5 year old Izzak

Okay it is getting late I need to do todays post....

Here is Izzaks fifth birthday party. We thought it would be fun to do it at Chuck E Cheese. Yeah it was kinda. Izzak was deathly afraid of Chucky. I shouldn't have been surprised, he creeps me out to....

He is the little guy standing next to the girl in the jumper near Chucky with the hat on everyone was singing the birthday song and Izzak would not take his eyes off of him for fear he might get him.

Opening his presents with icing on his face, so cute. The little girl in overalls standing next to him is my friend Kara's little girl they are only 4 months apart.

The party is also where we decided to announce that Madison was on her way. We knew it was a good idea to be in a crowd since we knew some people would have negative feelings about it. My parents were happy, Kelly's not so much they thought it was terrible and why would we want another baby. They were very vocal about it which is strange since they have 4 kids also.

This was the kids spring picture taken actually about a week before his 5th bday but I think it counts as a five year old picture (after all he was 2 weeks late). Aren't they adorable though.....

Not sure exactly about Izzaks crossed arms and Joshua playing with his shoes though. This was also at the Picture People which I love!

I am a good mom this time and remembered to tell people that Izzak became a big brother for the 3rd time this year to His baby Madison.

Okay I thought he was protective and adored Kenzie when she was born. It paled in comparison to his devotion to Madison! Can you tell a bit by the way he is looking at her for the first time?

He is holding both of her hands in the picture. Since he was 5 this time he knew what was going on while I was pregnant and even had imput in her name. When she was born he was so excited and loving. He insisted on helping to change diapers and holding her all the time. I had a hard time tearing her away from him sometimes and I would find him sleeping near her crib sometimes at night. By the time she was 6 months he could get her out of her crib before she cried and sometimes even changed her diaper! He was actually really good. No poopy diapers though...I wouldn't let him do that. I really found the caring side of this boy with Madison and everyone else saw it as well. God forbid she cry! She never had much of a chance since if she started crying in bed he got him out if she wanted to eat and I didn't pick her up right away he brought her to me. Look at that proud look on his face....

She wasn't actually crying in this picture she just looks like it.

This year he became very helpful around the house not just with helping with Madison but he wanted to do things like help vacuum. Notice Madison in her car seat close by?

Also a big event for Izzak this year. He started Kindergarten....

He had been doing well enough with his speech and the school convinced me he didn't need anymore extra services and they would just keep an eye on him. Unfortunatly I listened to their advice (I will get into that in later posts) and am still paying for it now. He loved Kindergarten though and his teacher loved him also. He did struggle but they told me it was normal for him to have some struggles because his Preschool was more focused on his therapies then the normal preschool would be.

He continued to be a very sweet boy and he was known as the neighborhood greeting committee all on his own. He was very friendly and not afraid to speak to people even with his speech being a little behind people loved him and everyone on the block knew who he was. It was hard not to especially since he was so polite.

For Frannie - another Maddie video and our Starbucks habit

We went on another of our weekend drives and Maddie insisted on sharing a couple of songs with everyone.


Notice how she can ignore the two others pestering her to get through her song, then take care of them when she is done?

Okay she also wanted to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, but she had some difficulty, well I just let you see for yourself.....


What do you think about the sound effects to end the song???? Yeah thats my kids for ya.

Also I haven't mentioned in the previous posts one of the things we always do on our weekend drives up the gorge. See Kelly and I have a Starbucks addiction and when we go somewhere I used to ask Kelly if we were going anywhere so now whenever we go for a drive like this Kelly says we are going to Starbucks...in Hood River...which is a 2 hour drive from here. Sounds weird to most people because here in Oregon there is a Starbucks within a mile radius of, oh just about anywhere you go. But its a destination right?

Where am I going with this? Well we go so often that everyone has there own Starbucks personal mug.....

Yes they are all Starbucks mugs kids size with chocolate milk or hot chocolate of course cause I'm not crazy enough to buy them real coffee although they would drink it. Peolple think this is strange but they don't spill and the kids think they are really cool when they bring their Starbucks mugs in and hand them to the person and order their own drink. I drink Pepermint Mocha's and Kelly drinks a Caramel Mociato with 3 x the Caramel sauce (he really like the caramel). So wether its teas or coffee do any of you have a favorite drink? We think they make them best in Hood River but it may just be the drive and family time we really enjoy.

