Madison at 1

Here is Madison on her first Birthday! Wasn't she cute? She wore the same dress for her first Birthday as Kenzie did on her first birthday. I love the pictures below especially the one on the top right because I loved her little baby toes.


The above pictures are her eating her cake notice how clean she was when she started and how much of a mess when she was done? Unlike her sister she did not mind getting covered in frosting and cake!

Of course she was frequently falling asleep while at her hairchair including while eating her cake!


She had her first picture with Santa when she was one also. She was not pleased! Not pleased at all!! It's hard to see in this picture but she is looking up at him and not actually crying but not happy at all!
Her first Christmas pictures. Technically it was her second but she was only 20 days on her first so she didn't really pay much attention.
Madison was a beautiful toddler. I love this picture. It has the corners on it because it is a pictures from her scrapbook.

Madison was a funny little girl. Loved playing games on picking on her siblings. Kenzie was "sissa" and the boys were both refered to as the "budas". She was a momma's girl and a daddies girl at the same time. She talked well early but talked in 2-3 word sentances from the beginning. She was a much bigger talker then any of the other kids from very early on. She walked later then any of them either but some of that was the fact no one would put her down! Her big brother Izzak may have only been 6 by the time she was 1 but he was always doing things for her along with Joshua and Kenzie who could not stand the thought of their baby crying!

She constantly reminded us how smart she was with things she would do and things she would say.

On her second Halloween she was Cinderella because both of the girls were all into the Princesses! You can see that after spending the evening walking the mall trick or treating that she passed out on the way home.

And lastly today is the last day of November! Which means the last day of NaBloPoMo! Woo hoo! I will finish posting everyday for Madisons but I am looking forward to when done so I can take a day or so off from posting. Not more then a couple of days though. I wouldn't be able to stay away very long.

Madison is turning 7 next week....

.....and that makes me a little sad.

I don't know what it is about Maddie and her birthdays but they always make me a little sad. She is my baby, my last. She was my last toddler, last preschooler, last kindergartener and will be the last to leave home. Every birthday brings me closer to her being grown up and this kid? Oh I love this little girl and she brings much entertainment to our house!

She was my 3rd and last C-section. No she couldn't let me have one uneventful delivery either. She was born with her cord wrapped around her neck 3 times. She was blue and not breathing when they took her. They said if we had not had her that day she probably wouldn't have survived because she was having a lot of decelerations of her heart beat before they did the surgery. Luckily it was the day we had scheduled her or we may not have known in time.

Of course Madison likes to make an entrance and be noticed! Here she is on her birthday and the bottom right was when we took her home from the hospital in her little snowsuit that I absolutely loved!

Her first bath. Funny thing is in the one above and this bath one she is taking a pacifier but she only took one for about the first week and then wouldn't have anything to do with them except those soothie pacifiers and they were not easy to find at the time. No one carried them and I had to order them online.
Some random pictures of her. She really was an easy going baby. I think preparing us for what was coming! Nothing bad just a very smart kid.

Poor baby was always getting the kewpie doll hair when in the tub. See this smile? Yep that's her "watch out! I'm thinking up something to do to my brothers and sister when I get out of here!"

She went to the beach for her first time when she was 6 months old and loved it! The water was cold but she didn't care she loved to kick her feet in it. Of course then we put her on a blanket and she crawled onto the sand. She loved the sand. This kid really loves a lot of things....always has.

See the pictures up there? This was a fairly typical way to find her sleeping from about 8 months on. I don't know why but she had to see what was going on. Which is why her bumper was still up past when it probably should have but at least it was some kind of padding for when she fell asleep. She shared a room with Kenzie and would talk to her or hum till she passed out.

She was an extremely bright baby (still is). I don't just say that because I'm her mom and I'm biased. There are so many things she would do to show us. She also loved playing jokes on everyone even as a baby. When she was about 9 months one evening she inched off the couch and crawled to her room. Not thinking to much of it we didn't really watch until she snuck back in and hopped up to surprise us. She thought it was hysterical. Another thing she would do was to steal the boys matchbox cars from them. They would be having a rare peaceful moment and she would crawl by slowly grab a car and crawl away really fast laughing hysterically. She loved messing with her brothers very early on.

