Carol

***UPDATE ON CAROL***
Carol has had many tests in the hospital. It was determined that she was suffering from hemiplegic migraines... NOT A STROKE!!! Praise God! Apparently the symptoms she was experiencing can also be caused by these types of migraines. What happens is that a person will experience the symptoms and then get a full blown migraine.

The whole experience was just so scary for all her family and friends. We are so thankful that what she had was not as serious as what we first suspected it to be.

Thank you for praying! What a mighty God we serve!

-----Original Post------

This is Carol (and my shoulder... but you do not need to see what I look like on a camp retreat at 6am).


She is my pastor's wife and one of my dearest friends. Today she had what the doctor's are thinking was a mini stroke. She is doing well but remains in the hospital so they can do more tests tomorrow.


She is young and sweet and strong. She is the mother of four full of life boys and one (finally!) sweet little baby girl. Her husband Jon and I grew up together in the same neighborhood.


I am asking for your prayers. Please pray for her family as they are surrounding her with their love and care. Please pray for Jon, Carol is the love of fhis life. They call each other "Babe" and "Sweetie"... almost NEVER by their first names. Pray that the doctors would use the utmost wisdom and discernment in fully diagnosing her condition. You see, she has been lightheaded and "dizzy" and nautious for over a week now. Those symptoms came and went. They diagnosed her with vertigo last week and put her on medication for that. It didn't work. Today she went completely numb on her whole left side and had to call for her own ambulance while in a parking garage... alone!


Please pray most of all for Carol. Pray for complete healing and rest as she is exhausted and headachy.


Thank you so much for praying for my friend. We serve a Mighty God who is more than able to meet all our needs!


Amen!

Lest I've Made You Think...

...that they fight more than they do this:

Here's proof that they DO indeed love one another!

Oh how I love them!

Post-its

How do YOU use them?

I'm Trying... Really I AM!!!!!

***Update on the update***
I'm home now and have found that it is indeed a faulty router that has been the culprit. It's so good to have uninterrupted connections once again!

***Update 7/31/09***
Ok, so I FINALLY figured out (after how long?) that it's not my computer that is dying, Blogger isn't having technical difficulties... ready for this?... it's my Internet connection that's faulty!

Don't worry, I won't go looking for any jobs in the computer field anytime soon... er, let's be real... EVER!!!!

Right now I'm at Meredith's house drinking (her) beer, eating (her) pizza, and freeloading her non-faulty wireless access.

Good times!

and...

CHEERS!

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But I cannot for the life of me get blogger to upload my pictures! And boy oh boy do I have some good pictures!

(sigh) maybe tomorrow?

So nice to see you in the morning, Daddy!

The other morning Todd and I got up super early to work out. We're talking 5:00am here folks! I was running on the treadmill and lifting weights. Todd was out for a walk/run with Penny.

When he got back he found that the boys were up so instead of insisting that they go back and lay down in their beds till at LEAST 7am he thought he would cut them some slack and let them get up and play on their Nintendo DS games together.

Lately they have totally loved the download feature where they can play the same game together but each be on their own system at the same time.

It didn't take long before we heard (in voices way too loud for that time of morning) Kyyyyy-lllllllee!! WHY CAN'T YOU DO WHAT I TELL YOU TO???!!! (hmm, if Mommy and Daddy can't get you guys to do what WE want you to do what makes you think that Kyle will listen to you?....)

Because Todd had already told them to quiet down once already it was now time to take the gameboys away and have them do something else.

Todd came down to where I was working out told me I'd better put my heavy weight down for this. He said that when he went to take their games away Drew looked up in utter disgust and muttered, "Shouldn't you be at work by now??!!

Todd said he shot back with, "Shouldn't you be in bed??!!!"

Can you believe that these 2 boys could be so rude and disrespectful to their Daddy? I mean really! Don't they just look like two boys just looking for trouble two angels?

(sigh) We've got a lot more work to do with those 2!

More Sisterly E-Mail Fun (for Tiercy)

OK Tiercy asked for me to post more e-mail fun with my sisters if I got the chance... here we go trying to organize a total family outing to an amusemant park this summer.

Enjoy!

Mindy: Also, Mer and I were thinking (well, I shared my thoughts with her and she agreed) that we would try to go as a family to Dutch Wonderland instead of Sesame Place in the beginning of August. It is closer and still geared for kids so you don't get the white trash kissing in line. What does everyone think?



Michelle: I don't understand what you have against white trash kissing... if that's the case you and Shawn need to cool it ya know?


Meredith: We love to make out in line. Especially in my stretch jeans and halter half-shirt. I guess we won't go then.



Mindy: O-Kay Michelle and meredith will be kissing in line with their way too tight tops and bottoms. please make sure that Todd and Dan are wearing their wife beaters or at least have them tucked into their back pockets with their cutoff jean shorts



Michelle: Todd and I were thinking that since I've been working out I could pull off the bikini with unzipped cutoff jeans shorts look. Shoot... even without working out...



Mindy: These e-mail visuals are getting better by the minute

somtimes a mother brother needs a little help

You all are in for a treat. All because I'm laid up in bed with a bum back!

