grrrrrr

OK, so here comes my venting once again! I am frustrated! I know Dr.s are smart, but I think that they expect a problem (aka gallbladder) to have a certain set of symptoms and if it doesn't follow those symptoms it must be something else. But I say, "what if"!!!! So It has been about a month now that after I ate, I started feeling uncomfortable, right under my right rib just kind of felt crampy a little, well over the last month it has increased in pain A LOT. The crampy feeling is constant, and now when I eat the crampy feeling is like a stabby pain that moves to the back, but it happens right after I eat. The dr. said if its gallbladder it wouldn't happen about 20-30 min after I ate, I said , what if it did???? Would that be so crazy. So my family dr. sent me for an ultrasoud, they found the lesion on my liver and sent me for a ctscan. that found a tumor on my adrenal gland, so he sent me to a surgeon. I had been so scared knowing I have a tumor. the first thing the surgeon said was he wasn't worried about the tumor!! so why did my dr immediatly send me to a surgeon, ugggg. so confusing. So it all leads back to gallbladder right?? not so fast. The surgeon said he thinks it may just be an ulcer or something, but he wants to look at the function of my gallbladder before he just goes and removes it for no reason. so more tests....... And these tests scare me to death. in fact I am shaking in my socks right now as I am writing this, tomorrow morning, I have to go in and have a GI scope done to watch the function of my gallbladder, and even though I will have a mild sedation, I am thinking mild is not nearly strong enough. massive sedation sounds more like it. I gag brushing my teeth, so i am not sure how well this is going to work out tomorrow, but we will see. Then monday morning I go in for a HIDAscan, now this one sounds interesting, I get shotup with radioactive tracer in my veins, I get to lay on a table for over an hour while a camera passes over me and takes pics of my insides. But this will see if everything is working the way it should. So After all this it may end up being my gallbladder!!!! I will let you know. I go back to the surgeon next wednesday to talk about the results of my tests. I am telling you, I hope I survive all these crazy tests.

april fools to easter and a few things in between

 Joey and zan man hanging out watching tv together. The brothers like to just chill out on the weekends.

 ok, before you freak, i know this looks really gross, its meant to, I made this for april fools day. It was pretty funny. Its brownies squished together to look, well, like poop. We gave it to the kids, and told them that they got to eat "crap" for dinner, they looked at us like we were crazy, Brian picked one up and took a bite, they all just gagged, they still couldn't eat it. it was pretty funny. That is all we did this year, but it was a doozy :)

 Jason was sent up to bed the other night, and for some reason he decided that he wanted to fall asleep in our doorway. he was so cute I had to get a picture. goofy kid.

 Little Zander snoozing on dads chair. He is growing so fast!

 Abby, Jason, and Alli dying easter eggs. they were having a blast, they took their job pretty serious. (well alli did anyway)

 seems like everytime I snap a pic of zach he has to pull a face, so instead of yelling at him to smile, I am embracing the dorky faces. this one is showing off the nice blue mouth from the candy he had eaten earlier. NICE! And of course Joey, he ususally pulls goofy faces, but I acutally caught him inbetween funny faces :) The big boys had a good time coloring eggs this year. Its so fun that they still enjoy it.

 My big baby and little baby, lol, love these 2! just hanging out while the kids colored eggs.

 Easter morning, the kids actually slept in, it was wonderful! They were so happy! Here they are checking out their buckets. They big boys were a little slower.

And of course a holiday can't go by without me making something. So this year I made tyedied waffles, they were so much fun. and the kids loved them! Overall a very successful holiday. We had a wonderful day at church. and enjoyed spending the day together as a family. We also got to spend saturday with my family, my cute little niece saydee got baptized saturday morning, we love these family experiences.

Also just a little side note. for those of you following my little dr. drama, just to catch you up, after I had Zander, I was having a little problem with not feeling well after I ate, started thinking it was gallbladder, I had my tubes tied, then the problem got worse, I went to the dr. last week, sent me in for an ultrasound, and they found a lesion on my liver, so then sent me back in last night for a ct scan, I am now waiting for those results. I will keep you posted on what I find out, hopefully I will hear soon, the waiting is making me crazy!!!

st patricks day and zanders blessing

 green, green, and more green, call me crazy, but I love st. patricks day! It started with green pancakes and ugly green carmel syrup, and green whip cream. but oh it was so yummy!  Abby and jason had so much fun running around the house finding all the things the crazy leprechan did in our house, like turning the milk green, and the toliet water green,, and leaving footprints in the bathroom.

 Me and the little man, chillin in our green outfits.

 And this is what that leprechan did when we set up our trap to try to catch him. He knocked over our stools,and bench, but at least he left us candy :) Once again we didn't catch him, maybe next year.

