CARROLL FAMILY

being a little selfish.....

2012-01-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

yep, I am still here, and still pregnant. Good and bad, good that little baby is still growing and healthy! that is always a good thing, bad part, mom is falling apart, which means yes my whole life has fallen apart. The house is trashed, laundry doesn't get done, there are only healthy meals when I suck it up and cook, other than that its top ramen. My kids have thrown away thier entire organized schedule even though I have it written out on the calandar. The kids are cranky cause dad forgets to look at clocks and seems to always let them stay up too late. So on one hand I am grateful my baby gets a chance to grow more, but on the other hand, I am more than ready. I have hit the end, I am done hearing, wow you are bigger than you have ever been, and is that thing ever going to come out, my poor kids get yelled at every time they ask me if I am going to have the baby today, my response: you will know when the baby comes out, now quit asking me!!! I know people mean well, but the things they say at the end of a pregnancy never come out right. My poor family is walking on eggshells around me, which for those of you who know me, know that I am usually quite mellow. So psyco mamma is on the loose, in fact, I got fed up with my ob over the last 2 weeks for a long list of reasons, and decided to find a new dr. this week, I go see him tomorrow. So lesson here: Never make a pregnant woman mad!! I don't know if it was the right decision or not, but I am happy with it, so I guess that is what counts at this poing.I am anxious to see this little one, and to show him off! I do want to thank everyone for their support, I know you all mean well, but I think for now, I will take my back labor, and my migraines and crawl in a dark quiet hole till this little man decides to make his appearance. (hopefully soon)

professional skaters....... I think not!

2012-01-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

So, the kids school had a family skate night, and since I haven't done much with the kids, because I haven't felt very good, I thought it would be fun to take them! so I loaded myself on headache meds and off we went! Zach and his friend got blades, Joey and his friend got skates, Alli and abby got skates, and jason chose a scooter. Jason was a wild man, and loved every second of it. Zach did really well with his blades, and had a blast. My girls, not so much, abby spent more time on her behind than on her skates, and alli would only skate around on the carpet. but joey, wouldn't even skate big chicken! He took his skates off, and brian kept eyeing them for a while before he decided to go ahead and try skating, well he went around once,and did ok, then he was skating with alli, and got his skates tangled in hers and went down. We are still not sure if his wrist is broke or not, and he sure is sore today, but he had fun anyway :) Maybe if he hurts bad enough, he will go to the dr. but I doubt it.

They had different kinds of races, Here is jason in the scooter race. he didn't win, but he sure was proud of himself! And he was fun to watch.

Abby wanted to do the sock race, she sure was cute running in her little stockings! she didn't win either, but she had a lot of fun.

And I am not sure what happened with my pictures, but this one is of me at 36 weeks!!!! I am so almost done, and I have to say I can't wait, I have been in such a bad mood, and in so much pain, with back labor for the last4 weeks, and a migraine for the last almosts 2 weeks sure makes for a mean momma. I had high hopes my dr would agree to start me at 37 weeks and get me out of my misery, but he informed me that he wouldn't start me till I hit 39 weeks because the baby is measuring at only 33-34 weeks it will give him a chance to catch up a little. but the thought of going 3 more weeks was too overwhelming for me, I cried for 2 days, and I still breakdown a couple times a day, but I really want this baby to be healthy. I am so torn, I have been on so many meds for my migraines that I feel the baby will be better off out of my body, but it seems I am the only one that thinks that. As I tell everyone everyday, I am DONE!!! I promise after delivery I will have more positive blogs, but for now, just saying it as it is, I am just plainly in a bad mood!! And I have bad thoughts about my dr that I thought I liked, but likeI said, I am sure it will all change once I hold my little baby! I am going to get more steroid shots in my head to get rid of this migraine, so that when it comes time to deliver, I can acutally do it without my head exploding, so that is my little soap opera life, I will let you all know when baby carroll gets here and I am happy again!!!
I do have to mention that besides the couple of phone calls I get from downey a week, which always make my day, I was grateful for the fraziers who sent down some real, straight out of the ground idaho spuds for me! what a treat.

the things kids say..........

2012-01-11T10:18:00.001-07:00

Ok, I have to say, all my kids say adorable things, (mostly cause they take after me) but this kid takes it to a whole new level!! He is always cracking us up. Everyday for homework he has to read a book to someone, and have it signed, the other day we asked him who he wanted to read to, he looks at all of us sitting there, and starts eeny meenie miny mo, well he stopped on me :) then he said Alli! I just ran out of meenies. Another funny moment.... I can't even remember what happened but jason stopped and looked at everyone and said "I did not see that coming" And of course thanks to our cars wii game and lightning mcqueen, his new favorite word, "perfection" he says things like, "this dinner is perfection" or " I look like perfection today" or " I was like perfection at school today" And of course when it comes to cooking, he has requested cinnamon toast for breakfast every morning, well this last weekend, brian got to make his toast. well it was a bit darker than mom makes it, he picked it up and looked and looked at it, then said, "your awesome dad, but mom is a better cook than you" then after he tried another piece of toast, dad finally made it to, you all know by now...."perfection" maybe you just have to be there, but I think its funny, and I think this adorable boy is perfection.

And as for this miracle picture, I have not been feeling very well lately, I have 5 weeks left of this pregnancy, and have been suffering with back labor pains, and migraines, my latest lasting the last 5 days, so I started dinner ( a lovely dinner of 2 different kinds of hamburger helper) and joey came up to see if I needed help, so even though it was mostly done, I asked him to stir while I got plates out. So this is proof that joey can help!!! He does it in his own style, but he helps!!
And in other baby news, I went to the dr. yesterday, got my steroid shot, and some meds for my migraine, (not helping yet, but I am hopeful) baby is still small, he should be just over 5 pounds now, and he is hovering around 4-4 1/2 lbs. or so they think, I am not sure how exactly they can say that, but we will see. We are all anxious to meet this little no name man. hopefully a name will come to us the second we see his little face. lately I have been calling him rocky cause he is beating me up! There is crazieness going on in me the last week or so. I am grateful for the good weather lately, I have not had to deal with much snow, or ice, so for that I am happy! after I have this baby, I can't wait to see the white stuff again!

organization yea!!!

2012-01-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

ok so one of my major goals of 2012 is to become and stay organized, it has never been my strong point, but I have always wanted it to be. I found this calender, and I am going to follow it this year, I thought I would share it because I am so exicted to get organized!! And this makes it easy, so if you want to follow it too, great, if not, thats ok too, just wanted to share it!
http://go.tipjunkie.com/go/pr/7525/www.mysimplerlife.com/2012.htm

goodbye 2011!!!!

2012-01-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

Ok!! so most of my friends and family know all about the difficult year of 2011 for us. First of all, during the begining of the year, I was having a difficult time raising our adorable 5 kids all by myself, it just keeps getting harder, so brian and I had many discussions about how to get him home more, but at the same time, his work was keeping him longer and longer in north dakota then he got layed off. so he started looking for work, He finallly found a job in salt lake. So he basically moved in with his parents, which didn't fix our problem of me raising our kids alone, so we made the difficult decision to put our house up for sell. Brian was excited, I was aprehensive. Then we found out about our surprise baby! We weren't quite sure if this was good or not, but of course all babies are blessings, It was just a shock. So I told brian I can't raise 6 kids alone, we needed to be together, so he started looking for a place for us in Ut. and found one at the end of july, However as my downey friends know, the fair was the first week in august! So packing didn't happen for me untill the week we had to move. So thanks to all my friends that helped us out!! It was crazy, I also almost misscarried that week, but things turned out ok there! So we left our home, and our wonderful friends and started our new adventure in utah. And what an adventure it has been. As I have said before, so I won't bore you with the detailes, the kids have done WONDERFUL!! They adjusted better than I ever imagined they would. Brian loves where we are, and then there is me, I am homesick. I miss my friends and home in downey. It is so hard for me to adjust knowing that this place is temporary. So we finished the the year and had hopes and dreams of a better 2012, so far, I am frustrated, our stove has been out for a week, and I ruined our microwave (long story there) so life has been interesting. but on the plus side, I went to my O.B. today, and my little baby boy has grown a little, I am now 34 weeks along, and he is measuring at about 31 weeks, he is little, but still trying to grow! so we are plugging along and getting anxious to see this little one! And of course once I have him, I can plan a trip back to downey to visit!!! So as for 2012, I have made a few goals, to be more positive, to get organized, and to be a better mom and wife. So wish me lots of luck on my goals, I need it!!!

highlights of christmas

2011-12-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

Brian was very determined this year to make a gingerbread house, so he did!! It took almost 2 weeks, but this is the final project, finished christmas eve. brian wouldn't let the kids eat it till the day after christmas. But I thought the kids (and brian) did great!

Alli helping me make chocolate carmel popcorn, YUM!!! she is turning out to be quite the little helper. And she loves it, bonus. And the popcorn was delish.

Last year, living in downey, on chirstmas eve, it was raining/snowing, and when the kids looked outside there was a bottle of sparkling apple juice on the railling, so the little kids were certain that it rained down their christmas drink. Well this year, it happened again, only it wasn't raining, we got a knock on the door, and this was sitting there!

Here are all the kids toasting to christmas with their apple juice! so cute. Then they each got to open a christmas eve present....

This year they got fuzzy socks, They look so cute in their fuzzies.

And just a small highlight of christmas morning, The kids were all so happy, and so fun. Hope everybody had a great christmas.

christmas party games, and oh baby, 32 weeks

2011-12-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to put this pic in with my last post, so here is what I got for my 1 person baby shower!! pretty handsome stuff, I can't hardly wait to get some of these clothes on my baby! Thanks again mom and dad love ya tons!

And yes here is the belly! And just so you all know, I do realize that I am not HUGE, but this is the biggest I have ever gotten with a pregnancy, so for me this is huge!! I'm feeling like I can't get bigger, but I am sure I will. I have started going to my dr. appts every week, and every week I get a non stress test, and an ultrasound just to make sure this little peanut is doing ok. so far so good, its just mama that is tired, with a backache, headaches, you know the usual. but also anxious to get through the holidays and meet this kid!

ok, so my family won't appreciate that I posted these pics, but they are so cute, and funny. At our christmas party, we played games I have not seen before. this one was a team effort, each member of the team had to blow up 5 balloons, and stuff them in pantyhose, then get them on one of their heads to look like antlers. It was so funny, and I thought these guys looked pretty good!

Another game I have not seen yet, they had the head of each family stand still while their kids and grandkids decorated them like trees! It was a blast to watch, that is my cute daddy on the right, All the kids decorated so cute,and had so much fun, lots of laughs that night..... can't hardly wait for christmas.

first lost tooth, christmas cooking, and my mini baby shower

2011-12-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

Jason has been patiently waiting to lose his first tooth, during kindergarten most of his friends started losing teeth, but not jason. (abby either) The first of the summer abby had to get 4 teeth pulled, so she lost a bunch at the same time, but still jason waited, finally.....here we are in december of first grade he finally lost his first tooth. He was eating a piece of toast, and couldn't bite it, I checked his teeth, and it was practically falling out. so one little yank, and he was eating toast again. He was pretty happy.

And the tooth fairy came, that made him even happier :)

ok so my darling hubby decided to make a homemade gingerbread house. Here are the kiddos rolling and cutting out, its not put together quite yet, but will be soon, and I will have to show you all how it turned out.

And of course the clean up, these two little monkeys wanted to help clean up, so I put them on dishes duty. They loved it, they had so much fun, it was crazy, I made sure to tell them they could do dishes any time they wanted to!

baking marathon, here are my cookie balls that I turned into meliting snowmen.

The 3 older kids wrapping up the carmels, and eating a few.

The table filled with all the things we made, ready to take to neighbors, ( we only know like 3 or 4 so we may have leftovers, lol)

My darling mother threw me a surprise baby shower, well, a mini baby shower, everything was from her. I am so grateful for my mom and dad, they are the best parents ever! Me and the kids had so much fun opening things for our little baby, who only has 8 more weeks till he is due!

Such cute clothes.

And of course coming to our family, I found this shirt quite fitting, it says 'wild child' He should fit right in. we are all getting excited to meet our little one.

First christmas party of the season :)

2011-12-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

The kids watching grandma barbara open her gift, we gave them a frosty the snowman book that the kids recorded themselves reading, while recording the book I have to say we have never laughed so hard in our lives!!! crazy fun. my kids are all such goofballs.

mmmm, zach is so happy, he loves dingdongs! (and gift cards)

joey looks pretty happy himself!

and our cousin Sean opening his present, he is so cute! But he was a little shy around my wild monkeys, the motorcycles that him and jason both got helped get him up and playing though!

Alli's cute shirt! she loves it, of course she is a girl, she loves clothes :)

Abby got a new coat, which I have to say, is perfect timing, she was starting to outgrow her old one!

