All I want for Christmas is my 3 front teeth? Kenzies birthday and this and that

So it looks like Madison is trying to see how many teeth she can ask Santa for this year since she has lost another (basically) front tooth do you like the picture she wanted me to post? It is a little scary isn't it?









This one isn't so bad but she really wanted the one where you can really see. The one on the other side on the bottom is loose also so we may be looking at 4 teeth for Christmas, Santa will have to speak to the Tooth Fairy or Dentist I'm not sure.




I feel bad after posting the pictures of newborn Joshua on his birthday then didn't get anything posted for Kenzie's 8th which is just as special, after all she wasn't supposed to be, the drs didn't think I could carry another pregnancy due to all the damage to my uterus from Joshua's birth she is also my miracle baby! (of course they all are for different reasons. This picture was taken at my sisters house. She saw the kids for the first time in 8 years on Kenzies Birthday (long story) she had never met Madison and last time she saw Kenzie she was about 3 months old! When we planed the day we would come over I realized it was her birthday and my sister offered to make her a cake! We had a really good visit and played games with the
kids. My sister has 3 children my nephew Roger is 22 and I have to say
cute now that he has grown up he has a girlfriend and she is pretty lucky but better be good to him! She also has 2 girls Veronica is 19 and Alyson is 10 like Joshua it is funny because they were both preemies in the same year but she was only 17 ozs (1 lb 1 oz) at birth, very tiny, she is the one sitting next to Kenzie inthe front as you can see she grew out of that tiny size almost more then Joshua he is still little.



We drove up to Washington to visit my friend Cori for Thanksgiving this year. We had fun although Izzak and Kenzie both ended up sick. I think some of it is Kenzie got car sick on the ride up and she just takes forever to get over that. Can you tell in the picture how happy she is to be riding. This is her picture of her covering her mouth to convince her tummy to feel better, that is what she says she is doing in the picture anyway. I just like the way she looks looking out the window of the truck watching the world go by.


Madison out of her car seat and looking at me saying "can we get out of the car now? I am done driving." I thought it was cute. She looks really tired though also but perked right up when we got out of the truck.




On Monday (I think) we got snow and the kids were really excited they to go out and play in the snow there wasnt a lot but enough for them to throw some snowballs at each other and get their hopes about a snow day, although that didn't happen since it was almost completely gone when they woke up. We are expecting freezing rain tonight and the roads to be icy so I suppose they still have a chance for a snow day this week.
I love snow so I wouldn't mind if we
had a good snow this year for at least a little bit since it never really snows a lot here in Portland, but we do have the occasional "Winter Snow or Ice Event" as the news calls it. So there is most of the last weeks events I am sure I could say more but don't want to bore anyone to much. That and I really don't need a detailed account of every week some of it could just as well be forgotten.

We had a good Thanksgiving

I have been MIA since Thanksgiving we went up to Washington to visit with a friend of ours from when we lived in Pheonix and when we got back our internet was out and we weren't able to get it back up till today. We had a good one mostly except Kenzie and Izzak ended up getting sick. Kenzie hadn't been really feeling well for most of the week but it was her normal symptoms of a tummy ache which she has all the time anyway. Thanksgiving night when we went to bed she was up all night throwing up and Izzak was having problems on the other end... Poor kid.

We had a good visit though and enjoyed our visit.

Izzak got his cast on last Wednesday, it is blue but is now covered in black sharpie signatures! I think that is the main reason he was really excited about getting a cast on. He is getting tired of it though already because it is heavy. He only has to wear it for a total of 4 weeks though so he only has a couple weeks left and he will be out before Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

What am I Thankful for this year?

1. A loving husband who stands by me and tries to understand even when I am a little off.....
2. 4 kids who may not always be good but they are mine and I love them all. They are each a miracle for our family.
3. A home
4. Food on my table
5. Friends that I can talk to when Kelly doesn't quite get it.
6. Family that I can count on, mine anyway and Kelly's sister Gloria.
7. God!
8. Izzak is healthy this year and even with his broken arm there is no sign of us spending another holiday season in the Hospital.
9. Izzak only has to spend 3 more weeks in the cast so he will be out of it by Christmas.
10. Joshua is healthy and hasn't broken anything.
11. Madison is healthy and other then her bladder issues she is doing great.
12. Kenzie is as sweet as ever and just told me this evening that she is getting moved up into a higher reading program, yah, we have been so worried abou ther having problems in school like Izzak has (she was showing some early signs).
13. Wonderful drs that help my kids feel better Dr Smucker our family dr, Dr Terry the GI dr, Dr Holland our opthamologist, and Dr Lashley our urologist, also my hem/onc Dr Menashe, my neuro Dr Sax and even Dr Buehler who did my elbow surgery recently, and we can't forget Dr Sullivan Kelly's Chiro who has been so instrumental in getting Kelly's back injury diagnosed and figured out by the regular medical community.
14. The fact we were all born in the USA which means we have a right to our own opinions and have the best care available to us!
15. I am sure there are many more I can think of but I am getting tired and should really get to bed!