It didn't seem to bother them though. They were in love with her. Especially Izzak. He was 5 when she was born and wanted to do things for her all the time. When she was an older baby he figured out how to get her out of her crib and would change her diaper sometimes before I would get her out. He was so proud of himself for taking care of her. The only thing is she expects it from him now, to take care of her every whim!

Her first time with pumpkins! She wasn't sure. In this picture she had tried to taste it and it wasn't very good apparently.
Her first Halloween she was Piglet and I got her this costume! Isn't it cute! Oh how I loved this costume!

More pictures and stories tomorrow!

1 week puppy pictures!

New puppy pictures! She turned 1 week on Tuesday and I got new pictures of her. Here she is with Izzak. All curled up and snuggly. She is one snuggly little puppy. Her favorite place to sleep when I hold her is curled up with her head in my neck under all my hair.


In the one week since they were born they have really grown. Probably at least 2-3 inches longer and a little heavier. They are still tiny so not heavy at all.


I was trying to get a good picture of her face this was the best I could get. She likes to curl up unless she is laying on your chest.

Oh and we decided on a name. She is being called Kodiak. We just liked it. I tried several others but I just liked it.

Here is Madison trying to hold one of the puppies. She crawled up onto her shoulders and into her hair. Maddie thought it was pretty silly and wanted me to take a picture.
Kelly's brother Josh wants a puppy also here is the one he is hopping to get.
Doesn't he look happy to hold his puppy?

Her name is Kiska.

Our puppy is actually more brown like the one Josh is holding but for some reason the black in her fur comes out in the pictures.

I am taking lots of pictures of both puppies and will post new week pictures hopefully till at least when we bring her home with us.

Update on boys

Well the blood tests came back on both boys and was normal. Yes I am glad. Of course! Izzaks xrays were all normal as well. I didn't want any of the things they were looking for to be found but at the same time it is really frustrating to know they are still having the problems but no answers.

I spoke to Izzaks dr today and she wanted to refer him to an orthopedist. She is convinced it is his back that is hurting him even with the xrays being normal. Since the blood work and kidney ultrasound were normal. I will take him to one here in town. They don't have pediatric ortho's here but I will start with a local one. He is almost adult size but if he does find anything he is concerned about I will take him out of town to a peds. I would just rather have some one experienced with kids do anything. I just want to know what is going on with him since they don't beleive obviously anymore that his back pain is from constipation. He is still very sensitive to people touching him in the area and it is not just on his spine but to the sides as well.

Joshua I know that the labs came back normal but I haven't gotten to really speak to his doctor yet to see where he wants to go from here. He is still having hip and knee pain and I have a feeling he will be on his way to the ortho doctors as well.

Izzak has his ortho appointment next Tuesday so we will see where he wants to go from here and what he thinks. Joshua I will try to get ahold of his doctor tomorrow if he is back in town and see what his dr wants to do with him as well. He does also have an appointment in December to go over his ADHD meds and possibly make some changes since it is not really being as effective lately and I want to talk to him about trying something else maybe I don't know but even his teacher is having issues with him lately and I am feeling like we are getting back into some of the patterns he was in before starting to take meds. I did some research on his doctor though and found out that he specializes in ADHD so that is pretty cool that we just happened to see him.

I will update again when I find out anything new or talk to the other dr.

Missed the Fun Monday today.....

.....really I was gonna do it. The theme this time for unfinished projects. Well I am the queen of unfinished projects I have tons of them!! I just had a busy day and didn't get to post about them.

Anyway, sorry for those of you who were looking for those.

Christmas is coming.....

.....and my hubby soooo needs to buy me this t-shirt!

you can get it here!

Seriously what could be better for me? The other day I was out doing things with Madison and of course had my camera. What did she ask me? "mama are you gonna blog this?" The kid even knows the lingo. My kids all do that. They are just so used to me blogging they figure everything must be bloggable material. Well they are right, aren't they? hehe

We had a good Thanksgiving and more puppy pics

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I would have enjoyed it more if it was with my family. Holidays like this are what makes me miss Oregon. We didn't have huge celebrations but we got together with my parents and brother and just enjoyed the day together.

This year we had Thanksgiving with the family I've spoke about before that we hav become friends with. We had a nice dinner and spent a lot of time just holding little puppies.