Dear sweet Todd stayed home today so I could really rest my back. I seem to have thrown it out once again. All I can think is how darn beautiful the weather is and how suh-weet it would be to go for a 3-4 mile run today. But alas here I lay... bored in bed... listening to Todd clean the ants that we seem to be plagued with this season out of the shed before he mows our back yard. Seriously, it has taken him more time to clean the shed then mow the little plot of land we call a backyard. Now he and the kids are going to a field to play soccer. At least some of our family can enjoy the nice weather... Jake has another ear infection... found out yesterday... and is sleeping. I guess there is no denying that I need to schedule an ENT appointment for him. Seems ear tubes might be in the cards for him after all.

Whew, more info about our family then you thought you were in for, huh?

Ok! Now to the point of all this... as I lay here resting I have been going through photos on the computer and found these from the fall of 2004. Drew is 20 months and Kyle is about 2 months.

Here buddy, you lost your paci. Let me help you with that!



Open up so I can get it in there will you?

What are you laughing at?

It sure does look good... do you mind if I try a little?

Ohhhhh yeaaaaah, that hits the spot!

Guess that Baby!!!

OK this is in honor of the ones who made me a Mommy in the first place! AND because I can't post a tribute to my Mommy and Todd's Mommy because my camera got left at my Mommy's house after our Mother's Day Brunch on Saturday. Soooo... you will have to be patient and wait to see the brunch photos and the treats I got on Mother's Day!

OK here it goes... in no particular order I present to you OUR CHILDREN!! See if you can guess who's who!

A.

B.

C.

D.

Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh girl, do I love those kids!! (That's not a hint) Can't wait to see how you do on the guessing!

Our Weekend Away!

This post is long overdue!

A couple of weeks ago on April 19th Todd and I received the greatest gift.

A weekend ALONE. Like totally alone. With. No. Kids.

Todd told me that his wonderful Mom (Ann) and her Hubby (Al) had offered to watch our kids while we enjoyed the use of a condo of a friend of hers. The condo was in Ocean City, MD and it was RIGHT on the beach! Ann and Al and Uncle Blair arrived on Friday evening. It was like an army moving in to watch our little army. No seriously, the kids were so happy to get rid of us and enjoy being totally spoiled and having their every single wish instantly met to have Mom-Mom, Al and Uncle Blair all to themselves. We enjoyed dinner together and then we made our getaway.

We arrived late at night but we still managed to relax, open the balcony doors and listen to the sound of the waves rolling up on the shore before going to bed.

In the morning we opened the balcony once again to this view! We enjoyed doing NOTHING! No serving breakfast to 4 kids. No diaper changing. No refereeing. No doing ANYTHING we didn't want to do!

I actually read a book! At one point I looked up to see something catch my eye maybe 50 yards out from shore. As I kept looking to see what it was that caught my eye, I noticed like 20 dolphins frolicking in the surf. I was so excited that I had to call my Julianna and tell her what I was seeing. I tried to get pictures but by the time I grabbed my camera they were too far away already.

Todd on the balcony:

The kitchen:

The dining and living room:
On Saturday we walked on the boardwalk and grabbed lunch (crab cakes and beer) at a little place right there on the boardwalk. We noticed many people riding bikes up and down the boardwalk and noted where they were rented from. We decided that we just had to do this too on Sunday morning before we left for home.

Saturday afternoon we actually took a nap!! When is the last time I ever did that? Then we were off for dinner out and a movie later.

Sunday we got up early to head for the bike rental place. We were excited to enjoy a morning bike ride before our long ride home in the car.

But... when we showed up the place was closed. I guess the hours are different during the off season.

So we walked on the beach for a bit before heading home!

I have to say that this was one of the most relaxing getaways I have ever been on!

Thank you Ann and Al and Blair!

We sooooooooooooooo needed that!

Sisterly Sarcasm kept me Seriously in Stitches!

So here is a glimpse into my day. It started out with a little innocent e-mail being passed around between my sisters and my Mom. We are planning a Mother's Day Brunch for each other this Saturday. Basically it's just a plan to sit around and eat yummy breakfast food and drink mimosas all morning while our husbands watch the kids. Sounds like fun right?

Oh and some useful background info:

1-My Dad is a research chemist. He is now retired from NASA where he worked on Upper Atmospheric (ahem) stuff.

2- My Mom has an endearing habit of unwittingly changing the pronunciation of certain syllables in certain words. Whenever this happens in conversation my sisters and I look at each other and collapse in giggles. We can't help it. Our favorite words are: mozzarella and aqua. For some reason those come up often and are pronounced "mutzarelle" and "aaaqua"



Meredith: Hi! Just wanted to check in with everyone to 1) remind you guys that this Saturday is the Mother's Day brunch at Mom & Dad's house at 9:30am; and 2) see what everyone is planning to bring so that we don't have duplicates, etc.
Looking forward to seeing everyone - it has been way too long!


Mindy: Cheezy potatoes!


Michelle: Egg/Cheese/Sausage strata!


Mindy: What exactly is a strata? Shouldn't it just be called an egg dish with sausage and cheese? Or what happened to casserole???


Michelle: Spoken like a true culinary nit-wit!


Meredith: she is the daughter of a scientist - she was thinking of stratosphere.


Michelle: Actually, she takes after Mom too so it's more like strata-sphere.


Mom: I'm lost.


Mindy: you two are soooo funny! Maybe there will be something special in your cheezy potatoes.

Michelle: don't you mean cheezy patatoes?


Meredith: are you going to make them with mutzarelle?


Somewhere in the midst of all this my Mom replied just to Meredith (because we suspect that she does NOT know how to "reply all") that she was making her Amaratta (amaretto) fruit dip.


Oh Mommy, don't ever change! I love you JUST the way you are!