Getting close to Fair!

It is getting close to that time of year..... FAIR! The boys have been working with their pigs, Speckles, Chimichanga, Princess and Nacho Libre. We know that one pig, Princess will not be close to making the Market Hog weight of 235 pounds.. not sure what we are going to do with her for sure.... she might end up in the freezer!

Next week, the boys get to load them up and take them off to Fair! Yay - no more stinky pig pen!

The deed is done

Brownie and Cuddles departed us this morning... it was super sad! Our cows are so gentle and trusting - they just walked right up to the man who came to slaughter them... big sniffs! Obviously, there is NO WAY I could have watched! ugh! I will miss their sweet "cow-ness"!

Rest in Peace Brownie and Cuddles - a job well done

Saying goodbye to furry friends

Tomorrow, our sweet cows, Brownie and Cuddles, are going to be leaving us. Well... for awhile that is. We got the cows to eat - and well... it is time to turn them into yummy steak! I am very sad, as these were our first "babies" that we hand fed and loved on... they have such great personalities and are incredibly gentle. I am so sad that these are the last pictures I took of them today. sniff sniff! Next time we see Cuddles, he will be neatly wrapped in white paper :(

Well... week one down

We have gone an entire week on the HGH shots for Big Al! I have yet to seriously poke him wrong or leave a bruise!! I guess it means I have the "touch" haha!!

We get to head back to Children's in November to do a follow up appt to check height and weight... keeping my fingers crossed that this will work!

Whoo-hooo!!!!

We have FINALLY been approved for HGH injections for Big Al! We had our first consolutation with a training nurse this week and got in all of our supplies! While we are not holding our breath for any dramatic results... it sure would be nice!

Basically, he will be receiving daily injections of a synthetic human growth hormone. While he already has PLENTY of growth hormone in his system, they are not trigging right (aka - meaning he is not growing!)While HGH is pretty controversial with some folks (usually those folks who don't have a special needs child that has numerous challenges in life!) for Big Al, it is a necessary route we need to try. Since he has grown very very little in the last 12 months, it has become more apparent that "something" is not right. For Big Al, the HGH is going to be used to simply "jumpstart" some of his growth hormones to see if the synthetic will help the hormones he already has, work correctly. No, he will not end up being six foot tall - or even close. But, due to the fact that he has missed pretty much every growth spurt in over 6 years, the chances of him catching up to an "average" height of 5'6" is iffy without some intervention. We are hoping that some good will come out of these, as it is stressful for all of us, especially him!

What have we been up to????

This summer has seemed so long and drawn out this year! Probably because we did not have any good weather until end of June/early July!

We have been busy busy with the boys getting their 4H pigs ready for fair (in about 3 weeks), getting Miss O ready to start kindergarten in 3 weeks, getting little projects done while the weather is nice - and so on and so forth, taking the boys fishing lots and getting them ready for back to school as well!

I realized that I had not taken one picture since our vacation last month! How silly is that??? That will all be changing here in a few weeks! School starts here right after the fair is over (Sept 8th)... and let me tell you... I AM SO READY! The boys have really pushed their luck with my patience this summer and I am more than happy to hand them off to their teachers!

Hopefully - your summer has been a good one!

Our big summer adventure!

This summer, we took all three kids on an "international" vacation! Ok, so it was only to Vancouver, Canada.... but still! First time that Little J and Miss O got to actually use their US passports! We stayed at the Strathcona Lodge on Vancouver Island - pretty much out in the middle of no-where!
After this so called "vacation"... I think that I have come to the realization that there is no such thing as a "vacation" when you take these kids ANYWHERE! Each child had their own issue with this or that - and when they started feeding off one- another... LOOK OUT!
Fortunately, our little cabin was right on the beach, so the kids spent HOURS playing in the water! That was our only blessing! Well, other than coming home in one piece!

A day at the park

Today was a ho-hum kinda summer day! It was a good day to take the kids to the park to burn off a little excess energy!

The streets will be safe - well......

The street in front of Little J's school... at least from 2:45pm to 3:00pm for the next week!! haha!
Little J has done Safety Patrol this year... he has enjoyed it and took pride in actually having some responsibility at the school. It was good for him - hopefully, he will want to do it again next year!