One week since surgery

So it has been a week since I had surgery on my elbow. The arm is good, a little sore, but I am sad.

Why am I sad? Well because I know I only get another week till I have to go back to work and I really don't want to! I was a stay at home mom for 8 years before I went to work. The main reason I can't quit is the medical insurance and with the kids and my problems, well Kelly's insurance is not at all good enough cover much and has higher monthly premiums and you pay 20% for anything and some of the things we have done on a regular basis just would leave us so unstable financially it isn't funny. I was reading miraclebabyb's blog today about the stay at home moms job consisting of mostly one thing (washing, everything) and ended up feeling a little jealous. Don't take that wrong Becci, please, or anyone else it is not meant that way at all. I hate working, I don't most of the time enjoy the adult company (a lot because I don't usually have much in common),

I mean I have my friends but it's not the same. When I was home with my kids I know they were so much happier, the house was cleaner, moms was happier, and they always knew I would be home when they got there not their Uncle Zac ( who I really do appreciate but he is not mom).
Also issues that have come up this week, like Izzak breaking his arm, if I was at home I would be trying to get okay's from my boss to miss so much work and I wouldn't have been home the day he came home after school complaining that his arm hurt and telling me what happened.

We had to get the school Police (which is the Portland Police just there job is the schools) involved this week starting on Monday because the kid who broke his arm obviously didn't learn anything from his 2 day suspension (or should I say 4 day weekend) and came the first day on Monday telling Izzak he had faked a broken arm and harrassing him at school and having several other kids as well which wound up with some kid who lives on our block actually threatening him with very foul language outside our door when he was trying to play with his little sister in the front yard. The school wouldn't do anything so we had to get the Police involved to let these kids know just how serious it is and let them know that Izzak could file charges against the boy that hit him.

Anyway I am always fighting to get days off of work because my kids need to see yet another one of their drs and I hate having to fight for it. It should never be a fight! Not to mention my kids let me know how much they hate me going to work on a regular basis.

Oh well I need to go and stop this rant there is so much more I could say but people would just get bored and probably stop reading anyway........
Hopefully I will be in a better mood tomorrow or when I write again.

We are going to Washington to visit with a friend of ours for Thanksgiving I am really looking forward to that!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Do I really need anything else this week?

So the week has been interesting with me having surgery on Tuesday and I have to say it does seem to take longer to feel better the older you get. I know I am only 30 but my body feels so much older then that and this was my 5th surgery in 10 years and seems to be really taking alot out of me!

So you ask why the Title well no only am I basically in a cast from the shoulder down due to the surgery but now Izzak is also. Yes he is also in a cast from the shoulder down due to breaking his elbow. Well he didn't break it some other kid broke it when he wouldn't let the kid steal his bike right in front of the school. Its a temporary cast for now till he gets in with the Ortho dr hopefully on Monday but since the xray department missed sending the xray that shows the break they weren't able to view it on Friday and now I have to run it over there on Monday morning.

And I thought things were getting better, but apparently no one at said school felt it very worrisome that an 11 year old refused to use or barely move the arm all day and never did call me to let me know something happened so it was not until he came home from school complaining his arm hurt and he couldn't move it that I knew anything about it. I am a little irritated obviously and I don't feel the 2 days suspension they gave the kid is at all enough! I mean any other weapon brought to school would be an imediate expulsion, not that I am saying that this should happen but 2 days for breaking a kids arm on purpose just does not sound right to me.

Joshua had an appt on Friday with Dr Smucker (my all time favorite dr) who is our family dr (when I say family I mean it literally Kelly,myself, all the kids, my parents, my brother and Hannah and her kids all see him). It was just for his 10 year well child appt and to check up on his adhd meds he is growing great 73lbs and 4 foot 6 inches now they say according to the charts he is in the 50% but I don't see it he is so skinny! We discussed his behavior lately and how he is doing in school and decided since he has gained 13 pounds in the last year and grown several inches it may be time to increase his meds. We just started the new dose today so we will see how that works then he has another appt to see how it is going in a month.

Kenzies Birthday is tomorrow and she will be 8 so big these kids are making me feel old lately. We are going over to visit my sister as she hasn't seen the kids since Kenzie was born and she is going to make her a cake since we are comming over. The kids are looking forward to that!

