Merry Christmas!!!!

Yes, this is actually my teenager smiling!! It doesn't happen often, but it does happen :) especially when he gets what he wants. Hope he will be smiling more often it looks good on him. Joey smiles a lot, but it is usually because he is trying to get away with something! This time I think its just cause he is happy.

Alli opened her pillow pet, and said, now I want the turle,and the penguin, and the...... and named about 5 more, I tell you the girl is never happy!!! but I guess Its a good start.

Jason wasn't sure what he had, but he liked opening presents! After we showed him, he was so much happier!!

Abby loved this hat that was made for her, and she looks soooo adorable in it!!! but her favorite present was her pink laptop, (I got carried away watching the kids, and forgot to take pictures)

yes its me whining again!

Ok, so here it is December 8 days away from christmas, I am usually wrapping presents, baking up a storm, singing carols, and so excited I am driving the kids crazy! So aparently this year I have a serious problem, well several of them. I have a new dishwasher that is broke, so all dishes are being done by hand, which means very little if no baking because I hate doing dishes by hand especially when you bake like I do and dirty every dish in the house. So no baking. Second After Zachs month long illness in October, it threw off my schedule and finances, and well the wrapping is not where it should be, I will just leave that at that! and third, I just don't feel like singing!! fourth, We got our family pics taken last month as many of you know I showed a preview in an earlier post, Well my friend and fell dance mom took them for us, we saved up to have them taken by a "professional" we have actually never had them professionally taken, so we were so excited!! Well due to some aparent personal problems, she has fallen of the face of the earth, with my family pics. and my $. So no christmas cards, and no family pics for presents for my family (I know that was cheesy, but it was what I was going to do sorry) so I have been very depressed, and have been very sad over this, and very emotional. I am sad for my friend that I don't know what has happened to her, and sad for me and my family that we have been taken advantage of. I hope we eventually get them, but who knows. All this along with some personal health challenges I am dealing with and some childrens health and school issues, leads me to just want to scream so hear I go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! ok I feel a little better thanks for listning. Next post will be happier I hope!!
p.s. if you don't want to listen to me whine, you should have got a clue by the title of the post and not read on!!

trying real hard to get into the christmas mood

Ok so here we are one week into December, we actually have snow, my tree is up (and finally decorated) not too much done in the way of shopping, but for some reason I am just not feeling it this year. So I was surfin the web the other day, and I came across a blog where a lady was talking about Nikolaus day. It is Dec. 6, its a German holiday where you put out your shoes by the front door, and Nikolaus, the German Santa Clause comes and puts a gift in them and some candy, I thought what the heck we should try it!!! So I gathered the kids around last night explained what we were going to do, tried to calm them down a little bit, laughed at zach and joey as they rolled their eyes at me, but then laughed more as they got their biggest shoes. Then felt extra loved when jason made sure I had a pair of shoes ready too. Then we all went to bed hoping it would work (since we are irish not german) but really hoping it would............ And sure enough.........
The kids each got a little gift..........

which totally thrilled them..........

even if they didn't want to wake up.......

And some candy :)

And what was really fun, was he left me some really cool German noodles so now I can experiment with some new dinner tonight I hope my kids will eat them, they look so cool, they are black, yellow, and red noodles, way fun. Don't know what to do with them, they may end up with Italian sauce on the german noodles hehehe. oh well what do you do right?

Early Christmas at grandma and grandpas!!

Abbys grandpa and grandma invited us down to celebrate a little early, and we all had a blast!!

We enjoyed a yummy dinner, great company, and got spoiled rotten!

We had a great time especially with Tom and Jamie and the boys, so glad they made it up to hang out with us! thanks guys. The kids had so much fun playing together. Here is little miss Abby opening her present. She got 2 new dolls this year so far, and she is soooo happy! She has been playing nonstop. What a happy little girl!
Zach, well you know teenagers. thats his big smile, lol! he got a gift card to aeropostle! (he really is excited, ) when we left he asked me when I can take him shopping!

And joe-man got a gift card to cal-ranch, he is debating in his mind on what to get, he says its to bad they don't sell cowgirls there!

Alli-oop got some new barbies (is it possible to have too many) they tell me no! but she is thrilled! she has added them to the collection. She is happy as can be.

And Jason, who informed me yesterday, I have to start calling him Jett. has now added 2 more transformers to his collection! He tells me there are a million of them so he has lots more to get! He was so happy too. We all made a pretty good haul. Thanks so much! We love you both bunches!

top ramen and chopsticks

So whats a mom to do when I don't feel like cooking dinner?? Well I cook the 10 cent Ramen noodles and serve them with chopsticks and the kids have a blast!!! And The parents get a pretty good laugh too. Here is little miss allison she did pretty good. It may not be right, but she got the food in her mouth, in fact, that was how they all did it!! Joey however did get the hang of it. He tried and tried till he got it right! He did a great job, with a few giggles inbetween.