Poor little Miss O

Today, Miss O had her very first Emergency Room visit.... After we got home from fishing, the kiddos were all outside running around, enjoying the day.. until BAM!!!! Someone started a horrible blood curdling screaming!! Apparently, Miss was was coming outside and closed the door on her finger, which got caught between the doorjam and the strike plate... ouch!! Blood was shooting out and it was pretty obvious to us that it was more than a band-aid kinda repair!!

We left immediately for the ER, fortunately got into a room right away!! Three hours later.... we were able to take her home with a re-attached ring finger and 8 new wire stitches!! The poor little thing had the hardest time while the stitches were being sewn... she kept screaming at the doctor, "Are you done now??"
We were able to take our little stinker home with a big ER bill, and a nice new bandaid!!

Just the three of us

Today was sorta a hum ho kinda morning! Little J really wanted to go to yet another Fishing Derby... after the last one - I was not up to the challenge!! I told him that I would take him to another pond..... As we were getting to leave... Little Miss "ME-TOO" made her displeasure known that she, too wanted to go fishing... I decided to take her if I could take a chair.... so off we went!


We must have picked the slimiest section of the pond, since we were losing worm after worm and catching nothing!


We saw a pair of adorable little orphaned mallard ducklings.. they had no fear, but we left them alone! We also saw a muskrat, a huge bass swim by and a few ospreys!


Miss O thought she would help supervise Little J and his worm-ing skills!


I knew this would happen! Lost my chair to the princess! She gave up on fishing pretty dang quick!!

We were lucky enough to have a beautiful day!!

My last post on Preschool :(

We had our very last day of Miss O's OT/ST preschool today. She has been attending this preschool since before her 3rd birthday. She has really grown to love and enjoy her teachers and other kiddos in her class. Her final day of preschool was held at a local park, where we all celebrated the kiddos moving into kindergarten. It was really a bittersweet day... wonderful to see the awesome strides that Miss O has made (especially in speech!) but sad to know that we are forever done with preschool. Time to move on to Kindergarten!!



Miss O with her little friend, Ayla!

Miss O with her absolutely favorite teacher, Cathy! She will REALLY miss seeing Cathy!

Wordless Wednesday

A usual occurance at our house!! Little J has these nasty disgusting nose bleeds quite often!

Some Dirty Fun!

The hubby took the boys for a short motorcycle ride up near the Wind Farm... after a rainy morning... it left all the boys a tad muddy!!! They did have a blast though!

Wordless Wednesday

Cuddles the Cow : just loves to give kisses!!

*!Preschool Graduation!*

Today was Miss O's last day of regular preschool (still has two more weeks of OT/ST preschool)! She was happy to do her little program and dress up... but very very sad to no longer go to her "new" school.

Above she is with her best preschool friend, Josie. The two of them get along so great because they can be really quiet.... We are so proud of how far she has come with her "new" school in just 8 months... quite the accomplishments!

Wordless Wednesday! My little helper!

Miss O LOVES to help feed all the critters! Here she is feeding "Swipy"... he used to be called Swiper, but after a dog attack, has a noticeable limp and is smaller than everyone else, now - she just calls him Swipy chicken!

Wordless Wednesday

Bubbles..... a girls best accessory when it comes to getting yourself soapy!

Our miracle baby!

I don't post about my feathered little critters much anymore... for good reason! Usually by the time I get the pictures uploaded and update the blog - the little critters have had a fatal encounter with the mighty "bird dog" Phebe!
Today was special though.... I have had two hens that have been "trying" to hatch out a clutch of eggs. They only have a few more days until I take the eggs from them for a quick flight out into the field. One hen in particular quit a few days ago... apparently she does not have the patience to be a Mama yet! The other hen is sort of a "dead beat" mom! She lays on the eggs for about half the day, then lets others lay on the eggs for a few minutes, leaves her eggs alone for hours... just not very diligent! So, today, I went out to check her nest. Apparently, an egg was cracked and made a mess on a couple of the other eggs. I pulled out one egg to do the ceremonial egg toss into the field. As I was walking away, I realized that there was peeping coming from this particular egg! Low and behold... a chick was trying to peek his little way into the world!

