball- January 2011.

First Day of School

Here is Jace on his first day of 2nd grade:

And here is Jace on his first day of 1st grade...

New school clothes are overrated:)

The things kids say...

And real quick, I have wanted to start a series of posts on the funny things my kids say, and while writing my post below, I heard a couple good ones...

Tim was sitting on the bed looking at his laptop, Jace was standing next to him and asked very matter-of-factly: "Daddy, when you die can I have your laptop?" :P

And Ethan, or should I say Harry, asked: "I wish I could go to the "ivisibility" cloak store and buy an "ivisible" cloak. Because Jesus wants us to protect us." Oh, and Jesus also wants us to play with our toys, according to Ethan:)

Busy... and a recent tale of chaos

Here I am again after a very long dry spell. I hardly know what to say, but I am considering making a general opening that I can copy and paste to the beginning of every post that says how neglectful I have been to my blog, how busy life has been and how I promise to be better. Or maybe by now you can all just assume that, because in all honesty it probably won't change and may get worse before it gets better. So needless to say, life is just stinkin' busy! Between keeping up with 3 kids, running a business, trying to keep my house clean, getting ready to put our house on the market, and all the unexpected little and big things that pop up in between, my life is utter and complete chaos! Every single day I feel like I have been thrust onto a stage, handed a bucket of 50 balls and told to start juggling. And did I ever mention that I have no idea how to juggle? Maybe Tim can give me lessons- he is quite the juggler, in fact I have photos of him as a child juggling (complete with jester attire!) to prove it. Anyways, life is just crazy. And as much as I would love to be organized and have things under control, I just don't. And I probably never will. So I will continue to run around the stage, frantically trying to pick up the balls that are bouncing all around and rolling off the stage, hitting me on the head and making me trip on occasion. And you can all just laugh at me or with me or just cheer me on and say 'bless her heart!':) But lately I have been really feeling the need to start blogging more frequently. The other day one of my kids asked me what day of the week they were born on, and I could not remember! After giving birth three times, all the little details that I still do remember, which sadly are few, are just jumbled around inside my head. And my boys birthdays are the one thing that at the time I thought I could never forget. And seeing how fast my boys are growing up, I just don't want to forget all the small details that make our life so great right now. And the added bonus is blogging (or maybe just writing?) seems to be kind of therapeutic for me and it helps me to remember the good stuff of life, which I often have a hard time seeing among all the bouncing balls blurring my vision.

With that said (sheesh! No wonder I don't have time to blog!), I wanted to just post about our recent fiasco with our kitchen. MANY of you have heard this story, perhaps MANY times, so feel free to skip this part. Anyways, about three weeks ago we replaced our kitchen faucet as a final upgrade to our kitchen in preparation to get our house on the market. Well about two weeks ago (just after I had thoroughly cleaned and de-cluttered our house to take pictures of it, mind you) we discovered that the useless piece of garbage our faucet had leaked through our floor and into our crawl space. So after a call to our insurance company, a week of drying equipment in our kitchen, another week of walking on subfloor and staying up until 2am trying to install laminate flooring (which Tim convinced me to take on after getting the check from Nationwide and realizing that we could upgrade our floor from the ugly parkay if we did it ourselves) we are back to normal. Thank goodness- it is so nice to have my kitchen fully back to normal and looking better than ever (the 2am nights were totally worth it- it turned out so great!) And what was that? My kids? What three kids? Oh yeah! I forgot that I also have three kids that have been neglected for a few weeks and now we can give them some love and attention. But I have to say, they were troopers! And they thought the plastic partition over our kitchen/dining room was the coolest thing in the world. Never has our kitchen been so desirable to be in! So here is a shot of the partition- I wish I would have gotten some pictures of the demolition, but at least I got this!

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And one night, after telling the kids to put themselves to bed again, I came in to find Jace reading a book of scary stories to Ethan, who looked very scared indeed:) I think "The Girl with the Green Ribbon" was a bit too much for him:P I just love seeing this, though! Such good brothers!