I helped with dinner by making the potatoes plus 2 pumpkin pies, an apple pie and cheesecake because Kelly isn't a fan of either of the others. Naturally I was working on making pies right up until we needed to leave for our friends home and the apple was still hot and almost just out of the oven when we left.

We had a good meal though and some interesting conversation.

And of course afterwards when everyone sat in the living room to veg, watch some movies and maybe have a conversation or 2. Joe the one Kenzie is sitting in the lap of always has a lap full of girls sitting. Madison keeps telling him he is going to be Santa this year. I wonder how that will turn out. Only Kenzie sitting there is unusually usually both my girls and his daughter are all sitting in his lap but the other 2 are watching Joshua play a game on their daughters laptop.

Yes I have more puppy pictures also. Here is the pups and the momma. The puppy laying on top of her? Yep thats our puppy. It's a silly dog.

A little closer picture.....isn't she cute?

I had a different post planned for tonight.....

....but Blogger won't let me upload my pictures.

Anyway I mentioned last week that we had some things going on but that I didn't want to go into detail at the time. I'll explain a little now though.

First of all I'm not sure if you remember when I was talking about Izzak a couple of weeks ago when I was frustrated with the hospital saying he was having pain due to constipation. I didn't beleive that was what it was and basically I was right. We still don't know exactly what is going on but he is still having pain and definetly not constipated. His labs at the time came back with blood in his urine for one and that actually has cleared up. They know that it's not the first thought but they are doing more tests and are looking for a bone issue or at some other bone or joint issue since where he is complaining is actually more his back then his abdomen when someone actually feels around and asks more specific locations on his pain. The did check out the blood in urine issue but that seems to have cleared itself. Wednesday they did a spinal xray and took some blood tests to check for JRA (jouvenile arthritis) and some other things. Although she is really looking at it as a bone or muscular issue possibly and says she may refer him to another dr depending on the results of the blood work.

The other issue is Joshua. About 2 weeks ago he started complaining that his hip was hurting. We have a family history of some hip problems in Kelly's side of the family so they did a hip xray which was fine and then Monday a bone scan which was fine as well. Same with Izzak they have decided to run some blood tests on him to rule things out, one including the same JRA tests they ran on Izzak. Which I was actually glad they are running on Joshua since he has complained for awhile that his knees hurt him and he says he isn't able to stand up with his knees straight. I've asked about it before but they usually figured it was more just because of his activity level except that always seems to get worse with the weather change and 2 weeks ago the temperature really dropped quite a bit. Which interestingly enough is the same with the timing of Izzaks issues everytime they have gotten bad.

Who knows we may still find nothing with the latest test but it will be nice to at least get those thoughts out of the way since with Joshua I've often wondered about both the test they did this last week and the one they are running now.

Anyway that is what is going on right now. I will update Monday when hopefully we get some answers back on the tests they did. Some tests have to be sent to Seattle labs since they have limited lab abililities here in Ketchikan and will send some less common tests to Seattles larger labs.

Newborn puppies! Please look below this post for current posts

On Wednesday our close friends dog had puppies. We have been planning on getting one since we found out she was having puppies. They are soo cute! We are trying to think of a name for the puppy so that it will be called that before we bring him/her home. We are wanting to choose an Alaskan type of name but are having a hard time making a decision and I thought I would show you all the pics and see if anyone had any ideas for this little guy.

We have already chosen the one we want. I know awefully soon to choose one but we like it's markings. They are only 2 days old but really are showing little bits of their personalities.

Anyone got ideas/suggestions of great Alaskan type names for us? The mom is a blue heeler and the father was a husky mix so they will be kind of medium size.

Have a look at a couple of pics of our puppy!

I will update with new pictures of the puppy as it gets bigger until we bring him home as well.

Any ideas??

I'm going to leave this post up at the top for a couple of days so more people will get a chance to see and help with ideas since I know not everyone will be able to get to reading blogs with the Thanksgiving holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends!

and all of my other blogging friends as well. In church this Sunday our pastor challenged us to find something that we were thankful for and tell people about it. I thought I would post this on my blog.

What am I thankful for this year?

Oh wow so much, really!

I am thanful for my faith and God. Really people we wouldn't be here in Alaska without. All the doors were opened for us in ways we couldn't have imagined to get here this summer. Everytime we came up to something that we thought was going to be a challenge to figure out how to get here.