Jason was the most inventive, he tried to put them together and use them like a fork, then he placed them over his bowl like a big x and slid them in to pick up the noodles, in the end, he ate all the noodles thats what mattered.

Abby tried to hold it like a pencil and the top one kept slipping, but she sure did figure it out too. She had a lot of fun figuring it out.

And of course the teenager just got as close to the bowl as he could and slurped!!!! We has so much fun. What a crazy night, but we succeded not a single fork came out and all the bowls were empty!

Our first family pic as an offical family!

Thanks to an AWESOME photographer here is our first family pic as an official family. There are many more pics to come, but I wanted to show it off since I love it so much! Too much fun!

officially a Carroll!!!

Well after much stress, and 19 months of back and forth, and in and out of court, it is official, We got Abby, (yes, I am taking that from the musical Annie) Abby is ours forever, She became ours at 9:47 this morning when judge Hart signed the adoption papers. No more court dates, no more worries about certain people coming back into her life. She is now an official member of this wild and crazy family! This happened at a perfect time, what a wonderful thing to be truly gratful for at this holiday season! Talk about counting our blessings. Thanks to all of you who have helped us, who have stood by us, who have prayed for us. We love you all, and we have certainly felt the love from you. THANK YOU!!! And now for the big sigh of relief..... ahhhhhhhh!

The fairy tale ballet!

Alli entered a coloring contest at school to try to win a ticket to go to a ballet, and what do you know... she won! So this weekend we dressed up, and when I say we, I mean she dressed up like a princess and we went to the ball! Here she is by the picture she colored, (its the one right above her head)
And here we are waiting for the ballet to start!

All dressed up waiting to go!

Alli and sam dressed up so cute like the princesses the are!

Alli and sam with one of the dancers! What a fun night out. We got to go to a little "before" party where the girls had little snacks and got to meet the dancers and get autographs. the had a blast, what a night to remember!

carving pumpkins!

Well this month has been an insane month for me, and I have been a little off my normal motherly duties. Usually we do pumpkin carving/painting halfway through the month, but with zach in the hospital earlier, I haven't even bought pumpkins. So we found a pumpkin patch, saturday morning, and went to pick out our pumpkins, then we brought them home and got to work, I figured we ought to have them done before halloween was over! So here is the hard work....... Alli .....
Jason working so hard....

Abby figuring out what to do......

joey concentrating like crazy..........

And Zach enjoying it way too much.We really had a good time.

happy halloween

school parade! joey dressed up as a marine! heading down the hallway.

And his friend, They sure had a great time. They had a really great class party after doing the minute to win it games. This is the kindergarten class. Jason and Abby are down on the front row looking adorable! Ready for their class party.
Miss alli ready for the parade too. She loves to wear any costume that she can wear a wig. She is always so adorable.


Close up of Abby in her spidergirl costume right before the trunk or treat.


and a close up of jason, aka optimus prime!

you have a minute to win it!!

Thank you grandma and grandpa Carroll!!! We got these way cool bugs in the mail from grandma and grandpa that you put in water and they grow. This is a pic of jason watching them grow ( he didn't realize they take 72 hours. ) we will post pics of them when they are fully grown. they are going to be sooo cool! Zach and jason just hanging out!
Ok we were watching funny home videos the other night, and Brian got the brilliant idea to have the kiddos try and have the kids get the cookie from their forehead to their mouth with no hands!! SO FUNNY! we were laughing so hard. You all have to try this. this is the best thing ever.

They were wiggling their faces, and mouths, and krinkling their noses. LAUGHING like crazy. Joey and Abby trying it, joey almost had it, but..... no go.

Jason fresh from the tub no less, sorry about the towel shot, love the crazy faces!!!

And little allicat, she was the closest, she almost had it a couple of times! This was so much fun, the kids have been wanting to do it every night since!

Cheer camp and Zach makes it home

Alli wanted to sign up for sign up for cheer camp this weekend. She has wanted to me a cheerleader since she could walk! We started her in dance to get her ready because we knew thats what she would be when she grew up. So when the opportunity to do a cheer camp, with a chance to cheer at the high school football game half time that same night she was all over that one. And loved every second of it. Here she is practicing, and because he is such a lightweight, she was what they call a flyer. The one on the top of the pyrimid.
What a cutie!! She had so much fun, she is already talking about doing the cheer camp for basketball!!