 Here is the little monkey, It seems that this is his favorite place, in the bathtub!! He is kind of a fussy baby. He hates the carseat, hates being put down, as long as someone is holding him, and feeding him or he is in the tub, he is happy! what a goofy kid. but we sure love him!!

 And this kid, he turned 13 this last weekend, can you believe that! And all he asked for for his birthday was jerseys, or an ipad, or new ipods, or cell phone, or anything along those lines, (he doesn't ask for much!!) So  the spoiled kid got a jersey. I think he was pretty happy. Its crazy to think he is already a teenager. my babies are growing up. But he is an amazing kid. And although it would be quiet I sure don't what I would do without my joey!! love you buddy.

 This weekend we also had zanders blessing. It was amazing. we had so many family and friends come out to support us. thanks to all of you that made it. we appreciate it so much. We had such a great time with all of you. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such great people. It was crazy hectic, and of course brian changed his clothes as soon as we got home, so thats what brought on the next picture.....

 yep.... thats my husband. I had to get a pic of us in our church clothes with zander in his blessing outfit, but brian had changed so I made him change back into his shirt. what a goof.

 We are so blessed to have talented women in our family. this blanked in this picutre was made by my great grandma van patten. I have been able to have each of my kids have their pics taken in their blessing outfits in this blanket.

 And grandma carroll made this blanket. I wish I inherited, or learned some of this, but so far, I have nothing! Maybe its not too late. We will see. But I think my kids are very lucky to have the grandparents, and great grandparents that they have!!

Here are my munchkins! I have to say that I have some pretty awesome kids. I am a very lucky mom to have what I do in my life.

making my great grandmas proud, (I hope) I just had a do it yourself weekend!

 Ok I don't know about the rest of your households, but in mine even with just 2 girls, we go through the detangler like crazy, so I looked up how to make your own detangler. Well as crazy as it is, it was simple and cheap. just take any conditioner, I always have some conditioner left after I use all my shampoo, I don't know why, fill a bottle 3/4 with warm water, then the rest with the conditioner, there ya go, detangler! So I no longer have to rush off to walmart for it, I will make my own!

 The second thing I made (actually this is the second time I made it) was homemade baby wipes this is kinda fun, I don't actually use them as baby wipes, although you could, we just sipmly use them for whatever, washing faces, cleaning up spills, washing our hands, whatever we need to use them for we do. You take a roll of paper towels, cut them in half with a serated knife, thats the fun part. pull out center cardboard round thing of the paper towel so you can pull the paper towels from the center. put it cut side down in some type of tupperware. I found one pretty cheap at walmart. then you boil 2 cups water, let it cool a bit. add in 2 TB. Baby wash, and 1 TB baby oil, also if you want to you can add 1 tsp lavendar essential oil. pour over the paper towels let it soak in for a couple hours, you are ready to go, they smell so yummy!

 Homemade laundry soap! This was kinda fun to make. I have been wanting to try this for a while, I have just been too lazy! First I bought the Irish spring soap, you can use any brand soap you want to use, you can grate it up, I just gave the soap to joey and let him whittle it with his knife, it kept him busy for a while. But the ingredients you need are: 1 bar of soap, arm and hammer super washing soda,  and borax! and now I am sounding like a commercial, but yes, I found all this at..... walmart! so to make 2 gallons of soap, you grate, or in my case whittle 1 bar of soap, put it in a large pot, or pan, pour 1 gallon of water over it, and bring to boil, continue to boil till all dissolved. once dissolved, add 1 c. borax, and 1 c. washing soda. bring back to boil. It will coagulate. Turn off heat. Add 1 gallon cold water. Stir well, pour into whatever container you choose, I just used old milk containers. to use, pour 1/2 c. into wash. It works great. p.s. it is safe for h.e. wahsers :) less than pennies per load!!!

 Ok, so I also decided to make my own mozzarella cheese. so here is the way easy recipe: citric acid powder, rennet,whole milk salt!!! thats it :) disolve 1 1/2 tsp citric acid powder in 1/4 c. cool water set aside, also disolve 1/4 tsp rennet in 1/4 c. cool water, also set this aside.
pour the gallon of whole milk in large stockpot. sprinkle the citric acid over the top and stir gently. heat milk to 88 degrees. dont panic when it starts to curdle, thats the idea. while pot is still over heat. stir in the rennet. heat to 100-105. shut off heat. walk away from the pan for about 5 min. do not touch the pan!! when you come back the curds (the white part) should've pulled away from the sides of the pot and you should see lots of whey on top and around the sides. now for the fun part. scoop the curds out with a slotted spoon into a microwave safe bowl. press the curds against the side of the bowl with your clean hand so the when squishes out dump the whey back into the pot. do not throw the whey away. microwave the cures for 1 min. using your hands knead the curds and drain the whey back into the stockpot. put the curds back into microvave for 30 seconds, knead curds, drain, repeat 1 more time. at this time you can either stretch it into a smooth ball and eat it warm , drop the ballin ice water to cool the curd quickly for storage or pull off little pieces of mozzarella between walnut size and golf ball size and stretch and roll it to form little balls. drop little balls into an ice water bath and repeat with the remaining curd.