I am thankful of course to be here in Alaska now! We have wanted this for years but there just was no way to get here financially or practically. We are here now though and I am happy!

I am thankful for my family! Of course you must know that! I have 4 beautiful kids who may drive me insane at times but really I am extremely lucky to have them here.

What are you thankful for this year?

Happy Birthday Kelly!

More Kenzie birthday stuff

So on Sunday when we wen to church and they knew it was Kenzies birthday the next day and they made everyone stand up whose birthday was comming up to have the church sing to them. Kenzie also shares a birthday with the other mechanic at Kellys shop so he was up there and Kellys birthday is tomorrow on Thanksgiving here in the States. So he had to get up also. If you can see very weel both Kelly and Joe his coworker both wear this very similar red and black flannel shirts. They also have the same hairstyles basically, short with longer bears and a mustash (that doesn't look like it's spelled right but I can't figure it out). I call them the bobsy twins....I don't think they think I'm very funny though.

After church we went to the mexican restaurant in town with Joe and his family as well. They brought out special deserts and sang Happy Birthday to them, wearing these big hats. It was cute on Kenzie.....
.....didn't quite fit Joes head......
.....although he found it hilarious when he put it on Kellys head for his picture. Kenzie seems to be enjoying seeing that herself.
Of course Joshua wanted to try one on also so we got his picture as well. Don't they look cute together?

Kenzies Birthday party

We had Kenzies birthday party on Saturday. I met another new lady in town a few weeks ago. It's funny though her name is Terri also and she just moved up here this summer just before us. She also has 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls) and drives a Durango, like me. The funniest thing we have in common is both of us have daughters who turned 9 on Monday. Why am I saying all that? Well because we had a double birthday party for the girls together. They had a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Kenzie and Gabe!


The first part of the party was skating. They had fun. Some kids weren't so good as they probably haven't gone skating alot. If I knew before this that it was only $7 for the whole family we may have gone already! That is pretty cheap and I actually like to skate some myself. Izzak and Joshua have been on skates since they were 3 so they did well. Kenzie was getting it and actually stayed on her skates more then her bottom. Madison didn't get off the sidelines much except for when I would skate with her.

The skating was good first since it kind of wore them out a little they weren't so rambunctious for when we did the cake and ice cream.

Here is everyone singing Happy Birthday.


Happy 9th Birthday Kenzie! from my4kidsdunn on Vimeo.
They got a little jumbled with 2 kids being in the birthday song though.....

After cake and ice cream we did a pinata. The kids had fun but that thing was hard to break! We let all the kids that were their invited for the birthday party to go first a couple of times before letting the bigger boys like Joshua and Izzak to hit it. They couldn't break it either. It was funny though, when Joshua stood up to do it the whole room took a few steps back like they knew he was dangerous with a big stick. Some of the kids Kelly picked up and spun them around it was cute. He and uncle Josh did a lot of the pinata stuff and poor uncle Josh got hit in the hand by the stick when one of the bigger boys was hitting, he ended up with a bruise on his hand. When they finally got it broke enough it came off the rope Kelly picked it up and tore it apart, the kids all dove in for candy.

After that was the gift opening. Both girls did pretty good getting gifts, Kenzie got a new 35mm bratz camera and used all her film by the next day. We bought her a silver bracelet, clothes, a birthday bratz doll and a new purse. She loves purses!
Like I said she did pretty well there were more presents and she has gotten over $80 in cash gifts so far so she is pretty excited to go shopping for herself with her own money. She is just trying to decide if she wants to save it a little longer to have more.

Happy 9th Birthday Kenzie!

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Kenzie at 7 and 8

I said I was behind so I've had to do a couple of posts doubled up for McKenzie. Tomorrow is her birthday though and she will be officially 9! We had her birthday party yesterday and hopefully later this week I will get that all posted. We had a lot of fun and I have tons of pictures!

7 was a pretty good year for Kenzie as well. She started the second grade and loved it of course. She had her first male teacher and we found she does even better with male teachers then girls and she is a bit of a flirt...it's cute. She was able to move out of the xtra reading help program and moved to her own level doing pretty well. She loves to read and started wanting to buy and read chapter books. Her favorites were/are Junie B. Jones books. By the way any homeschooling moms with younger girls if you go to the website there are teacher aids and worksheets to go with all of her books with lesson plans all online. I just found that out by the way. We may use some of that next year when I bring her home to home school.

