Our new addition

This is our new puppy Rusty. He is also a pit like our other dog Sandy. We heard the lady that had the puppies were giving them away for free and if there were no takers she was going to send them to the pound. I hear that when pits are sent to the pound they are considered useless and are put to sleep rather quickly without giving them a chance to find homes. We were only able to take one out of 9 puppies. He was the only brindle one they had and he's really pretty I think! Pit bulls are only how people raise them to be. Our Sandy has turned out to be the sweetest dog and such a big baby. We love her to pieces. So far Rusty has been really sweet.

XMas

First of all, the Brockwells had a very good Christmas. Our kids got so much stuff it looked like Toys-R-Us threw up in my living room! Coby's already talking about next year. I even lucked out this year, Tommy got me a new IPhone. This thing is awesome. I can email and facebook or even rent movies on it and of corse download music. It's also a touch screen!

Anywho, I have to put up some pics of our Christmas for all to enjoy! Also have a Happy New Year!

Birthday party

Today I had a birthday party for Gavin and Lexie. We got them this Santa cake from Wal-Mart. Ain't it cute? I almost had trouble cutting into him, but it was worth it! It was only a grandparent party thank goodness because with my big family I have a hard time getting everyone in my house. Anyway, the kids had a good time. Gavin got a shake and go airplane. He loved it! He also got some cars and a truck that makes lots of noise. Lexie got another baby doll and stroller. She loves that kind of stuff. She also got a purse with fake make-up and a brush and mirror. It also came with these sunglasses that you'll see her with in the pic. She put those things on and started posing! She was so cute. Tommy got called out to work at the last minute this past week. So he missed the party. That was really our only upset for the day. But he'll be home for Christmas and I guess that's what really matters.

Gingerbread house

Coby got to make this gingerbread house at school. He's such a little artist! I saw some other kids houses and they just threw candy on theirs but Coby took his time in placing all the little candies in their right spot. I liked how he put the candycanes together to make a heart. So creative!

Update on life

So I took Coby to see the new long term therapist on Friday. She asked me a lot of questions about Coby and how I discipline. First of all I was thinking what does this have to do with Coby paying attention? I told her I do time outs, I've taken things away like his bicycle, and he also gets spankings. When I said that she started shaking her head. Then I told her I also give rewards when he's good. For example, the last time I had to take Coby to the doctor I had to take all 3 of my kids. They were so good for me I couldn't believe it. I was expecting them to be running around and go crazy but they were so quiet and did what they were told, so I treated them to icecream before dinner. They liked that very much. I've tried giving Coby prizes like little toys from the dollar store and even Coby's grandma has tried telling him when he's good at school she would give him a quarter for every smiley face he brought home. Right now I can count how many smiley faces he's brought home. Which would be 7. Have of those were given from substitutes. Anyway, it all came down to the doctor telling me I'm not giving him enough postive reinforcement. I'm not to punish him when he's bad, but to enforce the good consequences for when he's good. I a little upset because ever since Tommy's been having to work out of town so much I feel like I'm two people. I'm having to be mommy and daddy and I just get so stressed out sometimes. I think the kids are just confused about who I am. I want to play with them and joke around with them but when I do that they think I'm playing all the time. Anyway, I have to take Coby to see the doctor every 3 weeks. I don't know how much longer I can do this. Only because of the money I have to spend and I can't get an appointment after school everytime. He's missed so much school already because of this.

Fieldtrip

I got to go with Coby on his first fieldtrip to the fairgrounds to see the Indians. It was called Touch the Earth. We got to see them dance and there was also a man there that was giving history on the way Indians hunted and also giving taught us how to say hello in 3 different Indian languages. But don't ask me because I don't remember how he said it. I know shame on me. We had a really good time. Coby got to shoot an arrow and he got to dance in a indian circle. He was so cute. There was also a man there showing off his birds. That was pretty neat to see them fly up and the guy even showed how the birds hunt by slinging a fake something at the end of a rope. The birds would dive down to get it. It was cool.

