My4Kids

Halloween (a little late)

2009-11-07T18:03:00.001-09:00

Kenzie and Madisons costumes for this year. Don't know exactly what you want to call them but Kenzies was called a "Gothic Robe" she is really into skulls this year and has several shirts. a pair of shoes and shoelaces that have skulls on them as part of her wardrobe. My little girl is starting to be not so little anymore, at least not style wise. She is still tiny compared to her friends but she is definetly growing up into her own style. You can sort of see her red highlights in her hair in these pictures but I haven't been able to get them to show up like I want. They are temporary but she has been doing it for a couple of weeks now since her daddy won't let them be permanent. She also likes the darker makeup but not normally allowed to wear black lipstick.

Maddie is still very much into little girl stuff though so this is very much costume for her with the highlights and makeup. Maddie is catching up with her sister size wise, both wearing the same clothing sizes. Although she is much easier to shop for since she still is into the littler girl clothes. It's hard to find clothes in black and dark colors for little sized girls like Kenzie. Anyway Maddie wanted to be a vampire but no fangs since with the Twilight stuff she doesn't think real vampires have fangs :)

Anyway this year for Halloween we did the same thing we have been doing since we moved here and went to the Trick Or Truck at the school they used to go to when they were in school here. They got a lot of candy but the weather was pretty cold so most of the time they were in coats but wanted to get pictures without them. We also got lucky because the begining of the day was very raining and windy but the rain dried up just in time for trick or trunking and stayed like that till they were done, just pretty cold. We had rain mixed with snow in the morning though.

After they finished with the trick or Trunking they walked to my friends house down the street to go to the houses on the way. So they got plenty of candy!

Other things they've been doing alot lately is going skating at the rec center with friends. Picture to the left is Kenzie and her friend Wyatt. They get a lot of teasing about flirting. Which they both do although I think that they are both just the type who flirt naturally without even realizing it. They don't necessarily like us pointing it out but it's cute.

Hey look I've finally decided to post! warning it will be long

2009-07-13T20:18:00.016-08:00

I know I've been gone forever and I've gotten a few messages from people wondering if I quit blogging. I didn't really quit more like I took a break.

For awhile it was just that I didn't really have anything to blog about. Life was kind of boring I guess you could say and I felt like if I was blogging I would just be repeating the same things everyday. Also I was kind of in a funk I guess you could call it. I still am in a way. I'm working on it though. Life just gets to you sometimes, you know? Some of you have been around at other times when I've this kind of issue and know that I was on medication for depression, anxiety, etc. before we moved here to Alaska. Many of you know that I decided to go off of everything when we moved here and at the begining it was going really well and I wasn't having any issues with those problems or was able to deal with them well. I am still determined for now to stay off the meds but at times it has been a struggle. I just don't like the way some of the side effects of them make me feel. I am considering the anxiety meds though but I am still holding off for now though. One of the biggest issues right now is the anxiety which causes me to have difficulty sleeping and generally being around other people sometimes. I do force myself out though. I've been in that place before where I could barely leave the house and don't really want to get there again though. I'm doing better though like I said.

Anyway things did pick up around here after awhile though and the last few months have been hectic for us all.

In August it will be 2 years since we moved here, it seems like we've lived here longer then that though the kids have all changed so much.

Izzak is still growing like crazy. He's not even recognizable from the kid we moved here with. It's really weird to look back at pictures from just 2 years ago. Just look at the difference....

Here he is just about a month before we moved here at age 12.

And now at age 14 he is very different. Of course you can't see real well since he doesn't like me having my camera out much and he always has his sunglasses on. I really do need to get a better picture of him. Can you see the huge differences though? For one he doesn't shave his head anymore and now has that long hair style going. Also he's grown about 8 inches since we moved here and thinned out a lot.

He's doing well though with home schooling. He's reading a lot better then when we were down south and has had a lot more progress in the last 2 years then the 7 he was in school before. He has a lot less stress not having to deal with other students and getting into fights and everything that was going on his last year in school when we were in Portland. He's still a great kid with an awesome personality in my opinion. He listens well for the most part and doesn't give us any major issues. He hasn't done to much in the last 7 months since I last posted other then growing and going to camp. He went to boy scout camp at the begining of the summer and had fun although he tells me he got in trouble alot. I sometimes wonder if they single him out a bit though, he isn't the oldest in his troop but he is the biggest and I've noticed they seem to expect older behavior out of him sometimes as well as him getting in trouble along with Joshua when he is near him by association. I don't know how to talk to them about it though and he is getting frustrated enough he is about ready to quit. He also went to camp with our church youth group. Hopefully I'll get some pics from that one soon and I'll share those since I might get a better picture from that. He did well there and didn't have any problems. I can't believe he is going to be a high schooler this year! I don't feel old enough for that...

Joshua has grown like crazy since we moved here as well just look at the difference in his pictures! He still looks like a little boy here and again this was just before we moved.

and look how much he has changed....

He's doing well with homeschooling also although it was a little rough this year. He did like challenging me when it came to assignments alot but got most things done like he was supposed to. He also went to boy scout camp with Izzak this year which was probably the farthest away from home with us he has ever been. Camp was in Juneau so they had to take an 18 hour ferry ride there and back plus they were gone for a total of 10 days. He did well for the most part. We are still having a lot of issues with him and his behavior though. He is still taking meds for his ADHD although he is off of them for the summer. We changed his meds though this last fall from what he had been on for a few years and that seemed to help things a bit. He also went to childrens camp with the church but not youth camp. He did really well there and I got alot of compliments on how helpful he was. Joshua played baseball again this year and his team did really well. They were the number one team in the Ketchikan league having only lost 2 games this year but they didn't win in the tournament so they ended that in second place. It was really hard on the boys but they did a fantastic job this year regardless.

Next we have McKenzie here is the summer before we left again at age 8..

And now at age 10....

Another with her friend Clarrisa

She is still little but she doesn't look it besides her size. She is growing up and I think she is going to be breaking hearst someday. She already gets boys flirting with her.

She is doing great with home school as well and has had probably had the least momentus year of all the kids so far, which is great for her. One of the reasons I decided to home school her was because she missed so much school before because of getting sick all the time. She has gone the longest in her entire life this year without getting any more then a mild cold. It's been great. She has always spent all winter down with some kind of illness I was happy it was better without her in school. She participated in her first parage this year with the girl scouts but I couldn't get a picture of her because of where she was standing.

Lastly we have the baby of the family Madison at 6 toothless and huge grins. Honestly I miss her being so little....

Madison now at 8 with all her teeth. Isn't she pretty in this picture?

She is growing up so much it makes me a little sad. She still has all the spunk she ever has though. I hope she never grows out of that. She's had a more going on this last 7 months then anyone though. She had her tonsils and adnoids taken out in March. Since she is so stubborn and hates taking liquid medicine she refused to take any pain killers or pretty much anything after the first day. I really fought trying to get her to take them but she is very stubborn. We ended up having to take her to the emergency room for 3 days in row for iv fluids and pain meds. She said she prefered the iv, weird kid. She is also doing great with home school as well and really soaks everything up. She was in her second parade this year with the girl scouts and I was able to get a picture of her...

Like Madison would ever make it difficult to find her anywhere she could get attention....

Kelly is doing well although he may be getting laid off this week from his job here that we moved up with but we are not worried. He already has 4 job offers lined up so no fear there. The only thing is the one he most likely will take will be away from home for 10 days at a time with being home for 4. The choice for not being away would have him working 6 days a week with only one off so and we decided that 4 days straight would be better. We are not absolutely positive on the lay off though so we will have to wait and see how that pans out. I promise to not go so long without posting again and will be back soon.

A bunch of winter pictures

2009-01-04T15:11:00.005-09:00

I know I disapeared for awhile. Just haven't had the motivation for blogging lately. Not sure why. Kids are doing great, most of the time.

We have had a lot of snow in the last couple of weeks and I thought I would share some pictures of the kids

Here are the boys shoveling snow. I guess I have proof now that they actually work sometimes.
Of course if little sister is standing near you while shoveling snow it is to much of a temptation apparently not to throw snow at her. Here is Madison after getting a face full of snow. Obviously it didn't bother her any....yeah she's weird.

She decided to try a little snow shoveling herself after that.

Kenzie tried her hand at it a little bit also.

More snow shoveling except at a friends house this time. The snow was high enough you couldn't really see where the porch ended and the yard started but they managed.

After that was time for a little sledding over at the school.

Here is my little purple marshmellow, otherwise known as Maddie....she won't keep a hat on.....

Neither will Kenzie for that matter...

I guess it's better then Joshua who manages to sneak out of the house without a proper jacket....He didn't seem to mind at all though. He did have several layers under his sweatshirt.

Izzak and Joshua with a friend getting ready to go down the hill on the snowboard.

I have more pictures and will try to post more soon. I have several videos I'd like to post also but I'm having trouble getting them to cooperate.

Halloween

2008-11-01T11:35:00.003-08:00

Sorry I've been gone so long again. My days like I've said before seem to pass by in a flash lately. I've been reading a book series lately that has really had my attention when not dealing with the kids and the house.

Anyway not much really going on other then the regular daily grind around here.

Of course yesterday was Halloween. We went to trick or trunk at the elementary school near us again. It's the best for trick or treating since the houses are spread out around here and in the woods. The kids had a lot of fun with it though.

McKenzie was a fairy bride as she called it. She wore a bride dress and fairy wings anyway. Of course she was very cute as always. Maddie was a pirate in pink, very cute. The outfit was totally her! They went with a friend here who was also a fairy.

Joshua was a vampire a bit creepy in the night later as we were coming home don't you think?

Madison with her costume. She was loving it and playing it off well. She looks very happy with herself here. Doesn't she?

For anyone who doesn't know what trick or trunk is. Basically instead of going from house to house they go to a parking lot where people park their cars and sometimes decorate them. They hand out candy from their trunks while kids pass by. This year worked out nicely. It was still a little light out when we started because we hadn't set our clocks back yet. For one day at least the heavy winds we've been having all month died down and the temps were comfortable, in the mid 40's. Last year we were wet and in the 30's.

Here is Kenzie in her bride costume. You can't see her wings very well here though. They had balloons because one of the people was passing them out with candy.

Like I said though sorry I've been absent so much. Not really much going on to talk about. Kids are doing great for the most part. I'm having some issues with Joshua and his behavior lately. The kid has decided it's okay to yell at his mother, which is definetly NOT okay with me. We are working on it though.

Look they get along!

2008-10-10T20:49:00.003-08:00

So after a couple of weeks of Kodiak acting a little afraid of the kitten (Wicket) we have had a break through! They have decided they will be friends. Here is the first picture I was able to get of them laying together. Aren't they cute?

Of course then Kodiak decided she was going to get up and Wicket didn't agree with her plan. So he attacked her leg.

He's pretty sure he is the boss around here though... Doesn't he look like he thinks so?

Of course Kenzie thinks he is her baby and holds him like one. He's pretty good about it.

I think I confused a couple of people when I said on my last post that he was getting along with the puppies. I meant Kodiak and Kiska our pup and Kelly's brother Josh's pup. They are almost a year old but I still refer to them as the puppies out of habit. No new puppies here!

Berry Picking

2008-10-02T09:56:00.006-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we had some nice weather and decided it would be a good chance to go berry picking. We picked blueberries and huckleberries and got about 8 quarts between my friend and I.

Here are the girls picking up in the woods. We could have gone behind our house into the woods to pick berries but we've had a bear around there lately so we decided to leave those to him/her.

The girls did a great job picking as well as the boys although I think all of them ate at least as many as they picked.

Izzak was a little reluctant to picking berries. He thought that it wasn't something boys do. He changed his mind though and decided to help.

Joshua pretty quickly go into it although I think he ate more then he actually kept.

We have frozen them for now but will probably use them to make jelly and probably some blueberry and huckleberry muffins as well. mmmmmm. yummmy.

Also we have a new addition to our family. Meet Wicket Kenzie's new little kitten. He's doing pretty well with the puppies so far. They try to play with him a little but he usually runs from them. I don't think he likes them very much but they think he is a new friend.

I'm not to sure what he thinks of Kenzie dressing him up though.

I couldn't remember if I'd shown any recent pictures of the eagles around here. This set is a couple that live in the trees just over our house. The puppies like to watch them when they are outside.

Beach Explorations

2008-09-28T13:36:00.005-08:00

Home schooling is in full swing in our house finally. At the moment for science the kids and I are working with a friend of mine and her daughter learning about the beaches and oceans. Including the animals. About a week ago we were having some nice low minus tides so we drug the kids out early in the morning to check out what we could see in the tide pools.

Here is a photo of all the kids looking down into a tide pool.

Here was a sea anenome. The kids think these are pretty cool. They like to when you touch the tentacles that they pull back towards the body. Sometimes they even spit water!

Here is Madison showing us one of the sea shells she found. We refer to it as a China cap but really it's a Limpet. She likes these little shells.

Here is one of the many purple sea stars we find on the beaches around here.

Here was an interesting crab in one of the lower tidal areas. We more often see smaller purplish crabs that run away. This one was a little bigger and was waving it's arms at us like he wanted to fight.

Kenzie holding one of the more common little crabs in our area.

Kenzie holding something, I can't remember what. She was asking my friend what it was.

Joshua walking on the rocks looking for something intresting.
Here are 3 tiny baby sea stars stuck on a piece of shale rock on the beach. There were tons of them underneath the rocks all over the beach.

I have tons more pictures but couldn't put them all up but we have had fun with this unit so far. The kids especially like the field trip part of it.

Joshua and Kenzie are doing well so far this year with their first year home schooling. Madison and Izzak are back into their mode of doing school every day although the other two kids being home is a little more of a distraction for her so we are working on that. Joshua is doing well at getting most of his daily work done. Getting anything done is better then last year in school when he didn't actually do any work the entire school year.

We are also studying Alaska state history till about the middle of November when we will turn to famous Americans for everyone except Joshua who is studying Ancient Egypt and Greece for a bit after the Alaska unit.

Izzak is taller then me!

2008-09-16T20:48:00.003-08:00

Okay so I knew it would come. I knew it was coming soon also....

I'm just not sure how I feel about it at the moment. Yes I'm glad he is growing normally and all. I
never was worried about that. I just always kind of dreaded the day I had to look up to my son to tell him to go to his room.....

Fortunatly he is a really good kid so I'm telling him that to often.

Anyway I measured him the other night and he was 5'6"! I'm only 5'4 1/2". One year ago he was 5 feet even and in March of this year he was 5'2". The kid has grown 6 inches in one year, 4 of those in the last 6 months. To me, that is just insane....My kids never grow that fast! Kenzie has only grown 2 inches in the last 3 years. Of course she is my short child but still.

He is an amazing kid though and I consider myself lucky to have him as my son. He is doing really well this year home schooling. I think he has gotten used to it after last year so he is settling into doing his work a lot easier. Not so much of the feeling like he should be able to play or goof off like we had a little bit of last year.

He has taken on a lot more responsibility in the last year as well. Most of it he does himself having chosen to take the responsibilities. He also spent a lot of time this summer doing odd jobs. Mowing lawns and painting. He gave a great impression to some people about his work habits and it has spread quickly. The kid is making money pretty regularly and doing well and budgeting it as well. A couple of weeks ago I even decided to open a teen checking account for him. He now has a debit card and all. He is doing real well so far with it. I thought it would be a great experience for him to learn about handling his money and having a bank account. The teen account has the ability for me to set a set amount for how much he can spend in a single day on his card and take out of the atm so no chance of him really going over his budget. He thinks it's pretty cool of course!

Anyway that is all for today. We have been having fun doing a beach explorations unit so far this year. I have a lot of pictures that I will share later this week.

Thanks Chrisb!

2008-09-10T22:27:00.006-08:00

Isn't this a cute award? Chris over at MsCellania gave it to me. Of course it was like a week ago so I am a obviously really a bad blogger but I thank her anyway. This is what she said

Terri over at My Four Kids who had now been in Alaska a year. It must be the grandmother in me because I love to see how her children are getting on in their new life. She also lives in beautiful place so I get to enjoy some spectacular photos.

I can't believe we have been here for over a year now. It actually shocks me to hear it sometimes. Most of the time really it seems we have lived here much longer. We were told by our pastor the other day that we don't seem like new people here either and that we have really blended well into the community. The kids are doing great also and having a lot of fun with new activities we didn't do before we moved. I also have to thank her for her comment on my photos. I try, the beauty of where we live is the big reason they look great sometimes.

So I am to choose 7 bloggers to pass this on to. That is a hard thing to do. I love the blogs that I read even though I have been terrible at commenting lately. I've been very busy with the kids!

So here are the 7 that I could narrow it down to....

1. M over at And then there were two she has 2 very cute little kiddos and this last year her son Liam was diagnosed with Autism. I've been reading and chatting with her occasionally over the last year. She is a great advocate for both of her children and it reminds me of the challenges we had getting Izzaks diagnosis for his problems and the challenges we have faced.

2. The Giants Fan at the Sunny Little blog well because I love her and she loves my kids. And yes Maddie is growing up way to fast! (responding to her comment on another one of my posts.

3. Squishy Tushy I love to hear her updates on her kids and how she tells stories about the things they do and say. The kids are adorable and she takes fabulous photos. Her little girl is gorgeous!

4. Emma at A Question of Sanity cause I can totally relate.... We both have 4 kids and that is sometimes all it takes to lose your sanity. She doens't seem to be afraid to talk about anything and sometimes I wish I could do that

5. Becky at Peppermint Tea because she is starting to post again and I really really missed her!

6. Debbie at A Step at a Time She is a home schooler also and I like to read about her stories of teaching her children. Actually all the home school bloggers are a bit of an insperation to me since most have been at it longer then I have and it really is a hard job but very rewarding at the same time.