Nothing new with Maddie she has 2 weeks till she turns 6 and we are going to figure out how to get all these kids a birthday party done before Christmas (what was I thinking with there birthdates???).

Happy 10th Birthday Joshua

Joshua 10 years ago yesterday (I tried to post this yesterday but the computer kept throwing it out or something). Joshua under and oxygen hood unfortunately it wasn't doing the job and Joshua had to be transfered to a different hospital with a level 3 NICU and was put on cpap for several days. This was a very scary day for everyone since both Joshua and I almost died.

Joshua a week later on the nasal cannula also hooked up to multiple monitors and an IV in the soft spot on his head. This was the first time I actually got to see him at 5 days old. I was taken in to see him before he was moved but have no memory of the first two days after he was born due to such drastic blood loss.

Some of the things he used in the hospital that we were sent home with his tiny arm band, blood pressure cuff, eye covers for bili lights and a tiny preemie nipple for the bottles they would mix his iron with breast milk



Joshua on his first morning after getting out of the hospital at 3 weeks. This is one of my favorite pictures of both of the boys isn't it sweet how Izzak is cuddling with his brand new baby brother in his sleep? Izzak was only 19 months old in this picture but suddenly seemed so big next to his 4lbs 12 oz brother. Of course he was 22 bounds so he was about 4 times his size.

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth!

Madison lost the second of her two front teeth today so I reminded her of the song "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth" she thinks it is pretty silly.
I love they way they look when they lose those teeth but for some reason with Maddie it makes me a little sad. Since she is my last baby once these teeth grow back in we won't have anymore toothless kiddos in the house. She of course has two more teeth lose that will probably be out before Christmas so will have to amend the song to All I want for christmas is my 4 front teeth. That should be cute. Izzak and McKenzie lost their teeth the same way though. It makes for some very messy faces when eating anything though since finger foods have to be eaten a little different.


For some reason though when Madison lost her tooth it spurred other loose teeth to need to come out and McKenzie lost a tooth also. I am not so sure it was originally ready to come out but since Joshua pulled a tooth also apparently McKenzie didn't want to be left out! Kids are weird......

It took me forever to get this picture of McKenzie to post but she wanted to make sure I got a picture of her missing tooth also, she couldn't be left out could she?. Why is blogger so difficult to post pictures to sometimes. I go through the upload proceedure and it says it is there but then I look at the post and it is not why is that?


I tried to get a good picture of Joshua today after he lost his tooth but he is apparently irritated at me today. I wonder if it could be that he has been in his room all day. He is supposed to clean it but it is not happening so this is the best I can do for today. Or could he possibly be headed into that puberty stage and getting moody? I don't know but his attitude has been terrible lately. I feel like I have to fight with him anytime there is something he needs to do.

Yesterday I went to a Mary Kay legs party with my friend Melanie we had a good time learning about their leg products. We used products to help shave, moisturize and even sunless tanning but the only thing is it was only for one leg as she wanted us to see the difference by doing it on one leg. So this morning I woke up with one leg very nicely shaven and smooth with a rather good job on the sunless tanning I might say but on the other leg I can now really see how bad I needed to shave and the tan didn't take quite as well. Oh well I guess that means I need to start from scratch and do both legs but for some reason I am just not in the mood today so it looks like I will definetly be wearing long pants tomorrow.......

My surgery is on Tuesday so I am getting a little anxious although I am really looking forward to some time off of work for awhile even if it is for healing from surgery I will take an extended leave from work any way I can get it. I just don't know how I will want to go back afterwards!

