March review

The old saying goes something like "March comes in like a Lion", but for us.... March flew by like a supersonic jet! As I sit here looking back over the month, we were busy with life.

The beginning of the month started off with sickness. We had the 'domino effect' and had 4 of us on antibiotics. We had ear infections, sinus infection/bronchitis, strep throat and lice. Just in case you missed that last one, yep, you read it right... LICE!!!

Let me break it down for you - it was a pain. in. the. hiney!!! A whole lot of overwhelming, frustrating, repetitious work for a teeny, tiny pest. I would not wish lice upon my worst enemy --  not that I have any of those!

We were getting ready to take Caroline to the Dr. for a strep test since she'd had a sore throat, been running a high fever and had a rash appear on her tummy. As I was brushing Elizabeth's hair, I saw this tiny bug scamper across her scalp. I quickly grabbed it, stuck in in a Ziploc bag and tucked in into my purse. I didn't want to freak the kids out. Of course, it happened to be our pediatrician's day off (my kids always seem to get sick on her day off!!) After the Dr. examined Caroline, I showed her the baggie and said, "is this what I think it is??" She confirmed my suspicion and noted that Caroline's head was full of nits.

Apparently, the reason for Caroline's itchy head for the past couple of weeks was not from dry scalp or not getting the shampoo all rinsed out, but it was from lice. The pieces were all fitting together as to why I couldn't seem to get the "dandruff" to flake out of her hair when brushing it in the mornings. We headed to the store to pick up all the needed supplies.

The next couple of days were filled with laundry, chemicals and hours upon hours of combing. Thankfully, David was able to take some time off from work to help me as I couldn't be at the laundromat, fogging the house, vacuuming the house and van while combing out several heads. It felt as if life as we knew it went on, but we were in our own little quaranteened world. Did I mention that Caroline missed an entire week of school. And it was the week of ISTEP (standardized statewide testing)??

I stopped by school to let the nurse know and she also checked me. Sure enough, there were nits in my head along with Jonathan! We ended up treating all of us since we all have roommates. In all of the checking, I didn't ever find anything on David or Matthew, but we weren't messing around. I don't know if we just had a really bad case or didn't use the shampoos correctly, but we even used the olive oil remedy. This option was to suffocate the hardy bugs and also allow for the nits to slide off the hair easier. We doused our heads liberally with olive oil and then had shower caps on for hours -- we even had the kids and me keep them on overnight!! Needless to say, I'm nearing the point where I can find a smidge of humor in the whole ordeal. I did document our "hot oil treatments" that were to give us luxurious locks.

David and I were trying our best to be joyful in all circumstances....

Aren't they adorable?!? Matthew is such a ham lately!

The boys were troopers since the store only had "girly"

shower caps in the economy multi pack.

We were thankful for our Netflix subscription as we definitely got our money's worth just in one week!
 

Zoo Trip

We are having some unseasonably warm weather this year! Who would have ever thought that we'd be going to the zoo in shorts in mid-March?? I think it was in the upper 70's this day! 

Matthew and Elizabeth both wanted to see just how tall they were... nearly the same size, eh?!?

 Elizabeth was very interested in reading the map this visit. She made sure she knew where we were and where we were headed next! We enjoyed this spot watching the flamingos, the lemers and the bazillion turtles perched on the log sunning themselves. At one point, a lemer thought about crossing the log, but caught sight of the turtles and changed it's mind.

Our zoo has had several baby elephants over the years that we've had memberships. It's so fun to see these "tiny" animals compared to their mothers. We were pretty excited that we were able to catch a glimpse of the latest addition to the Indianapolis herd.

Music Festival

Caroline was selected to perform in the 38th Perry Township Elementary Music Festival. This event combined all 11 elementary schools from our district with children from 3rd, 4th and 5th grades. The children practiced very hard and did a fantastic job. They mentioned there is no other school in Indiana that does an event like this. David even remembers participating in this festival when he was in 3rd grade!

The third graders performed several songs with the last one having the students from Douglas MacArthur highlighted with special parts. I got most of the songs on video and not as many pictures. Our music teacher, Mrs. McAllister, directed the 3rd grade choir.

Winter Jam

We took the kids to the Rock 'n Worship Roadshow in January. It's a Christian concert with 10 or so different musical groups including Sidewalk Prophets, LeCrae and MercyMe. Unfortunately, we arrived a little late due to a busy schedule that day. Our seats were not so good (read: nosebleed!) and it was not an enjoyable time. We found out at that concert of another concert called 'Winter Jam'. Because music is a big part of our lives, we decided to give another concert a try. This time, David went directly from work and got us fantastic seats!

 I've learned to take along snacks (read: sugar!) to keep the kids from falling asleep -- not that they could for as loud as the concerts are!! We also took earplugs to protect their precious ears! I also packed some glow stick this time as well. Helps to prevent them from asking to buy all the expensive items they are trying to sell :)

We saw some of our favorite artists: Kari Jobe, Peter Furler and Phil Joel (from the former Newsboys!), For King and Country, Building 429 and several others. Since our seats were so good -- except for the 3 gals that we had to keep crawling over to get out for bathroom trips -- we had a much better experience! Everytime we hear one of the songs on the radio, the kids talk about how we saw them in concert.

 Probably one of our favorite parts was when the lead singer from Sanctus Real was on a raised box RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. US!!!! There was also a speaker and an illusionist. We had lots of fun!!