7. Heather at The Zoo we started emailing shortly after we met through our blogs and so I love to see how she and her girls are doing.

Okay I stuck to the 7. Like I said it is hard to choose....
I will post more photos soon. We are try to get our schedules down for home schooling all 4 of the kids this year and the kids wanted to learn a foreign language so they chose German. I took 3 years when I was in high school so I thought it would be a fun one to try. We are using Rosetta Stone and have only done a couple of lessons but has been going pretty well so far. Maybe I can get Maddie on tape sometime so you can hear her. She still has some sounds she doesn't do real well in her regular speech and they come out in her German as well so it is cute.

Bears

2008-09-06T18:37:00.004-08:00

I've talked about how we have bears here before, right?

I haven't been able to get pictures of them yet though to show you any proof. Of course I am sure you believed me but when we were at camp this week I was able to catch some pictures of bears while we were there.

You can see there is water between us. The river though is not very wide at this point or very high either. I was standing on the porch when taking this picture as I had no desire to bring the bears attention to me to much but there weren't very far away. I was anxious to make sure I got the picture didn't zoom in very well.

I got a little closer on this one and was near the bank of the river when I took it's picture. I was a little more comfortable since this one wasn't looking straight at me.

Kelly, his brother and a friend of ours had an even closer encounter with a bear though. They were waiting for one of the skiffs to come back to get them and the bags since they had a big load. While they were waiting they kept hearing something close by but didn't have their flashlights out to see around them real well. Their friend was getting pretty nervous but Kelly always the tough guy wasn't acting to worried about it. Apparently he was making jokes to their friend saying that he didn't need to worry he just needed to run faster then his brother. Nice guy right? Anyway when the person driving the skiff came back and flashed the headlights they could finally see the bear. It was standing less then 15 feet from them! They were very anxious to get into the skiff!

Family Camp

2008-09-03T15:33:00.005-08:00

I know I've been even quieter this last week. The reason for that is we were away at Family Camp on the Naha River. Really it's a beautiful place! We had tons of fun and I took over 700 pictures! Of course people kept borrowing my camera as it was apparently designated as the camp camera. People really liked it.

The week started out rainy as we were leaving. Getting to Naha is a little complicated. You have to take a boat for about an hour and a half to get to the other side of the island as there are no roads leading to it. Then a 1/2 mile hike over what they call "the hump" which is a bit of the island that as you can guess is going a little up hill then back down again to get the river. When you get to the river you take a small skiff for about a 1/2 hour to the actual camp site. It rained the whole way there but when we got there the sun popped out and it was gorgeous the entire time.

Here are the kids on the boat ride over. They usually play card games in the galley area of the boat. I spent most of the boat ride on the deck outside. I love the smell of the ocean and being able to see everything as we are going.

We arrived earlier then the rest of the church with another family, my friend Johanna. Some work needed to be done around the place before the rest of the campers arrived and the kids were great at helping out.

Here are the girls behind the little trailer we were using to clear some brush.

Of course during some of the working the girls found some muskegg mud to play in and got covered in mud.

Joshua working. He actually was really good during the camping trip and worked hard.

My niece Aidan was up for 2 weeks while we came up as well so she came up with me Wednesday, her dad came up on Friday after he got off of work. She got her first experiences catching salmon and riding rapids on the Naha.

Here she is tubing with Madison.

A lovely expression from Maddie....

More tubing with Madison

Kenzie coming up to the mess hall. The girls all had their hair braided while we were their along with little braids on the side that I put a bell on the end of. We could here them all running together often with 4 little bells ringing. It was funny.

Kenzie and Clarissa sitting on the edge of one of the skiffs on the little dock at camp.

There were tons of dragonflies around catching the mosquitoes and such that were flying near the river. Kenzies friend Clarissa kept wanting one to land on her, although I think she was a little surprised when it landed on her face right over her eye! She wanted me to get a picture of it for her and was having a lot of fun showing people the pictures afterwards. Personally if it had been me I would have probably had a panic attack or something!!

Here is Madison relaxing in one of the innertubes.

My 8 year old niece Aidan, isn't she a cutie? She was awesome at camp and has been a lot of fun to have around but she has to fly back to Portland on Saturday.

I know certain people here will ask wether or not I jumped and went down the rapids myself and the answer is yes, I did. It was fun. I was actually in the water with the kids alot since it is a river and pretty high this year we had to be pretty close by. The kids always had life jackets on when anywhere near the water.

And of course Kelly working with the boys. They were moving wood and the boys hitched a ride on the back of the trailer to the woodshed.

I have tons more pictures to share and plan to show some more in the next couple of days so I will be back soon.

1 year in Alaska

2008-08-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

Fun Monday questions

2008-08-17T22:39:00.008-08:00

This weeks fun Monday is brought to us by Lisa at Lisa's chaos here is her challenge

What is one thing you would like to ask your readers? Come up with a question to pose to your visitors and throw it out there on Monday. As we’re all visiting each other’s Fun Monday posts we should answer the various questions we come across. OR Show&Tell me about a bird, I’m easily made happy.

Hmm I thought this didn't sound to hard but I've spent all week trying to think of a question to ask and couldn't think of anything original really.

So here is my unoriginal question for you all.

If you could live anywhere you wanted where would you live? I'm not talking your house either. A second part of that question is why do you want to live there and is that where you are now?

My answer to that question is that I do! I don't know why but ever since I was little I was attracted to Alaska and wanted to live there. Kelly and I used to talk about it when we were dating and about 10 or 11 years ago he was sent to Alaska by his work for 2 weeks and he knew this was where we were supposed to be even then. It took us 10 years to get here and have been here for nearly a year now. Actually this weekend will be the anniversary of our leaving Oregon to come here, which might have something to do with why I chose this as my topic. I've been here only a year now and feel more like this is home to me then the 18 years combined I lived in Oregon.

Some of the reasons for that I will admit are the views. I'll share some more with you. I'm not sure if I've shown these on my blog before. They are some favorites though.Another...and another
and one of my many favorites
Oh and for Lisa who likes the bird shots. I thought I would add this since she had it in the challenge also.
Eagles are a common sight here in our little part of Alaska. We saw these two in a tree just off the road on our way to a hike we were headed to.

I almost forgot. I had a question from a blogger friend about the population of our island so I figured this was as good a time as any to tell. Our regular population is about 10,000 but that goes up and down depending on the season which is why I say "regular population" it goes up to about 12,000 or so during the tourist season in the summer because of the people who come up here to work. During the "winterest" months it can drop lower when the people leave for a warmer dryer climate.

Fun Monday --- Favorite photo

2008-08-10T19:49:00.005-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Aoj and the lurchers here is her challenge for this week:

Show me your favourite photograph and tell me why it's your favourite. It can be one you've taken yourself or one someone else has taken, a snapshot or a more professional image. Is there a story behind it? Do you love it for the memories it gives or just because it's pleasing to the eye? Show me and tell me

This is a hard challenge for me. I have tons of photos that are firm favorites for various reasons.

But since the challenge on this particular day is supposed to be for one picture I will do my try.

This picture I am choosing is of the my 2 girls McKenzie and Madison about 2 years ago. I love the picture itself because the girls are walking along together holding hands, something that doesn't happen very often anymore at 7 and 9. Some readers who have been around here awhile also know that one of my favorite things places to be is at the beach. Which is where we are in this picture. Everything about this picture when I look at it makes me happy. The beach and my 2 favorite little girls in the world.
Anther thing about this picture is that it is a reminder of the trip we were on when it was taken. Kelly had taken the boys out of state for the weekend for a truck thing (I can't remember what it was exactly) and the girls and I decided to get a yurt at the beach for the weekend for a girls weekend out alone with them. It was a great weekend for us. We got to spend several days alone just us girls which is something that doesn't happen and we were able to do a lot of girl stuff. It was just a really nice time for us that I don't know when we will get to have again free of any other duties or anything else to worry about like that.

Okay and I have to add one more picture....
This is a sunset from our new home in Alaska. We are nearing our one year anniversary of moving here and this picture was taken shortly after we moved here. I love this picture and I love our new home. We have beauty surrounding us all the time here on the island and things are so much different for us here. For me Alaska signifies a lot of changes for our family, the majority good ones. I have been happy here more so then I had been in a long time. I have been able to get back to my dream of being able to be home with my children as Kelly is able to make the money to support us and I am able to homeschool the kids as well which has been a very positive experience for all of us, especially Izzak who was struggling so much in school before and is flourishing now.

Fun at the beach

2008-08-09T22:29:00.004-08:00

We've had a nice week here in Ketchikan. Most of the summer so far has been a bit wet but we get some nice days or weeks here and there and this one was probably one of the best weeks we've had all summer.

Madison started back to her swim lessons this week. Since it is the summer schedule she is doing 2 weeks straight Monday through Friday. I think I prefer her school time schedule of 2 days a week for 5 weeks. It leaves me more time during the week and she doesn't get as tired of it.

Her swim lessons are coming along well though. Before swim lessons she wouldn't even get off the stairs in the smaller pool. She is now in the level 3 swim class and can swim the length of the big pool back and forth. She knows several different strokes (she really likes the back stroke) and this time she is learning how to do the butterfly stroke which she thinks is cool. Also this week she made a big "jump" and actually jumped off the diving board into the deep end which is in 12 feet of water, this was huge for her. She knew she was supposed to do this in the level 3 class so she was really worried about it. The first day she didn't do it but by the 3rd days she was doing it and really proud of herself! Friday she even dove in off of the diving blocks!

On one day after her lessons the kids went swimming at the pool and 2 other days we decided to go to the beach for the afternoon. The kids loved it and had a great time playing in the water. We got together with my friend Johanna and her daughter. Another friend and 4 of her kids came along plus 2 boys that are friends of Izzak and Joshua so we had a pretty good size group of kids going. The loved playing in the water....

And inspecting the tide pools during the low tide while we were there. They always come out to us with little crabs and other things.

Here are several of them checking out a little pool.

Kenzie and her friend getting ready to go back into the water....

Our beaches here mostly consist of small and large rocks. Here Madison is laying in the little rocks. They stick to her wet skin and she thinks it's pretty funny. Then she will go back to the water to wash off. One advantage to the small rock rather then sand is that it comes off a lot easier and we don't get our cars full of sand on the way home!

The weather this weekend changed and it is a bit overcast and cooler but I'm sure we will come up with some other things to do this week!

I've gotten almost all of Izzaks school materials in so far. Still working on getting the finishing touches on the rest of the kids to have them in the same program as he is in but I know what we are ordering so it won't take long once that is finished. We are working out some of the details as my friend and I are going to be teaching some of the subjects together to both her daughter and my kids this year, mostly science and history. One of the things we are studing is called beach explorations so we are trying to spend more time at the beach looking at the tides and tide pools to get the kids noticing what they can find so this has been a great week for getting started on the years lessons!

Girls go kayaking again..

2008-08-04T23:12:00.004-08:00

Sorry about not posting anything after Kenzie got home. We have loved having her back and are getting her back into her normal mode and activities. She had a great time and I am working on getting pictures from the people she visited down there to show pics of what she was doing.

Anyway on Saturday the girls got to go kayaking with their girl scout troop again this year. They had a lot of fun and the weather was fantastic. Which itself if great since we have had kind of a wet summer so far.

Here is Kenzie with her paddle.

Kenzie, some friends and Izzak looking in the water to see the small fish close to the banks of Ward Lake.

A group shot with the paddles and soem of there good friends.

Maddie with her paddle.

More Kenzie with her paddle. Here they are learning how to use them and about safety in the water and with the kayaks.

Madison kayaking

Seriously Madison is a natural little kayaker! She loves it and was getting people to take her out for extra times during the day. Now she is trying to convince her dad that we need to buy her a kayak so that we can go kayaking whenever she wants....

Kenzie getting ready to head out for one of her times out in the kayak.

The girls had a great time and we were out there from 9 am till around 3. I enjoyed myself as well since a lot of my own friends were there with their daughters. Also, like I said the weather was gorgeous even though it looks like the girls were wearing jackets the whole time. The water was clear and gorgeous as well and the salmon and other fish in this lake were jumping out of the water again which I love to see, it's pretty cool to watch and really makes me want to go fishing!

Today the weather is really nice and warm so we are meeting a bunch of other home school moms and families to the beach to play for awhile. It should be fun and I will of course take several pictures and share with you

Did you notice?

2008-07-30T19:32:00.005-08:00

Did you see the little ticker on the side over there???
Kenzie comes home Thursday and I'm counting down the hours! I can't wait to get her back here. She has been gone far too long for me.....

Anyway today we had a little home school field trip with several of the other families to the SEAFAC (SouthEast Alaska Aqustics Facility)to learn about what they do there. Basically they run the American Pacific fleet submarines through sound detectors to make sure they are actually stealth, or silent, like they are supposed to be. I couldn't take many pics on the base but don't worry I have other pics from today. Of course.

Since it is here in South East Alaska it is on another Island, well because everything is always on another island then the one we are on of course... The people from the base came with one of their boats to do the tour and it was an awesome ride in my opinion. The views here from pretty much wherever you are are always amazing. I truely do love this area we live in...

I took a few pics and decided to share them all with you today with a little slide show. Aren't you happy?? :)

WE had a good day and I really enjoyed the tour and learning about what they do there. Some of the views from the station where pretty amazing as well but the place we were standing was a "no camera zone" so I couldn't get those pictures for you.

Other then that we came home and worked on the house and had a quiet rest of the day. Have I mentioned I'm really excited to have Kenzie coming home tomorrow??

I promise to post in the evening letting you all know how she is. Until then.....

Izzaks had a busy 2 weeks

2008-07-27T15:35:00.005-08:00

Actually we have all been busy the last couple of weeks. Summer is going by so fast. I can't believe it's almost August already!

I sent our extra boy, Connor, back home to his family in Portland. He was here for 2 1/2 weeks and I'm sure he had a lot of fun. It was his second trip of course and everyone here remembered him from the last time he was here so they all excepted him back into the group like he had never been gone. The boys took him to the marina to go swimming a couple of times and lots of other things as well.

Kenzie FINALLY comes home on Thursday the 31st. I am sooo excited. I miss her soo much right now. I keep telling her not to expect to be far away from me for awhile. Her momma needs much Kenzie loving time. She will fly home with my friend Johanna and her best friend Clarissa who are also in Portland right now. She might have come on a different day but she was scarred to fly home by herself so we got her on the same flight.

Okay on to a little of why Izzak has been busy. He has gone to 2 different camps in the last 2 weeks. The first one was for 3 days for a kayak/canoe trip with the boyscouts.

Here he is with his own camera. Doesn't he look lovely dirty! You should have seen him when he got home. This is almost clean compared to that. They knocked their canoe over once while he had his cell phone in his pocket and took 3 days to see if it would dry out and lucky for him it did and is working fine now.

This is one of the lakes they were canoeing on during the trip. Beautiful, isn't it? I never tire of seeing pictures of this place we live now.....honestly.

Here is their campsite. They were definetly doing the "real" camping thing. No facilities anywhere for them, just the woods for privacy and the lake for cleaning....uhm and it's a glacier fed lake so just a bit chilly....

A couple of days after he got back from the boyscout camp he had another youth camp with our church.

He loves going to this campground. He helped close it up for the season last fall and open it for the season this last spring. He's been there several times since we moved to Ketchikan and it takes a boat ride to get to.

When he came back this time he couldn't stop talking about the bears they had at this camp trip. They've had bears here before when he's been there but not as many as they did this last week. He took tons of pictures of the bears. Here is one of the pics he took. You can see the green inner tube thing right by it. Does that tell you how close they were to the bears? Honestly they are really safe though. They have bears there all the time, the island the bear is on is called Bear Island but they have never had a bear attack or anything and they have used this camp for years.

He had a lot of fun. A couple of his friends went also and of course girls, which makes all camps great in Izzaks eyes.

I was told by one of the parents that we need to have the "birds and bees" talk with him because he is so interested in girls. I told them that we did that a long time ago and that Izzak has been "interested" in girls since he was born, basically.... Honestly I'm not worried about him at this point. He flirts but it's all fun. He is actually a very responsible kid for 13.

So anyway it has been busy and I'm still sucking on the posting more frequently thing. I promise I am working on it......

Sometimes my town makes me laugh...

2008-07-21T16:58:00.004-08:00

I don't ever get into politics on my blog but I had to share this with you.

This is on the back of a septic truck...
Sometimes I love living in a small town in Alaska that doesn't worry about being politically correct....

Kenzie in Portland

2008-07-17T23:15:00.005-08:00

I think I've said it already that Kenzie is in Portland staying with my parents right now for a summer visit.

Here are a couple of pics from a trip to the zoo one day when my friend kept her over night and took her and her kids Simon and Emily to the zoo. Kenzie really had fun on this day and Emily loves Kenzie.

Here is the day before with the girl sharing a sunday on a warm day.

Here they are pointing at something. I'm not exactly sure what though.

And playing on the playground at the zoo. Kenzie is really good with little kids.

I'm having a hard time with her being away right now. She left with my parents on June 20 so it has been 4 weeks since she left. I don't know if it is party because I was already gone from her for those 4 weeks when I was gone or what but I really do miss her. I can honestly say after she gets back on the 31st I think it will be awhile before I let her out of my sight! She is my little princess after all.

