Some Randomness.....

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...

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...

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

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...

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

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..

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....

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.