November 2012

November started off with quite a big weekend, as Beth and Matt got married! Deb, Allison and I were all in the wedding party, which was very exciting. Allison walked down the aisle with her cousins and with very little prompting (as I stood at the end of the aisle with Elmo!). Thursday of the wedding weekend, we all joined at Mom’s condo for a quick meal and to see everyone as they made it to town. On Friday, Deb joined the ladies to get their nails done and for lunch and I met up with the guys for an afternoon beer in Broad Ripple. The wedding on Saturday went well and everything seemed to go as planned, or if it didn’t, we didn’t notice! We enjoyed the limo ride between the ceremony and the reception with beers and music as you would expect! We danced and partied until the late night and thanks to Deb, I got an extra few hours of sleep that next day. Randy and Anna came that weekend to help out with Allison and keeping her where she needed to be all weekend long which allowed for Deb and I to relax a little more at the wedding.
Allison is all over the place. She is running and talking one moment, wanting to be held the next and upset or happy very shortly after that. I’m glad we already have #2 on the way, because if we had waited for this phase, we may have waited a little longer! She got an ear infection along with a viral infection during the last week of November. Deb, Aunt Pat & Uncle Paul, Mom, Beth and I all took turns over those 4 days to take care of her and she seems to getting back to normal. I think I’ve just accepted the idea that Allison will have a cough for the next several weeks (or months?). I was able to attend a Thanksgiving Lunch at her daycare, which was a little chaotic but still a fun experience. Now, I always admire the daycare teachers, but since the kids usually expect for you to take them with you as you leave, they all fell apart and those teachers had their hands full that afternoon.

One time when I was babysitting my younger cousin, she was crying and I stood up to go get her and my dad looked at me, told me to sit down and she would be fine and come to me soon enough. Sure enough, 2 minutes later, my cousin came around the corner. Well, I find myself doing that with Allison sometimes…she will be crying and I will move toward her and I will hear my dad, telling me to leave it alone and she will be fine, and sure enough, she will stop whining when I don’t react quickly and move onto something else or calmly walk over to me. Those moments make me happy, almost like I’m still getting lessons from my dad.

We also are completely done with the new siding and paint on the outside of our house. The overall project included some chimney work, new siding, new gutter guards, and painting of the outside of our house. The basement is 95% done, as we have added 2 new TV’s, a new couch, carpet, a new back-up sump pump, and new flooring in the work-out area this month. I’ve put up some baby gates and the only finishing touches that need to be done are a new entertainment stand for the TV, to hide some TV cables, and to re-arrange some of Allison’s toys to create some more room upstairs.

We were in WV for Thanksgiving this year. We had been road warriors with Allison, but we hadn’t traveled since August with her. Needless to say, she is nearing the end of her patience with the rear-facing seat. It has to be boring to stare at the back of the seat for 5 hours, but I did my best to entertain her for the first 3 hours of the trip, but there are only so many songs or games you can play with a little one. At least I had 2 seats! I can’t imagine trying that on a plane! Thanksgiving went well. Kyle, Julie, Aunt Wiz, and Uncle David were all in town for the weekend to help celebrate. Actual Thanksgiving meal could have gone better, but Deb and I traded off coloring with Allison since it appears that turkey isn’t her favorite meal. There was shopping, some time at the park, along with some wedding planning with Julie and Kyle over the weekend.
A few more items from this month:
* In the first year of cleaning up the yard, it took 50 bags of leaves. I’m going to learn from my mistakes and do a mixture of bagging and mowing next year, but taking 1-2 vacation days is necessary to get things done when the kids are at daycare next year!
* We had our 19 week appointment with the doctor and it included an ultrasound. Everything looked great and we didn’t find out the baby's gender again this time. We are excited to find out in April! Now, we just need to find furniture and a name! Man, it feels like we are way more behind than we were last time.
* We went to a Friends Thanksgiving at the Steffey’s new house. It was a great dinner amongst friends and the night was capped off with a couple’s ping pong tournament. Everyone knows I’m competitive, so if you thought I would push my pregnant wife to get to a ping pong ball, then you’d be correct.