I talk to her most days on skype which helps a little but she is really ready to be home herself so she is getting home sick herself which makes me sad. I know that she has plans for the next day and will be fine but I still feel sad, cause I want her home with me now.

Fun Monday

2008-07-14T10:40:00.004-08:00

I know I've been away from Fun Monday for awhile. I used to be one of the regulars! Anyway I love birthdays so I thought this would be fun one to get back into them. Anyway here is the challenge this week from Dungarees Ablaze here is her challenge:

As of late I have been consumed with preparation for my Father’s aka “The Old One” Birthday, he will be turning 90 on August 8th and we are doing a family reunion, expecting about 100 people in all. So for your assignment lets hear about your favorite “Birthday”, it needn’t be your actual birthday just a "birthday" celebration. You can use one you planned, one you attended, one you crashed, just a fun time for this FUN MONDAY’S assignment, and of course you can use one of your very on Birthdays.

I'm cheating a little on this one though. I know I usually stick to the plan here but it's okay to slip a bit once in awhile....
Anyway my favorite birthday? For me it has been the first birthdays for all of my kids!

First Izzaks..... 12 years ago...

Then Joshua 10 years ago...

Kenzie the little princess....8 years ago

And the littlest Madison 6 years ago..

Can you tell from the pictures what one of my favorite parts is? We have always had a tradition in our house with the kids. They get their own 8 inch round cake for their first birthday. That way they can dig in all they want and make a big mess and we still have a nice cake for everyone else to enjoy. My kids have all taken a different approach to this matter from Maddie being probably the messiest followed my Izzak then Joshua. Kenzie, the only reason she is messy is because her Daddy decided he needed to help her out and make her messy!

Kids at the beach

2008-07-12T21:57:00.009-08:00

So I took the kids to Totem Bight again, I like walking around there also. I figured it was a nice day and the kids could walk around and play a bit.

Here they are on the trail. Everything around here is in it's major growing season at the moment. It's almost impossible to keep yards and such under control as far as bushes and such.

We went into the clan house the kids pretended to do the native dances. Not much like them at all but they were having fun.

Here they are checking out a totem pole that they had to bring down to fix so it wouldn't fall and possibly cause an accident.

One of the things I'm loving right now is all the wildlife around. I've really gotten into bird watching. Something I was never really into before but have come to really enjoy. We have a bird guide book now since we did a bird watchers thing for the kids in May so now we try to figure out what we are seeing by checking the book. I'm really enjoying the zoom on my camera with this as well since I can get really close, good shots of the birds like this one.

Then we decided to walk down to the beach and the kids were looking in the tide pools to see what little creatures live there. Connor is visiting us from Oregon right now and hasn't really done that before so he was really into it and the other kids had fun telling him what things were.

Click on the photo below to see better inside the tide pool!

Of course he is a natural boy so his favorite thing was the crabs and he was enjoying trying to catch them. Although he was little afraid of them pinching him with their little claws so this was the first one he actually got that he was able to caux onto a rock and pick up that way.

Joshuas favorite thing to do whenever we get near water is to skip rocks. He has actually gotten pretty good and with his strong throwing arm he has managed to get up to 6 skips out of a rock many times!
Sorry about not getting this up yesterday like I promised but I seem to have come down with something again and am not feeling well the last two days. I've almost lost my voice this time from a lovely cough....

Late 4th of July edition

2008-07-09T11:25:00.006-08:00

Sorry about the late post. I have an extra kid in town right now. Connor who was here in March is here again for a couple of weeks and the 3 boys are keeping me busy! Can't have them getting bored!

Anyway we had a great Fourth this year for our first in Ketchikan. We started the day off with a parade in town. It as fun. They started the parade with one of the many helicopters flying a huge flag down the maid road.

And of course all the typical parade walkers. It was smaller then the ones we had in Portland but fun since we knew a lot of people walking and the kids loved it since all the walkers were throwing candy for kids. It was like Halloween all over again without having to walk.

After the parade we went home for a little while and made dinner. The weather wasn't too windy so they were doing the fireworks this year. We were told that they hadn't been able to do them in 6 years since the 4th kept being to windy to do them safely. Since it doesn't get close to dark enough for fireworks till about 11 here we left about 9 o'clock to walk around town for awhile and while we were there we watched a lady doing a hoola hoop with fire on it. She asked Izzak to light it for her. He thought that was pretty cool.

It was cool to see her do it though. Madison was convinced she was going to burn her clothes though. Obviously she has done it a lot though so knew what she was doing. She offered to let the kids try but they were afraid of the fire....

We walked around for awhile longer until it was dark and they started the fireworks. They do it out on the ocean in the narrows. It was really cool to see them over the water. I wish I could have gotten some better shots to show you what it was like to see them but this was the best I could get.

Like I said we have been busy playing with the kids so I have lots of photos to share and I plan to do a post tomorrow to show you.

Going through photos

2008-06-30T23:09:00.005-08:00

So I've been going through some pictures from when I was gone that a friend took of the kids. On this day they were at a block party for our church. Does it look to you like they were having fun??

Joshua always the rebel naturally he is going down headfirst....the wrong way!

So anyway I am really planning on trying to post more again. I really let things slide and don't really have a reason for it. Honestly a lot of time on the computer before my trip had been spent researching homeschool materials and curriculumn for the kids this up coming school year. I am looking forward to it and I was really stressing about what I was going to use but I not doing that so much anymore. I have most of it figured out now. Just a few things left to put together!

Oh and for Kila. Joshua season started in March for baseball. There are only 5 total teams on the island so the season doesn't really go on for to long, also they play probably 4 nights a week at least during the season. If they go to long into the summer they don't have enough boys to play since they are all going to the same summer camps and many go away on family vacations.

Baseball season is over

2008-06-29T23:19:00.001-08:00

So baseball season is over for Joshua. They didn't have a great season only won like 4 games but they learned a lot. This was Joshua's first year playing and he really learned his strengths and weaknesses over the season. He has a hard time hitting the ball so that is something he is going to work on for sure.

This was his baseball picture for the year. I think he looks awful cute, personally. Does anyone notice his hair is short? Yep he made me cut it all off but now he is growing it back.

He definetly improved though with his stance and watching the ball. He no longer swings at everything that comes by him

He started the season in the outside left field since he wasn't catching very well. They played is some very nasty weather as you can almost see in this picture where there is standing water on the field since we live in a rain forest they play no mater the weather. The only time they cancel a game is when the wind is so hard it blows the balls back and hitter when he hits!

He ended the year as a center fielder when they found out he had a really good arm and he started catching balls. Over the winter they are planning to do baseball clinics before the next season and they want to start working with Joshua so he can pitch next year. They say he has a really strong arm which is why they put him where they did since he can get the ball far.

So even though they didn't have a great year he has improved a lot himself and they just might stand a chance next year with more practice!

Also sorry again for the long period of quiet. I actually got back home a week ago Friday and my parents were here so we were busy with that and lots of games for Joshua and then a couple of days into it I got really sick and was in bed for 4 days straight. I'm just now coming out of it now after not being able to eat or drink for that long either so I'm a bit weak at the moment. Kenzie is down in Portland with my parents for a couple weeks or so. I'm really anxious for when she does get back and we get back to everything as "normal" or as normal as we get around here anyway! Joshua and Madison are going to camp this week so just Izzak, it should be pretty quiet here this week sounds great to me! Then next week Connor comes for a couple of weeks to visit.....ahh summer......

I promise more pics to come very soon.

Headed Home!

2008-06-20T03:25:00.002-08:00

Ok sorry about not posting more while I was on my trip. I really had planned on it but have been really busy here.

I fly home today with Madison and my parents are coming back with us for 7 days to see where we live and visit with the other kids. After that they will be taking Kenzie with them for a couple of weeks. I'm not looking forward to her being gone now!

Anyway I have a lot of things and pictures to share to catch up but will have to make you all wait a tiny bit longer then I will be back!

Thanks all and what is going on here.

2008-06-09T21:57:00.007-08:00

First of all I wanted to thank everyone for you comments on my last post. It was a hard time for the family. She was young....too young in my opinion but that is not something that is up to us to decide is it? She was only 34 and newly married really just getting started in her life you know? It's just sad. She was only diagnosed in March so it went really quick. They think she had the breast cancer for a couple of years actually and didn't realize it. It had already spread to her liver and her bones when it was found. All I can say is please girls check yourself and have regular exams to check for this please......cancer is just a horrible way to go.....

The whole trip hasn't been horrible though really. Here is a pic from the plane window when we were coming down here.

Those are other islands in Alaska.

The kinda of nice thing about how things happened when they did is that Kelly and I got to spend about a week and a half with just Madison and each other. I know she really enjoyed it and it was nice to be able to just pay attention to her alone at times as well.

We did manage to fit some things in in between going to the hospital everyday and then helping plan and and going to the memorial. One thing we did was go to a new museum they opened since we have been gone that has a lot of old airplanes and automobiles. Kelly really gets into that stuff so we go to go there and he loved it and got to try his camera out a bit.

Madison was actually pretty interested in things as well and really liked looking at things and asking ALOT of questions...:)
We also got to go to some of the old places we used to go on drives to including this rest area we always enjoyed for it's view.

You know the view is always best with a cute 7 year old in it!

We also took her to the trout farm near the dam. She has always liked feeding the fish.

One of the things about Kellys sister is she was very into artsy type things and often handmade all of her gifts something we enjoyed receiving from her and I still have many if not all of the gifts she has made me over the years. When we were planning things for her funeral and memorial the family was on a pretty tight budget. Her husband wasn't working much and didn't make much and her father would have to take out a loan. When looking into a casket they decided to get a fairly plain one and decorate it for her like so many of her gifts to us. She would have thought is was a great idea and one of the things we did was to have her siblings and the kids put there handprints on it before having it taken to the funeral home for her to be put in. I thought it was a bit odd at first but it really came out nice and the girls loved to doing it. I think it was a help for them because they asked a lot of questions later about it.

We did manage to get to go to the fireworks. It was actually really nice since the day before was when she died. It was nice to be able to take our minds off of it for awhile.

Madison of course got her face painted like she did last year....

And we met up with Kellys other sister Gloria

His brother Josh's girls Aidan

and Kayla and the girls got to eat some fair treats

and then we all got to enjoy the fireworks!

Sorry I know the picture isn't very good but it was hard to get them right.

Then last week Madison and I walked with my friend Hannah is the Jr Rose Festival parade and the MOPS (moms with preschoolers) group. Madison thought that was pretty cool since she has seen lots of parades but never actually been in one!

Here she is walking with my friends 3 year old Emily.
Then after that we went to Hannahs mothers house and visited and got to see her little guy Simon. He is almost 2 and has gotten so big since I left!

Anyway I hope to post a little more regularly we have a couple of big things we are going to do before we go back the Alaska in a week and half so I will make sure to post quicker on those so that I don't have to do another huge one like this.

2008-05-29T17:25:00.002-08:00

Kelly's sister Rena passed away this morning. We all just feel really drained right now, I'm sure many of you know what I mean. It's just been a really long week. We spent most of today making plans and preparing for the funeral and memorial service.

I called the kids and let them know. That was really hard since they were really upset and I just wanted to give them hugs but since I'm not there I had to count on my good friend and our pastor to do that for me. It is one of the hardest things about all of this but we really just could not get the money together to bring them all and Joshua and Kenzie are almost done with school for the year. Besides we would be spending a lot of time finding someone to watch them here while we were taking care of things.

Hello

2008-05-27T13:40:00.003-08:00

Well today is my blogoversary! 2 years I've been posting, although I've been much better at posting then I have lately.

Madison and I are in Portland now. It's actually been hard so far. My sister in law Rena is not doing well at all and the doctors decided today that she is not responding to any treatment so her care has been changed to comfort care. The doctors really say it is hard to say how long till the end it just depends really on her. It could be within days or a couple of weeks at the most. She told her dad though last night that she was ready to go and didn't want to fight anymore. It is just so hard to see her though. She just doesn't look like herself at all. Kelly is still here also but will have to go back home to Alaska this weekend whatever happens. He needs to get back to work partially even for himself. He doesn't do well not working. We haven't taken Madison to the hospital and don't plan to. She has memories of her aunt healthy and looking great and I want her to remember that, not what she looks like now.

The flight here was good though on Friday. I hate flying, it just scares me for some reason. Madison loved it though she had a great time and talked a lot.

Of course with the way things are going right now I really miss home and my peaceful views. I really forgot just how busy and noisy the city was.

Friday though starts the Rose Festival here though and they will have fireworks and then a parade on Saturday so maybe once we can get doing something like that it will pull me out of the mood I'm in at the moment.

Leaving Tomorrow

2008-05-22T09:26:00.003-08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts but my internet is not working right now. Neither is my phone....something is messed up at my house and I've been waiting for it to get fixed by the company now that they believe me that it is not working.

Anyway Madison and I leave for Portland tomorrow. I am excited to get going on this trip and to see the family.

Kelly is actually down there right now he left suddenly last night when his sister (the one with breast cancer) took a turn for the worse and they didn't think she would make it through the night. She is still here though and I was told actually doing a little better. So we are all praying things work out. Please pray. Her name is Rena and she is 34 years old, just recently got married.

I will try and post tomorrow and get pictures up if not tomorrow Saturday for sure.

Going on a trip soon!

2008-05-14T21:38:00.002-08:00

In 8 more days Madison and I get to go on a trip back to Oregon. We will be there for 4 weeks! I'm very anxious although it will be really weird to go that long with only one kid.

The problem at the moment is that Kellys work sent him to work on another island for the next two weeks. So I had to find a friend to take the other 3 kids for a couple of days unless he is able to get things done quickly and be here sooner then that.

I should have a lot to post about when we are down there though telling about the things we are going to do. I have a few things planned including my sisters graduation from nursing school, going to the beach with my niece, 2 doctors appointments for Madison and 1 for me, and of course the rose festival they do their this time of year. We will go to the fireworks and at least 2 parades and of course the fun center. That and lots of people who want me to visit while I'm there.

Kids left to themselves get creative!

2008-05-10T13:46:00.004-08:00

This week has been a nice one with some actual sunshine coming out again The kids have been very busy outdoors. I love when they can really play outside without coming in covered in mud!

We have been at a friend of mines home quite a bit this week and she home schools also. One day we were working on something in the house and not really paying to much attention to the kids. When we came out this is what they were doing

We keep saying that if we were "good" home school moms we would turn this all into a lesson but decided that kids learned enough in figuring out how to get it together and up on their own anyway.

On Friday they decided they wanted to sleep in it. They had a fire outside and roasted hot dogs on sticks and marshmallows. But then it started to rain and the girls chickened out and decided to come in to sleep. Joshua and Izzak though stuck to sleeping in their teepee and slept there till they got up at 7 this morning.

Here is a slideshow of them building the teepee and cooking their hot dogs.

Thank you Dawn

2008-05-04T21:29:00.002-08:00

Today I recieved a comment from Dawn on this post

This is what she said....

"It is very beautiful, and as I read the post is so much like your life (and mine). You have lots of bridges to cross, signs of stuff going on around you, it never "looks exactly the same way each time". A lovely walk and trail in life."

I was thinking about her comment and it really is so true. I wonder if that has anything to do with why I like it so much. The funny thing is like she said many bridges to cross. I like to see the bridges but really don't like to cross them. I am scared to death of bridges most the time and the bigger the worse my fear is. I have always said it has to do with growing up in California and worrying about earthquakes but sometimes I think maybe there is more to it then that.

When I think of bridges in my life to cross I think of those as being the trying times when things aren't going right and I'm anxious to get to the other side of them and see how they turn out. Bridges are kind of like that. I've had a lot of bridges to cross.....

Also I know I have things always going on around me like on the trail. Really that is so true. I try to see it all but it is almost impossible to do that. Things are always changing here or is it just that I see different things each time I look around?

Anyway I just wanted to thank her for pointing it out. It really made me think......

Joshuas first baseball game

2008-05-03T18:24:00.002-08:00

Today was Joshua first official game of the baseball season. We made sure he had his glasses all fixed as well so he could see that ball. You know important things like that. That is why it looks like he is wearing sun glasses.

He did okay. This is his first year playing on a team so he is learning. His team didn't win though but they have plenty of games to play still.

Fun Monday -- My Favorite Walk

2008-04-28T08:19:00.006-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Angela at The Lurchers.

She said she was going to make it easy and this is her callenge "All I want you to do is take me on your favourite walk. In words or pictures. Or both of course! Tell me why it's your favourite and point out things of interest on the way." This is definetly an easy one for me. Since we moved here to Ketchikan I have found many places that are beautiful places to walk but there is definetly a firm favorite here and we go there quite regularly.

My favorite place for a walk is at a place called Ward Lake. Most people who read my blog normally have seen pictures of this place before but I have a few new ones to share.

This is the view you have when you walk out of the parking lot to the lake.

Another view you will see shortly is all the ducks there right now. My puppy loves the ducks by the way and always wants to jump in the water.

This is that silly puppy who doesn't believe in walking trails but walking up logs on the way.

On this walk we see a lot of these. I am usually able to get pretty good pictures of them because they are eating like this one or yelling at us from the tree because the puppy barked at them.

This trail has a lot of bridges to cross.

and lots of signs of the beavers working on different trees for dams.

Most of all it's a beautiful walk and nothing every looks exactly the same way each time. It's always quiet and peaceful.

Busy Saturday as usual....

2008-04-26T22:10:00.002-08:00

Do the days ever get slow around here? No not really.....
Saturdays almost seem like the worst with all the kids home it seems they all have things they need to go to for one reason or another like this Saturday started with Izzak having a boy scout expo thing at the local "mall" to show what they do during meetings and such. It was to be a kind of recruitment thing I guess. He had fun though. He had to be there at 11 till 2.