My little princess by the way loves to pose for pictures. Can you tell by some of the pictures in this post? The first 2 above and the one just below are all from a 4th of July trip we took to the lake we used to go to all the time in Oregon.
This is from a short ferry ride we took on a vacation we were on last year to the Shasta caverns in California. I love profile shots with Kenzie. She has a sweet profile in my opinion!
This was on a trip to the tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree 2 years ago. Her hair is kind of messy from the wind but the picture looks makes her look sweet again in my opinion. Of course it's not hard for her to look that way since she is a very sweet kid to begin with. I would love for many of you to actually meet her just so you can understand what I say about her and her personality. It is a very distinct personality that is hard to explain. I mean she never really gets in trouble every once in awhile she will get into a little trouble but it is so hard to actually be upset at her. Besides if you do she gets even more upset with herself for not being good! I don't know what I did to deserve her but she is the one that calms me most of the time even when I'm sad or upset about things. She's just a sweet kid and I actually look forward to when she is older. Even though I hate to see her growing up.
8 has been a big year for her. She has had so much more responsibility this year and a lot of it she has taken on for herself. She wanted to earn money so she asked to have certain chores. She does them mostly without complaining and she can actually save money until she can get something she really wants. She doesn't nag about getting her allowance either though. She is actually the only one getting one right now because one of our rules is they have to do their chores without being constantly reminded or whining. Which she rarely does. One of her main chores is cleaning the bathroom every monday which she chose herself and does a great job with. She is funny though because since it is her job she gets on everyones case for not putting the seat down, flushing or picking up after themselves. She really is a little momma, it's cute.

This is from our trip to the fun center at the fair in Portland this year. She had her face painted and it was pretty cute.

She also rode a horse for the firts time this year as well and was a little natural. She looked like she had been doing it all her life. I love this picture.

This is from our Memorial day picnic to the lake this year. Really I don't have any pictures of her that I can't say I love though.

Of course the biggest thing for year 8 for Kenzie is the move. She has done very well with it. I'm glad. She is one of those kids though that has no problems making friends. She is a very devoted friend as well. She is so tiny compared to all of them it's funny sometimes. I love watching her with her friends and you always see her holding hands with them as well, it's too sweet to see.

I hope people have enjoyed reading about my sweet girls 8 years up till now. I love writing about her and showing pictures. She really is our little princess and we are told that all the time. I truely feel blessed to have her and thank God everyday that we were able to have her. I can't imagine my life without this little ray of sunshine in my life.

5 and 6

At 5 Kenzie started Kindergarten. She loved Kindergarten! She loved learning new things and being around all the people. Kenzie is a shy kid but once she is comfortable she is a social butterfly! She will be friends with everyone and everyone is a friend. Her teachers love her and every conference we have gone to since she started school the teachers have always told me how great a kid she was. She is like having another adult in the classroom, even in Kindergarten!

Here she is on her 5th birthday party. Back to the dresses this year.

Kenzie loves to go the park but she is a swing girl. She loves the swings and actually figured out how to swing herself very early. In Kindergarten she started the having to take her inhaler in school. She didn't like it though because she was the only one in her class that had to go to the office for that and she doesn't like to be singled out.

At 6 we got to go on a vacation to visit relatives in California. We stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool and Kenzie loved it. It was cute though because she always had to have something that floated around her waist even though she could touch the ground and knows basically how to float and swim. We had a great time on this trip because we got to see the redwoods and did a lot of things as a family.

Another picture from our vacation. There is a park near where Kelly's uncle and grandmother live that has a big volcano structure that shoots up water like a volcano. The kids loved it and had lots of fun. Kenzie always sat like this to keep the water from hitting her in the face. She has never liked water in her face.
Kenzie did just as well in the 1st grade although we were noticing she was having some difficulty with reading and requested to have her in a class giving her extra help with her reading. She doesn't have a disability like her brother she just needed a little extra help to get some of the basics down. We also needed to frequently remind her teachers she has a 40% hearing loss in her left ear due to damage from ear infections and the one after her surgery when she was 1. Her teachers still adored her though.