October 2012

October has been moving along at a quick pace, so probably the best place to start is with an update on our house. Last month, I mentioned that we were putting up some fiber cement siding along with finishing our basement. Well, with only a few hiccups, the basement is ready for carpet and a couch to be delivered in early November and the house is half painted and the siding is complete. Our goal of having both of these projects done by the holidays is easily going to happen and we couldn’t be happier with the progress that has been made. We were looking forward to hosting a few Colts games coming up maybe in November, but we haven’t decided on a new TV for the basement yet!


Allison is getting more and more talkative. The only catch is, we can only make out a small percentage of what she is saying! She will babble, sing and carry on and then laugh or say “Yeah!” and we know she is enjoying whatever she is talking about. I assume most of what she is saying is something sang or talked about at daycare, which makes sense why we may not quite be able to figure it out! As she gets more talkative, she gets a little whiny sometimes (can’t imagine where she gets that from…I can see the collective roll of eyes from all readers indicating that I am getting what I deserve). Her eating is sporadic at times and her sleeping is still going really well. She has also started to pick up several animal sounds, like cow, duck, lion, sheep, monkey and even donkey!

Beth’s fiancé, Matt, had his bachelor party in early October and we went to Cincinnati for the weekend. We met up at a casino in Lawrenceburg, IN and enjoyed a night of gambling and a steak dinner. We then went to Kings Island the next day and remembered why many adults don’t ride coasters as easily as teenagers. I’d say the long lines helped us and were appreciated! Pete was able to make it and everyone had a good time.

Deb and I had our first vacation without Allison. We went to Green Bay, WI for a Packers game. Deb has a friend up there that got us tickets so we enjoyed seeing such a great venue for a sporting event. We stopped off in Chicago on the way up and stayed with the Ragos. We went out to a bar for a fundraiser and Tim and Amy Benck were able to come out and see us. While in Green Bay, we enjoyed a chance to work out, sleep in and have some nice meals in the area. I think Deb and I did well being away from Allison, but on the day we were to come back, we were both up a little early and ready to leave and head back to see her!

We celebrated Halloween by going to our neighborhood pizza party and then Allison and I went trick or treating to a few houses while Deb stayed at the house to hand out candy.  Allison dressed up as Elmo thanks to Deb’s mom who made the awesome costume.  Allison loved being Elmo and actually stayed warm because of her costume. 

A few more items from this month:
• We had our 5th Light the Night Fundraiser for LLS. It isn’t an easy day to try to raise money for a disease that affected our lives and took away a loved one, but we hope doing it will honor dad and hopefully bring us closer to a cure or better treatments.

• We had a check-up at the doctor and everything with baby #2 looks great. We have decided to not found out if it is a boy or a girl, which is what we did for Allison also.

• We enjoyed a dinner with Matt and Beth. They brought over Papa Murphy’s pizza and caught up a little. They both sounded excited for the wedding coming up on Nov. 3rd.

• We attended a party at the McGrath’s. It was our first chance to see their new house and it was good to see our Purdue friends.

• Deb had a work function where she went duck-pin bowling. She was the only one to get a strike!

• We had our second round of family pictures taken. We did them outside around our house.

• Deb and I went to the Colts game vs. the Browns.

• I got a chance to hang out with Brian and Gareth, 2 of my high school buddies, during the middle of the month. It had been way too long since I had seen those guys.

September 2012

Only one way to start off this month with the news that Debbie is pregnant! Right at the end of September marked the 12 week mark, so we spent this last weekend calling/texting as many people as we could about our exciting news. If this is how you are finding out, we apologize for not letting you know personally. Anyway, Deb is doing well with this pregnancy. She has had some nausea and seems to be more fatigued than last time, but I’m sure chasing Allison around each day can take an additional toll on her. We have had a few ultrasounds and everything looks to progressing well. Her next appointment is in mid-October and her due date is in April. We can get Allison to point at Deb’s stomach and say “baby” but it is usually only after we do it several times!


