Riding a bike is HARD!

Two weeks ago, we took off the training wheels on Miss O's Barbie bike... needless to say, she has NOT been happy about it! She is so very close to just taking off on her own.... But, she has a really stubborn streak! Yesterday, while we were outside, we worked with her a bit on trying to balance... it ended up being alot of crying (without tears!) and begging for us to "help" her... which basically means just hang on to her to whole time!
It's funny, because she is pretty fearless... we just think she soaks up the extra attention! Hopefully, she will be off and terrorizing her brothers on two wheels soon enough!

Spring Rocket season

Every spring, before the wind starts to howl... the hubby and the kids pull out all the rockets! Since the dogs have finally learned to NOT chew them up when they land, the rockets have lasted alot longer! Yesterday, Miss O was brave enough to hit the launch button! Since it was such a beautiful day, it was hard NOT to enjoy some springtime activities!

Our newest additions!

Meet Spots, otherwise known as BOTS to Miss O... who decided to name him!



This is JJ... named after Little J!



And this is Poppy, also named by Miss O....

We got our spring batch of calves today! And man are they cute!

Dr. Jekyl

For his birthday last week, Little J got another wonderful science kit! Thank God for the Smithsonian Science kits!! He is trying to grow some crystals! He sure does love science!

Wow - Turned Double Digits!

Our little baby boy is not so little any more! Today, he turned TEN... that's right 10!!
I love to look back at the pictures and see how much he has really changed!

Happy Birthday Little J!!!

Oh yes she did!!!

She did! Miss O lost her first tooth today!!! I can hardly believe it!

How was our weekend? Hmmmmmm

We decided to go to Disney Land for the weekend! It was sort of a quick decision trip... we planned about a week ago, with out the kids knowledge!
We spent Saturday night in Seattle, just hanging out... then at dinner asked them what they wanted to do tomorrow. Since we did not like any of their ideas.. we decided to tell them! They were SHOCKED!

We jumped on a plane early Sunday morning to Anaheim. Spent Sunday thru Tuesday at Disney, then flew home Wednesday! We did get loads and loads of rain... but we had a great time anyways!

Photos from the weekend!

Not the best news... but news none-the-less

Today, Big Al's doctor at Children's Hospital called us with the results of last weeks growth hormone testing. The doc was upbeat and excited about the results... I was not.
Apparently, they wanted to see Big Al have a hormone level of 10 (10 of what - I can't remember!) his came in at 21.. which was DOUBLE the norm. This was exciting for the doc because it ruled out the fact that his body did not produce enough growth hormone. Unfortunately though, it does not explain WHY he is not growing!
So, the doctor does not want to see him for another 3 months. She is counting on the fact that he will grow a significant amount (for him) in that time period... then she can just say he had a delayed spurt..... In my heart, I know that this is not the case, but at this point, I am so tired.... When I asked her what should we do until the next appointment, she said to keep doing everything that we have been doing for the last 6 months!
Her response about killed me! I don't believe that I have the mental or physical stamina to keep after this kid for another three months.. I'm worn out! I am tired of requiring him to finish his meals.. to count the calories, fat and proteins in everything he eats, to keep bugging his teachers to make sure he eats his snacks... all these things just chew away at my patience! It may not seem like it is a big deal to most people... but when you have to deal with the numerous other challenges that Big Al has, it takes its toll.
For the first time in a long while, I just sat down and cried out of sheer frustration and emotional stress. We have so many things to figure out with Big Al, I just wanted something to come out with an answer for us.. just one thing to help clear the clouds for once. Apparently, this one is going to stay on the stove for awhile. How many burners can a stove have anyways??

The growth hormone test

We completed the growth hormone test for Big Al on Thursday.... things went fairly well.. he was fighting the sleepiness of the medications for the first hour - which concerned the nurse, as they were worried that his blood pressure was not in the correct range. During the last part of the test, his blood sugar had to be tested every 15 minutes to make sure his blood sugar did not drop too low. His blood sugar had the opposite effect - it went up pretty high. Also, during the last part of the test, his blood pressure dropped really low - to the point where they had to wake him up and have him move around a bit.
We were able to head home in the afternoon. Big Al slept pretty much the whole way home. He was a bit groggy and tired - which was an AWESOME change! Maybe they could just give him that set of meds and we would be set each day!! haha!

We are hoping to find out the results in the next week..which will be interesting to say the least!

The Science Experiment

Little J got a science kit from Santa this year... it had lots of neat little experiments to try... His first one was an exploding volcano... the results of the "lava" were not quite as spectacular as he would have liked - but he enjoyed it all the same!!

Our Holidays 2009

This year, our Holiday season has been one of being busy and as usual, stressful! The last few months have been beyond challenging dealing with some major behavioral challenges with Big Al, some major hurdles leaped with Little J, and of course a certain sweet little someone whose vocabulary has increased by leaps and bounds!

As much as I would like to say it was a nice holiday... it was not, for any of us. Unfortunately, certain behaviors with kids don't take a holiday!! Now THAT would be a nice GIFT, a day or a holiday without our kids acting out! haha

We spent much of the last month clearing out our guest/storage room, moving Miss O out of her room, moving Little J into Miss O's old room, etc... we are still getting bits and pieces moved and settled. NOT an easy task! We have been trying to get Miss O acclimated in her new room, which is not going too well... she misses her old room!!

We have hoped that some things would have settled themselves out over the Holiday break from school... but needless to say... more ugly situations have popped up instead! grrrrr! We are making some drastic changes in 2010, and keeping our fingers crossed that some success will come out of it!!

Christmas Pictures

Happy Birthday Miss O!!!

