Yea, new family pics!!! We have been wanting to get new family pics since zander has been growing sooo big. So we finally got them. I thought they turned out pretty darn cute.

 And its not very easy to get 8 people looking forward and smiling at the same time, but we succeded.

 Some funny faces here and there, but overall, pretty good.

 Even when I try to put zach first, joey's picutre loads first!
Joey age 13 (almost 14)

 Zach age 15( almost 16)

 Allison age 12 (almost 13)

 Abby age 7

 Jason age 7

 And Zander age 1

I couldn't decide on his picure so this cutie got an extra in here, I can't believe that he is already 1. He is such a fun kid.

 

So another reason I have been slacking in the blogging is that February has been a difficult month for us. Abbys grandma, (my aunt) passed away. This was so hard, and I think we all have been having a bit of a hard time dealing with it. Death is difficult to deal with anyway, but when its someone so young, and someone so close, and this is my kids first time really having to deal with a death in the family, so we have been having a lot of discussions and family time. But I think that they are all doing ok now.

We are enjoying the great spring weather, the kids sports are keeping us crazy busy. Joey is in rugby, Abby is in volleyball, alli is still in dance, and also chruch basketball, jason is starting baseball, and zach is starting golf. What a crazy life we have. But we love it and we are happy.

Well it has taken me a  very long time to get this together. I wished I would have posted this the day we went through, but of course life happens. After 3 years of having Abby in our home we were finally able to take her through the temple. This was such a wonderful experience for our family. Not just because we took her, but because ALL of our kids were able to be there with us. To have all 6 of our children in the temple with us was amazing. And something I will never forget. We had a lot of family and friends that also made it to the temple and to our after party, to help make our day just that much better, so thank you everybody! It is so heartwarming to have our family and friends around us, and also to know that we are now a forever family. Thank you all for your support.

(I have lots more updates when I get my cast off and can type better this week)

 spending the day at gardner village. we had a blast, we did the witches scavenger hunt, and found them all.

 we had to take turns getting in the picure :)

 Alli and zander posing by the upside down witch. they thought it was pretty funny!

 aww, me and my baby!

 This kid eats EVERYTHING in sight, here he is with aunt kami feeding him an apple....

 then she had to sneak him some caramel to go with it.

 And jason finally lost his tooth! I am not sure about the face he is pulling here, kinda goofy, but he sure was happy to get a dollar.

 Alli was trying to teach him how to color. he didn't do to bad, he was a bit more interested in eating the crayon, but he did do some coloring.

 He liked to change colors a lot!

 He was so proud he wanted to eat his artwork.

 And here he is with his pumpkin, and I know it is kinda hard to tell, but those are his handprints, and footprints on the pumpkin. just a bit smeared.

 And all of my spooks. dressed up and ready to go!

 Never too old to dress up and have fun, Zach.

 Alli, my devil child!

 Abby, the little princess

 Jason, the ninja, who pulls weird faces

 Joey, yea, my little nerd, don't ask...........

and zander, the littlest angry bird, but he sure doesn't look very angry! we sure had a great halloween, now onto the next holliday, bring on the turkey!!

Sometimes we are stronger than we think

Back in April when the Dr.s were trying to figure out for sure if it was my gallbladder that was going wacky, I was undergoing a bazillion tests, did you know that was a number, cause it is. And in one of those bazillion tests, they found a tumor on my adrenal gland. They decided not to remove it at that time because it is not an easy surgery. They wanted to keep an eye on it by doing a CT scan every 6 months or so to see if grows or changes, and if it does then they would remove it. So for the last 6 months I have been thinking constantly of this tumor in my body wondering if it was growing how big it was, if it is cancerous, what my future held. It is amazing how long 6 months is. So I went in for my CT scan just got my results......and it shrunk!!! wow, I did not realize how scared I really was and how consuming it had been in my thoughts. But now, I only have to go in every year to make sure it does not start growing again. GREAT NEWS!!! just wanted to share. Prayers really do get answered.

black eye, bumps, nerds, and oh my!

 Ok so these glasses have been the fun of the house for the last few weeks. Here is Jason and his bear being adorable!

 my big 7 month old he sure wasn't liking the grass at all.

 what a cutie! love my zan man.

 trying to be like daddy! maybe a little too much.

