timing is just off, again!

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!!

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!

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!!!!

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

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

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

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

yes its me whining again!

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

trying real hard to get into the christmas mood

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

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

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

And some candy :)

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

Early Christmas at grandma and grandpas!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

top ramen and chopsticks

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

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

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

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

Our first family pic as an offical family!

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

officially a Carroll!!!

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

The fairy tale ballet!

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

All dressed up waiting to go!

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

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

carving pumpkins!

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

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

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

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

happy halloween

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

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


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


and a close up of jason, aka optimus prime!

you have a minute to win it!!

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

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

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

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

Cheer camp and Zach makes it home

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

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