Doctor update

We did take Coby in to see a Doctor Rima. Right now she is only temporary. The first time we saw her she talked to me and Tommy to see what's going on with Coby at school and the second time I take Coby in, he'll see her by himself. After that she'll send us to a long term doctor. So far with what we told her and I brought all of Coby's school things with me to show her, which was some of his work and his report card and also teacher's notes. We told the doctor that we know Coby has a problem with attention span but it really hasn't affected home life and last year it didn't affect his school work. Coby went from an AB honor roll student, making straight A's last quarter of last year to making D's and C's. The teacher told me and Tommy that if she could just have Coby's attention, he'd be a C student. That really upset me and I wish I would've said something to her at the time but I was just so in shock that she'd even say that to my face I was speechless. We also brought that to the doctor's attention. Anyway, long story short, the doctor said that without knowing this teacher she didn't like her. She also said that it sounded like it was more the teacher than Coby. But there could be more to Coby's behavior as well. Anyway, he's going to see Dr. Rima again on Thursday and we'll go from there.

Circus

I almost forgot earlier in the month we went to the circus. It was a small circus but the kids really had fun. They got to ride and camel and Lexie got to ride a pony. But I didn't know she was going to ride a pony and I didn't get a picture of that. I was sad! But I did get the kids on the camel and then with one of the clowns. It was a good time.

October

I know it's been forever since I've written anything on here. There was something wrong with my computer because it wasn't uploading my pictures from my camera. Tommy figured it out and got it up and working again. Hooray!

Anywho, to get all updated here, first of all I have to start with Halloween. Our church has a trunk or treat where everyone sets up outside and gives out candy from their cars and before that we have a chilli cookoff. I'm proud to say that my husband won first place. He was so happy and I was so happy for him. He's the kind of person where he thinks nothing good will happen to him, so all day when he was cooking and until he won, he kept saying he was going to lose and he didn't even know why he was cooking. I really don't know why he was so caught up in losing but when he won he was so happy. He even got a certificate. I know and he knows it wasn't much, but I really think it meant a lot to him. I want to send a shout out to Mobile Ward for making Tommy feel accepted that night. On another note, I was really upset that I didn't get any good pics of our car or our family for that matter. Tommy and I even wore halloween shirts, I was a pumpkin and he was a skeleton. However, I did get pics of the kids. Coby was Indiana Jones, Gavin was Batman, and Lexie was Cinderella. They all turned out really cute and I know they had fun!

Teacher Conference

Well, Tommy and I went to go see Coby's teacher last Friday. Coby isn't doing so good. The teacher said that if she could just have his attention he'd do much better. Apparently while the teacher is going over work, Coby is off into space and when she says it's time to turn in the work, Coby rushes to put whatever down on his paper to just say that he did something. Most of the time she makes him redo it but by doing that it's holding him back from working forward with the rest of the class. The teacher also suggested that he might have ADD. Which I knew she would. I did get him an appointment with a doctor but I can't get him in there until Nov. 6th. It's a total bummer! If I can get Coby in there and get him checked out and if he is ADD, I'm hoping the doctor will have other alternatives for helping Coby get focused. Like if there is certain foods I should get him to eat before school or really anything other than medication. I don't believe in turning kids into zombies just so they are easier to deal with. Anyway, I'm still working with him and making him read more and giving him my own little spelling tests and I'm trying to think of any games I can do with him to help him focus. I was thinking of getting him some I spy games or something like that. Anywho, I think I'm just about to my witts end and I'm losing patience. I just really hope this doctor will have some answers for me.