 Miss abby was running around at recess and tripped and hit the slide and gave herself a great big black eye! her eye swelled shut and she was miserable for a day or so. but she sure can show off those lovely lashes!

 zanders rash when we found out he was allergic to amoxicillian. poor baby we had to get him a new perscription for his double ear infection.

 Ok, here are the lovely glasses again! bringing out the best in the carroll boys from grandpa, through brian down to joey! oh my! proud moments! what a bunch of goobers.

 I know I know how embarassing!!! an underware picture! but it was so adorable how he fell asleep. jason was so tired he just went to bed and this is how I found him like 30 seconds later!

 This weekend we celebrated our 17th anniversary so I bought 17 balloons, and yes I found out there was a helium shortage, crazy huh, so I had to go to 2 different stores, to get that many balloons, and I put a memory at the bottom of each balloon, some of them were: the time were were leaving for church and brian wanted to hurry and eat a gogurt and pushed it up and all over his nice white shirt! another is when we went to lake powell and he came out of the bathroom wearing  combat boots a cowboy hat, and a swimsuit that looked like it was from 7th grade, and I still married the guy! another memory is when I was pregnant with zach, and I had a crazy craving for tuna fish sandwiches in the middle of the night and we got up, made the sandwiches, and ate them in bed together. there are so many fun memories! and coming up with 17 of them was a blast! happy 17th babe.

 so this is our new place. I have been promising pics forever,  we are loving our new place, the kids are doing great. and having a lot of fun.

 This is my fun little front porch. I am loving being able to decorate it.

 and my little halloween decorations in my entryway.

 this little candle my parents brought back from their trip on the church tour, is a "dating candle" when a young man comes to our house to see our daughter we decide how much we like him, and thats how high up we spin the candle and then light it, when the candle burns down that much, the young man has to leave! I love it. I am so going to use this when alli starts to date!

And this little project I made a few years ago, but I am going to remake a few of them this year, I love halloween!

 I had to get a picture of Zander in this shirt because he was wearing this when Zach went on his date to homecoming, just got me thinking I have a lot of years of kids dating!

 Here is my handsome young man posing by his new (OLD) car, no he doesn't have his lisence yet, but him and brian have 9 more months to get this car in tip top shape before he does get his lisence.

 Here are Zach and Sage doing the boutineer (sp) we had a little struggle with it, but she figured it out later at the dance! way to go sage!!!

 Look how cute they are! They had a blast. They went rock climbing earlier in the day, then had dinner at Sage's house, then off to the dance. My little buddy is growing up too fast, but thats ok when I get to enjoy watching him have so much fun.

 And this little car was one of alli's school projects it is a mouse trap car. It so did not work. she was told to bring stuff from home to put on a mouse trap so that when the mouse trap was set off the car would go at least 3 feet. alli failed, but she still got an A for effort ! Her and Brian are going to rebuild it for fun to see if they can get it to work.

 And mr Joey, keeping life interesting for us. just what we needed. He decided he needed a litte extra attention, and had to get his appendix out! so last week thats what we did!Here he is in the ER awww, tuff but loveable.

 And for alli's YW in excellence project she learned how to make a peach pie!! she made this for joey for when he came home from the hospital, (I knew she loved him)

 And in all this craziness, well actually before this, we had Jasons birthday! He had a fun birthday, he actually said it was his best birthday EVER! What an awesome 7 year old.

 Abby checking him out opening his presents.

 Jason blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.

 And of course since we have a pool we have to have a pool party if your birthday is in the summer right??? So here we are with the cousins all jumping in except for jason who wanted to do it alone......

 so here he is.....

 Zander growing up way too fast!

 I know, I know, my pictures are always out of order! but when zach asked sage to the dance, we made carrot cake cookies and took her a stuffed rabbit with a note that said : "somebunny" wants to go to homecoming with you, if you "carrot' all you would say yes. this is how she answered, with this fun puzzle.

 kids are so creative!! I love it.

Alli and zander sharing a pear! my baby loves big people food now  :)
Ok I know I keep promising pics of my house, I have them on my camera, but I keep forgeting to put them on the computer, so today I will because I need to get a picture of miss abby, she got a big black eye yesterday, so that is what is coming up next........(keep ya hooked right, lol. plus another yummy recipe.