Joshua needed to be at baseball for their first practice game today at 12 till 3

And the girls had a birthday party from 1 till 2:30. Anyone note the fact that they all had to be somewhere in the same time span?.......Yeah makes for an interesting day when Kelly also had to work so I was running around all day from one place to the next to be at each event and getting them there.

Here are pictures from Izzaks event.

Izzak is the rope tying man... he likes to do them and he is pretty good. He learned a lot from his dad before boyscouts so a lot of the nots they teach he already knew. He likes being the one a little ahead of the game..

Here are pics from Joshuas game...

Yes they play on gravel. Everything here is played on gravel fields....baseball, soccer and football. With the amount of rain we get all year there is no way to keep up a grass field it would just be mud and the grass around here doesn't really grow well too wet, can you believe it? Fake turf is too expensive and wouldn't really work well either with the amount of rain according to what I've heard. This was a practice game though so they don't have their full uniforms yet. They get the shirts and hats just before their first real game which is next week.

I didn't get pics of the girls party they went to because that was the only thing I didn't really stay for. I really wanted to see some of Joshua playing and had to fit that into the little bits between running the other kids back and forth. It does make the day go by faster though....... That and I was up late last night with Izzak in the ER for a UTI poor kid....had to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes which is hard to do with 7 people in the house! I have to schedule an appointment with his pediatrician this week since he has some history with a problem he was born with that could mean something else is wrong.......I'm praying it is a random thing otherwise we have to figure out how to get him to Portland also since regular urologists wont see him only Peds ones and the one who has followed him since he was a baby is in Portland.

I've had a couple of questions about how I'm doing and the fact I haven't been posting as much as usual. I'm doing fine. Still haven't gotten rid of the tooth infection thing completely though but I have problems fighting things like that and always takes a little longer but my face isn't swollen or painful anymore at least and I'm feeling a lot better. My sis in law who was diagnosed with breast cancer is working on getting her treatment she was having a hard time in the smaller town she lived where the doctor was actually making comments about how she was going to pay for it. He asked her if she had a family member or someone she knew who might die soon and leave her a bunch of money! Can you believe that? She has moved back home to Portland and is being seen at the office I talked her into going to that I know is a really great place. She has kind of a bad prognosis though. If the cancer doesn't go into remission they are giving her 3-4 months which is kind of freaking Kelly out. He really wants to go back to Portland to see her since he is afraid she might not make it and they haven't been on the best of terms in awhile while they were once really close. Josh my bil who lives with us will be going to Portland around the same time as Maddie and I to see the neurologist about his MS.

I haven't been blogging much lately cause life has been sooo busy here. Homeschooling 2 and having 2 in school is a lot of extra work running to different activities and making sure I get the 2 picked up sometimes turns into a challenge! That and they are all in scouts and Joshua has baseball 4-5 nights a week right now. Also my own computer is down so I am down to using Izzak or Kellys laptops for posting.

I will be posting again monday at least for Fun Monday and hope to get a little more in next week.

The boys and Boy Scouts

2008-04-21T22:04:00.002-08:00

I had said that the boys and Kelly went to a boy scout camporee this weekend and hoped Kelly would take some pictures. Well surprisingly he did. What is it about men and not thinking to take pictures? I constantly take them! But he did get a few which I appreciated.

Here is the flags for the flag ceremony.

They learned about throwing Tomahawks, I'm not sure why or for what purpose they need to learn that but oh well. They are boys and boys like throwing sharp things don't they?

Here is Izzak throwing his.

And Joshua of course....

A little scary to me! Seriously fokes the way this kid is I would not want to be around during this and would be VERY far away. The kid is dangerous with sharp things! He threw his and it went over the large log target and hit a log a ways behind it. No this is not one of those moments I would want to be around for the picture taking.

That is about all he remembered to take for pictures though.

One of the other things they were doing on this hike was to earn their polar bear badges. They were to wade out into the very cold water chest high and recite the boy scout pledge. Brrrr...
Izzak did it and I'm pretty proud to know he did it except suddenly he decided the water isn't so bad and wanted to go to the lake with the puppies today...uuuhmmm there is still a thin layer of ice on many parts of the lake!

I was at the same campground the afternoon before their campout with a bunch of the other homeschooling moms and kids having a picnik and so the kids could get together and play so I had taken some pictures of the area, mostly of the river they did the polar bear badges in.

It is a beautiful place just look.....

I have found very few places here that I don't like so far. It is a beautiful place and the sun has been out for the last several days which is soooo nice although it is still pretty cold but we did get up to 50 today it almost felt warm!

Busy Saturday

2008-04-19T23:16:00.002-08:00

Kelly and the boys are camping with the boy scouts this weekend so I decided the girls and I would have a day to ourselves doing something fun. Hopefully Kelly will be taking pictures so I can share those this week!

First we took Uncle Josh to work and went to the bookstore which seems to be a favorite place for their girls lately. They each got to pick out a book and some other things. After that we went to the Discovery Center. They had an Owls, Hawks and Eagle show for younger children today and brought birds to show the kids. We learned a lot about the birds and they even had a young eagle which was fun to me. I love eagles! Here are some pictures

First was the screech owl. A very small owl but very cute.

They got to take pictures with it

And they were even able to pet it.

Then the barn owl

The red tail hawk

and the young eagle of course!

We learned they do not get their white tail feathers and heads until they are about 5years old. This one is only 4 years old.

They got to take pictures with this one also.

They are kind of leaning away because it had just spread its very large wings and flapped them both in the heads, they were giggling after that.

I talked to the people with the birds and they have a rescue center here in Ketchikan and they gave me their number so when my dad comes to visit this summer I can take him to visit it. He is an even bigger eagle fan then I am! I told him this today and we was pretty excited about this.

After the bird show we went to watch our friends son play soccer.

He has recently been excepted to the Alaskan Olympic Development team as a goalie!
We had fun watching but it was very cold and windy today!

After the game we went to dinner just us girls then walmart to pick up a couple of things.

After that it was time to go pick up Uncle Josh from work and we noticed that is was a beautiful moon outside so we pulled over to look at it and get some pictures.

The girls looking over the water at the moon.

And this was our day!
I hope to get back to posting a little more often soon. It has just been very busy lately!

Fun Monday "Five"

2008-04-13T22:28:00.002-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by The Nekked Lizards

This week's Fun Monday is a really simple one:
FIVE PICTURES - FIVE WORDS PER PICTURE.
Any 5 (FIVE) pictures, any subject,
and any 5 (FIVE) words to describe and/or explain each picture.

I like the easy ones! Especially with everything else going on lately.

Izzak my oldest turned 13 last Monday and Sunday was his birthday party so I thought this Fun Monday would be a good way to show some of the pictures from the party. Makes it even easier for me since it gives me a theme along with the challenge. We had Izzaks birthday party at the local pool somehow I got lucky and got it just the week after his birthday. We only have one pool on the Island so it is usually booked out months in advance.

Yeah it's a cell phone!

Playing ball in the pool.

"Stop taking pictures", says Joshua!

Izzaks under water hand stand.

Silly looking goggle girls swimming.....

Yep that was my best effort! Seriously at the moment my brain is still on overdrive and all the stuff going on with our familys health in the last week is not helping my own health problems since I tend to get stressed out and that exacerbates my own symptoms.

Izzak had a really great party though and most of the boys from his youth group showed up which he was soo excited about. He is the youngest in the group with most of the others being 16 and over so he felt pretty cool to have the bigger boys thinking he was cool enough to come to his party. You should have seen the grin on his face! Not to mention he got several things he was really wanting from us like a new cd player and cell phone (he actually really needed it) plus lots of money from other kids. It looks like I get to take him into town tomorrow so he can pick out his new pair of heelys.

Tough couple weeks

2008-04-11T22:13:00.003-08:00

So it's has been a tough couple of weeks in our family. I told you last week that Kelly's sister was diagnosed with breast cancer last week. Well we found out on Monday that it had not only metastisized to her liver but also her bones as well. She is doing okay but we are obviously worried at the moment and hoping to convince her to go to a bigger hospital then the small town she lives in at the moment.

I went to the ER on Saturday to find out why my face was swelling and they said I had an abcessed tooth. Of course as usual I got told by another doctor that I am not the typical 32 year old mother of 4 (oh really?). So I had to have several doses of IV antibiotics and now I am taking strong antibiotics. I saw a dentist on Monday and they said with my TMJ that they would have to refer me to an oral surgeon....of course they don't have those here in Ketchikan except for 2 days of the month and they were in last week. So I get to wait till the end of the month to have the tooth pulled.

Over the weekend Kelly's brother Josh who lives with us was having problems with double vision by Monday he was having difficulty walking a straight line at work and they took him to the ER where he had a CT and they found "something" in his brain and refered him to have an MRI the next day. Thursday he was able to get into a doctor and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He is having high dose steriods right now to help stop the flare he is having but I've spent the last 2 days fighting with drs offices in Portland to find someone down there to see him. He has no insurance and they were all wanting him to establish with a primary dr in Portland to have them refer him which would make it take a lot longer to get him in. I was able to get him in with someone finally who is willing to work with his doctor up here so now we just have to wait for the appointment and get him flown down there to figure out what type of treatment he will have and get the "official" neurologist diagnosis.

So it's been a difficult week here. In the grand scheme of things my tooth issue would be a pretty mild thing except with my health issues I don't react to meds as quickly sometimes and they affect me differently as well. I'm feeling a little better today but still pretty yucky although my face is almost down to normal.

Don't forget that Sunday May 13 is Livestrong Day and wear yellow in support of cancer research. I know my family will definetly be this year.

Happy Birthday Izzak!

2008-04-07T19:53:00.003-08:00

How did this sweet little baby.......

Get so big????

Monday was Izzaks 13th birthday. I'm officially the mother of a teenager.....

Fun Monday ~First Celebrity Crush~

2008-04-06T17:22:00.008-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is being hosted by Jo at JoBeaufoix her challenge for this week is this:

“I want to know about your first ‘celebrity’ crush. You know, the one you fancied from that band, or that film, or who read the news, or who won Gold at the Olympics.
Did you have their pictures on your wall or in your locker?
Did you dress like them, style or colour your hair like them, follow them, meet them, marry them? (It could happen.)
Photos of THEM would be good, photos of YOU at the time you liked them would be even better.
Also, if you have time, I’d like to know whether they had any influence over your life, the person you became, or if they were just an embarrassing blip you would kind of rather forget about.”

If you've read her post we had a similar crush but my feelings about it are a little different. I learned about them first from a friend because before that I jumped around from one music style to another some pop, rock and a bit of christian mixed in but the year I started middle school I was also starting a new school again in a new state and all my new friends were talking about one band and only one band....who was it?

The New Kids on the Block of course! The first time I listened to them and their catchy tunes I was hooked the fact that most of them were pretty cute as well helped of course.

I owned everything New Kids and my walls were litterally plastered with their pictures and posters. I had sooo many t-shirts with their faces on them that I could go for 2 weeks wearing New Kids and still be wearing a different one everyday. I even had a nightgown with their picture and sheets on my bed......yeah I know pretty scary...

I watched everything that I could that came on television and had endless tapes with every clip I could get from those shows. Magazines galore, if they were mentioned in it I most likely had it. I felt that I knew everything about them...of course that was just what was in print and yes I had my name with a certain last name written on many of my books. Which one do you ask?

Well the youngest of course. Joey McIntyre was my first real celebrity crush. Of all the things I owned that were New Kids I had the most with his picture on them. The fact he was the youngest probably helped that a bit since he was only 3 years older then me I felt that he was, agewise, within my reach....I know silly girl.

I even had a birthday party one year where everything was New Kids and everyone wore their

shirts. Of course that was no problem since all my friends were die hard fans as well.

They were my first concert as well.

I kind of grew out of them when I was 16 though and was dating. Then when I was 17 I met Kelly and he introduced me to country music and I left most pop music behind although now I alternate between country and alternative......

Although they recently anounced that they were reuniting. I am curious to see what they will do now that they are all older and more grown up.

I'm sure that I will at least check out their new music when it comes and I just might check out their comeback performance on May 16th! Sometimes it's fun to look back on my teen years and they were definetly a big part of them.

2008-04-05T16:30:00.002-08:00

Sorry about being so quiet right now. Alot going on.
Our 2 extras have gone home so we are back to our 4 kids again....YEAH!
I haven't felt well and half my face is swollen at the moment going to find out soon why.
Please keep Kellys sister in your prayers as she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Wednesday. It has already metastisized to her liver but will find out soon her prognosis and such. This is all very new and has a lot of the family upset at the moment.

I will post more soon, just not feeling good at the moment and not spending much time on the computer.

Fun Monday "Quotes"

2008-03-30T18:49:00.004-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Robin at Pensieve her challenge this week is:

Perhaps it's due to the current series simmering in the ol' PENSIEVE...maybe it's because I'm inspired by the words of those much wiser than me...or I wonder if it's because I believe in the POWER of words (in keeping with my "image-bearer of God status", who also must believe in the power of words since He SPOKE the world into existence and inspired men to record His thoughts...).

Regardless of what motivated me to choose this for a theme, next week please share words that inspire and motivate you--brief or bloviatory, silly or serious, from great world leaders to last night's Comedy Central...from a Hallmark greeting card to your favorite book. Choose one, choose many; let the quotes stand on their own or tell where you first read or heard them and how they affected you. There's a lot of leeway with how this topic can be handled.

This is actually a great one for me. I love quotes and have been known to repeat them a lot in normal conversation. I will share some of my favorite with you and possibly reasons why I like certain ones. Of course I could easily go overboard on this one so watch out.

~~ In the eyes of a child there is joy, there is laughter, there is hope, there is trust, a chance to shape the future. For the lessons of love, there is no better teacher than to look in the eyes of a child. ~~

Seriously this kid teaches me stuff everyday and her eyes do say soo much...

One I've changed a little for myself. "My train of thought has left the station and I have no idea when it's coming back".

Uhm yeah I actually say this one constantly...probably getting a little old..

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. ~Carl Sandburg

It's an aweful sweet way anyway. Above is Connor and Kenzie as newbies..

Babies are such a nice way to start people. ~Don Herrold

Really they are! Because if people started as 11 year olds? There wouldn't be so many...

A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

I think Kelly would totally agree with this one!

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~Lois Wyse

My very bestest friend Hannah.....

Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye? ~Author Unknown

Same friend this summer the day before we left for Alaska...I miss her so much.

"I have always loved the beach. The smell of the salty water, the wind in my face, the gentle roar of the waves all combine to create a sense of peace and calm."
Author: unknown

Well anyone who reads my blog regularly knows I loooove the beach! This quote really puts in well.

Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. ~Robert Browning

Aww weren't we cute when we were little 18 year old newlyweds....

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty

Also known as "Momma bear syndrome" as my children call it.

Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children. ~Sam Levenson

My 7 year old thinks the best way to do her schoolwork is with it spread around her and on her head.....good thing she is homeschooled, right? Not so sure this would go over in public school.

Listen to the wisdom of the toothless ones. ~Fijian Proverb

I'm not sure if these teeth are going to come back in.....but seriously.

A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams. ~Author Unknown

Weren't they sweet babies?

Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer. ~Louise Glück

Kenzie is definetly the watcher and Maddie the dancer!

She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child. ~Barbara Alpert

Yep definetly sums them up already. They'll love me someday for having posted this one on my blog...

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. ~Stacia Tauscher

Seriously I need to stop worrying about his future and focus on the right now....

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

I hope he can focus someday.....

While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

Definetly true...

A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future. ~Author Unknown

She is definelty my joy in the present.

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. ~Plato

Yeah talk about it.....

[W]hen the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. ~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

I love this quote! I have always told her this too. Now when we walk through the woods she points out all the fairy castles in the trees it's really sweet. I hope she never stops believing! I still do!

Yep still busy!

2008-03-28T09:38:00.002-08:00

So yes I am still very busy and unlike last week I have 6 kids right now instead of 5. There just hasn't been much time to write here or even really to check out blogs. The kids are all very busy and driving me totally insane at the moment!

I picked up the 6th child on Friday awhile after my last post. We have 3 boys and 3 girls in the house. Except that Kenzie has decided she has had enough of having extra kids around and has been spending most of her time with her friend instead.

I thought I would share with you what we did last weekend for our Easter fun!

On Saturday we went to the "mall" (I quote it because they call it a mall but really it only has a few stores....sad really). They were doing an easter egg hunt there and some other activities. The hid eggs in shredded paper and the kids liked looking in it for the eggs.....

.....my problem was that it let up a lot of dust and probably wasn't the best idea for the kids lungs.....the picture below isn't as fuzzy as it looks but a lot of paper dust.

The kids liked it though.

After that we went to my friends house (Kenzies friend also) who has a big enough table for a lot of kids to dye eggs at. Another friend of Kenzies and her friend came over as well so we had 8 kids dying eggs! Five 9 year olds!

We split up the eggs to about 7 eggs a piece and that seemed plenty for the kids to keep them busy.

One of the things we had for dying them were there dye sticks so alot of the kids did dots on their eggs. I'll show you what Kenzie did that was a little different a few pictures down.

Here are Izzaks eggs. One of the other things we had for dying the eggs was a kit for what they called camouflage. Really you put oil in the dye mix then stir it with a spoon quickly just before putting in the eggs. It left a pretty cool design.

Here are Joshuas eggs. He did all the camouflage eggs and figured out first how to die them in regular dye first then do the camo dye so you can have multiple colors.