Four year old Izzak

A picture from Izzaks fourth birthday party. Yes he was into baseball this year and frogs like on his shirt.

I always like this picture of Izzak he got right up close to me when I was taking his pictureIzzaks 5th Christmas. I tried to take the kids to Sears to have their pictures taken but they just weren't interested and the photographer was not a nice person and acted as if they were being horrible because they didn't want to sit in the boring poses she wanted them in. I left the store frustrated thinking I wasn't going to be able to get their Christmas pictures this year until I found The Picture People and it was great! Just look at this picture!

Joshua is trying to tell us to put Kenzie in the the train (I don't think she would fit?) What do you think? lol he is a funny kid..
This year brought another baby to the Dunn family. Kelly's brother and his wife had their second baby (the first was 9 days before Kenzie the year before). As you can tell Izzak loved babies. He still does.
Izzak was still in the Early Intervention program for his speech and other issues this is a picture of him in his class.
Izzak also loved climbing trees, just like him mom did when she was little this is another favorite picture of mine.

Notice the red boots in the picture above? Those were his favorite for several weeks. He would not take them off and felt they were the perfect thing to wear with anything.

His speech got so much better this year. It was the biggest improvement we had seen in him ever.

How could I forget?.... I am a bad mother

So while you are all telling how great a memory I have I forgot something very important when Izzak turned 3! How could I forget???

Izzak became a big brother again! To his first baby sister.

McKenzie was born............

Please pay no attention to me in the picture and remember I had a c-section 3 days earlier.

McKenzie coming along was very exciting for Izzak he paid more attention this time and new something was coming. I'm not sure what he thought was in there though. When most people asked him if I was having a brother or a sister his comment? "I habben batman!" Yep he thought she was going to be batman, or wanted her to something like that.

Even though she wasn't batman he was thrilled with his new baby sister

Can you tell? He was very protective of her also and got very upset when she cried. If I wasn' t in the same room and she cried he would find me and with a very distraught look on his face say "My baby cwy, fixth her".

The kids went over to my sisters house today so she could watch them one day while they are on Spring Break. When I picked her up she was wearing a different shirt. I asked her what happened and she told me her juice tripped!



Notice she says the juice tripped not herself? Silly girl.

Then Izzak turned Fwee!

I was able to find Izzaks 3rd Birthday pictures (still looking for second birthday). Here he is opening presents. The little boy next to him was another little boy from his Early Interventions preschool. They were pretty good friends but unfortunatly we don't see him or his mom anymore. She became a friend of mine for awhile. One of the nice things about him going to this preschool was being able to meet other moms whose kids had similar problems to Izzak. I finally had someone who understood what it was like. Izzak and Tanner actually could comunicate together even though they didn't talk very well either one and still needed their moms to interpret most of what they said.

Izzak playing with baloons at his party. The little girl in the background is a friend of mine daughter and then Joshua next to her. Izzak and the little girl are 4 months apart and still friends.
One of the gifts he got for his birthday was his first 2 wheeler bike but with training wheels he chased all the neighborhood bigger boys while on it. He felt like a big boy.
I had to share this one because I think its cute.
In this one it doesn't show the whole scene but Izzak looks so excited because he just sprayed his brother with the hose! Isn't he a nice boy?
This one is cute because Izzak is holding Joshua's hand. Isn't that sweet?

We had a lot more improvements to his speech this year many more words and I found that Izzak knowing some of his sign language that Joshua learned it to. That helped things quite a bit although Joshua was talking way more then Izzak already by the time he was 18 months.

When Izzak was 2

For some reason I can't find a picture of Izzaks 2nd birthday....thats really bad. Don't you love it when other family members buy your kids noisy toys? You can see the little piano thing at the bottom of the picture here but he got the whole band for Christmas before he turned two from my parents. Wastn't that nice of them? This was a typical picture of Izzak always on the move running through the house to his own music. If you look in the picture to the right Joshua is behind him trying to pull himself around to play with his big brother. Whom he adored at this age.....not so much anymore I wish they still adored each other.......