Speaking of Allison, she is picking up new things every day. Aunt Beth stopped by and taught her to say “monkey” and what sounds it makes. She seems to love books and to have them read to her. She will keep bringing you books and sit on your lap as you read to her. She has a friend at school that is older and she follows her around. Mackenzie seems to enjoy it and treats her like a little sister, which is pretty cute to watch. Her walking is much more stable now and even though she has the occasional fall, we let her roam whatever floor we are on with little concern about her being able to create too much havoc.

We are going to begin 2 major projects on our house. We are putting up fiber cement siding, which should help our house look much nicer, but also clean up some of the leaks we have with our current siding/joints with the roof. With it comes some chimney fixes along with repainting the house and gutter guards. That project begins next week and should be completed in October. We are also having our basement finished. We already have drywall and a drop ceiling, so all we need is flooring and to re-do some cabinets and countertops, or that is what we thought. Once we got started, we got excited and wanted to do it right, so we have added several things like drywall repairs and some electrical work. We will see how those quotes come up. Hoping to have everything done by the holidays, but these things seem to have a mind of their own.

I went camping with some college friends in September in southern Indiana. With rain in the forecast, we spent one night at buddy’s parent’s lake house. The next morning, we went zip-lining and stuck around to camp the second night. It was pretty great to sit around the fire, have a few more beers than I normally would, and get to sleep in cold weather (it felt like the cold-air dorm in the fraternity). Zip-lining was a good time, and something that I’d definitely do again!

A few more items from this month:

• Debbie, Laura and Mom threw a wedding shower for Beth over Labor Day weekend at mom’s condo. It was well attended by family and Beth enjoyed it.
• Deb and I used a gift certificate for Mitchell’s Fish Market that we got at Christmas for a date night on Labor Day. We realized how necessary it was to try to do that more often.
• We had a dinner at our neighbors in early September. It was quite entertaining to chase Allison all over their house while they were discussing their vacations and such. Most of our neighbors in our cul-de-sac are retired, so our conversations were dramatically different!
• We attended Lobster-Fest at Tom and Tracy’s this year. As always, it was a great time as we flew in lobsters from New England!
• I went to the Colts season-opener versus the Vikings. It was fun and we were able to see the only Colts win up to this point.
• The last weekend in September was Beth’s bachelorette party. Deb attended most of the weekend, except for the bus ride around to a few breweries. With her nausea, that didn’t sound very appealing!

August 2012

August was probably the most fun month of being parentd so far. Allison has really started to communicate and that makes things very interesting and exciting. Anything from hand signals for the words “please,” “more” and “eat” all the way to new words every few days, she is becoming her own little person! She has started using a fork and spoon and walking much better. We play different games and she will mimic many things we do. We also have a few songs that she gets real excited about and will do hand motions for, like the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “If You're Happy and You Know It.” Along with those things comes the words “no” and sometimes trying to figure out ways to distract her from something she really is wanting but can’t have (for example, living plants and the fireplace). She had another spill at school that caused Deb to need to take her to the dentist again. She is OK, but one of her teeth was jarred a little and it pushed us to ask for some extra TLC at school for a few weeks since she was falling pretty often at daycare. Not much has happened since except for the usual bumps and bruises. She went to the doctor for her usual appointment and she is 32 inches long and a little over 21 lbs. She is continuing to be long and lean. Her weekend naps have become a little more consistent since she has a routine during the week in her new daycare room. This allows for us to usually get a 1.5 hour nap on the weekends, but that can be shorter or longer, depending on how her week as gone and how tired she is!

The first weekend in August, Randy and Anna came to visit so Randy could have a shoulder consultation with a doctor at Deb’s clinic. They came away with some different exercises and hoping to avoid a shoulder replacement. We enjoyed the weekend, patching some drywall and putting up some blinds. It sure does go faster when 3 people can work and 1 can watch Allison! We enjoyed some kabobs for dinner on Saturday night after church.