Here are Kenzies eggs. See how she did a little different take on using the dye sticks? Instead of just dots she made flowers and wrote her name.

And lastly Maddies eggs. She did a little bit of everything.

On Sunday after church we went to Ward Lake, which I've shown lots of pictures of before, and did another egg hunt. The hunt here was a lot more fun since it was actually in the woods and along the trails around the lake. I didn't get any pictures of them actually looking for eggs though because they were moving along so quickly I was having a hard time keeping up myself.

It was a beautiful day though. The sun popped out and you could feel the heat from it which helped the fact that it was actually pretty cold out. We haven't had a lot of nice days like this so it was really nice to get 0n a day when we were all out in it. Especially since it has snowed every day since then! Where is Spring??????

The eggs where scattered all over the grounds near the lake and of course Joshua had to jump into the lake to get an egg he saw down there. Here in the picture he, his friend Connor (our other guest) and Uncle Josh are trying to help him take of his rain boots that are filled with water! It was pretty funny.

I didn't really get any pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes since it was cold but I have been told that the girls at least have had pictures taken at church so I can show you how they looked then if I don't get them dressed up again and have pictures taken. I'm really thinking of that since we haven't done a proffesional group shot in ages.

Here is a group pic of all my kids plus Kenzies friend.

Just the girls

Just the boys.

Just mine

That was out Easter weekend anyway. I will post more soon since the extra kids leave on Sunday I will have more time but I might actually get a post up tomorrow with some other pictures but I figured I kind of did a little picture overload here today! The kids have had multiple activities pretty much everyday with my 2 in homeschool so as long as we are at those they are easily entertained. It's those times when we are not doing one of those that the kids are driving me nuts. They are just very busy!

Too busy

2008-03-21T20:23:00.003-08:00

Okay so having so many kids around is driving me nuts! We had 5 all this week since my 4 were all home (Joshua and Kenzie are on spring break). We've done a lot though. We took the cousin into town a couple of times and visited near the docks. Got a picture of the girls standing in front of the water.

Of course they didn't stand that way long and were quickly running.

I've been taking all 5 of them to gymnastics this week. They've all loved that. Here are my girls and Joshua.

Kenzie practicing on the balance beam.

Joshua practicing on the spring board. That boy can really get some hight! This was just one jump but he got much higher.

Thursdays the homeschooling kids have a science class at the discovery center. This week were learning about plants and trees. Here is Madison looking very interested.

All the younger kids looking at their wood stump samples learning how to tell how old a tree is.

On Friday we go on a hike through the woods and learn about the local trees in the area. One of the things they were doing was learning about taking core samples of the tree to see how old it is without cutting it down. The forestry service is the one teaching this class so they were showing them all the equipment they use.

Here they are using the core tool with the forestery person.

In the photo below she is showing them the core sample.

I just like this picture...

They were also showing them how they estimate the size of a tree here. Izzak was the tallest so he got to climb into the tree.

It's been cold all week and snowing off and on but the snow isn't really sticking for to long. It lasts about a day then goes and then we get it again the next day. I sure am ready for spring right now.

Fun Monday

2008-03-17T13:15:00.001-08:00

This weeks Fun Monday is brought to us by Nikki at My Husband thinks I'm weird.

Here is her challenge:

1.) I don't know about you, but my family is great at creating strange words that only we know the meaning. Some were created when the kids were first learning to talk, others came about when our tongues were twisted and the word came out funny. Either way, the words stuck and we still use them in our daily conversations. What created words does your family use?! Please share the story behind the word if you remember. If you don't have a made up word then tell us about the unspoken way you communicate with someone. Do you and your significant other have a look that means "This party is boring, lets split" or do you have a look that your kids know means their butt is in serious trouble? Please share!! And a picture of the look would be very entertaining!

Hmm for us most of ours funny words came from Izzak. Izzak was speach delayed and didn't have any words until he was just about 3. Nope none at all... Anyway it brings for some funny words.

Most of my regular readers will know that my favorite soda is Dr Pepper. Well my kids all knew that early on and Izzak had a word for that that we could never figure out how it came out the way it did. From then on we refered to Dr Pepper as Poc D Dupee. Yeah not sure exactly how that came out but it stuck. Another was Rhuga for Yogurt and Neaners for fingers. Those all seemed to stick and are still used all the time.

We have others like pasghetti for speghetti which started with my own family from my sister, Spork was my brother that and littering room for living room (yeah it fits better around here anyway). Also you know that the best place to check out books in at the Libary (no r after the b). Thing a ma jiggy is for anything we can't think of the name to at the time, that or da kine which came from when I was little and my family lived in Hawaii.

That's all I can think of right at the moment. I'm sure there are many more but they have become such a part of our family I don't even notice our saying them until someone gives me a weird look when I say it.

Oh I almost forgot Macaroni is Mac N Roni from Joshua and chocolate which after Joshua we now pronounce shockolit.

Visitor from Portland and snow....

2008-03-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

Fun Monday post below this one.....

Yesterday was a busy day! First we had Joshuas baseball tryouts, I'll post about that another day. That was early in the morning till 11. At 12 I had to take the girls to sell girl scout cookies at one of the local grocery stores till 1. Then at 3 by brother in law Josh and I crossed the ferry to the airport to pick up his daughter Kayla for a visit with us for a few weeks.

Here is here plane coming in. It's a little funny because I had to take the picture through glass of course.

Here she is running to her dad, they haven't seen each other since September when he came up here.

That big first hug after 6 months!

Crossing the ferry back to Revilla Island (Ketchikan).

We stayed up kind of late last night. Yesterday was a very nice day for around here so far got up to 50 degrees. I know not really really warm but hey....

We did a barbeque for dinner and watched some movies and everyone went to bed.

This is what we woke up to this morning!

It had just started snowing this morning (has been all day now). Not quite the kind of warm temps we had yesterday when I was thinking that spring was finally coming.

The kids went outside and played with the puppies for a bit. Kodiak loves to have us kick snow in the air and she tries to catch it. Look at her jump! She definetly has the Blue Heeler in her. She is so much like her momma who does the same thing. Kiska loves the snow but doesn't jump up at it like this.

Here is the kids all together playing now in the snow themselves.

This was what it looked like at first when they cooperated.

About 5 seconds later they looked like this!

Then they started working on their snowman (Thomas) they haven't finished him yet because they made the balls so big they can't figure out how to get them on top of each other.

These were all taken this morning when it had just started to snow so we have much more coming down now. It is supposed to be in the 20's tomorrow as well so we will probably be in the snow for a few days at least.

I was so happy to finally be able to drive the car up and down the hill but now I have to get Kelly to get it down for me (I'm a chicken). Looks like the 5 kids and I will be walking up and down for a couple of days.

Next week I will be heading back to the airport to pick up another kid! My friend Kara is sending her son up here for spring break. I'm going to go insane with 6 kids all day, 3 nine year olds!

Fun Monday post below this....

Because I'm the mom.....

2008-03-12T23:25:00.003-08:00

Nope not a post about the kids asking me why they have to do things. A totally different topic completely.

So this weekend I was at a Womens retreat they did here in Ketchikan. It was a Christian womens conference type of thing. Which was really good actually.

The problem I had didn't really have to do with the retreat but something I overheard a couple of women talking about. We were standing in line and one of the women is teaching at a local private school to preschoolers and kindergarteners and she was discussing the kids behavior and when some have difficulties with learning or behavior. She was laughing with her friend talking about how she picks and chooses what she tells parents. "because you know how parents are, they don't want to hear when their child is having problems" yeah thats what she said.

This totally cought my ear and I wanted to to butt in but didn't. I was trying to be nice and pretend I wasn't listening in. The problem in my opinion with this train of thought is. How do you know that is not something the parent is noticing and wondering if anyone else sees it or are they just being over concerned, or whatever?

This is something I get frustrated about. One for Izzak because I really needed his teachers to tell me more when he was in earlier grades in school but apparently they didn't feel I needed to know it. I find this out from going over his old school records since I am able to look at those, something I've done recently. I have the same issue with Joshua and his behavior issues. Really I needed to know things sooner sometimes so that I could try to help the situation before it got out of control.

I find that doctors do this also. It makes no sense to me. They have an xray or some other test done on a child and they don't think something is important to what they are being seen for so they just don't mention it.

I just found out this last week when we started Izzak in physical therapy for the tight hamstrings the orthopedist noticed when he was seen for his pain he was having earlier this year. First off it wasn't just his hamstrings but also his thighs and calf muscles as well. I feel like a great parent. How do I not notice this stuff? I get so fucused on his learning issues somehow I let something slide or get by unnoticed or I just didn't think he was very flexible and didn't really think anything of it.

Anyway the thing I found out at his physical therapy appointment was that the xrays the doctor did showed he has Spina Bifida Occulta (the occulta means it's closed, so not open to the outside of his skin). The problem is the doctor didn't think that it was important to tell me that the xray showed that since it is usually symptomless. Althought some of the symptoms can include constipation issues, problems with the muscles in the legs and oddly shapped feet to name a few that Izzak actually has. It seems to me that with that showing on the xray even if normally considered harmless unless showing symptoms wouldn't some of the symptoms he has make it worth mentioning or having checked out? Also they had decided that the stomach pain he was having at the time was coming from his back and just radiating. So wouldn't this have been something to check into a little more? So now I am waiting for an upcoming appointment with his ped to see what he thinks but for now I'm just a little frustrated with all these people who think that some things aren't worth telling the parents.

Okay I'm going to end the post now. I just needed to get something off my chest for the moment. I just don't like it when someone else chooses to tell me what they feel I need to know to "save me from worrying". I worry anyway, it doesn't change anything except give me something to look into and ask about, right?

Did you know.....

2008-03-10T21:15:00.004-08:00

that it is so much easier to do your schoolwork when upside down?

Just ask Madison.

I know the picture is kind of fuzzy but I'm still learning....
please ignore the messy floor she feels the need to spread everything around her while working..

Also my couch? Apparently it is very good for practicing standing on your head.

Standing on heads and rolling apparently....

Seriously I don't normally let them play on the furniture like that but we were having one of those days that the kids were kind of getting away with things because I was enjoying watching them have some fun.

I really need to get the curtains up, don't I? Honestly though when the sun is out we get awesome light from there so I haven't really worried about it yet. Also? We live in the middle of nowhere on an island so really it's not like we have to worry about nosy neighbors looking in our windows.

Oh and guess what I bought for myself today? Raingear! I didn't think it was something I'd really get into but seriously we live in a rainforest people! The homeschooled kids are in a science class this month 2 days a week at the Discovery Center which they are loving but on Fridays we do a hike and last Friday it was pouring! Jeans and tons of rain are not a good match when you are trying to hike and keep your pants up at the same time!But the hike is worth it for scenes like this...

and this

and one of my favorite things about living here?

I love Eagles!!

Stuff and pictures

2008-03-06T09:46:00.004-09:00

I got a new camera yesterday! I'm so excited by it also. It's not one of the fancy professional cameras but it's got more of the features that they do. It can zoom in to things tons more then my other camera did and that, people, is very exciting to me.

I had to order it online since the only place here that sells cameras is Walmart and really they have a little bit of a selection but did not have what I was looking for. I am a total instant gratification type of person so waiting for it to come this last week has been soooo hard!

So I got it yesterday afternoon and do you know what I've been doing since then? Playing with my camera of course. Taking pictures are one of my favorite hobbies and I do hope someday to get a professional style camera but really I need to learn to use some of those features that are on my new camera already. I think it's awesome though!

Here is a picture of Madison and her new haircut.

I love to turn pictures into the sipia coloring also and the new camera does that as well as letting you had frames to pictures so I did this with another picture of Madison.

Another thing I like is being able to catch action shots better. With 2 puppies and 4 kids some of the best pictures around here to catch are in motion. I tried that out on some pictures of the puppies playing since they move quite fast and here is the result in one picture of Kodiak running. This one is not only with her her moving but using the zoom on the camera as well so for me that was even better.

I've taken a lot more pictures so far but for now I'll leave you with these.

Things are going a lot better at the moment. I'm done feeling sorry for myself about Izzaks problems for now anyway. I mean things really could be so much worse and to be honest he is an awesome kid. Joshua, well we are working on things with him. I am pretty much fully convinced I am going to homeschool him as well next year. Really is some ways things will be easier that way since I won't be taking some kids to school and some staying home. We can all start our day together istead of any rushing around which sounds great to me. I am still saying we will see how it goes for a year and he knows that. If he doesn't cooperate and all I do is fight to get him working then it just won't work.

I do have a question for those of you with girls over 9 or 10.... Lets see how do I phrase it...
Kenzie has suddenly turned into my very emotional little girl. Not like something is bothering her or anything she has several friends and gets along very well, is enjoying school, doesn't have a ton of things going on herself. So the question is. Has anyone else had their girls turning into little balls of emotion when they were this age. I honestly think it is really her just starting to go into puberty stuff. She has some other signs showing this as well so that what I think anyway. I just don't remember being 9, maybe I just burried it somewhere. But seriously she has bouts where she is just acting like she is PMSing.... Has her brothers, dad, and uncle all confused and me a bit also I guess.

Madison, well as usual is doing great. She is a very smart little girl. She is really picking up her reading lately and getting words I didn't think she would figure out. In math she is getting concepts very quickly also. I have to say I love homeschooling with her. I like to be the one teaching her a lot of these things for the first time and getting to really see her "get" something. It makes the days I fight with her fade away.

My kid is weird.........

2008-03-03T09:19:00.002-09:00

....yep she is....

Madisons favorite thing to do right now is to climb into the kennel with the puppies.

Not exactly sure why she does this but every time I turn around she is sitting in their kennel.

Looks a little tight in there with her. Doesn't it?

Some Randomness.....

2008-02-29T00:24:00.008-09:00

Gee I have really been bad about posting lately haven't I?

Seriously though there is a lot of things going on. Some good. Like the fact that Madison and I are going back to Portland in May for 4 weeks! Just the 2 of us. I am so excited and I know Maddie could totally use the mommy time being the youngest she really hasn't had a lot of time with just me. When we are alone together she really clings to me and just likes to talk and do stuff together so I'm sure we will have a lot of fun.

We have made a lot of plans for this trip so far. The main reason I am going is because my nephew is getting married! Makes me happy and sad....he can't be old enough to marry, can he? Anyway it started with that and we were just going to go for a week. Then I started calling friends to tell them I was coming down for a week and everyone wanted to do something or visit while I was there so it changed to 2 weeks. Then I started thinking that while we are there I should really get Madison in to see the 2 specialists she sees since she will really be due and they don't have peds specialists here in Ketchikan so finally Kelly said "why don't you just go down for a month?" You can bet I jumped on that! 4 weeks with just one kid! That will seem easy especially after last summer with all 4 by myself and working full time. I am sooo sooo excited right now. We already have our tickets bought and Madison has a calendar she is counting down the days until we get on the plane.

Joshua had another appointment with his pediatritian a couple of weeks ago and his doctor wanted me to fill out the forms again and have his teacher fill them out as well. It is one of the things they use to see if he may be ADHD. Well I went in with Joshua today and the doctor was looking at the scored forms and sayed "it looks like he probably has ADHD. I just kind of looked at him like....uh yeah. We did this stuff a long time ago with more then just the forms to get his original diagnosis. I'm not sure why he wanted to do the forms and then read them back like it was news to me...oh well. We are trying him on some new meds though and we'll see if that helps any. He is just so far off from his normal behavior lately and that is mostly in the last couple of months. I don't think it has anything to do with our move either he is making friends easily and enjoying his days. The weather lately has been decent we had about 4 good days of sunlight which was really nice and now we are back to rain. I am hoping we are done with the snow for now though till next year. I'll be a little more used to it then.

Madison got a haircut yesterday! She is so cute with it. I love her hair shorter. I will post a picture of that tomorrow when I get one taken. Yeah I know I didn't get one taken on the first day? How could I.

I had some pics I wanted to share. Blogger still isn't working for me but it's not the only one. I fight with the others I'm using also but they seem to eventually get them up unlike blogger that barely tries. I can't figure out if it has to do with our internet connection or what but it seriously is driving me nuts! I've considered changing to another but I really like the look of my blog right now and don't know if I would be able to work that into another site.

Anyway here are some pics I have for you.

Madison overlooking Ketchikan creek during Girl Scout thinking day.

Twirling a baton during gymnastics. They were doing routines on this day

They were doing group routines and Madison was the littlest so they decided to do a little pyramid with her on top

Puppies napping together. Aren't they cute? They are hugging.

This is what our porch looked like when I was complaining about the snow. We kept shoveling it but gave up after awhile. All of this fell in one day and it was about halfway the height of the railings.

The puppies loved the snow though. Here is Kodiak playing in it.

For some reason the pictures won't resize to fit in here I may fix this tomorrow.

Fun Monday blog name and food stuff...

2008-02-24T22:34:00.004-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Mariposa. Here challenge this week is this:

1) Please share to us how the NAME of your BLOG was made? I can't wait to hear interesting funny stories!
2) Please share to us (in words or photo, though a combination of both will be a bonus!) your favorite/ most common dish!

Number one was not to difficult really. The name is My4Kids and well I have 4 kids....these are them...