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And some camera fun, for the kids:)

That's all for now! HOPEFULLY, I will be back soon with some recent and not-so-recent stuff:) Enjoy!

The Invisible Enemy

It feels kind of pointless to post this, since many of you already have heard about our battle with Strep these past few weeks, but I wanted to post it anyways for journaling purposes, and certainly not to try and stroke more sympathy out of people. But I cannot deny that these past few weeks have been a bit of a nightmare for our family. Just last month Tim and I were casually joking that it had been far too long since he had taken a sick day at work and he needed a good case of something nasty so he could stay home. I should have known better; as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Not long after that foolish conversation which should have been followed by a good, hard knocking on wood, our battle with strep began.

*For dramatic effect and entertainment value, the following story should be read in the voice of Keith Morrison, narrator of Dateline NBC.

Our tale begins on a cool spring evening on Thursday, April 24th, in the quiet community of Lake Monticello, Virginia. It seemed like any other day in the Carroll family home, dinner was finished, three young boys were just finishing with their baths, and mom and dad were looking forward to another quiet night at home. But as the sun set over the treetops surrounding their 3 bedroom rancher, this family of five was soon to be struck down by an invisible enemy. Shortly after retiring to bed, four year old Ethan began to run a low grade fever. Thankfully, after a dose of Motrin he seemed to feel fine. He even played happily at home the next day. But again Friday evening, the fever returned along with complaints about needing to use a bathroom frequently. Perhaps a urine infection was behind it all? Saturday came and Ethan's fever continued. Mom and dad were starting to worry, but with very few symptoms they were unsure of what the problem was. Sunday dawned bright and beautiful; Ethan and Dad stayed behind from church. After returning home, Mom found that Ethan seemed to be feeling much better and his fever had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps it was all behind them. But in a few short hours things would take a drastic turn- and not for Ethan but, strangely, for Dad. Would dad be able to survive the days to come? Find out when "The Invisible Enemy" returns after these messages....

Okay, that was exhausting so enough with the Dateline dramatics. So Sunday afternoon, Tim started to complain of a sore throat and by that night he was in bad shape. Monday we took him to the doctor and he tested positive for strep. They put him on Penicillin and I tried to take care of him and keep my distance at the same time. But despite my efforts, Tuesday morning I felt a little tickle in my throat and I just knew that it was my turn next. I headed to the doctor to get put on antibiotics before it got bad, but late that night I woke up unable to swallow my own saliva and shivering like crazy. So now Tim, who was still pretty sick, had to take care of me on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Wesley is running a mild fever, but maybe he is just teething? Wednesday night came and Jace woke up complaining of a sore throat- here we go. So Thursday we all headed to the Dr. where all three kids were swabbed and all, even the baby, tested positive for Strep. But hey, at least we could treat them all at the same time. And conference weekend seemed like a convenient enough time to be sick. So we spent the next 10 days throwing away toothbrushes, bleaching sheets and surfaces, boiling the new toothbrushes multiple times, and everything else you could think of to keep the nasty germs at bay and not reinfect ourselves. And all seemed to go well until Sunday, April 9th when Jace woke up with a sore throat again. He had just finished his last dose of antibiotic the night before. So I took him in on Monday morning, and sure enough, positive strep test again. So round 2 of antibiotic began for Jace. My last dose of the same Amoxicillin Jace took the first time was Sunday night and Tuesday morning I could feel the familiar tickle in my throat. I tried to pass it off as spring allergies and convince myself that I was just being paranoid, but by that night I knew that this was not in my head. And it was worse the second time around for me. I felt like death that night- my whole body hurt like crazy, I couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't get warm and the ibuprofen did nothing to help me. Thankfully, Tim was able to stay home the next day and play Mr. Mom and I headed to the Dr once again. Possitive- and round 2 for me too. Yipee! I am terrified to get our bill after this whole strep fiasco- it is probably going to be more than the bill after having Wesley! But right now we are all feeling healthy, and I am just praying that Strep does not visit us again. EVER!!!!