Our house looks terrible in this picture but we were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen so we didn't have any cabinet doors. Boy was that fun with a two year old!
Here is Izzak at church on Easter Sunday wasn't he cute?

One of Izzaks favorite things to do was riding bikes. He had his first tricycle when he was 2 and a bike soon after. Can you tell how happy he was to ride?
In Portland every year at the beginning of June we have the The Portland Rose Festival which consists of three different Parades The Junior Parade which is entirely for kids and all kids in the parade, Then the The Starlight Parade which is all at night after dark (this is the favorite of our family by the way the third parade is the big one The Grand Floral Parade. We also have The Waterfront Village which is the big carnival but it is very expensive to take the kids to. It is right on the river that cuts through the center of the city. Along with the carnival is another big event that people look forward to and that is what you see below....
Which is when Fleet Week started. We get US Navy ships and Canadian Navy ships that come into our Port Downtown and allow people to tour the ships. I remember in high school when the bad girls would get excited during this time...umm you can guess why. I was not involved in that. Izzaks Uncle Josh took him to a lot of the festivities this year. He was 16 and realized that with Izzak being cute and all and a huge flirt that he would be a great "chick magnet". He was a very dotting uncle back then though so I new Izzak would have a great time and he did.
Izzaks 3rd Christmas! This was the best one yet for him because he actually had some clue what was going on. Also he was finally starting to talk by now, we were so very happy about that!

Izzak funny at the end of this year? We managed to get down to Kelly's Grandparents house in California this year for Thanksgiving and had all of his family together including some who had not met my dear son yet. Izzak was fully potty trained by 2 and was in the potty with everyone in the family sitting in the living room just outside when Izzak yells out "Momma, Momma my butt don wok". Yeah he still hasn't lived that down. Everyone in the family remembers it.
Izzak had some gains this year in his speach and was finally getting to have some words. Of course most of the time it wasn't understandable, except to me, but it was so nice to finally find out what his sweet voice sounded like!

Alright I will try to not make these posts so long but I am enjoying remembering some of Izzaks younger years. Hope you all don't mind.

Izzak age 1

In our family we get the birthday child their very own 8" round cake all to themselves on their first birthday. Does he look like he is enjoying it?
This was the only year we have ever had nice weather on Izzaks birthday. I got up to 90 degrees in April. Around here that is unheard of. It was okay though because we had 5 babies his age at the party and all those babies inside could have been really noisy.

Izzak still had his funny personality he only got funnier. Can you see by his smile that he really loved his first trip to the beach?

He ran right into the water. He was definetly his mommas little man. I spent my first 5 years on islands first Midway Island and Oahu Hawaii. Afterward I grew up in San Diego CA. So I love the water and was glad to see my little boy did to.
Also his first year he learned he liked to help Daddy work on the car. What better way to do it in a diaper though? Look at that grubby boy...

He looks happy though doesn't he?

By the time Izzak was 18 mos he also had a first and became a big brother. This was hard for me because Joshua came very early and I had never been away from my little boy.....at all since he was born. I was on bed rest and then in the hospital taking care of Joshua so when I saw Izzak suddenly he seemed to huge.

Izzak was a really good big brother though. He loved having a brother to play with, well if only he would play.

We had even more signs when Izzak was one that he had problems. He did not learn any words this year at all. He really didn't say mamma or dadda well or consistantly and had no other words. I told family members I was worried but I kept getting the comment that boys are slower talkers then girls. Fortunatly I wasn't convinced and brought up my concerns to his Dr when he was 18 months old. He said that he takes mothers intuition very seriously because a mom is the one who knows her child best. This started our journey with Izzak. He was tested at the Hearing and Speech Institute for hearing and speach. His hearing was perfect. The speach evaluation was very different. He was delayed with no meaning full words. Izzak never did baby talk as a baby his only sounds were crying, laughing and certain grunting type noises. He was considered to be pretty delayed for his age and also scored low for his cognitive level. We started out with Speech therapy 2 times a week and then added a special preschool to his routine, he went 2 time a week. We saw a little improvement with communication and he was learning to use basic sign language by the time he was 2. That was his only communication other then grunting, laughing and crying though. We very rarely heard crying from him though he was a very happy little boy and extremely inquisitive. He was curious about everything. Including electrical equipment. He also was convinced that a sandwich belonged in the VCR!

