JUNE 2008 UPDATE

Crap! I didn't think I was that flaky until I see the late post was for April. Oh well. Let me catch up now. The first big news of June 2008 was the extreme heat wave we had. We spent each afternoon and all weekend in the pool. We put Brayden in the little pool in the front yard during the hot morning hours. It was easier than trying to take everyone in the big pool and holding all of them at the same time!

Lauren plays a little peek-a-boo at poolside in the backyard.

Bella goofs off with the inner-rube.

Lexie tans so fast. Not as fast as Brayden, but here's her tan from a week long of swimming.

My cutie-patootie!

For the last day of school, Bella gave her teacher, Mrs. Moirao, a handmade recipe book. Mommy spent the entire evening the night before creating this cute little book. Thank goodness her teacher loves to cook!Close up of the finished product.

Bella accepts her Kindergarten graduation certificate and Recognition for being an outstanding helper throughout the year from her Principal at Fredericksen Elem.
Showing off her "papers" as she goes back to her seat.

Is that the Princess wave of what?

The next week we headed to Sacramento for the Croatian Extravaganza. Bella & Lauren stayed at Michelle & Dave's house for the day while Lexie & Brayden went with us.

Bake and Brayden

Lexie just glows.... Oh yeah, it's like 105 degrees outside!

Debbie's favorite boyfriend!

Milenko's favorite wife!

Jasna & Tom show off a cute smile.

Kristina & Steve goof off with Lexie.

Melissa & Adam came to celebration the Extravaganza this year!

Baka and Deda - doing their favorite thing in the world - dancing together.

Lexie and Tete Sherry. Lexie absolutely adored her Teta (Aunt) - soon to be Kuma (godmother)

Milenko celebrates his 5th Father's Day with his favorite girls!

Our family headed over to Baka & Deda's house to celebrate Father's Day. We had a BBQ and were joined by Kum & Kuma (Godparents Anita & Dusan).

The ever so loving picture of the kids posing for a great Father's Day photo.

Kum & Kuma giggle at the kids as they dance with Deda (grandfather).

Milenko and his Kum (godfather) Dusan.

Princess Lexie

Beautiful Bella

Lovely Lauren

Debbie and her favorite son!

On June 21st, we participated in Relay for Life, a walk for cancer. Bella & Lexie registered to walk with me this year. Their shirts were a little too big for them though.

Clockwise: Debbie, Lexie, Bella & Brayden

That evening was Luminaria. It's a picture slideshow outside that is broadcasted on a huge screen so that everyone can see. It highlights the walk , the cancer survivors and dedicates the entire event to those who have passed on. Here's our favorite neighbor Meena and her pup, Frank the Tank. (We call him Tank.) Hanging out with the Larsen and the Satariano families to watch Luminaria and the fireworks display afterwards. If you highlight the picture you'll see how much fun Brayden is having.... NOT! Poor Laura!

October & November Updates - Better late than never!

OCTOBER

Guess we're a little late in getting everything posted online. Must be the fact that raising 4 kids isn't quite as easy as it looks. What's hilarious is all the people who don't know me that well that say "Wow, you're a super Mom!" This is when they see me at 8am in the morning dropping off the kids on a day that I have to go somewhere and have the make-up and hair done. It's the other days that they never comment because I look like a train just ran me over. It must also be a day that I'm not yelling at Lauren to sit down, Lexie to buckle her seatbeat and Brayden must have dozed off in the back seat. If they only knew....

Here was one of Lauren's last days of enjoying the great summer weather back in October. We had a pretty warm October - definitely a "California" summer.Lauren is just testing out the water in the bathroom. She loves the fact that her sisters do it and she tries to mimic everything. She has the flushing toilets down as well as a pretty good handle on the toilet paper. In fact, her handle is a little more than we'd like as we've had a few clogged toilets recently.

In October, we headed to the pumpkin patch. The kids and I went with Donna and her kids. We needed some festive photos for the scrapbook albums. We didn't feel like heading out to Joan Farm so we went locally to one of the pumpkin patches in Pleasanton. This particular patch had pony rides and of course....that's where all the girls went....straight to the ponies.

Bella puts on the riding helmet and takes the pony for a ride.

Here is Lexie having a riot on this pony. You can click on the photo to enlarge it and see how big that smile really is.
Here's a cute one of Alyssa on the pony too. It was fun to get Bella, Lexie & Alyssa on the ponies at the same time but hard to focus on just one child as their smiles were all so big!
IAs you can see, Ryan is growing by leaps and bounds. Alyssa holds her 3 month old brother in this photo. He sure is an angel.
Here's a candid shot of Bella that I snuck in while I was trying to get a good photo of Brayden. It looks posed but it's really a candid shot.
This one isn't as candid. Bella and Lexie however choose this pose on their own.

Bella's loving every minute of Kindergarten. She was one of the Princesses from Shrek for Halloween. It was the only costume I could find with long sleeves for the cold Halloween parade at school.

Our very dainty princess.
Lexie dressed up too. She was (in her words) a Hello Kitty Blue Butterfly Fairy.
For Halloween, Lauren was a cow. Ironic that she's stuck with cows milk in her mouth just before going out trick or treating. haha
Here are Lexie and Bella trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.
We always walk down to my friend Laura's house. We were fortunate to run into them and get a photo with all the kids.
(L to R:) Bella, Jordyn, Lauren, Lauren, Adam, Lexie & Zachary.
Since it was a little cold, Lauren and I headed home with Brayden. While I was getting him out of the stroller, Lauren snuck into her candy bag filled with chocolate.

NEED I SAY MORE.....?

At the end of October (25, 26, 27. 28th), I co-hosted a Scrapbooking Retreat at Camp Hammer with my friend Cindy Bryson. It was a blast. Camp Hammer is a Christian retreat camp up in the Santa Cruz mountains. We had 100 participants this year and we did our scrapbooking for 4 days straight. I actually completed 43 scrapbook pages over the weekend. Pretty good for a mom with a 6 week old. Donna and I brought the babies with us and stayed up at the front with them and with our friends Laura & Kris. I have another blog that I created just for Camp Hammer attendees... here are the photos and all the details about our great weekend: http://croptoberfest.blogspot.com

NOVEMBER

Well our little girl is growing up so fast. Bella turned 5 on the 4th of November. On her actual birthday (below), our family went to Hana Japan (like Benny Hanas) with Donna & her family, Grammy Charlotte, Bake & Deda, and Kum & Kuma. After dinner at the restaurant that make dinner at your table, we went home for cake and presents. It was a quite little party at home but a lot of fun for Bella.

(L to R:) Lauren, Bella, Alyssa & Lexie

For Bella's actual birthday we had a big party. 17 of her friends showed up to help celebrate by jumping their hearts out in the jump house, decorating their own cupcake/birthdays cakes and eating as much pizza as they could. The party started at 11am and we found ourselves bringing the kids in at 5pm from playing all day. (What a tantrum that caused....) Bella had a bunch of friends from Kindergarten, her old pre-school and her everyday friends that she's know for years.

Yes, the queen of photographing her children is lacking in her duties. I take very little pictures these days. Hmmm? I wonder why?? I have a ton of photos on my cell phone but they look like crap. I'll have to upload them one of these days. :) haha

Here's a cute photo of Brayden in the beginning of November. He's starting to smile and he's getting such a great personality. Not only is he still a very mellow baby, he wakes up smiling and giggles mostly at Lexie when she plays with him. If all the kids were like this - and most importantly - stayed like this.... we'd still be having more children.