Jason even though he has a funny look on his face, was so hyper,and so crazy, he had a blast, he cannot wait till the next christmas party. He is a total party animal.

Tommy, Andrew, and Sean hanging out, watching all the crazieness. We had a blast at this christmas party! It really put us in the christmas mood.

Andrew is always so generous with our family, and we love all he does for us!

daddy opening our present, looks like the girls are curious. Even though there is no snow, having christmas parties sure helps with the christmas mood.
I think everyone who reads my blog anyway, knows what an extremely hard year this has been, it has not gotten easier, but we are sure working on it. first finding out we are expecting a surprise baby, it took a while to get use to that idea, in fact I am not sure I am still use to it.But we only have 9 more weeks! then having to move back to utah, and leaving our beautiful home, and all of our friends, that was hard, but having brian home everynight has made such a difference in our lives, the kids have changed so much they are maturing and happy! Not that they are perfect, close, but they are awesome! Zach is changing so much 9th grade is a major leap for my little boy. Not only is he more social than I have ever seen him, he is doing better in school, and just plain happy.I am sure starting to get facial hair has helped him with his happiness and my stress. Joey who has never really had a problem being social, has taken it over the top. He is so happy, school we will not talk about, but I will say he is one happy kid! Alli is loving 6th grade, she has a great teacher, and is making some really great friends, she is so helpful to me, and can't wait for this baby to get here. Abby is doing so great in first grade, she loves school, and is doing great in it. We have discovered with abby that party of her sleeping problem (most of you know about it) is linked to sugar. we have taken most of the sugar out of her diet, and she is finally sleeping!! she is so much happier. Jason is doing awesome. kindergarten was so hard for him, but he is LOVING first grade, and his teacher is the best ever. I couldn't ask for a better teacher for jj. He is growing taller every day, he just may catch up with big brother joey! As for me and brian, we are doing pretty good, he loves it here, and is loving acutally being a daddy! I am still homesick for my downey, and I miss being surrounded by my friends, pregnancy and settling in a new house is hard without any friends, but I still talk to most of them, and the computer is so helpful keeping me up to date on what is going on back home! Like I said before, we only have 9 weeks for this little one to get here, I now have to take it "easy" and I am trying, but with 5 kids already, taking it easy is a little hard. And I am hoping that with the holidays the time will fly by! I wanted to say thanks to all my family and friends who read my blog, and comment, love you all!! And merry chirstmas :)

Allis science fair, and my little love bug

2011-12-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

So, life is so different here! I am still getting use to it, among regular life! But allis 6th grade class was required to participate in the science fair, so alli and her cute friend baylee teamed up, and got started, here she is by her project.

Alli and Baylee showing how proud they are of their project, I was so proud of them too!

Waiting, trying to be patient while waiting to hear the results of the science fair.

They each got a participation award, alli was a little bummed, but I explained to her that although her project was great, there were over 110 entries in the 6th grade! But the girls were happy with their extra large pixie sticks nothing like sugar to make a girl feel better :)

In fact good enough to strike a pose, Love that girl!!!

And yes, I had to add this in, the family was playing wii last night, and I was sitting by jason, the sweet little guy reached over and held my had for the longest time!! melted my heart. He has been so clingy lately, I am not sure why, but clinging to both me and brian. We have been loving it, taking full advantage of the extra lovings. but hopefully the little guy is just tired the last few days. But I'll take it as long as I can.
I have also sat the family down and made our christmas bucket list of all the things we want to do during this christmas season. so look for more exciting posts about some of our adventures!

turkey and trees.

2011-11-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to be asked to do desserts for turkey day this year! we had so much fun. Here is jason holding the cake balls getting ready to put them in the freezer, he had so much fun helping to make them.

Here is alli helping out! Abby and the boys were playing wii, so they were too busy to help!

My and my sis on thanksgiving, LOVE HER!!! and of course my daddy in the background.

Zach sneaking a roll, (thats my grandma in the back there)

getting ready to eat!

mmm, everything is soooooo good.

joey ready to dig in.

Ok, now this has a story behind it, kind of a crazy one, it started with the boys bringing up my totes up from the basement, joey stepped on one of those stupid glue traps to catch mice, (no more mice here btw) it turned upside down, got all over the carpet, and made a mess, then jason went downstairs to see what all the commotion was, then stepped in the glue with his church pants which happen to be too long. so we stripped him down to his undies, and he just went like that the rest of the day, so I apologize all our tree decorating pics are with jason in his undies!!! Here he his showing off his new "socks".

Alli and underwear boy putting ornaments on.

Abby and underwear boy finding just the right place for the ornaments.

My babies, someday I will get a pic where noone is pulling a face, lol.

Then we snuck into the kitchen for some hot cocoa, the perfect ending.

Zach loves hot cocoa!

mmm, mmm, good :)

2011-11-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have my darling sister to blame for this one. She sent me a pic of this that she made, and of course it looked delish, then alli told me she was having a party at school the next day and she needed to bring a treat, so this of course came to mind, since it never left, and fyi, the original recipe called for regular popcorn, but I had these pops so I used them.

mmm, mmm good, so you take your popcorn add whatever carmal sauce you usually make, (if anyone wants my recipe just let me know) then you add 1 c. of chopped up halloween candy chocolate bars, bake it for 10 min. then add another cup of chopped up candy bars, then enjoy, way too good.

And then I made these, caramel cheesecake snickerdoodle sandwiches. ooooh yea.

and thats how this happened, lol,, I finally have a belly ;) Well I have made it to 28 weeks, some days it seems to go by soooo slow, then I look back and think wow, that was fast, and even crazier the end of this pregnancy is coming faster. And I'm not ready, we are clueless about a name, need lots of things for him still, and yet the time just keeps going by. I officially have 12 more weeks, but as we all know my other babies all came a month early, so I need to get ready. The fun part is I start going in to the dr every 2 weeks now. He is keeping a real close eye on baby, the migraine meds I am taking have a tendency to make a baby smaller, so not only do I get an ultrasound every appt with my dr. he is ordering an ultrasound with his tech every 2-3 weeks to check on the babys growth. so I am getting to see my little ones personality a lot. Today he must be either frustrated, or ready to meet his brothers, both his hands were tight in fists, lol. He wouldn't show me his face today, but everything else still looks great! (and still a boy) so I will keep you updated!!!

I wanna be locked up!

2011-11-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been very negative (I've noticed this in my posts, so sorry about that) I am really not that depressed, and I have to say, my kids keep me going, I find something to laugh with or smile at several times a day. Well I came across this poem a while back, and it talks about exactly how I feel.

I want to be locked up

(thoughts from a harried mom, who is beginning to think some time in a minimum security, white collar crime prison is looking pretty good.)

I want to be locked up
Away from everything,
Free from all the craziness
A mothers day can bring.
No planning, shopping, cooking
Three healthy meals a day,
Served up with love to finicky kids
Who throw most of it away.
No constant interruptions,
Dirty laundry on the floor,
Driving everyone every place,
Sibling rivalry (Its war!)
No one asking me to do things,
Getting mad if I forget,
Me giving up my very self-
I'm the family marionette.
Prison sometimes looks appealing
(or maybe the looney bin),
I get free time and three square meals;
With nothing to do, I win!
I want to be locked up
For freedom, time and such,
There's just one obstacle for me;
I LOVE MY KIDS TOO MUCH!!!
by Joanna Fuchs

So there ya have it, I guess I'm not going anywhere, lol.

happy halloween!

2011-11-03T19:16:00.000-06:00

Happy Halloween! I am so happy that the weather stayed nice for trick or treating! It made it a whole lot funner! Here are my munchkins all dressed up. Zach is dressed up as zach, joey is dressed up as zak bagans from the show ghost adventures, alli is my cute little hippie. Abby is a witch with a butterfly on her face from her school party. And jason even though it is the same costume all night, he went from an alligator to a dinosaur to a dragon.

Getting ready for the trunkortreat.

abby is ready to go!

Jason tried to give me a mean face, I just think its adorable.

These next pics are jj and brian. My dad works at lowes, and he gets those cute little "kid projects" that jason LOVES to do. so here they are making the monster box.

I guess his neck itched, and he used the only thing he had. funny kid.

pregnancy woes and painting

2011-10-27T15:51:00.001-06:00

So I had my 6 month checkup today, with the gluecose test. That test always makes me feel ucky. But I did it, and I am on the borderline, but they are letting it go anyway. Yea!!!! I can still enjoy my occasional sweet, or more than occasional. Baby is doing good, his growth has slown down a bit, so the dr is keeping a close eye on him. but so far pretty good. And I figured I don't have any pics of me pregnant with my other kids so I thought I should start taking some pics :) I know im not that big yet, I have what I call a spine hugger, I am totally uncomfortable because he is hugging my spine all the time. And there is not all that much room to eat! I take 4 bites of dinner and I get full, sometimes I wish my belly would just pop out so I could eat, lol.

Another lovely aspect of my pregancy is I needed to get reading glasses. The dr is sure my perfect eyesight will come back after baby is born, hopefully! we shall see.

Ok, here are my ugly house pics, this is the poop brown color that was in my laundry room and bathroom, pretty gross huh.

laundry room

bathroom. I know they are out of order, I am brain dead today, the after pics of bathroom and laundry room are down below.

the boys painting their room. Needless to say, they did one wall, and I finished the room! Crazy boys.

Jason decided he wanted to help the big brothers.

After :) Not too bad huh. the blue is so relaxing. This is zachs little corner.

and this is joeys corner. thank goodness I have a picture, cause it has never been this clean again.

My kitchen, I painted it the same yellow as my old house hoping I will like the kitchen a bit more if the color was the same.

Bathroom after pics. so clean and fresh!!!

laundry room, I had to leave the poop brown color because I couldn't move out the washer and dryer, in fact to get them in we had to take out a door frame, so I painted the top half and added the border, it helps soooooo much!

And finally alli's room, yes the green is as bright as it looks, maybe even brighter! It is such a happy room.

So far that is it, I still have to paint abby and jasons room, my room the family room, the movie room, and the living room, plus 2 more bathrooms. but all that overwhelmes me, so one at a time right. if anyone feels like painting, feel free to give me a call, lol. I take any and all volunteers, well except teenage boys.

pics of my munchkins!

2011-10-17T11:03:00.000-06:00

We went for a sunday drive yesterday, mostly because I needed to get new pics of the kiddos, with 5 in school now, we just can't order the school pics, they have gotten way too expensive, so I the very ameture photographer that I am, went and took my own. They didn't turn out too bad. Of course with kids as cute as mine, its pretty easy :)

Not the best picture, butI loved how they looked hanging out over the water.

I had to throw this one in, I'm sure the boys won't like it, but I thought it was pretty cute!

And we couldn't leave out the littlest one! Here he is waving at everyone.

And my upside down baby, with his long legs.

life is sometimes a big headache!

2011-10-14T11:01:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while, I thought I would catch everyone up a little. The move was and is a bit much for me, I am surviving, but wish I could feel settled. I feel anything but!!! I am missing my friends, in fact I ordered a big order of french frys for lunch the other day to honor my idaho friends :) I really miss all of you! I have been very busy painting and organizing and reorganizing, on top of running kids everywhere, and dealing with pregnancy and headaches. Which leads me to what I did yesterday.... but to back up a bit, my OB refused to treat my headaches, which is a little frustrating, so I went to a chiropractor, which has helped a bit, usually for the day I go and the next, then I went to a neurologist yesterday for more help. She put me on a new "safe" med, which happens to make me sick, and also gave me 2 cortizone steroid shots in the back of my head. Which hurt like crazy, and have a 50-50 chance of even working, and it only works for 1-3 months, but I only have to make it 4 more months till I can go back on my regular meds that I know work. so I will hang in there, and go day to day! but so far baby is fine! (and still a boy ;)
Brian and I have a new calling in the ward, we are teaching sunday school, the 15 and 16 year olds, SCARY!!! I still havent figured out what to do with my own teenager. what were they thinking???? I hope I don't ruin them all. If all else fails, bring treats right? speaking of treats, for this time of year, I have a new favorite treat, (I have made it twice) look here and try it out. http://picky-palate.com/2011/10/06/double-chocolate-pumpkin-cake-with-pumpkin-spice-buttercream/ soooo delish! anyway, sorry if this turned into a blubber fest, I have been taking pics of the rooms I finish, so I will post them soon!

oh baby!!

2011-09-27T13:45:00.000-06:00

It's a boy!!!
I had my ultrasound yesterday, and it looks like we are going to add to our great boys!!! Us girls are so outnumbered now, and it is going to stay that way, lol. I copied a great idea from my friend and made cupcakes with blue frosting in the middle to surprise our families, Here are the kids finding out!!

and even though alli really wanted a girl, she is pretty excited still.

grandma and grandpa carroll finding out about another grandbaby :)

Here is the cupcake I made with yummy blue frosting in it! We are all so excited.

hello my name is mindy......