And here is my little Zachman on the day we got to bring him home from the hospital. It was such a LONG week in the hospital I thought it would never end. The driving back and forth, the nasty hospital food, the kids at home needing me, the me needing them, zach melting away into nothing, (we really need to fatten him up now) The whole thing was aweful. But we are on the mend, Zach is getting lots of rest, I finally got the laundry caught up, my mom got my meals planned for the next week, Things are so looking up. I am starting to feel a little more in control of my life. I am so grateful for my neighbors, for stepping in to help me with my kids, and meals, my parents, my PIL (parentinlaws) SIL (sister in law) who is totally awesome anyway, who drove up and dragging her cute son and hubby, the kids teachers who are keeping them from falling behind. Everybody has been wonderful THANK YOU!!!! I am sure I left someone out and I am sorry I am sure I will think of you after I post this but thank you anyway!

day # 267

.... or so it feels like it. We are actually more like day 5. But for those of you who have been in the hospital with loved ones it feels like forever. I have figured out that since Thursday when Brian and I have been taking turns going back and forth to be with Zach we have driven just over 1000 miles! Crazy huh! But I do believe there is an end in sight. Zach did really well today. (don't ask him, he will tell you he was miserable) but from a medical stand point he did great. He got up and walked twice, He was able to get the NG tube out (the one down his nose and throat) That made him happy. and he drank two cups of juice!!! So we are on the road to recovery!! yea for us. They switched him off the morphine so he won't sleep so much now he is on lortab. so he is able to talk to us a little more. Makes me feel a whole lot better being able to communicate with him instead of just watch moniters and tubes and things beeping and pumping. Now I am just looking forward to getting him home and working on a little bit of normalcy, what ever that may be. I need all my chicks under the same roof!! But I do want to thank everybody for helping out, and the many offers to help out, I have no idea what I need right now, I am still just going day by day, sometimes hour by hour! but thanks for everything! I believe my calgon is going to take me away now so I will keep you all updated as I can......

so not getting mother of the year!!!

Well as most of you already know, our little trip to the E.R. for Abbys stitches just kicked off our week of misery! Well technically the it started two weeks before with me having kidney stones which to this very day, I have still been unable to pass, but that is another story for another day, Zach had been sick for about a week and a half throwing up. me being the great mom that I am, thought it was his acid reflux. I gave him about a week before I started getting too concerned. Then I called the Dr. which leads to a whole new set of problems. We just changed family dr.s and it was kind of hard to get him in. It took a couple of days to get him in. so, after 9 days of puking his guts out, we finally got him to a dr. and the dr. sent us straight to the E.R. so we rushed over there, and after a couple of tests they determined that his appendix had already ruptured! They rushed him up for immediate surgery. Which was so stressful. We were told 1 1/2 hours about and it ended up being 2 1/2 hours because there was so much infection, and lesions that they had to clean out! It was so horrible! That was thursday,and now that surgery is over he is just sleeping a lot, and healing. He has a drain tube in the insision site, and an NG tube down his throat to drain his stomach so he is so not happy right now! but the morphine is helping, I just wish the could slip mom a little once in a while, but oh well I guess I can tough it out. . It looks like he will end up staying in the hospital till about wednesday. It is so hard to juggle trying to stay with him, and keeping the 4 kids happy at home. It seems that my break down time is on the drive home every night. I have been taking the day shift, and brian has been taking the night shift with zach. so far so good. We are just looking forward to him coming home. There is not much time to sleep when I get home at 11:00 at night and have to do the laundry and dishes and cleaning, then get up and get to the hospital first thing in the morning. I can't wait to get my little buddy home. The dr.s are saying that the road to recovery is a long one, he will probably be home from school for the next 2-4 weeks depending on how quick his energy gets back. then he can start back doing half days. so we will see. I will try to keep you updated, don't mind the emotional crazy posts till I get a little sleep!!!!

Ouch!!!

Well this has been a very crazy week, and this was just one day in the crazy week. We were at dance, and miss Abby tripped and did a head plant into the metal door frame. So off to the E.R. we drove and 3 and a half hours later we were heading home with 7 stitches. I thought that with 3 boys they would keep me busy in and out of the e.r. but this little one has me rethinking. Here she is enjoying her shake for dinner that her dance teacher brought her.
And the final look! She will have a little scar, but its a good thing that she has bangs! and she was quite a trooper. She even was up and ready to go to school the next morning! Nothing slows her down!

fort in the front yard!!

Jason wanted me to build him a fort in the front yard yesterday, well, Alli and her friends built them all one yesterday, but it was almost bed time so they only got to play in it for a little while. But they had so much fun!! Peek-a- boo.
The three muskateers.

Then today after school he was begging me to rebuild the fort, so voila.... we re did the fort!

And look at that smile!

They absolutley loved it!! And have been playing in it all afternoon!