Thursday, June 15

Can't Slow Down - We Just Keep Going....

It's been a little over 3 weeks since we last got on the Blog and told you about our life. There are a bunch of new things that have happened since then so let me see if I can remember them all and tell you about them.

The Croatian Extravaganza - June 10th
We went up to Sacramento for the annual Extravaganza and had a really nice time. We were expecting the weather to be hot, humid and very uncomfortable but it was great. In the late afternoon some cloud cover came and cooled things down just a little to make it enjoyable.

As usual, the food and drink are always in abundance and the food is so good. With all the different choices of Croatian style food, it's only a matter of time before we get some good Croatian restaurants out in our area!

The live music is always fun to listen to. They start off the ceremonies with the US and then the Croatian anthems and then a few dozen kids come out in the traditional Croatian outfits and perform some old style Croatian dancing. Bella liked to watch that. However, she found dancing with Teta Visjna (Aunty Sherry) much more fun. Lexie also loved dancing with Viktor. She holds a special place in her heart for him!

There was a jump house - actually, there were two jumphouses and a slide for the kids to play on. Bella was constantly getting Baka or Deda (Milenko's parents) to take her to the jump houses. Eventually Milenko and I took them on a round too. It was nice to have some extra helping hands though.

Lauren was just content with Baka holding her. She also warmed up very nicely to Teta Visjna. Every time that Visjna held Lauren, she fell asleep. She was extremely comfortable with her.

Later that night we went to Baka & Deda's room to say goodnight and Bella coerced us into letting her spend the night in their room. She slept with Teta Jasna (Milenko's sister) in one bed while Baka & Deda were in the other. This was Bella's first sleepover. Lucky for Bella - Lexie kept us awake in our room until 3:30am because she was whining and crying. She didn't do well staying away from home.


Crop Street Cafe is FINALLY Open

On June 1st, Crop
Street Cafe went live as an online Scrapbooking and Stamping business. With all the things I had to do to get this business off the ground, I never thought we would get there. I spent about a week designing and implementing the website and then I hired a "professional" to help me install a shopping cart so that people could order off my website. Boy, was that ever a mistake! He was a professional alright, a professional pain in the ass! He screwed up so much stuff on my website that I ended up just doing the entire thing by myself. It doesn't look as professional as I would like it to, but at least it's up and running. I'm already getting orders so I must be doing something right. Once the website starts hopping, I'll actually put some money into advertising and even having the website re-designed.

Check it out - it's www.cropstreetcafe.com.




New Stuff With the Kids
Bella is completely potty trained! Yea!! No more diapers! One down, two to go!

Bella just finished her first year of preschool. Her last day in preschool was actually in May. She very sad that it's over because she's just now getting used to the teachers. She's excited to go next year because she's getting "new" teachers.

Bella learned how to lie. This one is a fun one! She obviously lies because she doesn't want to get into trouble but it's so hard to get her out of doing it. We've eased up a little on punishing the girls so that they aren't afraid of consequences as much. All in hopes that the lying will stop. (I need to go to Laura's parenting classes to find out what to do about this one!)

Bella is actually spending the night at Baka & Deda's house tonight. This is her first official sleepover. She packed her suitcase and Baka came to pick her up. I can't imagine what she'll do over there but I know she'll have a blast.

Lexie is growing by leaps and bounds. She still acts possessed at times but not as often as she used to. She does get this deep growling voice that even sounds as if she's possessed. It's kinda' scary because neither Milenko or I can do anything to calm her down when she get's all stirred up.

Lexie is speaking in complete sentences. Every meal is started with a prayer that Bella learned in school. Lexie's little voice is getting louder each time as she repeats "GOD BE WITH ME ALL THROUGH THE DAY, STAY CLOSE BY MY SIDE IN WORK AND IN PLAY. AMEN." Of course the AMEN part is being screamed at the top of her lungs. She says the entire prayer though and we're so proud of her.

Lauren went to the doctor in May and they told her that she was in the 95th percentile. At 3 months old, she was the size of a 4 1/2 month old. She's looking more and more like the Michelin man to me. hahaha

Lauren also got her ears pierced by the pediatrician at the last appointment. She looks so "girly" now.

That's about it from our household. Maybe we'll post something new after Father's Day in case anything interesting happens.