2011-09-16T12:45:00.000-06:00

Hello my name is Mindy and I am addicted to food network!!!! Maybe its the pregnant thing, I don't know but I have been watching all these great shows on the food network channel! I was watching one the other day, if I remember right, it was man vs. food and they made these awesome HUGE cinnamon rolls that had my mouth watering! So I decided to try it.......... here is what I did.....

I made my normal bread dough, split it in half, and rolled it out in a rectangle......

then I slathered butter all over that yummy dough.......

then add handfuls of brown sugar, followed by cinnamon.........mmmmmm you can almost taste it now right???

then I rolled it up into a little lushious sugar log....

cut it in half, and instead of cutting it into small cinnamon rolls you take that each half, secure the bottom so the stuff doesn't fall out.... and make 2 HUGE cinnamon rolls like these,

You put them in a pan and squish them down so they are more fat than tall.....

Bake these bad boys up...............delish

and the only thing to make it better is cover it with cream cheese frosting :)

Here is cute Alli with one of the cinnamon rolls. delish!

jasons 6th birthday and a few house pics

2011-09-06T11:08:00.000-06:00

The cutest 6 year old boy just had his birthday!! Wow time flies, I can't belive my baby boy is 6 already. He had a great birthday, we celebrated with family a couple of days before his birthday, then on his birthday he got more presents. And of course he cracked me up the next morning when he woke up and told me that I could go to the store while he was in school and get him some more presents and wrap them up for him. What a kid!!!

Jason with his HUGE handful of money from grandpa carrolls money bag! he got almost $9.00 my what big hands he has, lol.

And of course he wanted a transformer cake! as usual. but this one me and my parents made for him. He loved it!

jj opening his presents

love that kids smile! He had such and amazing day.

hmmm maybe he should have got socks for his birthday!

Ok, so I have been avoiding putting pics of the new house on here cause I can't get everything put away, and it is a MESS so I thought I would put premove in pics up! I know its kinda cheating, but its what you get! this is our family room.

and the kitchen, it is pretty small, and seems even smaller when my crazy kids are in it with me.

This is the view from the family room up to the kitchen

and I actually have a deck! we have been eating outside on these cool nights, it feels so good outside. This is brian fixing an owie on jj's foot.

yep, hes reading the paper! And here is the kids getting ready to eat dinner!!

and in other news....... I am 17 weeks today!!! wow it has gone by really fast. Its been hard moving and finding energy to get everything done that I need to do, finding a new dr. proved frustrating, but I have found one, looks like I will be having this baby at the Mckay Dee hospital, so far things are going good, just need to find that darn energy! (as I sit on the computer all morning) I am also really missing all my friends from back home, its amazing how I took you all for granted, I wasn't much of a phone caller, or hang at your house and visit, but just knowing you were there and I could made me feel secure, without that here, I am a little lost. I know you are all still a phone call away, so don't be surprised if I call and just want to chat!! Thanks for being my friends while I was there!! I miss you all.

new, new, new

2011-08-18T21:33:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I finally got a computer hooked up!!! I have so missed it. Its amazing how much I need it, lol. So the new house is coming along, I have a lot of organizing to do, and endless amount actually! And I am a bit homesick for idaho! But I am hanging in there. I will get a pic of everything going on soon, I havent found that connection piece yet! BUT..... I can finally announce, now that family has been told that we will be adding a new little one to our family on valentines day!!! Believe it or not, (most will not) but yes we are pregnant. Scary, exciting, amazing, and very crazy all at once. But us and the family have taken it quite well so far. The kids are so excited, of course the boys know its a boy, and the girls know its a girl, we will see next month :) More updates later! with pics.

It's official!!

2011-08-09T11:19:00.000-06:00

I know it seems fast, and it is, trust me, but yes the rumors are true, we are moving! In fact we are moving this weekend. We finally made the decision to get our whole family, (even brian) in the same state, and same house! It has been way too long since we have all been together, and with teenage boys, I need all the help I can get. So although it is truley heartbreaking to leave our beautiful home, and this wonderful town, with all our friends, we feel this is the best decision for us right now!! (does that sound practiced, its what I keep repeating in my head,) This is a very hard move for me, I have so many wonderful friends here, and I hate to leave. I don't know who is more afraid to start over, me or my boys! but we will be just fine! I felt the same when we moved here, and that turned out to be a good move. And I made lots of friends, so I totally plan on keeping in touch with all of you! Thanks for all your support and love! If any of you want our new address send me a text, or message and I will email it to you :)

update on our scouts up at scout camp!!!

2011-07-29T12:08:00.000-06:00

ok moms, I got a great update on our boys camping, first of all they are all doing GREAT! there have been no proble,s in camp, the boys are working real hard, and earning a lot of merit badges. Yesterday they went on their hike. They were hiking to table rock, which is about 12 miles round trip. They were going to go up the backside, which is easier, but it was closed. So they went right up the face, which is almost straight up! They had to claw their way up to the top, and they ALL made it. of course with all scouts they made it a competition, the boys who made it first were, justin, bo, jonathan, and zach. When they got to the top, they had to get througth 6' of snow! Im sure they loved it. They headed back down, and it took about 4 hours to get to the bottom. But they all did it. this was such a difficult hike, it is one the boys will never forget! Then after that they had a class to go to, that is all but zach and terrence. they were back at camp and decided to make a peach cobbler for everyone, I guess it turned out BEAUTIFUL. but the boys then acccidentaly dumped it in the dirt, but no fear our scouts are resourceful, they simply scooped it up, put it back in the dutch oven stirred it around a bit, (while jim stood back and laughed) and then that evening with all the boys back at camp, they served it, sticks, dirt and all, and yes, it was eaten! Then there is a battle of the tetons, This is the first year our troop has had a group in the finals, those boys are, jonathon, joey, bo and tayson. so today around 3:30 the finals in this battle will start. all 4 boys get in a canoe, with shields and bucket, and attack the other canoes trying to flood them, the winner is the last canoe floating, I for one am very eccited to hear the outcome of that one. Last night they also had what is called the order of the arrow. this is the first time in 10 years any of our troop have made it! The boys that got to experience this was, jack, jonathon, bo and tayson. It was an awesome ceremony with full indian clothing and official ceremony. today they are playing games. a relay where one scout starts with a 150 yard swim, tags, next runs to the rifle range to hit at target, tags, next runs to the archery area hits a target, tags, then the last has to run and tie a series of knots.
It sounds like they are all having such a great time, Thor said the leaders are good, wore out, but good! He went and bought watermelon for a treat tonight! I think that is it! can't wait to see our boys tomorrow, (and much necessary showers, thor said they all really stink)

little late but worth the wait!

2011-07-28T12:11:00.000-06:00

Abby's 6th birthday!! wow time flies! she wanted a car cake, so alli helped me decorate a pink car cake!

Abby sitting with all her presents, patiently waiting to open them.

Thanks to all the family and friends that gave our abby a wonderful birthday! She was pretty happy that day!

And the big 6 year old blowing out the candles, I think it took her 6 blows, but she made it last, and that is what counts!

4th of july!!

2011-07-07T18:47:00.000-06:00

Our 4th of july was so much fun, I got to hang out at my mom and dads house, and enjoy watching the kids play with their cousins! I also foiund some red, white and blue hair gel for the boys, it was SO fun!

Alli and Abby with their annual pic by grandmas flowers.

FOOTBALL!!! the boy cousins playing and having a BLAST!

And this, I had to take a pic of it, it is not homemade, but so fun I couldn't help myself its a DONUT!!! with red and yellow frosting on it!! how fun is this!!

I had to sneak this one in, jj wanted his own pic on the blog!
p.. those of my friends with blogs, I have been checking them out, but something is wrong with my computer and won't let me comment, so sorry I want to but cant till I get it fixed, sorry!!!! I love you all!

Flowers and haircuts

2011-06-18T21:35:00.000-06:00

We went for a drive today to get out of the house for a while, and found this hill covered in sunflowers, I HAD to take a picture, so I sent all my kids up the hill and this is what I got!! I thought it was pretty cute!

Don't know what it is lately but my big boys insist on wearing camo ALL THE TIME, so of course I find a great place for pics and my boys are in camo..... oh well what do you do huh.

They still look pretty good!

Alli LOVED the big flowers! she was having the most fun.

Abby with her little flower. She was having so much fun running around.

Jason had a hard time looking at the camera because of the sun. but I love this pic anyway because it just showes off his expressive eyebrows :)

Haircuts finally!! they are hard to see because Jason is obsessed with rubbing his own, and daddys (and now joeys) head!! He loves that fuzzy feeling.

swim meet and summer reading program!!!!

2011-06-13T11:18:00.001-06:00

Joey had another swim meet this weekend, He did pretty good!!! And finally I was able to get close enough to get some decent pictures!! Here he is doing his least favorite stroke, the breast stroke, but he is improving at it all the time!

And his all time favorite the freestyle! he barely comes up to breath!

My favorite to watch because I can't do it without drowning myself, the butterfly! He looks so awsome doing it And check out his wingspan!! His arms are so long! He was so good at this one.

And here is the little thief who kept taking my sunglasses all day! at least he was so cute, I couldn't get mad!

And our little setup to watch the meet, here are salt and pepper comparing drinks, who's was the most full! they were having a blast!

pics were a little out of order here, but just to show how wore out the kids were! yea it was a long day!

This is a pic of the sun I took, kinda sweet huh! it has a rainbow around it! It was amazing, maybe you fellow idahoans will see it on the news soon, I submitted it :)

So, I started this summer reading program, and it has really taken off in my family, I got the idea from a friends blog, so thanks emily! So for every 10 pages my kids read, they get a sticker,, and for every 10 stickers they get a treat! they have been reading like CRAZY!!! its amazing I should have done it during school, lol.

look joey is acutally reading a book, not my first choice in books, but a book!!!

Here are our reading charts, and our prize jars, fun, fun, fun, the kids are so going to be ready for school next year!!!

so out of the blogging mode but I'm trying!!!

2011-06-09T12:32:00.000-06:00

So I am a little bit late, but I am trying to get better! I haven't been in to mood to blog lately, in fact I haven't taken many pics at all lately, I am in a big funk! I am trying to pull myself out of it, we will see! but anyway, Here are my adorable kiddos at their kindergarten graduation, they made it!!! Jason giving his part.....

Abby getting her diploma....she looks nervous, but I'm sure deep down she was excited.

Jason just wanted to get his cookie and go home. ...

Here are the graduates, they are looking happy now :)

Here are the graduates with their kindergarten teacher! proud moment! I am so proud of them, it was a rough year, Abby struggled with her routine, she loves having a routine, and when it changes, she has a hard time, and school does not always stay the same, so she has had to learn to adjust a bit, but she did quite well, she is reading,and loving it! Jason, is also reading, however his problem was with being silly too much, and not wanting to come in from recess! goofball, I think he learned that from his brothers, but he is being sent to first grade!!!! good luck first grade teachers ;)

And then on to some crazy stuff, we decided to make homeade popcorn, in a pan, well I wasn't checking over the boys as they started it, and they put A LOT of kernals in the pan so when it started poping they had to be ready with bowls for when it started poping over!!!! but all in all it was fun, and a learning experience.

Jason didn't want to get too close! he found the perfect place to watch.

Now please don't judge my cleaning skills, this room is down in the basement, I don't even go downt there then entire winter because its too cold, but the kids love it because thats where they watch movies, year round, they take sleeping bags, and hang out there, cold or not, this was before I cleaned it, so sorry about the HUGE mess!!! Alli and her cute friend Morgan had been practicing for a show to put on for us, it was adorable!!! They worked so hard it was so much fun!

And their outfits were adorable, they danced to justin beiber, ymca, chicken dance, all the goodies, we were so entertained!!! so much fun.

And to wrap up this crazy post, here are our 3 kittens jason is so in love with them. They reside under our shed. and only come out once in a while. but they are so much fun!
Well as for everything else, we are all hanging in there, we have put our house up for sale, Brian has been in and out of work for most of this year, and we have decided that we need to go where work is more steady, and where brian can be home every night! hard decision, but we feel its the right one. So crazy life changes, but I guess thats what we all go through. Its been rough, and I am sure it will get harder before it gets easier. I just am looking forward to that silver lining around the black cloud!!!

hold on for the ride!

2011-05-23T11:29:00.000-06:00

My little girl has turned 11! What a little sweetheart! And let me tell you her birthday was a whirwind. We asked her if we could celebrate a few days later, but nope, she wanted it on her birthday. So after t-ball, and dance, and scouts, and mutual, at 9:30 we finally celebrated her birthday, but it was ok, she was so happy!

She fianlly got her big hoop earings :) yea!