Knowing that this particular hen was not really into the mothering thing yet, I took the egg and placed it in a small box under the heat lamp with our guinea keets that are 4 days old. And here is how it progressed....


The chick has been pecking at the egg... small hole and beak is visible!


The chick has fractured about one third of the egg and popped its wing out!


We've got a baby!! Little chick popped its head out into the world!


Out of the egg and getting warmed up!

This was a fun time for the kids... it was nice to be able to tie some life lessons into things... like the mother is not ready to have babies, so we have adopted the baby chick to help him/her grown into a chicken.... I guess there are a few benefits from living the farm life!

Fishing Derby

I took Little J and Miss O to the first Fishing Derby of the year! The kids had a really rough start (Mom included!!) Little J made a mess out of the pole - by getting hooked in weeds and brush on the way in... major mess... then he had problems casting... then of course he went from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyl... yep - the behavior went in the toilet!! Since HE IS the master fisherman in the family.. not catching anything in the first hour and a half really got his goat! Everyone around us was constantly bringing them in! Finally, near the end of the Derby, he started catching little tiny Sunfish! In the end, he caught 2 small trout and three small (really really small) sunfish! The picture above shows Miss O holding the ever-popular Barbie pole and Little J was holding her fish - her one and only that she caught! Look hard - its there - just REALLY tiny!! hehe!


Miss O enjoyed doing more sunbathing than fishing!!

Piggies!

It has taken me a few weeks to even GET a few pictures of the new piggies! Big Al and Little J picked them out last week! They ended up getting one Yorkshire (all white), one Yorkshire cross (white with black markings) and two Duroc piggies (the brown ones!) They sure are cute little guys!



Hard to get a picture when all they like to do is put their head down and eat!


Big Al's piggie: Nacho Libre

Mother's Day

Usually, Mother's Day is a pretty quiet and normal day, for the most part! I don't even dream of asking for anything anymore... as my wishes usually fall upon deaf ears! But, this year was a little different! I asked the hubby to pleeeeeease finish off a mobile chicken coop for my little chicks that have been living in his shop so I can move them outside! The mobile coop was about half done as of yesterday. Miss O gave me a nice card and a pot with mystery seeds planted in it, and Little J had a nice card with some candies... great stuff as usual!
All afternoon - the hubby and the kiddos worked on the little pen....



Miss O was in charge of taking things to and from the shop.. what a great helper!


Since Little J was light enough to crawl inside (hmmmmm this could be a great kid coop as well!) he was in charge of the inside lights!


And a picture of the almost (waiting for paint) completed mobile coop!!!

Farmer's Market

Little J had a choir performance at the Farmer's Market in town today.... he sure gets really excited about his performances, until he actually has to go up and sing!! He did a great job and we got to enjoy a nice morning at the market!

Crazy Spring Weather

We have had some wacky weather so far this spring... but the aftermaths are really quite pretty!

Wordless Wednesday!

Who is that masked marvel????? Her Nana brought her back a Mardi Gras mask and some beads... just too cute!

Finally Friday!

It has been one looooong week I tell ya! Today, Miss O and I went to watch Little J and his choir sing at CWU for a couple of hours... the choir is getting so much better! We spent the rest of the day running countless numbers of errands and just making it home in time to get things rolling for dinner!
Knock on wood - Little J has been doing pretty well... he has a better attitude and loves to offer to help - especially lately... not sure why... but I am not going to question it (yet!!).

We have had a really long and mentally/physically exhausting week with Big Al. We have found more items being hoarded in his room and he is back on the "eating crayons" band wagon! He has brought home small garbage items and been hiding them to eat them at night. It is unfortunate that we cannot find a counselor that specializes in PICA (which is the medical term for what he has). I have horrible fears that he is going to eat something really wrong that will either tear him up on the inside or cause real serious poisioning. We can talk to him about it until we are blue in the face - and have on many occasions. It is really a very sad situation for him, as his condition forces us to be extremely over-vigilant about where he is and what he is doing. I feel more like a prison warden than a mom on most days... searching through every offafice of his room, patting him down morning and night for "contraban"...
I have had numerous incidents of "intuition" with Big Al, that have proved 100% dead-on... and I hate knowing that if we don't have an eagle-eye on him, he will do something that will cause him harm.
Trying to figure out what to do with him this summer is going to be a challenge! There is no summer school or long-term summer programs locally with enough supervision to handle him...... I sure wish we had more military boarding schools close by!!