 I just made mine into logs and we just ate them!! I will be making more real soon!

 and here is our little buddy hanging out while we do all our work!

I had to throw this Pic in cause I thought it was so cute, it looks like Zander is hugging his daddy while he is sleeping! its so adorable! And for those of you interested, we are blessing this little guy on march 25. we would love to have our family and friends there with us! call me if you have any questions.

 ok, so I know I put up this pic of me pregnant before, but I have to say, I am amazed every day when I look at my little baby that not that long ago he was squished inside me, lol. Where did he fit??? The pregnant picture is of me just 2 short weeks before I delivered. And then he was here. We are having so much fun with little Zander. He is quite the loved little guy. Although I will say he has given the kids what I call "baby ADD" they want to hold him so they do, then they pick him up, hold him for less then a minute, then put him down or hand him off, and they keep doing this all evening long, poor Zander is going to get motion sick. But at least he knows he is loved.

 Jason loves to hang out with his baby brother, he reads to him, shows him how to color, and play games on dads iphone.

 Abby is pretty amazed with little Zander, she is finally feeling better so she can hang out with him :) she likes to give him kisses on top of his head! And read him lots of books.

 Hard to believe that there is only 12 short years between these two boys! Joey is quite protective of his Z.J. He loves to hold him, and has a very calming touch with him, which I am so grateful for.

 And Zach loves to comb his hair, this is the little "brush" -yes its a toothbrush that they gave us at the hospital, It must be zach's obsession with hair that makes him like to keep zanders so handsome, but I think zach has taken it upon himself to do just that!

And I know that this is not my best pic, I am just dying for the weather to get warmer so we can go outside and take some fun pics, but I really wanted to get all 6 of my kids in 1 picture, so here they are..... All of my little cuties in 1 picture. It took almost 3 weeks to do it, but I finally did it. hopefully I can do it again soon. Sure is a good lookin bunch of kids. We haven't been doing much of anything, just figuring out schedules, keep everyone happy and healthy, I am feeling pretty good, still fighting a daily migraine, but controling it somewhat, but I am able to funciton to the point that my house is somewhat clean, I actually cook once in a while, and I almost feel ready to start working out :) I am just needing it to start warming up. So ready for spring. I am still wrapping my head around my new life, I may be doing this for a while, and then again I may never figure it out, but thats ok too. I am ok with never figuring it out, as long as we are happy!!

happy valentines day!!!

 daddy and his little buddy! they love hanging out together! this little guy gets passed around so much, but when daddy gets a hold of him he tries hard to hang on to him!!!

 I got to get out of the house the other day and hang out at my mom and dads just to get a little breather. it was so nice just to not have to look at my messy house for a whole day :)  This little guy had to meed his great grandmas, and great aunt!!! they drove down to meet him that day, we had such a great and relaxing day. I so look forward to doing it again really soon. Here is Zander with aunt bonnie.

 And Bonnie's granddaughter kylie, she loved the little baby. Here she is giving him a little hug. (but she had to keep her eye on him)

 great grandma bowcutt, getting ger cuddles in. I can't remember exactly, but she said something about this being great grandkid # 36 or something like that..... wow that is amazing!!!!!!  And great grandma heaton, I think her great grandkid count is in the #40's what amazing women!!! I love them all so much!!! And I love seeing them hold my little munchkin.

 Here is the poster we made for brian for valentines day, to surprise him, He loved it, although the kids don't quite understand that they don't get to help eat it all, (I'm sure brian will share anyway) but so far he is keeping most of it to himself, and eating it very slowly!!

And this is what we made for jason and abbys class for valentines. they loved handing them  out and getting such a great reaction! It made them so proud!!! I didn't get a pic of alli's but she did a bottled water, with a valentine label, and a flavor pouch that she put her own label on that said "love juice" it was SO CUTE!!! we had a great valentines day, I even got flowers!!! I was so surprised!! between having the baby and valentines day, I got 3 bunches of flowers, I have never got so many flowers. I feel totally spoiled. what a lucky girl I am!
Today is also the day my little sweet baby boy turnes 2 weeks old, I take him in, so I will fill you in on all the details later :)