I originally started this blog for myself as a journal. I love to take pictures especially of the kids and I scrapbook. I wanted to have somewhere to write things down. My thoughts, things they were doing, their difficulties and the fun times we had. I always had a journal as I was growing up but I'm not a fan of writing in a book and I loved the idea of being able to include pictures. After a few months of occasional blogging for myself I started checking out some other blogs and commenting and soon I had others commenting and checking out mine as well. All along though this blog has always been about my family and My 4 Kids. For those of you who don't normally come around here this blog has also chronicled our deciding to move to Alaska and our recent move her this last August so for me it has really been an outlet. I love all the friends I have made, I have met a lot of people with kids who have similar issues to mine and have become at least email buddies with several and I do seriously consider many of you my friends. My kids all know who you are!

Number 2? Well I'm gonna cheat on this one. We had a Fun Monday back in September that was titled Your Favorite recipe so here is the link to that post

Lots going on...

2008-02-21T16:31:00.000-09:00

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I know I read a post somewhere once that said you should apologize for not posting but seriously my posting has gone way down. There is just a lot of things going on basically and I don't really know how to post it or how much to say.....
Anyway I commented the other day about Izzak and my feelings about what the schools had/hadn't done for him when he was in public school. The reason for that is that he was due for recertification for being special Ed this month and they did his testing at the end of January. We got the results back about a week and a half later and they left me feeling a little depressed/sad I don't know ...... The school was telling me last year he was reading and writing at a end fourth grade level (he's in 7th) I had my doubts about it and when they did his tests they showed that the school was basically feeding me a bunch of bs. He scored at a low 2nd grade level for writing and low 3rd for reading and comprehension. Also I know he has improved since we started home schooling so where was he when he was in school? I have proof myself of how he was doing when I started and proof of his improvement since then. When I had spoke to the home school program at the beginning of the year they knew what his IEP said and asked my opinion I even said back then that I felt his abilities were more 2nd for writing and 3rd for reading so how is it that I could tell where he was with no professional teaching and the spec ed teachers in Portland would say he was so much farther ahead? Makes me think they were saying whatever they needed to say to meet their own goals instead of admitting he needed more help and working with him more. Also he saw a another dr who feels he has asbergers. His behavior and anxiety issues are something I've been trying to get him help for for years but no one really seemed to want to help.
Even with the test results being what I thought myself actually seeing that he is so far delayed is hard to swallow.... I just want him to be able to be or do whatever he wants and it scares me to think that he may not be able to. I will do what I can to help him and I never tell him he can't but it makes me sad. I feel though that I have gotten farther this year with him getting help and working with him by myself then in all these last years when I've supposedly had help from the schools. A lot of help they have been...
He's loving home schooling though and has friends we are working with him in lots of areas much differently then in the past and he is gaining confidence in himself because the work is more inline with his abilities. I love to see him excited because he got more words right in a spelling test then wrong even if he got several wrong he is seeing that he is learning things himself and that is great for him.
I will post more about some of the specifics of his testing later but I wanted to let you know what I was talking about in a previous post.

The other thing kid wise going on is Joshua. I know I posted this picture before but I like it. I said the other day that we have decided to most likely home school Joshua as well. I am still not saying absolutely positive I am going to do it but most likely, that makes sense doesn't it? Kelly and I went to have a conference with his teacher last week. It was good discussion with his teacher but disappointing at the same time. Not only is he not getting his work done but he is causing a lot of problems in class as well. Not bad stuff like talking back or anything just his attention span being basically nothing. She says he is popping out of his seat most times and if not out of the seat he is constantly fidgeting in it. When she leaves the class with teachers aid for things she has to take him with her because the entire rest of the class is distracted and doesn't get anything done. We have noticed his behavior (adhd behavior) having kind of gotten out of control (what control we had) lately but didn't know it was quite so bad at school. We have been working at getting things figured out with his meds he takes because the stuff he was taking is not doing anything for him anymore really and he is back to not sleeping because he can't settle down either. So we have been working with his doctor to try and figure that stuff out.

When I'm feeling frustrated with it all though I just step outside and look at whatever is beautiful to look out like this I saw the other day

This should be a Fun Monday post

2008-02-18T01:07:00.003-09:00

Okay I know some of you will be coming by today looking for my Fun Monday post but unfortunatly blogger is still being a pain in the rear and won't let me upload pictures and the site I have been using isn't working either. I'm seriously thinking I may need to look into something else to host this blog. That is if any thing will work since I'm having problems uploading to any thing right now.

So sorry to disappoint I did have some pictures to share and if I can manage to get them up here I may get it up late tomorrow.

Like I've said things are always changing...

2008-02-13T13:27:00.003-09:00

Apparently I'm slightly insane.... that is what I keep telling myself anyway. You remember how I've been saying all along there is no way I would home school Joshua? Well yeah that might be changing, most likely actually. Does that sound right? What got me to this point? Joshua is failing every subject in school except Band, Music and PE.....all F's. The kid is not stupid or having any trouble with the work he just doesn't get it done. When the teacher does work with them in class including giving them the answers he still doesn't get them right. So obviously he is not paying attention. He does have ADHD you know so it's not a total surprise although he had been doing fairly well in school prior to this. He does really well when they are studying things he is interested in but otherwise he just wanders and never gets it done. I fight him at home to get his homework done but for some reason it doesn't get turned in.

So I talked to him about it and he said he wanted me to home school him also. Earlier in the year he was dead set against home schooling so I don't know what changed. Anyway I told him he would need to show me he can get his work done and work to improve his grades and that he needed to work on his attitude and doing what he was told to at home and then I would think about it. Although I'm still saying that to him I am pretty postitive we are going to at least give him a 1 year trial with home schooling to see if it will work for him. I've been looking up all kinds of curriculum ideas though to find things to keep his interest while teaching him at the same time. One of Joshua's favorite things and something that can keep his interest of hours is Legos and guess what I found last night? Lego Education how cool is that? They have lesson plans for Science and Math and things to integrate them into regular lesson plans as well! I was showing Joshua last night and he was really excited. This is all paid for by the home school program I use here in Alaska as well.

There are a lot of other things going on as well and I will share more of that later maybe tomorrow. It has just been super busy and there are things I wanted to post about Izzak and some recent testing we've had done on him for his learning disabilities. Just as a note? I was right in pulling him away from his old school. They were screwing up BIG TIME and his last few years of school have been nearly useless...I'm a bit depressed about it but working on what to do from here to help him out.

Fun Monday

2008-02-10T12:38:00.000-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is from The Crown Princess at Ooh a Shiny Pen. Her assignment for this week is:

Music plays a vital role in most of our lives. It is everywhere. I want to hear the ONE song that is you. The song that whenever it is heard, you smile. I am not looking for the soundtrack of your life, just that one song. Your friends hear it and think of you. You can post the video, the lyrics, the wav file. However you want to post it is great.

Hmm, how do you choose "that" song. I don't know that there is a song that makes people think of me really. All of my friends listen to a large variety of different music types as do I. I listen to lots of types: Country, Rock, Alternative, Hard Rock and some others when the mood strikes. The song that makes me smile when I listen to it is "Proud of this House We Built" by Brooks and Dunn.

While I'm showing you my favorite songs that I feel tell more about me I thought I would share my song to my kids. I can't think of any other way to tell them the things the song says so well already.

My Wish by Rascal Flats

Now click the link at the begging of the post and read everyone elses songs.

Proverbs Madison style..

2008-02-06T17:24:00.000-09:00

Karmyn posted this yesterday I thought is was really cute. She started off proverbs and let Jammin her her 1st grader finished. I thought it would be fun to see Madisons responses.

1. Don't change horses .....................that run

2. Strike while the ............................kids don't sleep (seriously I have no idea where that came from)

3. It's always darkest before ............morning ( pretty close)

4. Never underestimate the power of ...........the darkside ( a little bit of Star Wars influence?)

5. You can lead a horse to water but .............not a house

6. Don't bite the hand that ............................eats people ( well yeah!)

7. No news is ..................................for people (she got stuck on the people answer)

8. A miss is as good as a ..................bird

9. You can't teach an old dog new ..things (close)

10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll .............play (we do have 2 puppies you know)

11. Love all, trust ........................................people (aww)

12. The pen is mightier than the ..................person (stuck on the people thing again)

13. An idle mind is ......................................starting

14. Where there's smoke there's ..................wind

15. Happy the bride who ............................marries somebody

16. A penny saved is ..................................special

17. Two's company, three's ........................girls

18. Don't put off till tomorrow what ...........comes to you

19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and ....smile

20. There are none so blind as ..................boys (she's learnin' early)

21. Children should be seen and not .........hid (well yeah)

22. If at first you don't succeed ................try try again (I knew she would know that one)

23. You get out of something only what you....do

24. When the blind lead the blind .............see

25. A bird in the hand ..............................can not hear

26. Better late than................................... ever (close)

Yes in the picture above she is wearing a helmet. She was sledding and one of the directions they may go when doing that can hit some places they could hurt them selves so I make them all wear one. They hate it and think I'm being a mean mom!

About the pipes....

2008-02-02T10:09:00.000-09:00

The pipes have stayed unfrozen since Monday! Which is great. I just wanted to address the comments though. We do know about leaving them running just to a trickle the only problem is this is how we get our water...

It is our water tank that collects water from when it rains. I've talked about it before but I figured I'd show it at the new house. The problem with running water even at a trickle is when it is freezing like it is and we are only getting snow we are getting a lot less water then normal so not much is running into the tank. The water already is pretty low so we have to kind of watch how we use it and make sure it is at least being used instead of just running. We keep up on laundry that we need done anyway and usually someone is home to check and make sure it is running. Also we have new heat tape on the pipes under the house and a heater to keep them from freezing. The problem was that the heater normally under the house got turned off somehow and the heat tape just quit working.

Madison playing with Kodiak and the puppies new toy. A little blue tire....

Look I wanted to share a picture of Kenzie and her cousin Kayla(nearly twin they are 9 days apart) when they were babies. My sister in law was going through pics the other day and sent me a copy of it.

Kayla is the one with her hair standing up and Kenzie is the one sitting on the toy. They were so close at this age and were always together.

Pipes are working now...

2008-01-30T22:55:00.000-09:00

Okay so Monday was a bad day. We figured out it was the pipes. They had frozen in places because the heat wrap that is on them apparently stopped working. Uhm yeah we need to get that replaced for now we run water frequently during the day and just pray at night that they don't freeze. Kelly was under the house from about 6pm to 10 on Monday night when it was 6 degrees F with no heat taking the pipes apart then handing them to one of us to bring in and try to heat up enough to melt the ice obviously it took a few hours but we have water now. His truck didn't start in the morning because the batteries were completely dead and needed replaced. Yeah I said batteries 2 of them to the tune of $200 a piece! Ouch..... he worked on that right after work when he got home at 5 had some trouble with them so took him an hour to get done. The fact the hood of the truck is higher then him made it a little extra challenging. So that brings his total out in the freezing temps to 5 hours after work which uhm is outside....yeah his day was a little worse then mine.....I suppose.

I told you about my not being able to get my durango up the street to our house right? Here is a look at part of the hill. Walking a little down it then at then end where you see the snow stop or turn you take a left and it's almost straight down hill.

Izzak thinks the girls, well mostly Madison, are to slow so he has taken to pulling them or her down on a sled. When he gets to the hill he turns her around and holds it so it doesn't slide quicker then he can walk. Isn't he a sweet brother? Of course on this outing he got to the end and she leaned funny and got dumped out of the sled. Of course in Madisons opinion it was all his fault and she yelled at him for it...

We finaly got Kenzies blood tests back and the only thing unusual was showing that she was having some kind of allergic reaction or something at the time. She is still having the same symptoms though so she must be still having it. The nurse told me so I didn't talk to the doctor but apparently he wasn't concerned? I don't know. If she is having an allergy to something like that and it's seems to be ongoing you'd think he would suggest doing some other checking since it is affecting her sleep and energy level. I'm not thrilled with him though so I am going to make an appointment when I call in tomorrow to see the other doctor in the office who I totally adore and I'm sure he'll be more proactive about it. She has missed days of school from this because she is not sleeping good at all and just acting really tired all the time even going to bed early.

I have more pictures to shar with you but it takes a long time to load them onto the website I'm using to be able to post but it's the only one that my computer seems to be allowing to load all the others just end up giving me an error message. Hopefully I'll get more loaded tomorrow and share some others.

Sorry about Fun Monday

2008-01-28T07:26:00.000-09:00

I was going to do Fun Monday but am having challenges this weekend. Camera cable has been chewed up by the puppies so I can't upload any pics until the new one comes in so now pics sorry. Also my bedside table is down in the garage because we had it in storage and when we took it out it was covered on top with mold.....We are trying to clean it up but until then I don't have one of those either. It's usually not that interesting anyway though so your not really missing anything. Usually just a lamp maybe a book if I'm reading one and a picture usually of the kids.

This morning is going not so well either. The temp went way down last night for us around 4 F and even with heat wrap either the water tank is frozen or our pipes are frozen so we don't have water at the moment, great fun right? The cars didn't want to start this morning either and we have 3 Kelly's truck which was on a block heater didn't want to start the little car we couldn't get the doors open because they are frozen solid but my Durango started! I guess it's a good thing Kelly decided to fix it a week ago.

So yeah at the moment I'm in a fantastic mood......

Whale watching, etc.

2008-01-22T23:48:00.000-09:00

So blogger is still giving me fits so I can't upload pictures directly. I am finding other ways of getting pics on though. Look at this picture I took on Tuesday. I thought it looked cool looking from our deck. You can see the mountain from Galina Island poking out from above the clouds. I really like living at the top of a mountain. The views are amazing. Judging by the comments I got on my Fun Monday post I assume others agree with me.

Also Tuesday we were at a restaurant having appetizers and coffeee with a friend while the kids were in gymnastics. The restaurant is right off the water, like most around here actually. Anyway we were just talking when I noticed several killer whales surfacing just outside! It was awesome! I can't see myself ever getting tired of seeing the whales coming through around here! It was a whole pod and we counted at least 20 of them surfacing on their way up farther north. I tried to get a picture but my zoom lense is acting weird so I couldn't really get up to close but the pictures I have to show a little of them above the water.

I wish I could have gotten some more of them breaking the water because it was awesome but I didn't have my camera with me when I was at the restaurant. They were coming up in large groups at a time. This picture was when we decided after the restaurant to follow them on their way with our cars and stopped when we had a good view to see them.

Silly picture of my puppy Kodiak. No she doesn't really use a pacifier the girls have a few of these for their dolls and thought it would be funny to give it to her one day when she was sleeping. Funny thing is she left it there for awhile.

Fun Monday --- View out my front door

2008-01-20T17:20:00.000-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is being hosted by Vicki over at Catching the Light the very first host for Fun Monday! Today will be the first anniversary for Fun Monday which I think is fantastic. I love Fun Mondays partially because it gives me a topic to post about at least once a week....

Here's the assignment. For those of you who did NOT post a picture of your view from your front door, then your assignment is to post a view from your front door. To do this you stand in your doorway looking outside and take a picture. That simple. We (I) want to see what you see when you look out your front door.
For those of you who DID post your view, link back to that post you posted a year ago, and then re-list your very first post ever. We want to see how far you've come baby! Also, if you can, post the comments you received on that post.

I didn't participate back then I started shortly after the first Fun Monday so I will be posting my front door view today. I actually posted some of these pics just a few days ago so for some of you it will be a bit of repeat. But since we have made a huge move this year I am going to show you a picture of what our view was last year at this time as well. Some of you have seen pics of the view we had when we first moved to Alaska but we recently moved to a more permanent house so our view has changed there as well.

Here was our view last year about this time on a rare snow day we had and I took a pictures to show. Here we were still living in the city in Portland Oregon. Neighbors on all sides and close by no real scenery to speak of except when it snowed really wasn't that pretty. Here is the link to that post Here

Fast forward a year and this is our view out the front door in Ketchikan Alaska! Our neighbors aren't that close and we have a beautiful view all the time.

We can look out our windows, door or deck and look out over the Tongass Narrows in beautiful Shoutheast Alaska. No more big city we live outside of the smallish town we live near and I'm enjoying it everyday.

The other thing we were supposed to do was link to our very first post ever. That is
here when I started my blog originally it was just my own journal for keeping track of things and wanting to just write things out. My first one was trying to get out all of Izzaks difficulties since we were dealing with a lot with him at the time.

not much

2008-01-18T19:46:00.000-09:00

Still having problems loading pics on blogger....very aggravating and I'm not sure how to fix it.

Not much exciting going on this week though.

I did have a conference with the program we are using for Izzaks home schooling. It is a little different how we are set up. In alaska they have a thing called IDEA which is designed so you can home school but get the state to pay for his books. I have a contact teacher who I can talk to with concerns and and a special ed teacher to discuss concerns more related to his disabilities. They also help set up any other special therapy he may get. Some people don't like this idea because it is like still letting the state have control over his education but really I don't feel that way at all, for me it's more like having someone to throw ideas off of who may know a little more then I do and with Izzak I feel that is very important I feel more like I'm not totally on my own here.

I do have to turn in samples of his work but mostly just to show he is using the material what I send isn't really important and twice a year I submit my report card for him. He still takes the state tests but that is what we were talking about in the conference today. The old school wouldn't do what was needed to help him with the tests the things suggested by his neurodevelopmental doc or even the school themselves. The spec ed teacher saw what they had which was different then what I signed and was shocked. So we went over it today and they added all the extra help I wanted and then some! They have to hire someone to come in for the testing just for him and they didn't have a problem with that at all. It's just feels so much better then before.

Other then that we have been busy just trying to move things into the house which is such a long process with all our stuff in so many places. Still sleeping on an air mattress as we haven't had the chance to get our own fabulous bed out of storage yet. I am anxious for it though since the air mattress causes me to fall over to basically sleeping on Kelly whenever he moves. Also I still don't have all of my dishes and that drives me nuts! I have everything we have at the moment put away though except clothes because the dressers are in storage also.