No words Wednesday!

Another appointment with no answers

I took Big Al to Children's last week. It was time for his "official" six month check up with the endo doctor. Well.. he gained a whole 2 measly pounds in six months.. I personally can gain 2 pounds in a weekend (or less!!) and his height gain was very minimal, probably only shown as an increase due to needing a haircut!
I did request that they test him for lead poisoning, which they did... his levels came back at very low. His doctor was really hesitant to test for lead.. her EXACT words were, "We really only test for kids who eat paint chips.... (then looking at Big Al she says..."oh never mind - forgot!"... I had a hard time not busting up at her question! The kid has practially stripped his bunk bed of any paint!
So, moving forward... we are applying to get HGH (human growth hormone) approved from the insurance company. Since he apparently has enough growth hormone in his system, they are applying for it under the diagnosis of ideopathic short stature aka (ISS) which basically means they have no answers to why he really will not grow!
According to Children's, it could take up to 3 months to see if we can get approved. It is a lengthy process because typically, for children with ISS, it is a "cosmetic" drug... that cracks me up - but oh well!
We are still trying to do our part to get the kid to EAT, but it is an exhausting and frustrating process... one that I wish I did not have to deal with!

Weekend fishing

This weekend, we decided to try out a different fishing pond. For the first time in many years, I got a fishing license... just to be legal when I had to hold the poles! haha!
This was a pond we have never tried. After about 30 minutes, the hubby and I were ready to pack it up. Big Al had cast into the trees over head twice, Little J kept losing his worms... the hubby was getting sick of being everyones "fishing guide" (meaning me - I don't touch worms!) and it was getting late... then WHAMMMMMMOOOOOO!

Miss O said "I got something!"... We assumed it was just a big weed, since there was alot of vegetation... nope - she reeled in a cute little perch or something! Her first fish of the season! She was QUITE happy with her self!
About 5 minutes later, Big Al screams that he has one.. another cute little spiny fish... Little J was starting to have a "moment" and got really hacked off - since he is the only one who really LOVES fishing (according to him!)! I then had a bite on my line, so I handed it to Little J to reel in... thinking that I was being nice by letting him catch one on my pole! The whole time he was whining about how it was MY fish, not his (ummm yeah - I have not actually caught a fish on my own in more years than I care to admit!) Within minutes, he had one on his pole... and the excitement was back! We ended up catching about 7 or 8 of these little guys.. they all survived and are now living in our pond! The kids all ended up having fun and only the hubby came home fishless! He tried to be a good sport about it!! haha!



All three kiddos having a good time at their "favorite" new pond!

My little songbird!

This morning, Little J got to sing at the Grand Opening of a store here in town with his choir from school. It was alot of fun! Less than half the kids showed up to sing, but they had alot of fun, once the nervousness was over!!

Choir is the ONE thing that Little J has done on his own! He really HATED music class all the way up to 4th grade. Then, he decided he wanted to be in choir! I think it might have had something to do with the fact that it is 98% GIRLS and only 5 or 6 boys! haha!
He will have another few music events this year, which will be fun to see! We are hoping that he continues, as it gives him something that is just his, not shared with his brother!

My little helper!

I have to be the first to say that Miss O is a wonderful little helper! When she is given a job ot do, she goes all out! Her job last night was to clean up after dinner! I really just meant to wipe off the table... but ohhhhh no! She wiped off the table, the chairs, the bench, put things back in the fridge, took care of the napkins THEN swept the floor! AND... she was thrilled to do it! Love that little monkey!

Easter!

Well... there was not much fan fare this year for Easter! The Easter Bunny was out ill with the stomach flu! It took all the Easter Bunny's strength to get the eggs and baskets hidden! The kids really enjoyed hunting for their stuff! Fortunately, Big Al and Little J were helpful to their little sis in finding her stuff! She sure LOVES holidays!!!

Big Al turns 12

Hard to believe that we made it to 12!!! But, here we are! Happy Birthday Big Al!