And a skipper jump rope thingy, which she is really good at, (I will practice when nobody is around so I can get good and show off to everybody later)

And this fun big volleyball game which if it ever stops raining she will really enjoy playing!

Happy birthday birthday my beatiful princess.

and a new shirt from grandma and grandpa carroll!

Then on to zach's middle school graduation, BBQ and minute to win it fun!! He had a blast. here he is having fun playing the games.

Zach seems pretty fleible leaning all the way over to pick up the sacks for this game.

Stacking up the bolts, he seems pretty steady.

AND THEN.........on to lagoon (or as jj calls it the goon) the girls had a dance competiton so off we were to lagoon to dance and play! first of all, allis team took first, yea, and abbys team took second, yea!! here are the kids and brian playing!!

playing on the log ride!

I tried to get jason's face, but he kept it down the whole time, funny kid!

Me and the crazy kids , we all had a BLAST!! a little too much sun, a little too much fun. great family day! my kids amaze me, they all went on roller coasters, Abby was a little short to go on some, but she wanted to, but the rest of them went on crazy roller coasters that blew me away! my kids are fearless! I love them.

my mothers day

2011-05-10T10:01:00.001-06:00

These are the adorable "breakfast in bed" sacks that salt and pepper made for me in school to give me on mothers day. they were so excited they had a hard time waiting! and how cute are those pics of me on the front.

These are the goods. a little apple juice, granola bar,a fig bar, and a napkin, then on mothers day, jason came running in, and threw the sack on my bed, and said happy mothers day! and ran off, It was pretty cute. unfortunatley abby was sick so ,I got my sack from her later.

This is the poem on the front of the sack, I thought it was adorable.

Being a mom means everything to me! I love my kids more than anything, they teach me so much every day. I am hopefully growing as a mom all the time and getting better at it! I love my kids so much!

my baby is 14!!!!

2011-05-04T16:31:00.000-06:00

I find it so hard to believe that my baby boy is now 14, it went so fast, Zach is such a fun kid. He has such a unique sense of humor, he keeps us laughing all the time. We all just love him so much!

Can you believe we got all those candles on one cake!

Zach is the ultimate gamer. He would play games 24/7 if we let him, so of course every holiday or b-day he asks for a new game, and this is the one he got this time :)

one happy teenager! love you buddy!

decisions, decisions , decisions

2011-04-29T18:12:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I really don't like being the grown up. I close my eyes and go back in time to when I was a little kid running around the circle I grew up on, in my mismatched hand-me-down outfit, with my hair not combed, eating a popsicle as fast as I could before I melted. Staying out till dark, laughing with my friends, riding my bike or jumproping, or playing tetherball. Now here I sit, with my 5 darling children trying to make the very best decisions for them. Not sure at all what to do. I am sure my parents anguished over the decisions they made, and they were great, because it seemed to me that they made the decicions so easily! My problems seem so HUGE! Do I try to change the kids schools, do I try to home school, do we move, do we stay, if we move do we go to north dakota, or salt lake, And it seems like all these decisions need to be made RIGHT NOW! I have prayed, I have pondered, I have done what I feel I should do to get answers, but I still don't know what to do. I have sent the kids to school and waited till it was absolutley quiet, and just layed on the living room floor, and waited for divine inspiration to flow into me!! yet there is none. I am still clueless as to what to do, what is best for me and my kids, I have a daughter who has no friends, who wants to go to a different school, I have twins, (kinda) who probably should be in 2 different classes, I think it would be better for them, but my boys are pretty happy where they are, as for me..... I guess all in all, it doesn't much matter, I sit in my house all day, alone, so I am pretty portable. I can be alone here or alone somewhere else. You know what, being a grown up kinda stinks sometimes, I am not trying to make you all feel bad for me, I am truly not, I am just so confused, I know we all as adults come across things in our lives that we struggle with, and usually I am so great with snap decisions, even big ones, but this one has me stumped. oh well, I will keep up with my praying and pondering! thanks for the sounding board! Maybe I will go outside and eat a popsicle and relive my youth, and feel better :)
p.s. update on my thumb. I went to the dr. today, after wearing my oh so sexy thumb brace which I totally blinged out, it so did not do anything to help me, so we are back to thinking it is RA so I had a shot of cortisone today, the shot was not so bad, but as the day is wearing on, the pain is increasing. so I have upped my pain pills for now hopefully by tomorrow or so it will feel better, he said the shot should make me feel better for 8 months to a year, if it works at all, I don't know if that makes me feel better or not!

she got me good!

2011-04-18T09:19:00.000-06:00

Ok so another addition to the funny things kids say! We were at church yesterday, and I went to pick up salt and pepper from their class, Their teachers just gave me the craziest look when I got there, then they busted up laughing! They said their lesson was on the word of wisdom and what they should and shouldn't do, and my little pepper shouts out "my mom drinks and drives all the time" so now, they are going to turn me into the bishop. I guess I need to get it under control. NO MORE DIET DR. PEPPER WHILE DRIVING! Thank goodness they explaind the difference after they stopped laughing their heads off. so I think for the most part I am ok to go on with life as I always have. Pepper has ok'd my drinking. so we are good! What a goofball.

april dance comps!

2011-04-12T15:57:00.000-06:00

Alli and Abby have done a couple of competitons and have a couple more to do! April and May are competition months. Then we are off for the summer. Here are the girls all dolled up. They are having so much fun, and doing so great. The last one we went to, Alli's group took first place, and abby's group took second! great job girls!

Abby and her friend Lexis. getting ready to dance!

the funny thing kids say.........

2011-04-05T12:10:00.000-06:00

I could follow my kids around with a notebook and just jot down the thing they say all day, and at times like now when I want to share how funny my kids are I wish I did because I am forgetting what they said! oh well I remember a few. yes all my kids are funny, but the lttler (is that a word, and if it is I know its spelled wrong) ones say the goofiest things. Jason comes up with great ones. Abby is like a 15 year old stuck in a 5 yerar old body, but she hears me say things wrong and asks for things later the way she heard them. Like the other day I was cooking carrotts and I told her I would let her have raw carrots the next day as a snack. Well the next day she asked me if she was going to have rotton carrots for her snack! eeewww. then this weekend I had given her some medicine for her sneezing, a few days later she asked for an energy pill, I looker at her like she was crazy! then realized she was asking for an allergy pill, I am thinking of maybe getting her hearing checked. Jason on the other hand is just a class clown. He asked me the other day if he had 2 faces, I said no he only had 1 face, why, he said his one mouth is talking, but so is his tummy so he must have 2 faces! then he told me the other day that he knew who the easter bunny was, I was a little nervous to ask who he thought the easter bunny was: not exactly sure what he was going to come up with, well, I should have known, he told me of course mom, its hop!!! Haven't you seen the commercials? I love my kids they keep me on my toes every single day!
And on to less fun stuff, to keep you all up on my thumb drama, I wemt to the rheumatologist last week, because a blood test I had taken had come back with elevated RA levels, and although they are still elvated, he is not convinced I have rheumatoid arthritis. Simply because it generally shows up on both sides of the body, if it is on one hand it is on the other also. Since it is only in one thumb, he is not so sure, but I don't feel so great when you are sitting there and all you hear are hmmm, well this is different, I'm not sure. I have lost my faith in dr.s. It is frustrating. Or as jason says fruchfrating!!!! So his best guess is I have somehow injured it without my knowledge, he has put me on a week of steroids, and a month of antinflamitories, and a brace. If in a month it is not better then I have a thumb MRI. I am thinking my thumb is a big pain!! So I guess I go with it for the month and see where we are then. I will let you know how it goes!

joey turns 12!!

2011-03-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

Wow, how did this happen, my baby boy turned 12!!! That went by so fast. He is quite the young man now. He is always entertaining us, always keeping us on our toes, and always keeps us running. He is still swimming and doing very well. His last swim meet, he did 4 events, and took 3 first places, and a third. He was amazing. He also played basketball this year, and possibly because he was a foot taller than everybody else, but he really did a great job at that too, and of course he LOVED that. He is into music, goofing off, and of course girls! He loves basketball, baseball, swimming, and running. He is a great kid!!

Here he is opening up all his presents. ( I am pretty sure he liked them)

He informed me the night before his birthday that he wanted an ice cream cake, well normally this would not be a problem, even living in downey, brian and i had planned to run up to pocatello while my babies were in kindergarten, and we would still be there to pick them up by noon. So we ran up there, did our shopping timed it perfect so we could go to cold stone to get the cake right before we left to go home so it wouldn't melt, pulled into the parking lot, got ready to run in and get the cake and realized it didn't open till noon!!!! FREAK!!! Now what we had to leave to get the little ones, and no cake for joey, well thank goodness I have a great friend that just happens to work in pokey who is willing to shop for me who stopped and bought it for us on her way home from work, so Jennie to the rescue! (thanks again jennie) we had cake to celebrate! And Joey loved it!

Momma and the birthday boy!

Joey counting out his birthday money out of the money bag. The kid with the HUGE hands got almost $18.00. Its crazy!

And here is our cute little, well not so little family all ready for church, where Joey was ordained a Deacon. My little baby boy recieved the priesthood. He sure is growing up. I am so proud of him! What a great kid.

Happy st. patricks day :)

2011-03-18T20:35:00.000-06:00

I have always LOVED st. patricks day ever since I was little, and that sneaky leprchaun always turned our milk green, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. So of course with my own kids every year we always have to wear as much green as possible. so here is z-man wearing his lucky shirt :)

And my darling opposite children, Joey and Alli hard to believe they are only 14 months apart, hehehe, wearing their adorable green!

And of course salt and pepper, wearing thier lucky shirts, they all looked so adorable! and none of them got pinched great job kids!

So every year we set a trap and try to catch the leprechauns, so this was our trap this year, we set a cookie in it to try and intice the sneaky guy into our awesome trap! the kids tried to keep and eye on it!

oh yea this is my totally awesome treats I made, way yummy!

But that sneaky leprechaun must have snuck in when we weren't looking!!! He stole the cookie, left us a bunch of treats, and got out of the trap before it caught him, how does he do that!!!!!

Jason was so confused, but very happy! They all loved their treats.

And here is our dinner, I made stew with biscuits, and of course the biscuits were GREEN!! and green lemonade, I also found some fun straws that were florescent and the florescent part went up and down as you drank, I think the kids were more interested in that then eating!! but it was a fun night!!!

my thumb does not have a cold!!!

2011-03-16T19:35:00.000-06:00

So although it must be true that joints can get viruses, colds per say, it seems that after almost 2 1/2 months mine has not. It has not been getting better, so I went back to the dr. on an unrelated incident, and let him know that it was not getting over its cold, and he decided to go ahead and do some further investigating. we did and x-ray, it seemed to be ok. and some blood work, and there is where the problem comes in. My RA level is elevated. which helps to determine if you have rheumatoid arthritis. So what this means exactly I am not 100% sure, I am being sent to a specialist in logan, and we will go from there! So I will take one day at a time, and see what comes next! Thanks to all my blogging friends for being my sounding boards!!! Sometimes it helps to just write it all out. I look at my kids and know that they sure aren't going to be my sounding boards so here I sit with my fingers on the keyboards and this is what you get. I am not even sure what I feel yet. I am optimistic that medicine has come a long way, and there is always something that can be done now, I just have to find where I fit in! So I will find out when my new appt is and keep you all up to date! :)

being a mom isn't quite what I expected

2011-03-14T09:55:00.001-06:00

Ok so when my kids were little ones I have to say I think I was a pretty good mom, sure I was tired, but I felt like I could handle things and I think I did a pretty good job, I did crafts with my kids, I LOVED just hanging out with them, watching movies giving them baths, laughing at the funny things that they say. my favorite part was the many cuddles that I always got! I could never get enough. I could hold them forever. I want to hold them forever. smell their sweet baby smell. Then sure as the world turns they start getting older! and before I knew It I have a teenager and an almost teenager!!! My daily life consists of arguing with them over doing their homework cleaning their room, don't spend so much time on the computer, get your chores done. And the worst part is, is that Jason would still cuddle with me, and love on me, but the boys have wrestled with him so much and have him so riled up all the time that even he won't cuddle anymore! all my babies have outgrown my needs for babies!!! so where does that leave me? Well I'll tell you it leaves me with a big empty hole! And I am thinking that is where the problem lies. How does a mom move on to the mom of older kids when her heart lies with babies she doesn't have? I have always told brian that when the kids get older he has to take over because I just knew I wasn't going to be able to handle it, but he just isn't here to do that, once again I am forced to figure it out, how to move on to my next mission in life, how to figure out older kids. And without wearing out all the knees of my pants by praying 24/7 I have to get something done!! I have to learn how to be a good mom to these older kids! I need to learn to keep the lines of communication open, I never knew how hard it was to talk to these things we call teenagers!!! (sorry mom and dad) In the wise words of judge judy " how do you know when a teenager is lying-- their mouths are moving" I couldn't believe it was true, till I had one!! and they lie about silly things. but like I said I am trying so hard to figure all this out, and I will figure it out. after all I don't have a choice, they are all growing up right!!! ok, so I have rambled, and I am not sure if it makes sense at all, so if I have confused you all sorry, just move on to the next blog!!!

what to do, what to do!