The story of Zander Jax

Well for those of you who do not want to want to know all the lovely details of the last week or so, feel free to not read on, but I use this blog as kind of a family journal, and so I am detailing the story of our little man's birth. Well not all the gory details, but the main points. I think I left off when I was a total psyco mom, and fired my ob! wow was I really that crazy, yep I was, and yep the best decision I ever made. the new dr.  sent me in for an amnio, which came back "mature" kinda funny that your baby is mature. So my wonderful new dr. called labor and delivery and got me the first available induction, which was for thursday february 2, and it was only tuesday afternoon, I had a day and a half to wait, but I could do this!!!! then I could work on getting rid of this blasted migraine! So I went on with my day, took a nap, got up made dinner, did my "mom"chores, and went to bed. The next day, I think nerves made my headache even worse, plus I had to go to parent teacher conference. But that turned out great! I have pretty awesome kids. Couldn't sleep at all that night, nervous, excited, ready!!!!! Got up, got the the kids ready for school, grandpa came up to see them off on time, and off we went..... we had a fun surprising little snowstorm. Showed up at the hospital, got signed in, and waited, and waited, it took about an hour and a half to get started. And of course my first question.... when can I get my epidural???? she said whenever, lol, I told her I would wait a few minuets. literally. after a few contractions, I figured, why wait. I went ahead and got it. Unfortunatally it didn't work. well, my legs were numb, but I could feel every contraction, and  I was stuck at a "6" from around 12:00 till 4:00ish. after a few hours I ended up with a massive migraine and another epidural. But around 4:30 (yes it was a long day) my dr decided to break my water, and get things moving. so brian decided to go to the car and get his phone charger and in that 2 min. window that he was gone, I changed, to complete, and ready to deliver!!!!!! I was like, Um I just don't have a husband yet....... hope he hurries..... well he did, and our little Zander was born at 4:38. And brian was there for it. barely. The feelings were so different with this baby. With all that has happened during the pregnancy I almost was in true denial until the moment of birth, and when I saw that little baby for the first time, it really hit me, It was truly amazing. God works in amazing ways, and he has something very wonderful in store for this little guy and our family! And I thank him every day for our miracles! And I thank all our family and friends for their love and friendship, AND FOOD! you are all wonderful. thank you so much. Our not so little family is very much complete now. (with plans to make this permanent in just a few short weeks ;) So thanks again for all your well wishes, and all your support!
And just a small side note, on how we came up with zander jax, he is our 6th child, we have 2 that start with a, 2 that start with j, and 1 that started with z, so we were trying to come up with a z name, then all of our kids have a "j"in either thier first or middle name, so we also needed a j name. so just for fun I said we should just call him "z j" well it stuck, the kids started calling him zj, then we came up with jax, which we all liked, and zander just came to us, and stuck!!! not much of a story, but its our story and we are stickin to it! 

a very happy february

Well, as you all know from my last several posts, the last few months, (well, years, but we won't go that far back) have been very difficult. I don't need to go into all the gory details of my life, but I will say february will have a very bright spot. Tomorrow is the day we get to meet our little baby!!! As I sit here on my last full day of being pregnant, EVER, (yes I am taking care of buisness after this one) I am trying to soak it all in. This pregnancy has been so difficult I haven't really been able to enjoy much of it. So as I sat here rubbing my big belly and getting kicked back, I realize I will miss that a lot. This little guy has been a mover and a shaker, and it has been fun to be the one to experience that. I also will miss my curly hair, I don't know how it happened but my very straight hair became naturally curly with this pregnancy. The other positive thing is, is that since I became pregnant, a lot of my allergies to food has gone away, I have been able to enjoy some fruit, and some foods with eggs in them, it has been wonderful! so thank you baby for helping me out a bit!  I have been so busy especially since we moved, then in the last month and a half with back labor pains, and migraines that won't go away,  that I haven't had a chance to really think about actually bringing home this baby. And the fact that there will be a baby, I did not just get fat!! sometimes it is a little overwhelming to consider the fact that tomorrow I will be holding my baby. I am so excited. I am really really looking forward to this. ( and a nice peaceful hospital stay while brian takes care of the other kids) with older kids I think in terms of school, and to think that I get the kids off to school tomorrow, then have a baby, come home the next day, but make sure I am home by 1;00 so we can pick the kids up from school, then welcome to life with 6 kids. It will be crazy from there. But I think I am ready. But ready or not here he comes!!! And for those of you who have been following my babys progress, at the amnio yesterday, then did the ultrasound, and think he is right around 6 lbs. we will see how close they are :) They figure that he hasn't grown past 34 weeks, (so yea he would have been a big baby if he kept growing) so its time. I will hopefully be able to post soon so you can all meet our little one!!! thanks for all our love and support.
(sorry if this is a little back and forth, I have a lot on my mind today)

being a little selfish.....

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!

 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..........

 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!