Kelly will be going to Juneau next week for some classes for work so hopefully Josh (his brother) and I can get some things out of storage with his truck during the day since he won't be using it.

View from our new house!

2008-01-15T22:25:00.000-09:00

I've been promising pics of our new house for a couple of days now but Blogger is being a pain in the butt and not letting me post any pictures, very agravating! So I had to go in through Picasa and do it that way instead.

Anyway here are some pics for you.

Here is the view to the front but kind of to the left a bit. The island out there is Gravina Island the same Island you could see from our old house. We are actually kind of just up the hill from the old house but in a round about way.

Here is a little more to the left. I took these yesterday during a few moments of no rain or snow just very cold, but the sky was nearly clear so it made for some pretty good picture taking anyway.

Kind of straight to the front off the porch.

This is to the right of the house. You can see a house in the trees that looks a lot closer in this picture then it really is.

Of course today was much different so this was the view from our porch! Today was no sunshine just a lot of snow all day!

Here is a pic showing what you see from the driveway if you are looking at the backside of the house. Kelly loves the large garage by the way, something he has always wanted to be big enough for his things and honestly this one is bigger then it looks. The trees in the back are all part of the forest land no one behind us for the rest of the island which is pretty large. I like that. Kelly and the boys can actually go hunting next year and just go out the backyard into the woods a ways.

Of course you know right now with the new pups home I can't help but share some pics with you all though right?

Kodiak crashed on Kellys chair....she is so spoiled.

Like I said we got a lot of snow today and she loved playing in it.

Hopefully blogger will cooperate with me a little more tomorrow and I will try to upload more pics but doing it this way takes even more time then when blogger works right. I have some of the kids I'd like to show you but we will save that for another time.

Fun Monday "favorite internet sites"

2008-01-13T16:36:00.000-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is hosted by Ann over at For the Long Run

I want to hear about a web site and not just about any old web site. I want to hear about a web site that's changed your life. A web site that you can't live without. A web site whose inventor you'd like to see win a McArthur Genius Grant.

Maybe you want to sing the praises of a dating web site for helping you meet your spouse. Maybe the only thing getting you through the dark days of winter is an Internet comic. No story is too big, no story is too small - I want to hear it all on Monday.

I have several favorite web sites but the problem is several of them are subscription sites with a password. Such as enchanted learning which since I'm homeschooling comes in handy for extra's to add to some of my lessons it is designed for K-3rd grade mostly but there is a lot of stuff I can print off to use with Madison.

I also like one true media which I use for making montages with pictures set to music for special occasions.

I am frequently on vimeo to download my videos and play them on my blog.

Another one I like for my homeschool is e field trips. Basically it has online field trips for several different subjects from historical to science and the kids actually like it. The 2 that aren't homeschooling always want me to save the field trip activity until they get home from school when they know we are doing one since they like to see the videos. You have to create a log in but it's free if you interested. You register for each field trip but that is so they can give you the passwords to get into each field trip. Along with the field trips when it is a new one they will have a 2 day period set aside to speak to the experts so you check in often. It has an efieldtrip journal for each trip and a virtual visit. It's actually pretty cool

The school web sites that I post are both actually used in schools as well including the school my other 2 go to.

There are several others I go to including more school related sites and shopping sites, of course you know my favorite site to go to is my own blog! hehe

Hey I've got my own computer up

2008-01-11T21:19:00.000-09:00

Look at our sweet puppies sleeping tonight! Aren't they cute. I had to take a picture of Kodiak sleeeping like this with her stuffed hippo over her head. She fell asleep playing with it.

Can you tell how much they like to sleep together?
First time in the snow. They loved it. Our house has a huge deck off of the front porch so we have been taking the puppies out lately to play for a few minutes. Kodiak loves it but has a shorter coat and gets colder a little quicker then Kiska.
Kiska has the nice Husky coat so acts like she barely notices the cold. She turns into a completly different pup when you take her outside. She just goes nuts! The both love to eat the snow and she will pick it up and throw it.Kenzie playing with the pups at our new house.
So my birthday went pretty well. The pups had their shots, got wormed and had their nails clipped which was very necessary! They were scratching us to pieces! They are great though.

My friend took me to lunch afterward when we dropped the kids and pups all off. We went to a nice restaraunt and just had lunch with no kiddos and had a good time. She gave me a gift with a new purse and new pants from a line she sells that I really like. I really need new clothes! Then we went to dinner at church because they do a church family dinner on Wednesday nights and everyone sang happy Birthday to me. Oh oh and guess what! They fixed my phone and Joshua got the water pump working right that day as well.....honestly that was probably my best gift! The laundry and shower situation was getting bad!

I still can't get up my driveway though with the snow. I really need Kelly to fix my Durango but it also needs new tires so that I can drive it up. The taurus just doesn't have the traction and now 4 wheel drive. The Durango on the other hand could do it.

I'm loving the new house though it's tons more room then the last one and actually I think is bigger then any other house we've lived in. With everyone growing around here that is very exciting! Also the last house had only 1 bathroom and with 7 people living there it was getting to be a difficult situation even though the boys and men were often sent to the woods to go potty, although there are only certain things that you can do outside comfortably! This one has 2 and one is in our room as the master bath which means I have my own bathroom!

I will try to get some more pics of around the house and outside for you tomorrow. I've been having so much fun with the puppies and moving things lately I just haven't thought to take pictures outside or of the house. Maybe tomorrow if we get time. We need to move stuff out of storage and Joshua has a pine wood derby race with the boyscouts as well tomorrow so I will see what I can do. Maybe you'll get pics of Joshuas race.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes by the way I loved looking at the computer all day to see new messages!

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me.....

2008-01-08T23:33:00.000-09:00

Today is my birthday January 9th. Don't really have any plans at this point other then doing school with the kids and taking the pups in to get their shots. Sound like an exciting day?
When I was younger I looked forward to my birthday and counted down but now that I have kids it seems to just be another day. Why is that? The hubby isn't much of a planner for things and since I do all the party planning and gifts the rest of the year. I did get a card from my mom though with some spending money maybe I will buy myself some new clothes with it. I have lost weight since we moved so I really need them.

On the moving front we are out of the other house completely. The things that were in that house are all here but not really put away at all. The only boxes I've really unpacked are the kids school stuff. We are having a few issues though. The phones aren't on yet and they were supposed to be on Monday so i haven't gotten a call from the doctor because he can't call. I will call tomorrow about the blood tests on Kenzie. Who knows if they are all back yet since they send most of the blood work to Seattle since Ketchikan doesn't have a full lab, I know it's weird. Hopefully they will be on today Wednesday, they are scheduled to do it but same with Monday and they just didn't show up. Now we will just have to see if they can get their truck up the hill to our house. I can't get my car up so we are doing some walking unless Kelly is home with his big truck. Also we have a water tank at this house as well of course but the pump is having problems and keeps shutting off, often when Kelly is trying to take a shower. His brother Josh has to sit under the house to turn it back on during showers and him or Izzak go under whenever we notice it is not running again. We are working on trying to figure out what is wrong hopefully tomorrow or we will be putting in a new pump, less hasle. The house otherwise is nice and much bigger then the last actually probably the biggest we have lived in so far which is great. The kids love it here and Izzak is off in the woods every chance he gets! We have tons of snow and places for the kids to sled so they are doing a lot of that as well. Also the other two are back in school which helps as well. Honestly Joshua was driving me insane over the last two weeks. I'm not sure what is going on but his attitude is horrendous! I've been embarressed on more then one occasion lately and that is not normal he can be a handful but normally he is pretty respectful of others and that is just not so lately. Kenzie seems to be a little better still not up to normal energy and I can hear her in her sleep she is talking way more then ussual and for her that is usually a sign she is not feeling great or sleeping well. Madison has the cold Kelly and I were dealing with during the move and told me today "I don't like this cold Mommy, how do I get rid of it?" I told her "you just have to wait for it to go away and rest until then" so now she is telling everyone that she has a cold but there is nothing to do for it so she just has to wait, but she doesn't like to rest. She is a silly kid red nose and all. She is walking around the house with a roll of toilet paper to wipe her nose! Kelly and I seem to be over the worst parts of our colds though so that is great. Now we just need to get the rest of our stuff out of the various storage locations we have things at!

Fun Monday---Our pets!

2008-01-06T21:54:00.001-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is brought to us by Lisa at Lisa's chaos! Here is what she asks of us this week

Let’s meet your pets. I think most of us have at least one pet and I would like to see your fluffy or scaly pal. If you don’t have a camera you can tell us about him/her/them. If you don’t have a pet tell us about a pet you had or a pet you want. If for some weird reason you hate all animals we want to know why gosh-dang-it.

Well technically I have 2 pets of our own here is our little 7 week old puppy Kodiak!

She is a mixed puppy but people are always wanting to know what she is. Her momma was a blue heeler with about a 10th border collie and the father was a huskey with a little red heeler. She takes after her momma and mostly looks and acts like a heeler. She is very spunky and very smart already. We just brought her home this weekend but have been around her all the time since she was born we were actually there just minutes after she was born so she knows us very well and has no problems with coming home away from her momma.

Of course the coming home was a little easier because Kelly's brother Josh who lives with us has one of her littermates Kiska! So she has her sister to play with all the time. As you can see Kiska got more from her father side in coloring and even personality! These puppies are doing great and paper trained most of the time.

When I said we had two pets technically I was meaning that Kiska technically isn't ours so our second pet would be this weird cat here. His name is Merlin and he is just plain weird as you can see. If he is laying on a bed or something he sprawls out like this but he is always on a search for a box or basket to sleep in instead.s

Okay so I popped in today to do Fun Monday but we are very busy at the moment moving so I will have to end this one short or I would tell you so much more. I hope to get around to see everyone elses pets this week but may be in a day or two!

Have a great week!

Moving day....again

2008-01-05T09:43:00.001-09:00

So this weekend we are moving to the new house hoping to be done by tomorrow. Then the long process begins of unpacking since a lot of our stuff was still packed from the first move here. I am really anxious to get it done though since we have things all over the place stored since they wouldn't be needed here in this house.

I took Kenzie to the dr on Thursday. I wasn't impressed with the dr we saw though. I have seen the 3 pediatritions in town now and only really like the one I was seeing with Joshua. I guess that makes it a pretty easy decision on who to take the kids to regularly though, right? He just left me feeling frustrated and I had to basically ask him to run a blood test on Kenzie. She just has not been feeling well and has a lot less energy lately and not eating much so I wanted to do a basic at least check to make sure things were okay. He was to obsessed with her normal stomach issues and not wanting to listen to what she had to say about it being different. The kid really has had the other stomach issues as long as she can remember, I honestly think she is a pretty good gage as to wether it is in a different area and a different feeling from her normal. Don't you think?

Oh well. Hopefully either she starts perking up here soon or we can figure out if something is going on.

The rest of the house is doing okay other then Kelly and I both having colds. Ah I guess this time he's gonna do the sick thing while moving right along with me. Maybe he'll figure what it's like to be moving and feeling like crud at the same time.

Anyway they are hooking up the cable and internet at the new house today so I will probably be shut off here at this house anytime now. It will take a couple of days for us to get things set up at the new house so I will see you in a couple of days unless we get busy!

I changed it again!

2008-01-02T21:08:00.000-09:00

I figured it wasn't Christmas any more and I needed to go to something other then Santa....:(

Why is it Christmas comes and goes so quickly?

We are moving in a couple of days here again......

Really I am looking forward to moving into the new house just not the moving thing. I really hate moving and of course I am getting sick again. What is it with me getting sick everytime we move? I don't get that.......

The only other thing going on is Kenzie....

She got sick at the begging of the month with all of us but she just can't seem to kick it. She is still having trouble with tummy aches and and being super tired. She doesn't want to eat much and what she does eat she is being pretty picky about. She is drinking a lot of gatorade though. It's all she really wants so she gets it, at least it helps her in some ways. I'm going to call her doctor tomorrow to get her in for an appointment.

A shot of our new house and new pup pics

2007-12-30T15:53:00.000-09:00

In two more days we will be moving to the new house. Did I ever explain that? Well you see when we were moving here to begin with we were having some trouble finding a place, you can read about it here. It's not to long you should read it it made me kind of sad though, not sure why. What ended up happening is a coworker had a father who lives here and they had a home they usually use as a guest house when family and friends visit. It asked them to rent it temporarily till we could find something and they said sure. That is how we ended up with our beautiful view we have now. We have been looking but it took awhile to find something. So here we are 4 months in and we found a house we love about 3 weeks ago that would be available to move into January 1st! The house is bigger then this one and even Kelly's brother Josh who is still staying with us will have his own room till he moves. Much nicer then him sleeping in the living room on the couch like he is now! I know he is looking forward to it. It's more up on the side of the mountain and backs up into trees. No one lives behind us at all and the woods back there go on forever. The landlord said that they used to go out there a little ways back to practice shooting and to go hunting, Kelly and Izzak are more then excited about that. It has the 2 car garage Kelly wanted, a good size front yard for the kids to play in (and of course the pups), a play house in the woods to the side of the house and much more. We still have a great view of the Narrows as well! Here is a pic of the house.

It's been snowing pretty much all the time for days now and actually quite deep. This picture doesn't show it so well but it's about a foot+ deep in front of the house more so in other areas and they have plowed the driveway before the latest storm. Am I ready to move right now though? Nope not at all! But it will be fine....

On to pics of Kodiak.

Here is Kodiak playing with her momma.
She is teething big time right now.
Cute little pose
Finally laying down

Other then that all going we are doing well. We had a good Christmas and I'm glad to see things finally settling down for a bit though this season has just been crazy so far!

Hey look I found my camera!

2007-12-28T20:12:00.000-09:00

Yep I found it! It was in the pants pocket of the pants I was wearing earlier in the day before I changed into my Christmas clothes that I got.....yes I'm a dork.....

So here you go. The kids on Christmas eve in their new Christmas jammies. This is a tradition for us. I always buy them new pajamas and they open those on Christmas eve so they open their Christmas presents in the morning in fresh new jammies! My parents did this with us when I was growing up and I always loved it so I have always done it with the kids as well. I have always gotten the girls princess jammies from the Disney store so this year I orded them online. Joshua is wearing Pirates of the Caribian sleep pants and Izzaks say Ford on them. Notice my skinny son? The picture doesn't actually show it really well but he has a pretty muscular chest for an 11 year old, always has.

My sad tree.....it was frozen solid when we got it and when we put it up it was a little crooked. I always let the kids decorate the tree so all the ornaments tend to be at their height. This was on Christmas eve before I went to bed when the gifts were all out.

The kids on Christmas morning looking very tired (it was 5:00 am). Getting ready to look in their stockings. Izzaks stocking is the one I made for him when he was a baby. It has a little teddy bear on it that I embroidered and even though it looks kind of little kiddish he doesn't mind because I made it for him Kenzie and Josh have stockings I bought and Maddies used to look like theirs but we couldn't find it after moving and when I realized that all I could find was one of the inexpensive kind. I found princess stockings to make for them today though for next year and will have to look for one for Joshua now that I can make for him.

Opening gifts!

Kenzie picking up Kodiak while opening gifts. I like to annoy people by making everyone open one gift at a time and only one person opening a gift at any time. They complain but I like to see everyones reactions to their gifts and besides it takes me forever to get them all wrapped it better take them longer then 20 minutes to unwrap them all!

More unwrapping, see the puppy under the couch?
Kodiak climbing unto the couch trying to help Maddie unwrap with Kiska under the couch near her feet
As Kenzie says her "most favorite gift she has every received!" Yes she told me that. She has been asking for an easy bake oven for the last several years. I finally gave in. We'll see if I'm kicking myself for it later. For now she has to wait till we move to try it out.
Kodiak and Kiska having breakfast.

Kids playing Littlest Pet Shop Monopoly at our friends house on Christmas.

How was your Christmas?

2007-12-27T19:28:00.000-09:00

We had a good Christmas this year. I was worried because of not being with our families this year but it was actually fun. We brought home the puppies after the kids had gone to sleep so they could be surprised that they were here. Oh yeah when I say puppies I mean we decided that my brother in law Josh would be able to have his puppy also. We had to figure that out since he is living with us for the foreseeable future. Her name is Kiska so Kodiak will have one of her littermates when she first comes home. That will probably make the transition to our house a little easier on them at least. Anyway the puppies did well and the kids were very excited to have them here for Christmas morning. They woke up about 5 am! My kids always wake up early Christmas morning they are so excited. We made coffee for us adults who were barely awake and the kids opened their stockings and the first gift, when the power went out! That was fun.....I was ready to just go back to bed till the power came on but the others didn't want to so we lit some candles and waited for the power to come back. Fortunatly it was only out for about 30-45 minutes then all was good and we had light again. The kids finished opening gifts and the puppies loved playing with all the wrapping paper and ribbons! The puppies are almost completly paper trained which was nice only a couple little accidents to clean up.

After the gifts we cooked the cinnamon bread my friend had sent us home with as a gift and had breakfast. The kids opened up some of the gifts to play with and we just relaxed for a little bit. I had baked two blueberry pies the day before and on Christmas day I made 2 pumpkins and 2 cheesecakes (Kelly's favorite) got everyone dressed and went to our friends house for Christmas dinner.