Coby

Well, I took Coby to see his doctor and now I have to make an appointment to see another doctor for an evaluation. I guess I pretty much new that I'd have to take him to a specialist before we could really get him diagnosed. My pediatrician has a kid with ADHD and told me that Coby is showing signs of having it. But he didn't think it was that bad, but he could get worse when he gets older and I'll have the choice to put him on medication or he could just grow out of it. I hope he'll just grow out of it. What I think is weird, the doctor asked if ADHD ran in my family or in Tommy's and it doesn't. So if Coby has this where is he getting it from? The only relative I can think of that might've had it is my nephew, but I don't see how that would effect us. It's just all crazy to me. Also when the doctor was looking Coby over, Gavin of course had to get into all the action and was doing the same things Coby was doing, so the doctor told me that Gavin may be showing signs of it too. But I think that's just Gavin being jealous of Coby getting attention, so I'm not really all that concerned about that. The doctor did give me a tip though, he said that if you give a person with ADHD caffiene it will have the opposite effect then it would on a normal person. So I tried my own little experiment by giving him a coke when he got crazy and I think it kinda works. I've done it twice now and both times he did mellow out. He was still talking a lot but he wasn't bouncing off the walls like he normally does. So I don't know what to do right now but I was thinking of sending a coke with him to school to drink with his lunch. I just don't know how his teacher will react when I send him to school with that. We'll see what happens this week.

I don't know!

How do people keep up with these things? It's almost been 3 weeks since the hurricane and I haven't done anything or gone anywhere except to my parents house. So what's there to talk about? Tommy's been gone going on 3 weeks, first he was sent to Virgina and now he's in Jacksonville. Apparently they have new computer software that Tommy has to learn to help work on engines. Or something like that! So anyway, he's been gone for a while and won't be back until next week. We are all having daddy withdrawls!
For the past couple of weeks something great and wonderful has been happening around here. Lexie is potty training herself!!!! Isn't that great? She's been running into the bathroom and doing everything all by herself and doesn't really need my help. It's wonderful! So we're really proud of her and being diaper free is the most awesome feeling ever!
Today I'm having to take Coby and Lexie to the doctor. Lexie and Gavin got into my crochet stuff and found my scissors. Gavin cut Lexie's thumb pretty bad, although it's healing, I think very well, I'm having to take her to the doctor to make sure it will heal right. Coby is having to go to the doctor because as I said in one of my last posts, Coby is having a really hard time in school. His teacher is constantly sending notes home on how he can't stop talking, can't follow directions, and is not finishing his classwork. We just got a progress report on Monday and he got 2 A's and 2 D's in Reading and Science. We have a teacher conference next week because I don't know how or why he's getting these grades because I haven't received science work or projects so I don't know what's going on with that. Now with his reading, when he's at home with me he reads rather well. In fact, the other day for homework, he brought home a story about a fox named Dot. The teacher's directions were to read the story to your child and then have your child read it back to you. So I started reading the story and Coby took it out of my hands and read it all by himself without my help. We have Dr. Suess stories and he reads them just fine. So I'm not really sure why this is all happening with his teacher. So back to the doctor appt., Tommy and I have been thinking that because he can't do things at school because he gets really distracted easily and his teacher doesn't have any patience, so we're going to get the docs opinion about Coby possibly having ADHD and also Coby is having trouble writing a bit, like he's spelling things backwards and also misplacing sounds in words sometimes. His big problem is writing numbers backwards. He just can't remember he says. If he is diagnosed with any of these things, at least I'll know what to work on with him and his teacher. I hope she'll back off a bit if he is and I hope she doesn't expect me to put him on any medication because I don't believe in turning children into zombies. We'll see what the doctor says first......