2011-03-03T15:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so here is the thing, first of all I so can't figure out this new blog thing since they updated it, I can't write on the top, so until I figure that out I will just start here! so normally I would not post pictures of my very messy house, but I have had bloggers block!!! I haven't taken pics of my cute kids, even though they have done cute things I'm sure, I have been wanting to blog, but I have been sitting around not sure what to blog about. So as I sit around in a slump, I look around my house and find a few things that I have been wanting to declutter that I have been wanting to work on all winter, and have been putting off, so I figure if I humiliate myself and put pics on my blog, I might actually clean them!!!!! so the pic above is the kids computer and my file cabinet, that just needs to be cleaned REAL BAD!

This pic is in my dining room in the corner by my back door, kind of the catch all place, probably because it is out of sight from the main area of the house, most of this stuff just needs to be taken downstairs, but it is so cold so I can just make the boys take it :)

ok, so yes I am guilty of just throwing things on top of the fridge! who doesn't do this???? but yea, I need to clean it bad!

And this is the top of the awesome coat-rack my dad built for me, well the top gets really cluttered, and it bugs me, so this is a project for me!!!

I threw this pic in just to let you all know that I am going to try to talk my kids into no more toys in the tub!! They are old enough right?????

And this even though it is in a cupboard it bugs bad! this is in my girls bathroom, it way needs to be organized so yep, that is on the list!

And yep, this is the crazy woman, totally lost her mind, out of control, crazy, loopy, needs psyciatric help woman who will be completing the above cleaning in the next week! wish me luck!

so what do you do when you have a 4 day weekend?

2011-02-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well if you are Jason you play with fruit!!! I am telling you this kid played with our fruit for hours!! He made different towers, and designs. And other than a few bruises on our bananas there was no harm done :) and it was the best entertainment!

He had to have a very steady hand, had to get everything just right......

hmmm now where to put this last pear..

ta da! the proud moment. and the masterpiece. not sure what to call it. but it sure was a lot of fun!

This is another of his masterpieces. We sure laughed for a long time over what can entertain that kid!

what we've been up to

2011-02-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well here are my two presidents!!! They made these cute little masks at school, and were SO excited to come home and show me, but the cutest part was they knew that they had to stand in front of the door and pose for a picture! they know me so well! and they are so adorable! I love them so much!

And here are my winterized babies! All wrapped snuggled in their caps! How CUTE are they? I totally love them they look ready for some serious cold weather and guess what.....we are getting it!

I've caught a cold!

2011-02-09T13:11:00.003-07:00

So as crazy as it sounds, it is true, I have caught a cold IN MY THUMB!!!! I know you are all laughing hysterically right now, and I have to say, it sounds insane, but my thumb started hurting, like really bad, about 5 weeks ago, I can't really remember hurting it per say, I mean, I chopped wood, I did a lot of dishes (ok so dishes really can't hurt, but a girl can try) but nothing really stood out to say this is it!!! So I FINALLY went to the Dr. and he said that nothing is broke, and it doesn't seem as if the ligaments or tendons are torn, so what he thinks it is, is that there was a virus in my body that settled in the joints of my thumb! And my thumb was a little sore from something, possibly chopping wood, who knows, maybe vaccuming, (guess the kids better take over) so he gave me some antinflamitories (sp??) to take for the next month, but it could take up to 5 more months to get my thumb over its cold, Is this crazy???? I just want my thumb better, why can't I just soak it in nyquil???

MIA

2011-02-01T15:46:00.004-07:00

No we are not totally in hibernation!! This has just been a rough winter on us! We have We have not been out and about since christmas and have not been able to visit with the family! And we miss you all. But as you all know, basketball is in full swing, and with 2 kids playing, that schedule is greuling. But we only have 3 more weeks then freedom, sweet freedom. Joey and Alli each practice 2 nights a week, and that doesn't include dance, swimming 2 times a week, scouts young men, and homework! then we have basketball games all day saturday! Its a crazy schedule. So when I have a chance to have little fun I jump at the chance. Joey was being very smart mouthed the other day, I know you are all shocked thinking 'not joey' but its true, it was joey, and I had made some very yummy very frosted cupcakes, and we were just sitting down to eat them, and I had had enough!!! so I went over to him and smashed my cupcake all over his face!! Well he didn't take it very well and it turned into a full fledged food fight between me and him and brian! I still think I won :)

timing is just off, again!

2011-01-26T18:55:00.003-07:00

Ok so our water heater went out the other night, I went in to have my 'calgon' moment ran my bath water, went to get in, and found my water FREEZING, well I thought maybe brian did laundry or dishes or something so I drained the water and went to bed, just a little frustrated! The next morning at 5:45 yes, thats a.m. Zach came in our room to let us know that he tried to take his moring shower, and there was no hot water! So I was like huh, there is a real problem. I kicked 'B' out of bed and made him check out the water heater. He said the pilot light went out, he relit it, zach and joey both showered and the kids got off to school, then we started smelling something not right........we checked out the water heater and it looked like it was burning!!! we quickly shut everything off and realized that we needed a new water heater. So long story well long I guess we got a new water heater, brought it home got the old one out and found this.....It totally burned up the floor!! Scary we could have burned our house down. We were pretty lucky we caught it when we did. So now we have a nice new water heater. As to the timing thing.......

A few weeks ago we had a major rain storm and snow thaw, IF it would have made it into my house it could have cooled off my floor under my water heater :) But instead my boys just played in it!

Yes he is kneeling in it, and yes it is FREEZING!

Jason running through the puddles/river!

Joey loving the cold water!

the land of the weird!!

2011-01-16T15:20:00.004-07:00

Ok so the kids have been asking and asking and asking! And I finally gave in, and it was pretty good if I admit it! I made speghetti tacos!! No recipe, just make your normal spheghetti and put it in a hard taco shell. It is acutally yummy. And the kids loved it! and I am now a fan. So you all can join us in the land of the wierd and make your spheghetti tacos! And for dessert I made whoopie pies, way yummy! I took the recipe out of this months family fun magazine, but I will post it below for those of you who don't get the magazine. Totally worth it. these were delish.
Ingredients:
for the cakes:
2 c. flour
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. softened butter

1 cup sugar
1 egg

for the filling:
1/2 c. softened butter
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 c. marshmellow creme
1 tsp. vanilla
red food coloring ( optional)

Heat oven to 350
in bowl mix flour cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. in glass measuring bowl stir together the buttermilk and vanilla.
In mixing bowl mix butter and sugar till well blended add egg, beat till smooth.
Pour in half the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture till combined. then add buttermilk mixture beat till just blended, add the remaining flour mixture and beat again.
use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to scoop onto cookie sheet. slightly flatten each mound with a spoon. bake till done, (I know this sounds bad, but the page in my family fun book has a black mark in it and I can't read how long it cooks for, and when I baked mine I never timed them, I just baked them, and kept checking them, when you touch the cookies and they feel somewhat firm (don't sink when you touch them) they are done)
Mix all the frosting ingredients.
to make each pie:
spoon a heaping TB of the filling onto the bottom of a cake them gently press another cake on top gently squishing the filling to the edges.
remember when you take your first bite of this yummy dessert you must shout WHOOPIE!!!!

Also helpful hint if you do not have buttermilk as I did not, tomake your own buttermilk, simply take 1 cup milk add 1 TB lemon juice, OR 1 TB vinegar and let sit for 5 min. this makes homemade buttermilk :)

wrappin it up!

2011-01-06T12:39:00.003-07:00

Well, I have been wanting to post for a while now, but have not been coming up with anything to say, I have decided that every January I get the winter blues, however mine came in November,and they are still hanging around. So I have been thinking back on the last year, (thats a long time ago) and I am so grateful for the things I have now. The first half of the year was spent mostly with Joey and his swim meets, and running the kids around to their various activities, dance, scouts, swimming, baseball. Summer went by in a whirwind with swimming and entertaining 5 kids!! Then school starts and all 5 of my babies started school! Wow what a crazy thing to happen, but it has been good for me. And kind of lonely too. Ok, a lot lonely, but I will cope I am sure. Once fall hit, thats when all the excitement hit for the carroll household! Zach started getting sick, falling behind in school, then not able to go to school at all, he just kept throwing up all the time, in the meantime, while we were trying to figure out what was wrong with him, we were juswt finishing up the home study for the adoption of Abby, and a day before the actual home study, Abby fell at dance, and I had to take her to the ER for 7 stitches, (thank goodness for bangs) a couple of days later we got the stitches out, homestudy is done, and we end up taking zach to the dr. where we end up back in the ER. where they find his appendix ruptured, as you all know, we were in the hospital for a week, and it was a month long recovery. This was so hard, there were a few times I wondered if I was going to lose my baby boy (yes, he may be 13 but he will always be my baby boy) This all let to lots of catch up in school, and depression for him, (and me) but life goes on, swimming started, holidays were coming up, We had thanksgiving coming up, and the adoption court date, which I was so nervous for. I had som e of my own medical problems that caused problems for a couple of weeks. but am doing much better now. We got through the court date, the adoption is final. That is all behind us. We are still taking abby to the Dr. every 2-3 weeks trying to get her anxiety,and ocd, under control, and we are getting closer to that. Her prader willi is a little more controlable every day!! Next came thanksgiving. I got to spend thanksgiving with my whole family, all my siblings made it to my parents house, and we had a blast! I had a birthday in there somewhere, that is all I am mentioning about that!! Then on to Dec. Due to all that happened November I didn't even start on christmas shopping till midway through dec. which way caused stress!!! Plus my darling children have signed up for everything, basketball, band, swimming, dance, scouts, joey is now being tutored a couple times a week, ahhhhh sorry just typing it makes me scream.. So besides all that, we actually had a great christmas!! Probably one of the best for my kids, they are all really happy! We had a great new years party with my friend and her fam. a nice quiet party into the new year! and here we are 2011!! so I would say bring it on, but its already here and in full swing, with some sort of activity every single evening of the week, you know I thought a stay at home mom stayed at home, huh, I guess I was wrong!

Merry Christmas!!!!

2010-12-28T14:30:00.002-07:00

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!

2010-12-17T13:57:00.003-07:00

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

2010-12-07T11:18:00.004-07:00

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?

2010-12-07T11:04:00.005-07:00

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

2010-12-02T11:44:00.002-07:00

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!

2010-11-22T14:42:00.003-07:00

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!!!

2010-11-22T12:57:00.003-07:00

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!

2010-11-14T14:45:00.002-07:00

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!

2010-10-31T17:29:00.004-06:00

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

2010-10-31T17:17:00.007-06:00

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!!

2010-10-27T10:19:00.004-06:00

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

2010-10-16T17:15:00.003-06:00

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

2010-10-11T23:43:00.002-06:00

.... 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!!!

2010-10-10T23:04:00.003-06:00

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!!!

2010-10-03T14:07:00.003-06:00

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!!

2010-09-27T16:40:00.003-06:00

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!

fun family game!

2010-09-14T15:10:00.003-06:00

Well, my kids think its a form of child abuse, but I just thought it was TOTALLY FUNNY!

If you are looking for a great family game, this is a good one. I know you can find it online, but I also saw it in that new candy store by costco in pocatello for my fellow downey friends. We played it for family night the other night. Well not the 2 little kids, cause that would just be mean, but the 3 older kids played and Brian did, and I laughed till my belly hurt! You spin the little spinner thing, and whatever color you land on, you pick out of those jelly beans, but some of those are good,and some are nasty, like the juicy pear or a booger, peach or barf, which one will you pick???

These are the faces of the nasty ones! And of course the ones that made me laugh the hardest!

eww is that dog food???

Hmnmm skunk spray or black licorice? I'm thinking you got the skunk spray!

Do I have to eat it???

Yea it was pretty funny!

2010-09-07T09:57:00.004-06:00

I know, I am so backwards again!!! Will I ever get it right!!! Oh well We actually rode the train first, then went to park city to go on the alpine slide!! It was soooo much fun. The kids LOVED IT, well most of them, Abby was very aprehensive about it, riding the ski lift, and going down the great big huge slide! But she did it! Here she is with dad and Jason on the ski lift heading up to the top! Everytime the ski lift got stopped she would scream! I am thinking she has a big fear of heights!
And right behind us were the 3 stooges, they were so funny to watch, they had a lot of fun, but I think they were pretty nervous too.