We also went to West Virginia for an engagement party for Julie and Kyle. We left on Thursday around 3:30 and arrived 5 hours later. Allison did well traveling and we spent the time setting up for party. That was a challenge with Allison around, but everything looked great. Marty and JoAnn helped out setting up, so we had several hands to help with the party or Allison. We went there when Allison wasn’t quite steady on her feet yet, so we were chasing her around the house all day-long. I hope by Thanksgiving she has figured out how to go down steps, because there are transition steps throughout their main level and she just wanted to walk right off of each one of them. Anna had her stopping at the “step” because she would say it very quickly and many times Allison would just turn around, because she didn’t want to deal with it!

A few more items from this month:

• As a belated wedding present, Randy and Anna helped us purchase a new bedroom set of furniture. We now have matching items for the first time in our married life. And our new king bed allows for us to act like we are in different zip codes!
• I attended a Trivia Night with Beth and Matt for Timmy Global Health (charity Beth is involved in). It was fun and they had several local beers, including Sun King.
• We also took Allison to the zoo with Beth and Matt. It was fun and Allison has seemed to really enjoy it more each time we have taken her.
• On one Saturday when Deb was working, I took Allison over to Frank and Jan’s to hang out and have fun. We enjoyed playing and running around a new house, along with tumbling on a futon mattress.
• We are working on getting quotes for some work on the house. We are looking to have new siding put up on our house along with doing some additional work in the basement, which could give us some more living space.
• We tried to touch up the drywall we fixed when the Cyphers were in town, but the paint didn’t match. So we had to call in reinforcements (my Mom) to come over and help us paint 3 rooms on a Sunday in August. We also painted the main level bathroom.

July 2012

As we get through the half-way point of this very hot and dry summer, we are enjoying our house and having more room for guests and space for Allison. She has started walking and that has flipped our house upside down at times, chasing her around and baby-proofing the house. It has been fun to see her become more independent and show sides of her personality, but that also comes with some screaming when she doesn’t like what we are doing or eating or saying. My dad always told me I didn’t do a good job hiding my emotions on my face…and I think Allison has picked up that trait! Allison has also started in her new room at daycare, which had her coming home with 2 bloody lips and a chipped tooth that first week. No big damage, just hope for them to keep a closer eye on her because it appears she also has my clumsiness!

We started off the month spending July 4th by going to visit my Uncle Paul. He had open-heart surgery and is doing pretty well. We stopped by there on the holiday with Allison to say hi and see how they were doing. They gave us some really cool glasses that were from my grandparents and they had a “C” on them. Those will be fun to have around. After the short visit, we went to a party at Denny & Nancy Lawton’s house, where it was pretty hot and Allison stayed inside most of the time. The party was well attended and there were plenty of kids for her to play with.

We had the second half of the family reunion the first weekend in July. One evening, Laura and I wanted to take a boat ride and just hang out without kids or everyone else around. As we are driving the boat, on a lake that isn’t visible from my mom’s dock, we run out of power. We had 50% power and then it was zero, just like that. Being from the Carroll family, this isn’t our first situation to be stranded somewhere. We found our way to propel our boat to shore, found a dear new friend named Marla to let us borrow her power and sat there for 45 minutes drinking some beers. After we “thought” we had enough power, we decided to head back. We got about 100 yards away and the battery died again. We then slowly propelled ourselves through a tunnel so they could see us from the dock. After helped arrived, we pushed the boat while swimming back to the dock. We had a good laugh about it and realized when Mom’s electric boat says it has 50% power remaining, you should consider that zero!

The following weekend, we went to St. Joseph, MI with some college friends and their families. There were 10 adults and 10 kids in a 7 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house. It was quite the adventure and we loved it. Now, having the second youngest in a house that big, we were concerned that Allison could wake up and it would wake the entire house, which had us sleeping with one eye open. She did really well at the beach and enjoyed the sand. She played with it, moved it around and as all kids do, accidentally ate some. It was great hanging out with all of our friends.