Fun Monday

Tristan challenged us this week 'to tell the world how you would like to wake up in the morning. What is present in the planet you would wake up to? What are the people in it like, Does Marmite and butter come pre-mixed, or are you an astronaut on a mission to launch Tony Blair into low earth orbit. Show the difference between current reality, and reality 2.0.'

Honestly its a very easy post for me. I would love to wake up in the morning with the hubby by my side and the kids snuggled in their beds (their beds mind you, not all over the house). I would like to wake up knowing I didn't have to jump out of bed to get ready to go to work at my job.

I am a pretty plain person and really I'm easy to please. The hubby would even tell you that. This is how my ideal world would be because then I would be more my ideal person. I was home with my kids for the first 8 years and I was a very happy person and every morning when I woke up it was a new day and a new chance to find things to do with the kids. I love to take the kids out to find new things. Also I am a big kid myself and want to do kid stuff as well. Do you want to know my favorite places in town to go to? The Childrens Museum and The Zoo. Especially when I am with my family.

Also I like the beach so if that was closer I would be very happy and in my ideal world.

Also Alpha Dude I will post my nominations tomorrow. I didn't want to have 3 posts in one day. Can't think good enough to do it. See I can't write very good english either.

Does this girl look old enough to have a baby?

Seriously look at the picture below.......
Yep thats me when I was pregnant with Izzak..... I looked like I was 12 really also this is how I spent much of the early part of my pregnancy. I was sick as a dog on this day I was actually feeling halfway decent... I was 18 though so I was to young but still....When the hubby and I went out people never thought we could be married honestly he didn't look to much older ....
Kelly and I were 18 when we got married. 2 1/2 months out of high school. Also yes I was pregnant at the time but we had already planned on getting married when we did so that had nothing to do with it. No matter how much my family and others tried to insist it was the reason. We got married and moved the same day to Pheonix Arizona. Kelly was enrolled in a school called Universal Technical Institute, or UTI for short. Can you figure out the nickname I had for it? We lived at first in a teeny tiny studio apartment that in the first picture of my you can see most of it. It consisted of a full size bed (sort of) that when pushed up under a that wood thing and with extra pillows became a couch (once again sort of) I always thought it was weird to have someone over and have them sit in the same place we slept?? There was also a small dresser and a small table with 2 chairs. That was it. Then a tiny hall that was the kitchen if you wanna call it that it didn't have an oven just a 2 burner stove and the fridge was one of those little small fridgerators you get for a college student or to keep beer and soda in you game room.

Kelly went to school and worked at Taco Bell full time. Me I stayed home for one there was no way I could work with how sick I was during the whole pregnancy also it was the first of my 4 complicated pregnancies.

Also the hubby didn't want me to work and once the baby came we couldn't have been able to pay for daycare.

Why am I talking about this today. Because it is 12 days till Izzaks 12th birthday and I thought for the next 12 days I would share something or at least just a picture of Izzak from the his newborn pictures to the day he turns 12. I hope you don't mind I am indulging myself with enjoying my little boys growing up...

Izzak was my biggest at 8 lbs 11 ozs and 20 inches long. He had very large shoulders and big head. Of course that would be the only baby that I have naturally but I will spare you the gory details....aren't I nice?

He was a great baby from the begining though honestly
could you resist that sweet little face. Also some people say you can't tell the difference between boys and girls as newborns but this boy. He looked like a boy to me from day one. Izzak was a very mellow baby.

Probably why we ended up having another 18 months later. Boy were we in for a surprise when his little brother came along. Izzak also was my child who did every thing early physically like he is sitting up here I'm not helping him and he is 4 1/2 months old.