And we are off!! Zach, daddy and Abby getting ready to go down, down, down!! I so wish I was in front of them, because Abbys face was priceless,and I wanted a picture of it so bad. when I say she was scared, it is an understatement! She was terrified, she had a deathgrip on brians arm! But once the ride started she changed her mind, she did have a great time! But I am bummed I couldn't get a pic of her face! It was pretty good!

And if front of me, were grandpa,( I mean Joey,) and alli. Alli caught up with joey pretty quick, and me and Jason caught up with alli real quick, it was so funny, I was cheering them on trying to get them to hurry up!

And here are me and JJ. ready to go!

2010-09-07T09:49:00.001-06:00

Daddy, Abby, and Zach walking from the ski lift to the top of the slide!

The kids had so much fun the first time that they actually talked daddy into a second ride (like that was hard to do) so dad took JJ the second time, and I got to take Abby, so here are dad and JJ ready to go!

The boys went down the slower side so I didn't get a pic of them on the second run (big chickens)

But at least they had a good time and that is what matters right!!

But my allicat was ready to go down the fastest side! she loved it! she is my rollercoaster, fast ride baby! show no fear!! thats my alli!

So that was our labor day weekend!

whew, no wonder I am so tired!

2010-09-07T09:35:00.003-06:00

So we decided to take the kids to Heber to ride the Heber Creeper. We had a blast, the kids, I am not so sure, they were a little bored, but I think the thought it was ok.
This is Jason at the very end of the 3 hour ride!

This is the train we were riding on. And some of the scenery. It was beautiful that day!

labor day weekend

2010-09-07T09:22:00.004-06:00

Here are my joey and alli, miss Alli is still eating her lunch! We had to ride in the closed car on the way up the mountain, but on the way down, we were able to go in the open car. And here are daddy and Alli! Lovin the ride.

Zach and Abby checking things out, this was the open car on the way down. It was a lot more fun, because you could hang out more and it felt so good!

and last but not least me and JJ.

Here are the kids if front of the train when they first found out exactly what we were doing. They were pretty excited.

I however was a little bummed. When we first bought the tickets, we were told that on this particular ride that the "fun" part of it was that it was an authentic "train robbery" ride, that cowboys would acutally rob the train while we were on it. However come to find out they stopped the train robberies 2 days earlier, so we just got the scenic tour, thats why the kids were a little bored! Oh well, you know the saying... the best layed plans..... thats the story of my life!

But we had fun anyway!

2010-09-01T15:18:00.003-06:00

Well, I knew it would happen one day, and it will continue to happen, but I don't have to like it. My baby boy had a birthday! It seems like just yesterday we were coming to terms with the fact that our life plans were changing, and that our little family of 5 was going to be a family of 6, we were so stunned, and so excited! And now we couldn't imagine life without our JJ.

But now, he is 5, and in school, growing up so big, becoming so independant! I am not ready to let go, but enough of me boobing! On to the birthday celebrations! Not the best picture, but he really was excited to open the presents from aunt Kami and grandpa roy and grandma sally.
Trying to show that he likes to open cards!

Here is my little man, hanging out, trying to chill before opening all his presents!

This kid has the most infectious smile. It makes my day, every day!

and oh yea, its was almost all transformer stuff ( I so don't understand transformer stuff!) But he loves it.

jason turns 5

2010-09-01T15:10:00.003-06:00

Opening his new game!

JJ playing with his toys! I love that smile!

And the year of the pie in the face, I wasn't too sure if he was going to laugh or cry, but thank goodness, he laughed! It was pretty cute, we have now officially got each and every one of our kids on their birthdays!

And of course the transformer cake! This is the cake that he has been asking for FOREVER!

It is also the same cake he had last year, but that didn't matter to him, he had to have a transformer cake~

killer dessert

2010-08-29T14:14:00.003-06:00

Tres Leches

This dessert is truly yummy!!! I have been making it for two months now and I simply can't stop! Now I do make a different cake for me ( since I can't have the egg version) but I do think that this cake needs the sponge cake recipe because it needs to soak up the milk! With other recipes is tends to simply sit on the milk, so, unless you have dumb allergies like me, just make the sponge cake! And here is the recipe so you can make it!!

1 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

5 eggs seperated

1 c. sugar diveded (3/4, and 1/4c. )

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 c. milk

--------------

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

1/4 c heavy cream

ok now to put it all together... start with the flour, baking powder, and salt, in a bowl, wisk together. then in a seperate mixing bowl, beat egg yolks, and 3/4 c. sugar till light yellow. then stir in the 1/3 c. milk and vanilla. pour over flour mixture. mix just till blended. Beat egg whites till soft peaks form. pour remaining 1/4 c. sugar and beat till peaks are stiff. Fold the egg white mixture into the batter , and gently mix. pour into greased 9x13 pan. bake 35-40 min. or till a toothpick comes out clean. let cake cool. Then comes the really fun part.....

Mix 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 can evaporated milk, and 1/4 c. heavy cream. With a fork, poke holes all over the cake............then.........

pour the milk on top of the cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let it soak in......mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmm good stuff.

For the whipped topping whip 1 carten heavy cream till stiff, add 1/2 c. or so of sugar, spread all over the cake, and top it all off with a cherry!

2010-08-24T11:45:00.003-06:00

ok so here is my horribly wonderful dessert! That I have decided should be enjoyed while the kiddos are in school, isn't that awful! lol Anyway it is so easy to make. And even easier to eat! So here goes: Sorry this pic is turned sideways, I couldn't get it to turn the right way... but you get it anyway it is just plain yummy!!!

1 graham cracker crust

in a large mixing bowl beat:

1- 3 oz package cream cheese softened

2 TB sugar

beat in:

1/2 c. half and half cream until well blended

fold in:

1 carten (8 oz.) cool whip thawed

fold in:

1 cup milk chocolate covered toffee bits

spoon into crust sprinkle with an additional 1/4 cup toffee bits cover and freeze at least 6 hrs. or overnight!!! Enjoy!! Yum.

And here we go again!!

2010-08-24T09:01:00.004-06:00

Well, now I know what it feels like to have a piece of me leave! I had to let my baby boy head off to kindergarten. Yesterday was the first day of school for us, and we were all actually excited, AND we all did really well! Day 2 not so good. Jason woke up and was bummed that he had to go back to school, he thought he was done. He went to kindergarten yesterday! Why did he have to go today! And yes there were tears, from both of us, and yes, I was ready to pick him up and just bring him home and hold him all day ( like that would happen) but the teacher rightfully pushed me out the door, telling me he would be fine, ( yes, I became one of those moms) and my heart is just a little broke today :( those darn crocodile tears get me every single time! But on the other hand miss Abby did good, yesterday was wonderful, thismorning was a little rough, she didn't sleep last night, I think instead of being nervous for school, she is excited. so she woke up a little sleep, we will see how she did today! but she loves her class, and her teacher!
Alli, Is so happy to go to school! She had her outfit picked out like 3 weeks ago! she woke up so happy, and got ready, wanted her hair done just right, my little princess is growing up way too fast! And she had a great first day, no drama there! but I am sure it will come.

Joey believe it or not was ready to head out! He got his own alarm clock this year ( saves me from going in his room 10 times each morning to try and wake him up) and it worked!!! He got himself up, ready and was almost excited to go! I think the biggest problem this year with joey is going to be to get him to wear his glasses!! its worse than pulling teeth! But Joey likes being the big boy in the elementary school!

And talking about being the big dog on campus, Zach is in 8th grade this year!!! When did that happen. I swear I am going to stop blinking. But he came home from school happy, so thats a great start! I love happy kids!!! Makes me a happier mom!

Well, I guess thats all for now, I am off to make some treats for my school babies, once I figure out what I am going to make, I will post the recipe!

fair week!

2010-08-08T14:08:00.004-06:00

Whew!! Fair week was exhausting!!! But it was a blast for most of us! Little Abby doesn't like crowds very much, they make her a little anxious, and she didn't have very much fun this week, so I didn't get any pics of her playing, this is her after her bath one of the nights after the fair. she was soooo tired! She liked to hang out with mom and dad at our ice cream booth, and help us selll our ice cream. and that worked for us! We made some good money for downey elementary, we can't wait to take it into them! It was a wild week with some crazy storms, little sleep, and lots of running around! But the rest of the kids had a blast, and couldn't play enough. Here is Jason hanging out on the bounce house. With his big cheeser.
Joey just going in, in the dunk tank! He loved geting soaked!!!

Zach just getting ready to go in!

And here is Alli just after the Charley Jenkins concert, we had to get his autograph and a pic!

He is pretty darn cute if you ask me!

Glad we made it through another year at the fair! we had a great time! And we are soooo glad we have another year to get ready for the next one!

recipe for porcupine balls

2010-07-30T19:06:00.003-06:00

Porcupine Balls

I never like to turn my oven on in the summer, so this is a favorite dinner in the summer that I can make without turning on the oven! So grab your ingredients and make some yummy skillet dinner!

1 lb. hamburger

1/2 c. uncooked regular rice

1/2. c. water

1/3. c. chopped onion

1 tsp salt

1/8 tst. garlic powder

1/8 tsp pepper

1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce

2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp celery salt

1 c. water

First Mix up your hamburger, rice, 1/2 c water, the onion, salt, celery salt, garlic powder, and pepper. Mix well, shape mixture into round balls this will make between 15 and 20 depending on how big you like your meatballs.

Mix, mix mix :)

Place meatballs in skillet, and brown on all sides.

Mmmmmm doesn't that smell good?

Now if there is any excess fat, drain at this point.
Then add: The tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, and 1 c. water. pour over meatballs. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat. cover and simmer for 45 min.

Add water during cooking if necessary, I usually end up adding about another 3/4 c. during cooking. don't you just love how the rice looks like porcupines! I love it when the rice poofs when its done!

kid friendly dinner, at least for my kids anyway!

2010-07-26T18:25:00.003-06:00

Oh yea, we got her good!!!

the birthday pie in the face!!!

and she loved it!! Way too much fun!
I will have to come up with something really good next year to top this one!
So far I have got everybody but Jason and his turn is next month! It has been a blast!

Happy birthday pepper!

2010-07-26T18:09:00.002-06:00

Pepper turns 5!!!!

She decided she didn't want a birthday cake this year she wanted ice cream sandwiches! So thats what she got! And I have to say it was a great change! Yummy. Here she is opening her birthday presents.
She has been asking for a pillow pet forever! and she got the ladybug one from grandpa and grandma carroll~ she was so happy! she also got $2.90 from the money bag!

We met grandma and grandpa bowcutt at the park to celebrate her birthday the week before her birthday. she had a blast, that weekend she got a cute little puppet, and a new bike which she totally adores!

And here she is showing off her most prized possession.

Happy birthday big girl.

2010-07-21T17:00:00.003-06:00

I don't have any pictures for this recipe, but I thought I would post it anyway since I haven't posted anything for a while and I thought it was time for a summer recipe. This is my favorite summer salad! So get ready to eat!

Triple p salad

pasta, pea, pesto

2 c. uncooked elbow macaroni (8 oz)

1 c. fresh snow pea pods

1 c. fresh sugar snap peas

1 c. frozen baby sweet peas

(if you don't have the snow pea pods or the sugar snap peas, you can just use more of the frozen sweet peas, and it still tastes great!) I have done it both ways and they are both good. when you are on a budget the frozen peas keeps this recipe cheaper.

1/2 c. mayonnaise

1/3 c. refrigerated basil pesto ( I have found this at walmart or albertsons, or harmons.)

2 med. green onions, chopped

2 teaspons lemon juice

1 teaspoons salt.

1. cook macaroni as directed on package, adding pea pods sugar snap peas and baby sweep peas during the last 2-3 min. of cooking time. Drain then rinse with cold water until cool.

2. Meanwhile in a large bowl mix remaining ingrediedents.

3. add cooked macaroni with meas to mayo mixture, toss to coat. cover, refrigerate for 2 hours or till chilled before serving.

Perfect for Summer!!!!

Enjoy:)

joey swimming with the olympians

2010-07-13T18:37:00.004-06:00

Joey got to go to the swim with the olymian fitter and faster tour in Idaho Falls last week.

He had SO MUCH FUN!! They talked with him, gave him advice, and then they swam with him. what a great experience for kids! The olympians that were there where Misty Hyman and Ian Crocker. Joey was so proud and excited. He got their autographs on his goggle case! What an exciting night! Here they are getting thier instructions and Qand A with Ian and Misty.
Here's my Joe man.

Joey showing off his new t-shirt he got.

Ian and Misty doing thier autograph thing!

It sure motivated Joey and got him really excited for the next swim meet! He said he is even ready to try the breaststroke! His least favorite! talk about a motivational speech! Can't wait to see the improvement in him! What a fun night and thanks to grandma and grandpa carroll for driving up to take him since I was at home taking care of Alli and Jason who just got their tonsils out!