Halloween Montage finally

Make an online slide show at onetruemedia.com

Busy weeks ahead

So it seems we have a lot going on this week and I have just not felt up to updating so far so I will see what I can do.
First of all is the good news (I hope) with Izzak, we had his conferences this week with his advisory teacher on Wednesday and I felt like it was the most productive conference we have had in a long time. His teacher seems to like him a lot and that is a great thing. He is a male teacher and I think that is great for Izzak. Anyway the student who was supposed to go before Izzak did not show up so we were able to start earlier and since we were the last conference we stayed later and the teacher was all for it and made us feel like we could stay as long as we felt we needed to to discuss Izzak. It felt great for once to have a teacher willing to give us as much time as we needed to make sure we were able to discuss everything we needed to get out. I feel like a lot was accomplished but am as usual causiusly optimistic..... I have thought this before only to end up frustrated again. But this conference felt different! He seemed to really understand Izzak and was excited to get more information regarding his disabilties like the working memory disorder and central auditory processing disorder both of these seem to be things that teachers really don't understand and so often seem unwilling to really learn. He said that so much of what I was explaining really made sense and gave him more ideas on how to help Izzak and we wants to extend these ideas into his other classes! The sad thing was seeing his report card with mostly D's and F's on it and comments like he is not organized or paying attention and that some of that was affecting his grade. The problem is that these two issues are a direct result of his disabilities! He seems to be not paying attention but it is really a different thing going on. Its hard to explain but he has done that since a baby and that is one reason why he didn't speak till he was 3. It is not that he is not paying attention but that he can't focus on things in a situation where a lot is going on it sounds alot like an add issue but is in many ways so much different but hard to explain but his brain completly tunes things out as a defense mechanism and that defense mechanism has only gotten stronger since he has had so many teachers who don't understand or want to understand and don't know how to help him. Any way we were able to discuss several ideas to help him in his classes and they sound very promising! I felt optimistic after his conference and not complete sadness for my little boy. Also the teacher said that within the next week the boy who has been harrasing him will not be in any classes with him anymore, that is a huge answer to prayers.
His disabilities really make me sad at times because it is so hard on him, but people in general do not understand because it is not something they can see on the outside and the effects they do see don't always get interpreted the right way. Also the people who notice the most unfortunatly are students in school and I hate the fact he has to deal with this. He is a very friendly kid and for the most part makes friends easily but also tends to be an easy target for those mean kids out there who enjoy teasing kids for not being as smart as everyone else. Izzak has enough problems trying to figure out how to get through the academics of school let alone the kids add to his stress with teasing and threats. I wish I could stay home with him and pull him out of school to teach him at home. There are so many programs available for him to have just as much socialization as he would at school but without the kids needing to know his problems..... My friend Melanie appoligizes for feeling this way regarding keeping her daughter Kennedy out of public school but I aplaud her for keeping her home and making sure she gets the help she needs. I really need help to help him myself but never feel like I can really get it.
So besides Izzak what else is going on this week? I don't know just a lot of planning for things right now. First I am having surgery on my arm next week 11/14 I am a little nervous about this of course but it also falls on Joshua's birthday and I am feeling bad about that but it needs done because my hand is getting worse. I have no feeling in most of my fingers in my left hand and the hand is getting very weak. I have been doing therapy and wearing a full brace on my arm most of the time since May but it has only gotten worse so surgery is the next step and if I wait to much longer permanent damage will be done and I will have little chance of getting the strength back in my hand and for the next two weeks it will be someones birthday pretty much every week then there is Christmas and Thanksgiving so next week it must be..... Joshua says he is okay with this and we will still have a party for him just not in the next week but on his birthday his grandma will be making his favorite dinner and making cupcakes to have a little celebration on his actual birthdate. I still can't beleive he is going to be 10 next week! Especially after what happened when he was born! On next Sunday 11/19 will be Kenzies birthday she will be 8 and then Kelly on 11/22, Thanksgiving the next day, and a week and a half later will be Maddies 6th Birthday on 12/6! So much going on for the next couple of weeks and that is just the big stuff not including drs appts comming up and the fact that there are several other close family birthdays comming up including my neice Kayla who is 8 today!
This week I got to visit my friend Hannah's babies and I love to see them they are so sweet I have to show new pics.

Here is Simon...
Isn't he the sweetest thing you have seen! I think so not to mention he can be awfully cuddly... I really miss the baby days can you tell? Look at those bright eyes though aren't they beautiful, his mom his hoppng they will be brown like hers but so far they are still blue.

Here is Emily and I think she is adorable with her big blue eyes and gorgeus blonde curls! She is a very silly 1 year old. Not to mention adorable! Don't you agree?

For Becci

I have left a couple of messages to you on your blog ( www.miraclebabyb.blogspot.com ) about how the kitty is doing and he continues to do great but I thought a would share a photo to give you a little idea of how well the kittens are getting along. The shirt on the ottoman they are sleeping on is one of Kellys and Mouse (our gray kitty, don't ask how he got the name) has always been big about sleeping on Kelly's clothes, I think it is cute! When they aren't sleeping cuddled up together they are playing throughout the house like sweet kitties do. It is pretty funny to watch. I was glad to help out by taking him and I think our older kitty is grateful also since he can now get some rest himself without Mouse wanting to sleep with him so much or playing with him when he wanted to sleep or maybe just take an older kitty catnap. As I write this post they kittens are chasing each other around the living room flying off of the furniture it is pretty funny to watch since occasionnaly they do not land exactly how they planned. I just wanted to share the picture with every one especially Becci so she could see her kitty is doing well and has settled into the family just fine.