We went back to the same area 2 weeks later for our annual “Beachmo” trip with family. Deb and I decided to take an extra day off and head up there on Thursday. The Vandervaarts did the same thing, so Laura and I hung out in the lobby for a few hours talking on Thursday night. The next day, we spent the day talking around St. Joseph, having coffee, riding a carousel, having lunch at Schu’s, and waiting for everyone to arrive on Friday evening. On Saturday, we went to the beach early with intentions of leaving around 1 to take Allison to the hotel for a nap. Jan walked with her and she fell asleep and she slept at the beach for almost 2 hours! It was great! We were able to stick around, climb the dune and enjoy some bonus beach time!

A few more items from this month:

• We enjoyed some steaks on the grill for Deb’s birthday. Allison and I got a gift certificate for a massage. It was a quiet, but enjoyable evening.

• I played golf at Prairie View with people from work and our commercial bank.

• Brian and Gareth came over to see our new house and enjoy some beers on evening.

• Deb took Allison to my mom’s pool to get some swim lessons with one of our babysitters.

• Allison leanred to walk this month.  Very exciting but definitely a game changer!!

Allison and Daddy's favorite game!!

June 2012

What I am starting realize with this “home ownership” thing is that there are always projects and things to do, and it is difficult to actually get any of it accomplished during Allison’s naps on the weekends! We have got more settled in this month, as we have unpacked the last boxes and hung most of our pictures on the walls.
As I write this at the end of June, I’m home alone while Deb is off in WV with Allison visiting her family. She has made a summer trip to WV to visit family since we have been together, and it started because she has more vacation time than I do. It doesn’t sound like this trip is going as expected as half of the state has lost power and water due to a severe storm that went through Friday evening (80mph winds!. Mom and I painted Allison’s room and I spent the rest of the day getting small projects done around the house that just seem to get pushed off to spend more time with Allison! I’m enjoying some quiet time around the house and spent the evening hanging out with family at my mom’s condo.

Deb and I did a “Tap n’ Run” 4K earlier this month. This was an opportunity to dress up like idiots (we dressed up like an 80’s wedding) and drink beer at specific locations along the way. We had a group of about 20 and all dressed in similar costumes. It was a fun event, but it definitely looked weird later that evening as we were still out in Broad Ripple and we were the only ones left wearing costumes as majority of the people from the run had gone home.

We had my family over for a cookout on Father's day. My mom, Beth, Matt, Mark and the Wahman's all came over.

Allison is doing great. She is still not quite walking on her own, but will get around the house with her walker. She had her first dentist appointment, and she was very well behaved. The dentist jokingly said she wanted to keep her! We are officially off of bottles and baby food, which makes things more interesting when it comes to meals. Opening a jar of baby food was very easy and required very little work, where now we are deciding what we want to have her “try” vs. what we know she will eat relatively easily. She is saying “mama”, “dada” and “all done.” I think she sometimes just says “all done” but we typically take it as a sign that she is done eating or done and ready for bed. If she hears a dog bark, she will sometimes say “woof woof.” She loves to swing outside. She is pointing at things and babbling in her own language, so it can be frustrating for both of us as we try to figure out what she wants!

Deb's sister Julie got engaged! Everyone is very excited. Kyle and Julie met a year and a half ago through work. Deb will be Julie's matron of honor. Julie and Kyle are in the planning stages but are thinking the wedding will be in April or May 2013!