2010-07-10T13:39:00.004-06:00

Thanks Uncle Jim!!! He helped me figure out how to get the pics from my phone to my blog!! thank you! I am so not into this technology stuff, brian bought me a touch phone and I can't figure out anything, plus I keep calling my friend at odd hours of the night when I try to call brian back. so sorry I am trying to figure this thing out. But I did get the pics I took of the kids the morning of surgery! Here are Jason and Alli right before they went into surgery. A little nervous, but all in all, pretty happy.
I know I know, I keep posting pics backwards, I am not promising that I will figure that out, we will just have to deal with my incompitence there. But this pic is of the kids on the way out to the car after surgery. How sad do they look! But of course I thought it was cute thy both fit in the same wheelchair and I didn't have to carry anyone.

They are getting ready do go back for surgery, they give them strawberry scented masks to practice breathing through, so when they hook up the gas it isn't as scary. They are just so darn cute together.

So here we are on day 3 after surgery and I am tired, Jason still won't sleep, he just cries all night. Alli is doing ok. she is one of those suffer in silence types. she just wants to be left alone and every once in a while a little cuddle, a popcicle, and her tylenol. A few more days, and hopefully things will start returning back to normal!!!

2010-07-09T16:53:00.003-06:00

So the day after surgery, we are all tired, and cranky. But we are here! We have been missing Zach, he has been up at scout camp since Monday, Jason has really been missing him, (well we all have) he comes home tomorrow, and we can't wait! Alli and Jason had their tonsils out yesterday, I decided to get them done at the same time and just simply get it over with! Jason is bouncing back pretty fast, although today he is struggling a bit, but poor little Alli is having a hard time, but her surgery was a little more intense. Her tonsils were huge, and her adnoids were blocking 75% of her nasal pasage way. the poor girl couldn't breathe! So this will help both of them so much. I just can't wait till we are all sleeping and eating and breathing normal again! So anyway, I just wanted to give you all a little update. I actually took some pretty cute pics of them at the hospital, but they are on my phone, and I am too dumb to figure out how to get them on the computer, so sorry, maybe another day!!!

4th of july

2010-07-07T15:38:00.003-06:00

All of my sparklers!

My cute kiddo's on the 4th of July they had so much fun! We just hung out at home this year, and did our fireworks with our neighbors, we had a great time. the kids ran around like crazy people. (they all slept in till like 11:00 the next day except zach who went to scout camp) but oh they had fun. Just look at the grins on their faces!!
Havin too much fun!

All grins and giggles, and sparklers, and fun! overall, it was a great time! Homemade donuts, yummy cake, way too much sweets, great friends, not enough family! but overall a great 4th of july!

zach leavin for scouts, and the kids workin in the yard with dad

2010-07-07T15:28:00.003-06:00

So once again, my posts are totally backwards and messed up, but at least they are posted right??? So this first one is of Zach on the morning he is leaving for a week of scout camp. It is 4:45 in the morning of July 5th. He was so tired, and so excited. He is going to have so much fun! And Here are the kids helping Brian work in the backyard, we were pulling weeds for hours, and getting nowhere, so Brian gave up,and went and borrowed the neighbors 'toy' to get the job done quicker, and I have to say, it worked! It was done quicker! And a whole lot funner.
Joey hopping on for a ride.

2010-07-02T17:08:00.004-06:00

Well.......what do you do when its Tuesday and you are so bored? you make cupcakes of course!

My kids thought I was crazy, but whats new! This was last week, I am a little slow in posting, but the kids were bored, and I was running out of ideas, so I decided to make cupcakes, and give them frosting, and decorations, and let them have at it! They had a blast! Here is pepper and Alli doing their very best at decorating!
Zachs final creation, of course, he lives in pokemon world! so his cupcake is geared towared pokemon!

Salt, just liked frosting the little cuppies, then licking off the yummy frosting! A kid after my own heart.

Pepper has to eat things one at a time first the frosting then the cupcake!

Joey with all his decorating tools ready to write! Go joey you're the man, look out duff, joey is the new ace of cakes!!!

2010-07-02T17:01:00.005-06:00

More fun decorating!
Zach actually decorating! and enjoying it! I think its only cause he gets to eat it in the end!

Allicat posing with her cupcake! getting ready for the frosting!

Pepper, we gotta watch out with this one, if you don't watch her all the frosting will dissapear!!

hmmmm where to start, chocolate chips, or white chips?

maybe both....

so the next time you are bored on a tuesday.... maybe you should make cupcakes!!!!!!

2010-06-30T17:58:00.003-06:00

ok so I had a bad tooth a long time ago, and I have been babying it for a while, well, a few months ago, it couldn't be babied any more, and I had to have it pulled, so because I refused to walk around for the rest of my life toothless, I have been looking into all of my options, while my self esteem has taken a major blow! I decided to have an implant put in, to look the most natural,and not have to worry about it anymore! Well, I had that done yesterday. The actual procedure was not that bad, other than the fact that to save a few bucks, I opted out of the sedation, so I totally knew that they were putting a screw into my jaw!!! Not cool, but it didn't hurt..... till I got home, and the local wore off. Now on day 2... holy moly, me and my chipmunk cheek and my bottle of ibuprofen. I feel like a walking bruise! One of the hardest parts, last night after I had it done, they told me, don't eat, drink, or talk for at least 4 hours, well hello, I have 5 kids and a husband who are curious, they kept coming in and asking me questions, checking on me, Jason totally couldn't handle it, he needed his momma!!! And now today, I may be feeling worse, but my house looks worse, oh well no rest for the wicked right??? so this pic shows that when I am totally losing my mind, I just might have a screw loose!! Kinda gross I know and I can't wait to heal its already feeling like forever, but hopefully soon I will get my smile back!

chuck-e-cheese!!!! where a kid can be a kid, and brian can too!

2010-06-28T10:16:00.002-06:00

Alli's birthday was the midldle of May, and she told Grandma and grandpa Carroll that she just wanted to go to jungle jims. well, we realized that it is made mostly for kids under 9, and now she is in double digits, so she decided to go to play with chuckee cheese! pizza games the whole works! It was so much fun! Here are salt and pepper playing a game, collecting the oh so coveted tickets.
Jason and daddy playing the water squirting game. ( I think jason acutally won! sorry b)

here is pepper playing the bowling game! She absolutly loved it!!!

Joey and Alli racing in the motorcycle races!

Alli loving her late birthday celebration! It may be late but worth the wait! Thanks so much Grandma and grandpa!

southern utah family reunion

2010-06-28T10:01:00.003-06:00

Jason being his crazy self on the drive playing with the slinkys. what a nut! The theme was for our family reunion was fiesta! So they had dress up things for us, we had so much fun! And yes even the adults got in on the fun. This is me and my sister Kami posing with our cute hats and moustaches! we had so much fun! although it was hard to be serious with moustache hair tickling your nose! I don't know how men do it!!!
Alli and Joey, so cute! I especially love Joeys crooked moustache It just fits his personality so well!

And Zach with his serious face just looks so good!

But this one is my favorite!!! They all look so serious! It was so funny! I was busting a gut laughing! We had so much fun! The weather was great, the food was yummy, the family was awesome! what more could we ask for~!

warm swim meet, big owie, new dryer, old friend

2010-06-18T12:04:00.003-06:00

Swim meet in Draper Ut., this was a fun meet! It was warm, and beautiful, and Joey did awesome! Here he is getting ready for the backstroke! And here is the whole crew! Well we just had a small portion of the swim team at this meet, but we had fun anyway! Go Lava Heat!!!
And here is peppers big owie, she wanted to ride Jason's big boy bike, she got going just a little too fast, and CRASH, road rash. She said she decided to just ride her littler bike, I told her that was probably a good idea. ( by the way, the owie totally went away, to scar at all thank goodness)

ok, so more drama in the carroll household, my dryer bit the dust! On the upside..... I now have the dryer that matches my washer! YEA!!!

And more fun for me, I as able to meet up with my friend I grew up with! Those of my family that read this blog I am sure you all remember April! We met up with my friend Jennie (yes there is a long story there) and all had breakfast the other day! It was crazy and so much fun! It is so wild what a small world it really is! But wow it was amazing to see her again. And the memories it brought back!!!

A day at the park

2010-06-18T11:21:00.002-06:00

We decided to hang out at the park the other day while Joey was at swim team practice. The kids had a blast. It was so relaxing, and fun! Alli literally hanging out, upside down.
Alli striking a pose, while pushing salt and pepper on the swings!

Jason getting ready to cruise down the slide!

More swinging! weeeee.

pepper filling an empty water bottle with sand.

What a relaxing evening! It was great weather (for a change) the kids loved getting out of the house for a while, the change of scenery did us all good!

2010-06-11T09:02:00.003-06:00

lol

I realized yesterday that I have not laughed out loud for a very long time! I think everybody gets in funks, I have been in one, sure times are rough all around, everybody is broke, beinga a single mom is not what I signed up for, I run from sun up to sun down, and beyond, it seems I am always telling the kids do this do that..., medical issus with the kids, alli getting her tonsils out this summer, alli and joey getting glasses, zach getting braces, salt and pepper starting kindergarten, my own medical problems I am having a hard time with, things have been turbulent in the carroll household, Well, we were heading out of town the other night, Zach was in the front passenger seat playing his D.S. surprise surprise, Joey was directly behind him, playing gameboy, both boys had their windows down, Not even thinking I drove right by a sprinkler, and sure enough it went right in the window and got both boys, the looks on their faces were so priceless!!! I LAUGHED OUT LOUD in fact we all laughed out loud! we couldn't stop! we were all so shocked! It was so funny! So thank you to the person who was watering the road on the way out of town!!! You made my day! It felt so good to laugh again.

easy dinner recipe

2010-05-29T18:32:00.004-06:00

Ok so I usually just do desserts, so I thought I would throw everybody for a loop, and do a dinner recipe. This is one of my go to recipes when I can't think of anything to make. It is so easy, and it tastes good.

BEEF BURRITO SKILLET

brown 1 lb. hamburger in skillet (check out that steam in the picture pretty cool pic huh), then add 1 pkg taco seasoning, simmer 5 min. Then add 1 can beans (any kind, kidney, or black, or pinto, whatever you prefer) 1 cup salsa, and 1 cup water mix that all together. simmer that for another 5 min.

2010-05-29T18:16:00.005-06:00

Next you cut up 5 tortilla shells into 1 inch pieces, throw those in the mix, add some yummy cheese about 2 cups, put the lid on and let the cheese melt and get all gooey and delicious!
And of course if your helper wears your cute shoes it makes any meal better.

this is the final result! dinner in one pan!!! Now is that easy or what! And it tastes good! Bonus.

Here is my cute helper chopping up some lettuce to put on top.

And voila~~ Add a dollop of sour cream, you can add some chopped up tomatoes too, but my kids won't eat them! Enjoy!

preschool graduation

2010-05-27T16:56:00.004-06:00

This year was so much fun in preschool. Salt and pepper learned so much, and had a blast. The graduation was cute, they sang songs, and danced for us. This song was chickachickaboomboom. salt is the one with the 'J'on him. He was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up! It was so stinkin cute!And here are the graduates showing off their diplomas! What a proud moment!
I loved this pic. Pepper had such a cute look on her face, then when salt looked over at her the look on his face was priceless!

And of course their wonderful teacher Mrs. Zee. Handing pepper her cap, and diploma. She was so excited.

And of course salt getting his cap and diploma! And off to elementary we go! I sure hope they are ready for us!

2010-05-25T10:20:00.003-06:00

New big boy bike! We came across a great deal for a bike for Jason. Jason has needed a bike, Abby got one from her cousin, but Zach and Joey had destroyed all their little bikes, so we needed to buy jason a new one. Well we found this one, and bought some training wheels for it, brought it home for jason and surprised him. he loved it!
Here he is helping dad put the training wheels on!

We let him ride in the house, because he has strep throat, and it was cold and raining outside. he went in circles around the house for hours!!

I have quite a few black marks on my kitchen floor I am going to have to scrub off the floor, but that smile is so worth it!

swim-a-thon and dance recital

2010-05-22T14:22:00.005-06:00

Wow another marathon weekend for the Carroll's and its only Saturday afternoon!

Today Joey participated in a swim-a-thon for the Lava heat, the swim team he swims with. And for those of you who pledged $ for him today THANK YOU!!!! thank you so much we really appreciate it! This helps him coninue to compete, all year round, and helps but the team whatever they need! so thank you for supporting us! There were 20 kids that swam in the swim-a-thon today, and only 5 of them completed all 200 lengths of the pool.(that is 3 miles) Joey is one of them!! YEA! GO JOEY YOU ROCK! He was the second one done. They had 2 hours to complete the 200 lengths, and joey completed his in one hour and 32 min. ! I was totally impressed! This pic is of him right after he finished. He was pretty tired. But the half a pizza after the swim-a-thon helped him to regain some of his energy!
Here he is during the swim-a-thon swimming like a champ! He was concentrating so hard He never did stop for a break. The rules were he could stop and get a drink or get a snack, as long as he didn't get out of the pool. He did not even stop for anything! He just kept on going till he was finished! I was so impressed!

