Suzanne Pictures

According to my niece, Suzanne, in the Christmas pajama picture she looks like an "elf." So to redeem myself for putting her "elf" picture on my blog, I'm posting two pictures of her from this week at homecoming. FYI: She is 16 and a junior in high school.

All Six Grandchildren

My mom's new Christmas tradition is to buy matching pajamas for all of the grandchildren. This is the first year that we can say our family is complete. None of my parents' three children are having any more babies, so here they are -- ALL six grandchildren.

Ben and my three boys: Joel-7, Evan-4, and Drew-2
Mindy and Jeff's daughter: Suzanne-16 and
Mark and Robbon's two daughters: Mia and Ashley, ages 2 and 10 weeks.

Did you notice all the blue belongs to Ben and me?! How did my sister and brother get all the girls?!

On another note: I haven't exercised in 1 1/2 weeks due to a severely painful pulled muscle near my shoulder blade. I have, however, enjoyed three visits to a chiropractor and some good muscle relaxers and pain medicine. Quite honestly, the pain is almost completely gone today but I'm not going back to the YMCA until Monday.

Goal Accomplished

Once again I am proud to "announce" that I accomplished my goal of working out 5 times this week! Yahoo! Tuesday was looking bad -- I couldn't figure out how to get to the YMCA because of a sick kid and a busy schedule, so Ben came home from work over lunch so that I could get to the Y. What a great guy!

I am so tired from all my exercise that I went to bed at 8 p.m. last night! I'm feeling much more energetic today.

Now, I just have to figure out how to give up my night-time snacks -- then I might actually lose some weight. I'll have to wait until January 1 to make that resolution. I can't do it ALL now -- then I wouldn't have anything to "resolve" for 2008.

Ode To Evan

This is a little late in publishing, but my little three-year-old Evan turned 4 on November 24 and it was one of the saddest days of my life as a mom. I LOVE three! Three is the best age because Batman, Superman and Spiderman are REAL; Mom and Dad are perfect; it's still OK to be bad sometimes (because "that's what toddlers do"); and discoveries happen every day. I begged Evan to stay three but he said he didn't want to because "I like birsday cake."

Evan is so much fun to be around -- he finds a friend wherever he goes -- and he gets so excited and animated about everything. One little boy, Matthew, in Evan's preschool class particularly likes him because Matthew, who has major speech delays, knows sign language and apparently when Evan waves his hands excitedly about something, the boy interprets Evan's hand gestures for the sign for "play" -- Matthew thinks Evan wants to play with him all the time!

Now, I'm NOT saying Evan is perfect (he's recently taken to lying!), but I am saying I wish he would have stayed three forever! My mom says four is the perfect age; we'll see, I don't know how it could beat this past year with my Evan.

Exercising Sucks!

I managed to accomplish my goal this week -- I worked out FIVE times even though one day school was delayed two hours because of snow.

While playing in the snow with the three boys, I tried to justify not working out because, after all, isn't pulling a two-year-old on a sled up a hill exercise enough? But then I thought of you, my faithful blogger readers, and I knew I had to meet my goal or I would really hear it from you. Thanks for keeping me on track! (Now, where are the kudos? Pats on the back? And wonderful words of encouragement?)

Here's one cute picture of our snow day -- Drew loved the snow (for about 20 minutes).

Hey Otterbein Grads!

Since our blog address was listed in Towers Magazine, I thought I'd say, "Hello!" to any Otterbein grad who "stops by." Please leave your email address so Ben and I can reply back.

FYI, if you're interested in reading more about our trip to Niger, West Africa, please click here (Niger Blog, post #1) or on "June" in the right side column of this blog and then scoll down to June 6 ; it will take you to where I started writing about our adventures in Africa.

Thanks SO much for stopping by!

Carrie (Heibel) and Ben White

Brilliant or Incredibly Stupid?

OK, I've decided I need to work out on a regular basis. Yes, I did say "regular" -- that means 5 times per week. Here's where YOU, my faithful readers, come in. I need you to hold me accountable for working out. Ahhh! There, I said it. I'm actually going to do this thing called exercise and I'm posting it here so you (all three of you!) can harass me if I don't do it.

I will make weekly posts stating that either, yes, I did accomplish my goal of exercising 5 times that week or, no, I did not meet my goal. Then you can give me kudos, applause, pats on the back, and/or glowing words of praise if I am successful or you can kick my butt if I fail. Got it? Knowing some of you like I do, I'm guessing you hope I fail at least a few times just so you can make your sick little rude comments. :-)

I've already started my new routine and so far I have exercised for three weeks, two in which I accomplished my goal and one week in which I only worked out 4 times.

I don't know if this is a good idea that will keep me motivated, or if I'm just incredibly stupid and a glutton for punishment. We will see. (Note that the heading of my blog states that I tend to blog when I'm under the influence of caffeine, such is the case today, so I really might regret this when I crash from my caffeine "high.")