Then he started walking here at 8 1/2 months old.....

Izzak always had a smile on his face....You know his name means laughter. Could we have picked a better one for him?
Izzak also had his first surgery at 7 months but for his sake I am not going to go into explaining what it was for since he would kill me now for discussing it. Also he is standing over my shoulder while I write and even though he can't read much I don't want him to get mad.

This picture is the evening after his surgery he is still knocked out basically but look at those chubby little cheekes and the rolls on his arms. He was to cute.
Also Izzak had some signs of his problems even as a baby, we just didn't know it at the time. Mostly in ways like the fact he couldn't handle to much going on or rather he handled it to well and could shut the entire world out if he was busy doing something. They feel this has a lot to do with why he didn't learn to talk. He never really heard us unless we were specifically talking to him (which we did constantly but I didn't always notice). Yeah its hard to explain.

I do say though that even with all of his disabilities with learning it is so much better then what they told us during my pregnancy. They were convinced based on his ultrasound and some blood work that he had downs syndrome. I refused an amnio so they couldn't be sure but they were convinced. Also while I was pregnant he had a heart problem all the way through the pregnancy. When he was born he was perfection! No heart trouble and a healthy little man was he.

Okay so enough now I gotta go. I will post more pictures tomorrow of him at 1. Sorry if I'm being boring but I am sad he is turning 12 it just feels like the last year he will really be a kid after that he will officially be a teenager.....

Sunny Sunday....well mostly and little girls meltdown

So yesterday was kind of a bust for doing anything since it rained.......day! Of course as I've said before we live in the Great Northwest and what are we known for?? Yes the answer is rain. Of course I actually really love the rain but its spring and I'm wanting to start doing things so I really want the weekends dry...yeah well we'll see how that works.

On a bright note the boys went to my friend Kara's house yesterday morning and spent the night so we got a good weekend with just the girls. It's amazing how much QUIETER the house is with just the girls....except for the girly chatter and Madison is a pro when it comes to that. She just has a lot to say..........all the time.

Today was better the sun decided it would come out for me though. So we went on one of our "famous" drives up the gorge. I don't know what it is but we do this a lot when the weather is nice. Its just a really nice view. Like this Aint it perty? I think so that is Memaloosa Island and its in the middle of the Columbia River Gorge up near Hood River. It used to be 4 acres wide but now with the river it is only about 1/2 an acre. Also it used to be an Indian burial ground except they didn't bury them they would sit them up inside a little wooden hut. Seems creepy to me. Anyway when the island started getting smaller the Indians decided to move the bodies and actually bury them and now just one guy is buried there, under the ground. Interesting history I guess....nobody really goes on the island though now. Its a pretty view though.

We can see it from another rest stop where we let the girls play.

Some may ask why do we stop at rest stops to play? I don't know, really I don't know but its sometimes actually the high point of the rides and the kids ask to go on these drives....we may just be weird I don't know.

The only thing about these drives is the girls talk...alot. Well they do anyway all the time I guess but its something about being in a small confined place with the little high pitched voices. Honestly though I love listening to them talk. Especially Madison, she has some weird ideas. I take the opportunity though to take pictures though no matter where we are. See

Yes that is my sweet little girl STICKING HER TONGUE OUT AT ME! Ha she gets it from me I do it all the time and tought them all early. Much to the hubby's discontent.

But see they are smiling and loving the open road.....Well mostly until you get this

"Mom thtop taking pictureth of me" Yes my daughter has a lithp.....Also this was about the 15th picture in a row....I think she was done. What do you think.

The other thing with girls? They are emotional from the very beginning. Did you know that? Little girl meltdowns....This would be Madisons for the day.....

The reason for this meltdown you may ask? "Kenzie wont talk to me" says Madison. Isn't it horrible? She is the little drama queen. Of course this only lasted about 10 minutes until Kenzie handed her 5 pennies. Apparently 5 pennies fixes everything.......I wish it worked for me.

By the way is it bad that I think my daughter looks adorable when she's mad? Honestly the second photo look at that face and the pouty lips....I just wanna kiss them.