I know my pics are backwards, one of these years I will figure out when I am uploading them how to do this, but this is right before it started, when the swim team is all together, getting their instructions, sure they look like they have energy now!!!
They all did good! I am so proud of all of them. And to their coach Karen! We have a couple of fun meets coming up, I will keep you up on what is going on as I figure it out!

And on to the dance recital!
Here is Abby in her little costume for her song, goodnight my angel, she loved dancing this year, and did so good!

and allicat! getting ready to go do her dance what I like about you!
This is the end of the dance year this year Abbys dances both took first place at lagoon and malad this year, and alli's took first place at lagoon and malad this year, and her solo took second at lagoon and malad! I am so proud of both of them!
I am so impressed with alli for doing a solo this year, it takes so much guts, and determination, and practice, she pulled it off, and did wonderful! I am so proud!

2010-05-18T10:54:00.004-06:00

And we got another one!! YES! Happy birthday to my little girl! Alli turned double digits yesterday. And not only did she get spoiled with lots of girl stuff, she got whipped cream in the face, yep, we got her good! It was so much fun! I am telling you, this parenting thing is a blast! Here is Alli modeling her birthday presents.

sis blowing out the candles on her birthday cake! blow baby blow thats a lot of candles. Jason ready to offer any encouragement if she needs it.

Lagoon!!! This was towards the end of the day. One of our last rides, Rattlesnake rapids, Kim, Chelsea, Zach, Alli, and Jason (abby did not want to go on this ride) all heading for the water! You can tell by the look on kims face that she is heading straight for the water!!!

Alli after her solo! She did AWESOME!! And she looked so beautiful! I am so proud that I have a daughter who is brave enough to get up in front of hundreds of people and dance her little heart out! and do so good! She took second place! Her group took first place, and Abbys group took first place, The recital is next week and I will post pics of both girls then! (I forgot to take pics the second day of the groups! bad mom!!!)

It was so crazy! I vow to do better in the future! I promise!

Also as a side note, Joey swam in a meet in Boise Idaho this last weekend. He did pretty good, It was a more advanced meet, and it challenged him more than the meets in the past. But he held his own. (minus an arm cramp that hurt him in one of the races) I will post what he place when i get the official places later this week. He also had a great time bonding with his dad the whole weekend. And got to visit with his aunt and uncle and cousins by boise!! what a wild weekend for the Carroll's!

mothers day

2010-05-10T10:00:00.003-06:00

The ramblings of a sleep deprived, frustrated, use to be sick, now-I-am-feelingbetter, rebanned mothersday mom!!!

Ok so this last week has been crazy! After suffering from a kidney stone, I came down with strep throat, I quickly got on antibiotics so I could go on with my week, but sleep has been here and there if you know what I mean! I have been stressed with my subruban in the shop. And it just seems to go downhill from there. I run around like a crazy woman taking the kids here and there, (of course I love it, but I have to complain when I can) It just seems crazier some weeks like this one. Then mothers day comes.... Mothers day has always been a touchy subject in our house, since it has never really been celebrated I have always tried to just pretend to ignore it, and act like its another day. In fact several years ago I banned mothers day so that I simply didn't have to worry about being let down. I know I should't need gifts or a lot of recognition or stuff like that, but if we are all really honest with ourselves I think we all deep down really want that. right??? That extra pat on the back, the extra mom you really are doing a great job,, and we DO love you! sure we all really love the homeade cards and gifts, and hugs and kisses, I know we all do, I am NOT putting those down at all I love them too. I live for them every day of my life, I really do! But this is the one day made for US!!! Now I am not telling all of you this to make you feel sorry for me, please do not feel sorry for me, I totally brought this on myself! I did not train my husband in the first few years of marriage correctly. I have always heard you have to train your husbands if you want them to behave a certain way. I was sure mine would just know. But I was wrong :( So last year I stomped my foot (i do that on occasion to get a big point across) and said I have been a mom for 12 years!!! I am lifting the ban, and I am expecting a really good mothers day next year! I am a good mom, I deserve to be spoiled rotten!

Well here we are on mothers day weekend! Now to be somewhat fair. Brian is working all weekend. (but the guy has had a whole year you know) and this is what I got..... I broke my favorite baking dish! I cried and cried and cried!!! this was acutally a wedding present! And then I made a big girl decision. I get it!! I totally get it. Thats why my mom bought herself christmas presents every year, wrapped them them put them under the tree, it solves all the problems. The ban is changed. from now on, I will by my own mothers day present I will get something faboulous! it will be exactly what I want. it will be just a little too expensive so that I know I totally deserve it. It will be wrapped so pretty. then I can give it to the kids to give to me! I think this solves everybodys problems. I will get what I want. brian gets out of the doghouse. I no longer have to pout. I think it may work!!! I am actually looking forward to next year, I don't know but I have a sneaking suspicion i may be getting new mountain bike :)

And to be fair to my darling babies, Alli worked very hard to make me a darling card, and Joey carved me a heart out of wood! they worked so hard, and I am so grateful for them! And salt and pepper made me cute picture magnets at preschool. thank you babies!
Ok mothers day would not be complete with out a recipe~
Grasshopper cupcakes

cupcakes

1c sugar

1c brown sugar

1 3/4 c. flour

3/4 c. cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

mix together then add

2 whole eggs

1 c milk

1/2 oil

2 tsp vanilla

mix together then add

1 cup boiling water

the batter will be very runny. pour the batter into a mearsuing cup to make filling the cupcake liners easier. when I made these they acutally made 24 regular cupcakes, and 24 mini cupcakes, you do not want to over fill the liners. only fill them about 2/3 full. bake at 350 for 12-15 min. cool completly before frosting!

FROSTING

3c heavy whipping cream

1/2 c. powdered sugar

8 drops peppermint extract

6-8 drops green food coloring

whip the heavy cream till stiff peaks form, then add the powdered sugar, extract, and color. place cream in decorator bag. I use either the 1M or #22 tip.

Spoon 1 spoonfull of hotfudge on the cupcake do not warm up the hot fudge sauce it will drip all over and make a huge mess! Then pipe frosting on top, and just for fun, top with a thin mint cookie. enjoy!

2010-05-05T11:32:00.004-06:00

Ok with the BIG day coming up this sunday, I figured I would let all my blogger friends and family in on a little more info about moi! Feel free to copy and paste on your own blog with your info so we all can get to know each other better !

***********FOODOLOGY***************

What is your salad dressing of choice? Ranch, but I don't get to eat it anymore because it has egg in it and I can't have egg! figures huh!
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? I have always loved olive garden! It is my go to place, but I would be willing to go anywhere that gets me out of the kitchen for a night!
What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? PASTA – breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!! mmmmm mmmmm mmmm!
What are your pizza toppings of choice? pepperoni and cheese, but I like to take the pepperoni off and just have the flavor of it left on the pizza! kind of weird huh.
What do you like to put on your toast? . butter , cinnamon and sugar.
***********TECHNOLOGY***************
How many televisions are in your house? 4 (family room, living room, bedroom and one downstairs)
What color is your cell phone? gold, I just had to get a new one, cause I broke my old one, oops! they don't call me gracie for nothing!
Are you computer savvy? somewhat, I can blog, I can facebook, I can shop online, I can print my sunday lessons, I guess I can get by. but other than that, don't push your luck!

***************BIOLOGY******************
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right, but I think I am left footed.
Do you have any children that are left – handed? I don't think so
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? yes, my tonsils, my appendix, and some stuff from inside my knee, and of course 4 lovely children :)

What was the last heavy item you lifted? well this is a thing I plan to correct over the summer, but jason falls asleep on the couch every night, then I have to carry him to bed, after he is asleep. that is 46lbs of pure love right there that I am lifting every night!

Have you ever been knocked unconscious?not that I remember???

************BULLCRAPOLOGY**************
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? I want to say yes, but really I don't think I would.
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I don't think I would change it, but if I had to, it would have to be a food item like brownie or something like that, that way I wouldn't forget it!
Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? No way, I can barely handle mexican food, a bottle of hot sauce would surely do me in, $1000 would not be nearly enough!

************DUMBOLOGY******************
How many pairs of flip flops do you own? 3 pair - but they are all old, and I totally need /want more for the summer!
Last person you talked to? Myself…..technically it was the kids, but since they ignored me, I guess it was myself!
Last person you hugged? my babies as they went off to preschool! they are getting way too big!

**************FAVORITOLOGY****************
Season? Spring (if it will ever officially get here)
Holiday? Christmas
Day of the week? Tuesday. its not monday, and I still have most of the week to get things done!
Month? June, the kids get out of school, its not too hot, things are not too busy yet, its perfect!

***********CURRENTOLOGY*****************
Mood? tired, (is that a mood) nervous, (I don't exactly know why I guess it comes from being a mom) happy too!
What are you listening to? the dishwasher running, and my t.v. in the background.
What should you be doing right now? laundry, mopping, vaccuming, etc...... you get the pic.
Current favorite TV Show: well, I am a reality tv freak! so you name it I probably like it, I love dancing with the stars, surviver, biggest loser! and I love lifetime movies.
Worrying about? hmmm lets see... everything!!

***************RANDOMOLOGY*****************
First place you went this morning? besides to the bathroom (hehe) I haven't left the house yet!
What’s the last movie you saw? The last movie I saw in a theatre was the princess and the frog cute show, bad theatre, gum on the floor, and other random sticky stuff, but at the dollar theatre, what do you expect right!
Do you smile often? YES of course! I love my kids!! they make me smile all the time!
Sleeping Alone Tonight? Well.... hubbys at work:( of course jason sneaks in with me.

***************OTHER-OLOGY*****************
Do you always answer your phone? pretty much yes, there are very few times when I don't.
It’s after ten o’clock in the evening and the phone rings. Who will it be? brian or jennie!
If you could change your eye color what would it be? my eyes are brown, but I always thought it would be cool to have blue eyes
If you could have a body part altered, sucked or botoxed, which part would it be? Brian always makes fun of my flat behind, so I guess if I could get something fixed I might get some junk in my trunk.
Do you own a digital camera? yes, and I love it! I would love a really expensive, cool, do lots of things for you type of camera, but that will come later!
Do you have a pet?no, I opted for children instead.
Favorite Christmas song(s)? I do, but at this moment I can't think of the names, my mind is not on christmas!!!
What’s on your wish list for your birthday? Oh the list is long, but some of it includes...apple ipod touch, new long bread pans, a tea kettle, and many more things.
Can you do push ups?Yes, but not many. I work out a few times a week, and I swim twice a week to keep in shape, swimming is very good for the arms!
What are you looking forward to? to life getting a little bit easier. I am not expecting miracles here, just for things to not keep getting thrown at me right and left! maybe just one at a time!
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? My life right now is good . . . I’m blessed, so I rarely look too far ahead.
Do you have an accent? nope!
Do you cry easily? No! maybe I should cry more, but I tend to hold everything in!
Plans tomorrow? I don't like to plan too far ahead! j/k not yet, but I am sure my day will fill in soon.
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? Yes, a few times, the last couple months have been really hard. and several years ago when all my babies were babies. Thank goodness I believe the way I do, and that there is always tomorrow.
Name 3 things you bought today: the only thing I bought today is my taxes (well the service to get my taxes done)
Have you ever been given roses? yes, but it has been a LONG time since I have!
Current worry? oh wow, how much time do you all have..... I am always worried about my kids, are they happy, do they have enough friends, do they have good friends, am I a good parent, am I teaching the right lessons the right way, what will they come up with next?.... the list is so long, I will leave you all for now.
This is a small glimpse into my crazy world. thanks to you all for reading about my wonderfully crazy family, and loving us anyway! Happy mothers day to all you moms out there!!!!

Take me out to the ballgame!

2010-04-26T19:42:00.003-06:00

T-ball at its finest! Jason's first t'ball game ever.

And it was funny. He was so confused, and tired, and didn't know which way to go, or what to do, after the second inning, he turned to me and said," I am too tired mom, can we go home now?"

I made him finish the next 2 innings, and he did finish, kind of. During the last inning, he walked off the field to get a drink of his juice. He was just wore out. Here he is running into home.
And I do have them backwards, but here he is jumping onto third. Literally!

Up to bat!

Practicing before the game starts!

Just a little cocky before the game started. (and before he got hit in the nose with a ball).

I am so looking forward to a fun and exciting season of t-ball. and I am ready to see lots of improvements!!!!

love ya jj.