Pumpkin Carving

So since I didn't celebrate Halloween as a kid there are certain things I really get into and one is the pumpking carving. Of course the kids really enjoy it to they clean them out really well, with a little help of course and they choose what designs they want from a book. Once they found out that we could buy pumpkin carving designs they decided the plain ordinary pumpkins designs weren't as much fun. They then hand there pumpkins and designs over to mom to finish off for them, except Izzak of course he has gotten big enough to cut them himself with a bit of help from mom on the smaller portions. Of course I can't complain since I kind of like it myself but this year we kind of put it off till the last minute and mom ended up carving pumpkins till 1 am in the morning the day before Halloween!

Izzaks handiwork resulted in this with only a little help from mom. He did pretty good don't you think?





Joshua chose this ghost which has more details to it but is hard to see in this picture.






Miss McKenzie ever the princess of course
chose a princess pattern for her pumpkin.
Not the tradition Halloween type pattern
but definetly a Kenzie thing.






Then Of course there is my sweet Maddie she chose the kitty pattern but that seems to be her thing lately it looks a lot better when the light is right but I couldn't seem to get it to work at
night without either washing the background
out with the candles or looking like it was
daytime with the flash.

Halloween was cold!

So the kids really enjoyed Halloween but we froze outside the wind was bad with those great Gorge winds blowing in I heard it dipped pretty low but not sure exactly where. Fotunatly it did not rain which is quite common around here, the weather was nice and held off on the water till yesterday.
Like I said the kids had a lot of fun they enjoyed dressing up even though there coats didn't go real well with there costumes but I guess that is the price you pay to get all the candy though, right? It actually worked better for Madison who was having difficulty keeping her wings up until I figured out a way to pin them to her jacket and they stayed up the whole time except when the wind was really strong and pulled them down!


I know its dark but doesn't she looked thrilled in this picture? I am not sure why she was frowning since she really liked her costume but I think she was little irritated with the coat being added to it.









Once again she is giving me a funny look in this picture, not sure exactly why though and I didn't get to many pictures on Halloween for some reason I didn't get any of Izzak though at all in his costume and Joshua was only from the weekend before when we were trying them on. If you click on the picture though you might be able to see the hair color and makeup on Madison a little better.



Maddie is such a funny little character though. Since Kenzie was an angel we had a couple of houses that people commented on 2 angels and Maddie was quick to correct them and the one she got the most attitude with was this huge biker guy with his harley in the front yard I mean he was probably 2.5x taller in hight and weighed enough to fill it out and she gets her little hands on her hips with her little attitude and tells him "I am not and angel, I am a fairy" the way she said it though there was no doubt she was not being an angel but fortunatly the guy thought she was pretty cute and laughed. I am not sure if she liked that either though, funny little girl....She walked with us close to an hour then she needed to go to the potty (and she made it, I was really happy about that) and once she was back in the nice warm house where daddy had turned up the heat to try to keep the house warm with all the opening of the door for trick or treaters she decided she had enough of the cold and would rather play games on the computer till we were done. Kenzie's wings held up pretty good no problems there but her costume was pretty covered under her coat and she had clothes on underneath she commented she was still cold a couple of times but refused to stop any sooner then the boys when aunt Gloria came over she was more then happy for another trip down some other streets we hadn't hit yet and mommy was just happy for some adult conversation while walking with the kids. Joshua was difficult with trying to get him to dress warmer he was very convinced he would be fine with just his costume and thought it was plenty warm enough out side (have i ever commented this kid is insane?) after all when I got home from work he ran out to meet me wearing only jeans no shoes no socks and no shirt (he seems to think the only thing he should wear is his pants lately and getting a coat on him is really difficult which I don't get since the kid is skin and bones he has no body fat to keep warm but I guess that is where the energy level must come in. Izzak was really happy with his vampire costume even with no blood or gory stuff somehow I didn't manage to get any pictures of him in it since I didn't really get any pictures except 2 of the girls then my camera started going weird and wouldn't take pictures well I will try to post those later this evening when I am home again. After the trick or treating where done the kids fed, candy hiden till the next day and kids put to bed I went to my friend Hannahs house to watch Childs Play we used to watch it together when we were much younger but her SIL Becci had not seen it yet and we had been talking about a movie night so figured what better then to watch it on Halloween right? I hope you slept okay that night Becci!
So there is always alot going on and I know i need to update or write about several other things and I will try to post more soon but as I said we have been very busy and never a dull moment. Thanks for stopping by and if you read please don't be afraid to leave comments I see that people come by but no comments, I wanna know what you think!