JULY 2008 UPDATE

More heat for California. Then again, we are in California so what do you expect?

Lauren

Sunkissed Lexie

Bella is such a ham when you ask for a smile!

Mr. Bubbles is always ready to smile.

I never seem to get enough pictures of our babysitter Lisa. She has been working for us for the past 3-4 years and is the absolute best thing. We'd never have anyone else watch the kids after having her as our sitter. She's earned our trust and the kids love. We are completely comfortable letting her do anything she wants. She takes the kids to the park in my car, she has friends over, she has her boyfriend over (who we also adore) and all the stuff that normal babysitters don't do. Lisa's not just a normal babysitter to us, she's family! She works 3 days a week during the summer and then goes to college during the school year. We're going to miss her so much once school starts!

Bella helps Lauren in the pool. These two are pretty close. However, put Lexie & Lauren in the same vicinity and within minutes they'll be in a fight!

Brayden loves the water.

Water babies!

We had planned to go watch the fireworks this year in San Ramon but after a long day of doing chores and other things, we decided to take it to our court and light off the fireworks. We did go to Grandpa Jack & Grandma Diane's house (my best friend Donna's parents) for a BBQ dinner but didn't go to the park after. Instead we put the seats down in the van and put the kids in the back of the van with blankets. They were snug as bugs and it was perfect for viewing the fireworks.

Mommy & Brayden hang out on the lawn while Daddy lights the fireworks.

Hi Dad!

Daddy lighting the fireworks!

Yes, we dressed Brayden up with a girlie hat and took pictures of him with it on. Grammy calls it a doo-rag. Milenko calls it stupid! Anyway, thought I'd include this picture of Brayden for 3 reasons: #1, he's so stinkin' cute; #2, if he ever becomes gay then we can tell him he had these tendencies from when he was an infant; #3 BLACKMAIL!

He's so cute - even if he's a boy!

Dave & Michelle (Debbie's brother & sister-in-law) went on a Mexican Cruise. Since they don't do this kind of stuff that often, I thought I'd post one of their pictures while they were all dressed up. Dave looks so handsome and as alway, Michelle is just a beautiful as ever.

Family of 5 and counting..... 10 weeks to go!

Okay, this picture is for those who are just so anxious to see what I really look like pregnant. Not much different in the past 5 years as this is what I've normally looked like. Skinny isn't an option until this kid pops out. Then I can try to regain that "old" body I used to have. Before Lauren, before Lexie, before Bella. Sigh! I don't even want to think about diet!

We have less than 10 weeks to go. It's not that bad being hot out here in California. I'm usually in the house or in the pool. However, wearing a bra is almost impossible. It's along the lines of tennis players wearing those bands on their heads and wrists - the bra for me is just a sweat catcher. Seriously!


JUNE 2007
Now for the cute stuff. I've been pretty bad at taking the camera out and snapping loads of pictures of the girls. Milenko's been better at it but it's with the camera phone and the pictures suck. Here are a few ADORABLE pictures of the girls in June when the weather just started to heat up.

You can click on any of the pictures and a larger one will pop up. Easier to see the cute little rascals!

Lauren above in pink. She's now 18 months old.

Lexie above with the crystal blue eyes. She's 3-1/2 now.

Bella above with the infectious smile. She will be 5 in November and starting Kindergarten in just a few weeks!

JULY 2007
We stayed home for 4th of July. It was pretty hot out here. At 9pm at night we were all in our shorts and sandals with the temperature being in the 80's. It didn't cool down much more that night but we had to sleep with the windows shut to avoid all the loud fireworks. Bella is comforting Lauren in the picture above. Both of them were scared to death of the loud fireworks. I think this is Bella's "fake" smile as she was pretty scared!

Lexie couldn't care how big the fireworks were, how loud they were or how small they were. She was just into the moment of dancing all over the place and doing her patriotic cheerleading. She was pretty much glue with her head held high as the fireworks shot out. We had a great view from our front lawn of everything as Dublin is one of the towns that will allow fireworks. It doesn't allow most everything that was shot off but there was so much of that stuff in Dublin that there was no way to go after everyone doing illegal stuff.

Here's one that was just over the house.

Lauren was okay with the lights and even the softer sounding fireworks. As long as Mommy or Daddy was nearby to hold her close.

As most of you know, Donna's been my best friend since we were 15 years old. We were pregnant with our first born daughters at the same time too. Donna's now only a week away from giving birth to little Ryan Matthew. Here's a cute picture of Donna holding Alyssa (almsot 4-1/2) and me gleaming above at her baby shower. It was so HOT and we were outside on the patio of Casa Orozco. Talk about heat wave. We both went home after the shower and jumped in our pools to cool off. I think it was 96 degrees at 2pm when I left the shower.

Daddy's teaching Lauren to eat ribs. I don't know but I think she likes them!