Hurricane Gustav

Well, we got through another hurricane. I'm sure, to a lot of Mobile people, Gustav was just a bad storm. As for me and my family we live near the river here in Saraland so if it rains hard it usually floods. Our house is probably at the highest point of the neighborhood so we kind of have an advantage. We've been here 5 years now and we have yet to have water even come up in our yard, (knock on wood). Although it does flood at both ends of our road. So the night before the storm hit we stayed with my Grandmother-in-law just to be safe. The next day on Monday when the storm hit we got lots of rain and gusts of wind but it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. So that afternoon we decided to go home and just wait out the rest of the storm there. After we had made it home, that's when the water started to rise. We still felt pretty comfortable though because we still had our power. At exactly 6:30 pm we lost our power. The kids freaked a bit but we called the Power Company and they said that we'd have power back on in a couple of hours. So we went out on the porch and the kids decided they were going to play out in the rain. Our ditch finally filled up with just enough water for the kids to pretend it was a pool. They had the best fun. The Power Company didn't come through so we were forced to use our generator. It was alright because we had one lamp, our t.v., an A.C. unit, and our refrigerator working so we were good. As we were watching football Tommy had noticed some lights outside and ironically at that moment that he was saying something about it, his Grandmother called us to tell us our neighborhood was on the news and police and rescue trucks were sent in to evacuate people. Then I got a little freaked but Tommy got out to check on the water down the road and he said he could tell it was going down. So all was okay. We just had to go without power for 12 hours. But that's nothing compared to 2 weeks after Katrina! I feel very blessed that my family and I were protected in this storm and I'm grateful that the storm didn't come our way. I hate that it went to Louisiana but it has to go somewhere right? I hope everyone else got through the storm as well or better than we did.

Coby riding his bike

This past week we were lucky to have Tommy home with us. He goes out for a couple of weeks and he comes home for a week most of the time. Anywho, our neighbor came over and asked Tommy to fix his training wheels for him because they got bent. (By the way, they call Tommy "Mr. Fixit." Coby says Daddy can fix anything. I think that's really sweet.) So Tommy fixed the neighbors bike and thought he'd ask Coby if he wanted to take his training wheels off? Coby said he'd try it but if it didn't work then Tommy would have to put them back on. So Tommy took off the wheels and gave Coby a couple of pushes in the yard and Coby picked right up on it. He never fell and we were so proud of him. I just had to put up a video of him riding his bike without his training wheels. He was so happy but now he thinks he's Mr. Big Pants because he's not staying on our road like he's supposed to. We have a little park around the corner from where we live but it's right next door to this guys' house and I don't like Coby going down there by himself.
Our poor little neighbor is the same age as Coby and when he saw Coby riding he wanted to try it to. Tommy took off his wheels and pushed him in the yard a couple of times and he was doing good until his dad came out. His dad wouldn't let go of the bike and he was making his son really nervous. Needless to say we had to put his training wheels back on. I'm sure he get it soon.

School Time

Coby is in first grade now and already we're having a hard time. I'll explain...First of all most you mothers out there know how children are graded everyday at school for their behavior by green, yellow, or red. Well when Coby started kindergarden on the first day I went to pick him up and when he got into the car the first words out of his mouth were, "Mom, I got a yellow dot and that's ok!" At first, and of course, I chuckled, but I had to explain to him that being on yellow wasnt' so ok. It was better than being on red though. Even the first couple of months I think he only came home with 1 or 2 green dots. Although towards the end of the year he got better and was coming home with green dots everyday. I was proud! We had sorta a rough year but it got better. This year his teacher is grading behavior with either a happy face or sad face. There is no in between. So of course I was worried but on the first week of school he actually came home with happy faces. Then the second week out of nowhere he's come home with a sad face everyday. I've already had to take his bike away and cartoons. He's also started giving us a bad time at home by not wanting to get up in the mornings and homework is really bad. This past week he's had to do math homework and some vocabulary words that he learned last year. He doesn't want to write his answers down, he doesn't want to think on his own for the answer, and even when he's given the answer he forgets how to do the next problem. He's also reading things and writing things backwards. I don't know if there's something wrong with him or if it's just him being lazy. My husband is convinced that there is something wrong. But my husband always thinks the worst first and I'm the opposite. I think that he's just being lazy and I'm losing patience and we got such a long way to go. I love my little Coby to pieces and I know he's a smart boy and he's very creative and energetic I just didn't think a little 6 year old would be acting like this. Shouldn't he be excited to go to school and play with friends and color. It shouldn't be this hard. Anyway, maybe it'll get better. Only time will tell....