A few more items from this month:

• We had a Finance Conference at work, which had scheduled events each night. Deb spent a lot of time with Allison that week and it felt like I didn’t see either one of them all week. It was a fun week, but as one of my co-workers stated at the end of the week, I was just “peopled-out” by the end of it.
• Deb hosted a girls night this month, for probably the first time in years as we now have the room for me to run off to another part of the house. It was great to have everyone over and Deb was able to enjoy some girl time on the back patio.
• We went to a state park nearby to enjoy a Friday evening with our Purdue friends. It was a great location, as everyone brought their own dinner, there was a play-ground nearby and the girls were able to complete the details for our group vacation in Michigan in July.
• Deb was invited to a “Breakfast of Champions” for her new employer. She isn’t used to getting accolades at work, so she enjoyed getting credit for being a productive and motivated employee.
• We are in the middle of some of the hottest days here since 1988. Ironically, I was only 9, but anytime a heat wave comes along, I do recall that summer and how hot it was. I think it hit 105 a few days ago.

May 2012

After one month in our new house, we are adjusting nicely and really starting to enjoy some quiet evenings and weekends at home. May was busy with visitors, traveling and doing many house projects, so let’s start with the beginning.
On Mother’s Day weekend, Deb went to Morgantown to see Julie get her Master’s degree from WVU. She left on a Friday so she could spend some time with the family (Randy, Anna, Kyle, Dave and Sally). I stayed home with Allison because the last thing we could imagine was Allison sitting still for a college graduation. She and I managed to hang out at home while we got the security system installed and the house was sprayed for bugs. Deb came home on Saturday and that evening, Deb and I attended an engagement party for Beth and Matt. It was a very well attended party and everyone had a good time. On Mother’s Day, we enjoyed a nice breakfast and Allison gave Deb a neat necklace with her name engraved on it. Seems anyone can get a credit card now-a-days…

The following weekend we were off to Cincinnati to visit with the Depps and Ragos. We hadn’t met Mia Depp yet, so we were happy to get a chance to see her and watch all of our daughters interacting. Mia is only 4 months old, so that left Allison and Alivia to play and they got along really well. The mom’s went shopping on Saturday and the guys went golfing in the afternoon. We enjoyed some pizza on Friday and did a cookout on Saturday. The Depps did a great job hosting and it seemed a little like a zoo at times with 3 kids on 3 different schedules, but everyone helped out and it was a fun, relaxing weekend.

Randy and Anna came out for Memorial Day weekend and all I can say is that it was HOT. Deb and I had a list of outdoor projects we wanted to get done and since we had the babysitting help, we couldn’t let the weather deter us. Deb was in charge of the 6 yards of mulch we had and I was in charge of building the fire pit and trimming the 8 trees. Between Randy and Anna helping, we got everything done and felt great about the weekend. Unfortunately, Allison spiked a fever on Memorial Day and Beth was able to diagnose and calm us down as her fever took longer to come down than we had dealt with in the past. Randy and Anna stayed an extra day to help us take care of Allison since it was a work-day, and she bounced back and was able to head back to daycare by the time they nursed her back to health.

We are in the middle of weaning Allison off of the bottle and eliminating the night-time feeding of milk. Originally, she was OK with it. Now she is getting the idea that we aren’t joking and it causes her to cry for about 15 minutes each night. We hope she starts drinking more fluid at dinner and then we can be more confident she is at least hydrated. Right now she just fights drinking anything because it is in a cup and not a bottle. She has learned how to spit things out…so she seems to kick out any meat right now. She is moving around, crawling all over the house and pulling up on anything she can get a grip on. Sometimes, it is something slippery and she will bump her face onto the floor, fridge or mirror. She is pointing at things and talking in her own language. She is probably getting closer to moving into the next room at daycare, which is exciting because it will be something new, but sad because she and her current teacher really get along. You want them to stay in certain stages of life because they are fun, but they have to move on eventually!

A few more items from this month:

• We enjoyed going to St. Elmo’s for dinner on the 21st (day after our anniversary) and Beth helped out babysitting.
• Deb’s Aunt Sally and Uncle Dave stopped by and were our first house guests. They stayed one night and then were off to Morgantown for Julie’s graduation.
• I decided to join a basketball league on Wednesday evenings. The games are always at 9or 10pm, which isn’t great but helps because I basically leave as Deb is heading to bed.