We had a lot of fun. I had given her my Christmas money from my mom to buy my gifts because I don't like to buy my own gifts. I like surprises. She did great and I got 2 pairs of pants a shirt and a lightweight casual jacket. Kelly had given me new jammies a new warm coat and a cordless keyboard, mouse and speaker set for my computer. I have so many wires comming from my desk from everything it has been driving me nuts so that was really nice!

We played Mexican Train Dominoes while dinner was cooking for a couple of hours and ate lots of appetizers. For dinner we had prime rib and all the fixins'. It was a really good dinner and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We did take back the puppies since we need to wait till we move into the other house next week to keep them home. Our landlords in this house didn't want us to have any dogs. This house we are in was just a temporary thing until we could find a house we liked here because Kelly wasn't able to find anything when we were first coming up. Our new house is up on a hill and has a great view of the ocean as well. I promise to upload our new view pics when we move there!

Anyway I have tons of pictures but can't seem to find my camera so you will have to wait for those until I find it.

Hope you all had a great Christmas! I did.

Christmas pageant

2007-12-24T10:54:00.000-09:00

Sorry the photo quality isn't good my camera is acting a little weird for some reason.

So yesterday the kids were in the Christmas pageant for our church yesterday. They did really well and all of them were involved in this one.

Here is Kenzie in the front bending down she was a cute little shepherd

Izzak was a wiseman
Joshua was King Herod.

Kenzie again as a shepherd. She is the fuzzy one second to the girl in the front pulling her headpiece out of her eyes.

And of course my little angel Madison. Hmmm do you notice her halo is a little crooked?

They all did really great and everyone enjoyed it.

We are getting excited for Christmas tomorrow and Madison is checking the NORAD Santa tracker every few minutes to see where he is now!

More snow play pics and 4 week puppy photos.....

2007-12-22T10:35:00.000-09:00

......cause I'm to busy to actually type a post! hehe.......

Sledding on Thursday

Joshua has a hat that he refused to keep on...
Izzak sledding on his skateboard without wheels....
and Kodiak at 4 weeks...isn't she cute???
This is how Kelly likes to carry her. She loves it! He puts her in there and pretends he is going to take her home.

Snow Day!

2007-12-19T16:23:00.000-09:00

The weather forecaster forecasted maybe and inch or two of snow over night last night.

Well he was just a little off.....we got over 1 foot instead and it's been comming down all day so we have nearly two feet of it on the ground right now. Usually the school doesn't call a snow day but the roads were really bad this morning so they did. Kelly didn't want me going anywhere driving so the kids and I stayed home and played in the snow instead. Check out our pics!

Fun Monday a little late

2007-12-17T17:59:00.000-09:00

Todays Fun Monday is brought to us by Kitten from Kittens Homeschool.
This is what she requested for today.

"Today for Fun Monday I thought it would be neat to hear about the story behind your home and the road you live on. It doesn't have to be historical, maybe just something that stands out to you. It would be nice to have pictures to go with your little story. I also would like to know who has the oldest house. Whoever has the oldest house will get a little Christmas treat from little ole me."

Well I don't really know a lot about the history of our house or street. I do know that the owners originally bought it as a beach house and that is what they usually use it for except obviously right now since we are staying here. We are actually moving in about 2 weeks but will still have a great view then! We live north of town and there really isn't a whole lot out here except the homes and a gas station everything else you have to drive into town.

Also I did this one for an excuse to show new winter pics of my house since people had asked I post when winter came!

Most of you who have read other fun monday posts of mine showing my house such as this one.

So if you go there you will see what this below looks like in the fall. We do get snow all the way down to the beach.

To the side of the house.

Another beach shot.

Just above the stairs going down to the house from the trail to and from our garage and house.

Our street to the left

Our street to the right.
Nothing really exciting about our street other then we used to have a firestation on this street and it's not there anymore but the one out on the north end is named after our street either way.

And of course a pic of the kids in the snow when I could still pose them before they started throwing it at each other!

Also a couple of people have asked about the puppy and what kind of breed she is. Actually she is kind of mixed but her mother is a Blue Heeler or Australian cattle dog with a little border collie mixed in but she is mostly blue heeler. The father was a husky. She seems to be taking mostly after her mother showing both blue heeler and border collie markings. Her legs and lower half of her body were white when she was born but are now showing the blue colors but on the top half she is more border collie.

New puppy pics

2007-12-16T18:20:00.000-09:00

Kenzie holding Kodiak

The puppies are starting to eat solids now!

Kelly putting her in his hat teasing that he is going to take her home.
The puppies are all teething so the other day I bought a couple of chew toys for them to have so that Kodiak would have something familiar to take home with her when we bring her home. Everone laughed at me when I bought a set of baby key rings but they are all the puppies favorite toy.
Kelly getting licked by Kodiak. She loves to lick on people and if you bring her close to your face she will go nuts.

Sorry I'm not posting much lately. It's just really busy with the holidays coming. Also I haven't been in the best of moods for posting either. This will be the first year since we have had kids that we won't be able to go to our families homes on Christmas and that makes me really sad. Usually we will be so busy on that day visiting everyone I didn't mind it though it was part of the day. This year we are going to be at home, although we may go to our friends house for part of the day. Also Kodiak will be 5 weeks on Christmas so we are going to bring her home for a couple of hours since she is kind of a family Christmas gift. The kids don't know that yet so it will be a surprise for them. The other thing that has me down is that all the families are sending money for Christmas gifts so I am trying to find gifts for them and us then figuring out which is from them and which to have from us it just seems like a lot of extra work. Also I like the surprise in seeing what everyone gets and that is kind of lost when I'm buying gifts for everyone from everyone else. Does that make any sense? I know this is the hardest one probably and the holidays without being around all of our families will get better as we make our own new traditions but at the moment I'm just kind of sad.

3 week puppy pics and explaining Ketchikan

2007-12-12T22:37:00.000-09:00

Look at my pupy now! Isn't she cute? They opened their eyes around the end of last week so they still have those little blue eyes like newborn pups.

This week she really started walking around but it's so cute because she falls over alot. The puppies are starting to play with each other but they fall over alot since they are still so unsteady.
I can't wait till I bring our puppy home though.

So I had a couple of comments from people surprised we don't have more snow since we live in Alaska so I thought I would explain a little.
First Ketchikan is the southern most part of Alaska and on the ocean so the weather is a little different. We will get more snow but the normal around here would be 3 feet for the season. Less then most of Alaska. The second part is since Ketchikan is a rain forest the temps are different and being in a forest not all of the snow makes it to the ground level. Our house is under the forest really we are covered in trees over the top of the house and the grounds. A rainforest is like a canopy with all the trees. Very dense so when you are in the forest the trees above are so dense with the evergreens that it doesn't make it all the way through. The pics I showed were around our house and early on though in the storm, we ended up with more. If you go out to the roads and the homes that aren't actually "in" the forest they have a ton of snow. Did any of that make sense? I don't always explain it very well.

Snow!

2007-12-09T14:34:00.000-09:00

So after 2 weeks of unusual no rain but way below freezing temps we finally got some of the white stuff! Not the greatest pics but it's dark already and I wanted to show the first signs.

It only snowed a little but we are expecting more tomorrow and most of the next week. This is good for us since now we can get something in our tank so we have some water!

This kids had their last 2 performances today so I will go through the tapes and I plan to share it with everyone sometime next week.

Sorry I've been MIA...

2007-12-07T23:22:00.001-09:00

I feel bad really. I didn't finish Madisons Birthday posts yet. I left off at 6 but you guys have been around for most of her 6th year. I still need to get her picture montage up but have been having problems with the website not downloading my pictures. This last week has been kind of crazy around here.

Monday started it off....well remember this? I told you all once how this is where our water comes from right? Well the idea is that it is supposed to collect rain.

Well if you don't get any for over 2 weeks and it's below freezing......1. the top oh maybe 4 inches or so freezes solid.....2 you just plain run out of water because you didn't reallize the before the rain stopped the pipes leading to this tank from the roof were first packed with pine needles and FROZEN solid..... We had to buy water to have some in the tank until it rained again. 200 dollars that could have gone toward Christmas litterally down the drain... But there is hope in sight! Tomorrow we are supposed to get some rain or snow, who knows. Either way it's supposed to last as far as the weather predicts weather out at the moment. Did that make sense? Probably not.

The next two days really are a blur, I can't even remember what we were doing. I do know that I didn't write anything that day because our internet was down all over town. Thursday I was sick! Yucky sick, I don't want to bore you with details but I tried to hide under a warm blanket most the day. Kelly is now sick and he is the biggest baby! Honestly I hate it when he is sick. He's really worse then the kids.

Right now I am just holding out that Joshua and the girls don't get sick through the weekend. Why? Well they are doing their singing Christmas tree right now. 2 shows tonight, 1 on Saturday and 2 more on Sunday. Very busy and since there are 3 of them they are actually a good portion of the childrens choir.

I watched both performances tonight. They did really well. Here is the tree with the adults in it.

But here are the kids and I thought they were the best!

They really did a great job on their first 2 performances and Maddie was adorable as usual. The kid can't stand still for long and really likes to move the music. She was cute. Joshua did great bu he was at the back of the row so harder to see Maddie is on the far right and Kenzie is right after the little boy standing next to Maddie. I did take videos of their portions and will share those with you later but for now you'll have to wait till I can get them both uploaded.

Madison at 4 and 5

2007-12-04T20:59:00.000-09:00

Yesterday was a busy day. The girls and Joshua are in the Singing Christmas Tree this year at one of the churches and they had practice most the evening since they have 5 performances this weekend. Sunday they sang for our own church at our Christmas party....it's been a busy week.

So my point is I'm behind with Madisons posts. I thought hers would be easy to stick to since it's so much shorter then everyone elses....

So I have pictures for you though.

Madison at 4! All the other kids got bikes for Christmas that year. Madison was still really to little for one so we bought her a little 3 wheel Dora Scooter. She loved it and rode whenever she got the chance for months. This picture is Christmas morning still in her jammies!

A group shot of all the kids when Maddie was 4. She was so little....

The quality isn't the best in this picture but I still really like it. We are at the Rose Festival and they had a science center for the kids at the fair grounds. She was mesmerized by this thing and I just thought she looked so sweet. She kept telling me that it liked her hand and that is why it kept shinning to her.
This picture was taken at a McDonalds (I know eeww!). She was so funny pressing her face into the screen. It was one of our rare occasions to get to go out together with a friend and none of her other siblings.

Summer when Maddie was 5 now.
She has always loved to pose for pictures. This picture actually normally looks a lot better but for some reason it is showing here kind of brighter then normal. Doesn't she look sweet in this picture? Yes?
Now look at the picture below it!

Honestly the shirt she was wearing is the best shirt for her ever!!

Moody Maddie!

She has some interesting tempers.

She also started Kindergarten at 5. Oh how fun that was. I somehow knew with her personality she would be giving her teacher a run for her money. Oh was she fun for her I'm sure. She didn't think anything of talking in class although all the other kids who did she refered to as "the bad kids". Was she one of the "bad kids"? Nope not in her mind. In her mind she should be able to do whatever! She constantly told the teacher what she thought about things....Oh Maddie, Maddie....That kid has always had a strong personality. The teacher didn't always know what to do with her. She wasn't really naughty but she was silly. Class clown? Uhmm yeah! Teacher even described her that way! She thought she was hilarious. It did get to the point that all the teacher had to do was point and Maddie knew to put her head down.....Little bit of a bully? Yep that one too. Oh the stories of things she did. Usually she was the one telling us the stories too! Weird kid.

I love that little (or big) personality of hers though. She is Kenzie polar opposite though I say. Kenzies teachers loved her in class because she is a huge help and almost an adult. Teachers who have had Maddie? Loved having her but admit they are glad to only have one of her. She is both extremely loving but she will give you her opinion without hesitation. One of her visits to her eye dr when she was 5 the doctor asked her a question about something (can't remember the question) her answer to him though was hilarious. I remember her exact words "Well apparently I am!" I wish I remembered what he asked but she used that word apparently so appropriatly the doctor who has 7 kids was a little surprised as he'd never heard a 5 year old use a word like that in the correct way. She did (does) that alot. She loves big words and she always uses them right and totally throws people off. People love meeting her though. She can have you in tears though with her conversations she has. Also this child? Doesn't believe in the easy 20 questions. She goes way beyond that. She isn't satisfied till she knows everything! She is very bright!

Fun Monday "favorite posts"

2007-12-03T09:10:00.000-09:00

This weeks Fun Monday is brought to us by Robinella

"In honor of exhaustion, color and self-love, I present you with this week’s assignment. I want you to dig through your blog files and show us your best effort. Why you consider it your best is up to you. C’mon, you know you have a favorite - show it to me one more time."

Ah an easy one! I love it. I chose an easy one myself. I posted this one last Spring and I still go back all the time to listen to the video. It makes me laugh. Hope you enjoy.

Izzak had his spring choir concert this evening they have actually come a long way since the beggining of the school year and sounded pretty good for sixth graders. Izzak even got to announce one of the songs he did well and I was so proud of him for getting up there and reading in front of all those people. Remember he has learning disabilities so this was a huge thing for him to do. I posted the video below.

Izzak's choir concert from my4kidsdunn on Vimeo.
By the way he was trying to say prodigy but calls Motzart a child prostitute instead! When you hear people chuckle he is saying "I can't say that word". Tell me if you caught him yawning near the beginning of the song! He always does that!

Oh and also some have asked about our weather so far. This morning a nice toasty 10 degrees and yes thats Farenheit! No snow at the moment but everything is frozen solid right now so when it does (and it's supposed to tomorrow) we will have plenty of the stuff I'm sure.

Madison at 3

2007-12-02T22:37:00.000-09:00

When Madison was 3 the big Dora stage got into full swing! Oh what a stage that was. Actually that phase has not really ever gone away. She still loves Dora and has every Dora doll made pretty much, or had it anyway. She also really loved My Little Pony at that age, both the girls did. At her 3rd birthday party she surprised us all when she opened up a gift with 4 ponies in it and new how many there were just by looking without counting. She really was just too cute.

Christmas at 3. She had a pic with Santa again and reacted about the same way as at 1. I have the picture somewhere but can't find it right now. Both girls made my mother and I sit next to Santa also with them or they wouldn't do the picture.

Her first real snow! We didn't really have any to speak of the couple years prior and this year we had a big snow storm that actually stuck around for awhile. Very unusual in Porltand.
She wasn't quite sure about all this white stuff and ony really spent a little time outside at a time. One of the first times out though she slipped on a spot that was frozen and left a little butt print that stayed there for awhile! hehe
In the pic below her daddy had just thrown a snowball at her. She wasn't so sure about it.

I did manage to convince her to make a snowangel though. It was a cute little 3 year old snowman.

Her daddy stuck her in the recycling bin and used it like a sled! She loved that! She fit perfectly in it. This picture was taken with my camera phone so the resoluting wasn't very good.
She had her first ride sitting on the horse on a carousel. Before she would only sit in the benches with me. As you can see by the look on her face she wasn't so sure about it and I had to stand beside her the whole time. She's not a big fan of rides even now though, it takes a lot of convincing and she doesn't not like them to go very fast or in circles either.

Around this year the girls really started to be best friends with each other. I loved watching them play together and they always wanted to have pictures taken together.
I'm sure their gonna love this picture when they are teens! What do you think?

Playing in the park that summer. They have a below ground wading pool that is open in the summer and you can get tons of kids in it. Madison doesn't like deep pools much and refuses to allow anyone to teach her to swim so this was a fun one for her.
Not sure what it is about this picture since the grass was horribly brown but we were in a drought. I just think she was so sweet looking. It has the little tab on the side because it is out of her scrapbook.

My4Kids

Halloween (a little late)

Hey look I've finally decided to post! **warning it will be long**

A bunch of winter pictures

Halloween

Look they get along!

Berry Picking

Beach Explorations

Izzak is taller then me!

Thanks Chrisb!

Bears

Family Camp

1 year in Alaska

Fun Monday questions

Fun Monday --- Favorite photo

Fun at the beach

Girls go kayaking again..

Did you notice?

Izzaks had a busy 2 weeks

Sometimes my town makes me laugh...

Kenzie in Portland

Fun Monday

Kids at the beach

Late 4th of July edition

Going through photos

Baseball season is over

Headed Home!

Thanks all and what is going on here.

Hello

Leaving Tomorrow

Going on a trip soon!

Kids left to themselves get creative!

Thank you Dawn

Joshuas first baseball game

Fun Monday -- My Favorite Walk

Busy Saturday as usual....

The boys and Boy Scouts

Busy Saturday

Fun Monday "Five"

Tough couple weeks

Happy Birthday Izzak!

Fun Monday ~First Celebrity Crush~

Fun Monday "Quotes"

Yep still busy!

Too busy

Fun Monday

Visitor from Portland and snow....

Because I'm the mom.....

Did you know.....

Stuff and pictures

My kid is weird.........

Some Randomness.....

Fun Monday blog name and food stuff...

Lots going on...

This should be a Fun Monday post

Like I've said things are always changing...

Fun Monday

Proverbs Madison style..

About the pipes....

Pipes are working now...

Sorry about Fun Monday

Whale watching, etc.

Fun Monday --- View out my front door

not much

View from our new house!

Fun Monday "favorite internet sites"

Hey I've got my own computer up

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me.....

Fun Monday---Our pets!

Moving day....again

I changed it again!

A shot of our new house and new pup pics

Hey look I found my camera!

How was your Christmas?

Christmas pageant

More snow play pics and 4 week puppy photos.....

Snow Day!

Fun Monday a little late

New puppy pics

3 week puppy pics and explaining Ketchikan

Hey look I've finally decided to post! warning it will be long