Hard to believe that our sweet little Miss O turned FIVE today! Seems like just yesterday she turned three! Happy Birthday sweet baby girl!

The Holiday Concert!

Tonight, Little J had his Holiday Concert. Since he is in 4th grade, I will only have to suffer ONE more year of the "older kids" concerts for a few years! I have to admit that while most of the concert SUCKED and was hard on the ears (putting it mildly) - the choir did really well! Little J is one of 5 boys in choir... I think he likes being in choir as he gets lots of attention from the girls!

In this picture, his wonderful little sister is showing him how to "pose" just right to have his picture taken!

Thanksgiving

I guess the one great thing I can say about Thanksgiving, is that I am thankful it is OVER! While our Turkey day was great, and the day after was pretty good - the weekend portion was just flat awful.

We did have a tiny amount of snow right before the big day - and the kids made this cute little snowperson!

2 steps forward, 6 steps back

This last week plus has been longer than I can imagine! I was doing so well with more frequent posts! Unfortunately, I have had to spend alot of time online to look for help with the oldie-but goodies behavior challenges! The rest of this post is a bit rant-y and probably grammatically bad... read ahead if you dare!

The last week has been alot of communication going on regarding Big Al and his IEP. If you have been following along, you will have already known that Big Al is not quite one of those people who compete in "all you can eat" type contests!
We have still not finished his final IEP. I found out today that his reading score actually DROPPED this year. That means that he had ZERO progress in reading in the last six months. These test scores were just made available to me in an email. Needless to say - I am very disenchanted with his "program" right now.
That test shows that his level and comprehension of reading has actually decreased since he was tested in the spring. In the real world, it means that somewhere along the line, some of the things he had "learned" have actually disappeared.
So, that was the first kicker!
The other kicker stems from Friday. I found out that Big Al was NOT taking his required snack to his teacher and eating it in class. Of course, his teacher did not let me know this... I had to ask her! This coming from a teacher who has been spouting off that "nutrition is so vital to learning"! HA - not funny haha, just a very sarcastic HA to that!

I thought things were going well... I guess I "wanted to believe" that for once, things were going well. Again, I was truly disappointed in not only the "system", but also my son, who has continued to lie to me and others about tossing his lunch versus eating. I know that I "should" say that I am disappointed in Big Al's choice and behavior, but quite frankly I am just disappointed in HIM. This is a really important time in his life, and though he has had all the information, the motivation, the consequences and the benefits put in front of him, he has chosen to do things "his" way! I know that about 80% of this is his own way of "in your face, Mom!" kinda thing that he is doing passively... but it just chaps my hide knowing that in the end, the person who will be hurt the most from his actions and choices is him!
There have been about five major challenges we have had with him in the last week. All of which stem from his "crappy choices". One was lying about getting detention, two was not coming home after school, lying about why and then being difficult, three was trying to (yet again) give away money to "friends for hire" at school, four for lying about his PE clothes and to a few different teachers in one day, five for getting in trouble for trying to flush some other kid down the toilet, six for lying about his snacks and lunches to me and his teacher... whoops... guess that is more than five, and the list is so much longer.
So, has this week been any different than previous weeks? Nope... I think that he is just getting caught more! I can only say that it is mentally exhausting, physically stressful and socially embarassing to have all this go on within a very short period of time.
Seriously, I am doing alot of searches for boarding schools online! If you have a good suggestion... PLEASE share!

Friendly Friday

I took a few pictures outside this week while the sun was out... a rarity lately! I wanted to make sure to blog a bit about Miss O and her special talent!

We call her the "cow whisperer"! Miss O has always loved the cows! She is the only one who will run out the field and just hang out with them and talk to them. They will follow her around and are amazingly gentle with her, unlike me, whom they like to use as a scratching post and try to knock down! She does have a favorite, who is Bambi. Here she is above with her "dest diend Bambi". She loves to talk about her best friend! Bambi was the one little calf we thought was going to die on us in the spring... he has recovered nicely, but has not grown quite like the others! He is very gentle and loving, will walk to Miss O when he sees her anywhere in the field, and tolerates ALOT of brushing and talking to!

I'm sure in a few months, she'll lose interest, or Bambi will.. so for now, I'll just savor their sweet little friendship!

A great school conference!

I am slowly catching up with some of the events that have gone on this week.... long sigh... as it has been busy!
Today (Friday) Little J and I went to his school conference. I was thrilled to hear and see how well he was doing! His school does a rating system of 1-4 .. 4 being the best. For the first time in his elementary career, he earned a 4 in music! What is so shocking about it is that for years, he and the music teacher have rarely seen eye to eye!
His math scores were in the top 15%, which was surprising good too! His teacher said he thought Little J had intentionally botched a computer based reading test.. which brought his reading level down considerably. I had to agree, as the score was insanely low!

It made for a great couple of hours!

The other IEP meeting

Monday, we had the annual IEP meeting for Miss O... it went well! I was actually really concerned that she had exceeded her goals by so much that she would no longer qualify for her preschool!
Luckily. she gets to receive services until the end of the school year! She is now testing on the moderately low range of the speech charts.. where as before, she was not on the speech chart for her age. THAT is good news! She still has a few minor developmental things to overcome, but those should be pretty easy! Her teachers REALLY love her (who wouldn't!) and I truly think they wanted to keep her until the end of the school year in June, that is why they rated her a little low! haha - but of course "I" am biased!
I was thankful to hear that she will still qualify for some services when she starts Kindergarten in (oh my God!) 10 months! She will be getting a full 3 year evaluation in the spring to check her speech again and they will go from there.

What a relief! At least one out of two is on track!