January/February Update (It's Long)

It's the end of February and I'm finally able to make the time to get back online and update the blog. When you see how long this blog is, then you'll understand how busy we've been. I'm including a lot of photos just so you can actually picture what I'm talking about.Bella just had her first Spelling Bee on 02/22. She had to spell mom, dad, see, it, at, a, I just to name a few. She called up some friends & family and asked each person to sponsor her. She's so proud.
Lexie turned 4 on January 5th. She keeps insisting that she's 3 because if she turned 4, that would be that she's not little anymore. haha ...and I thought it was only adults who don't want to grow up.
Lauren is such a handful but now that she's talking up a storm, she's hilarious. She sings her ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star & Happy Birthday To You. They're all in her own versions but its pretty clear as to what she's singing. Even the tone/tune is right.
Brayden is back to normal. He gets the occasional cold but that's expected for this time of year and because he's more prone to it from the recent RSV case he had. In fact, we were rather surprised that he & I didn't get strep throat last week. Everyone else in the family did.


We've started Lauren with some chores. She's in charge of mowing the lawn, emptying the trash and mopping.
Lexie is in charge of vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the gutters and waxing th cars.
Brayden is obviously in charge of the laundry! haha

Lexie turns 4!

We didn't do a party on Lexie's birthday. The weather was bad and we also had to keep the family away from others while Brayden recovered from the RSV and got stronger. Instead, I took Lexie to the nail salon and had her get her fingernails and toes done. They painted them with little pink butterflies. She showed them off so proudly!
If you ask Bella what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll tell you "A MOMMY." Lauren is already practicing for motherhood. She takes her baby dolls and while I feed Brayden, she pulls up her shirt and sticks her baby on her boobie.
She even has the part down where she crosses her legs. Awhhhh!

In past blogs, you've seen how "devilish" my child has become. As with any of the photos in these clips, you can click on them and the real picture will enlarge. Lauren's face says it all. No comments needed.

We've hired Lisa Vasquez to watch the girls 3 days a week. On Mon/Wed/Fri, she watches the kids from 12:15 - 5pm. I get the chance to do my tax work, my eBay work and get my height challenged body to the gym to work on the exercises to make me taller and fit better with my current weight. ;-) Lisa has been watching the kids since Lexie was a baby. They sure love her and I completely trust her with my children! I'm probably one of the only people out there who doesn't mind in her friends or boyfriend come over and spend the time with her. She gets them involved with the kids and they just love the entire experience.

Brayden is now grabbing EVERYTHING, rolling over and even sitting up on his own. He makes it about 3 minutes or so and then teeters over. He's there though. He even took 2 bottles from Lisa at the end of February. That's wonderful! Now I know I can leave him for longer periods if I need to.

Lauren is doing great with her listening skills. We told her to get her fingers out of her nose - it's gross. Instead she puts her finger in her shirt and her shirt in her nose. Technically, she's following our instructions just as we asked. haha

Lauren is also working on using the bathroom by herself. We have to check the little plastic potty often since we find it full of "tinkle" every day. She's very private and doesn't tell us she's going to the bathroom. We should know from the quietness upstairs that she is doing exactly that.

On January 19th, we threw Lexie her 4th Birthday Party. We had perfect weather. At 11am the party started and the 17 kids that came played in the jump house for hours and hours and hours. They came out to each pizza and have drinks, destroy a pinata and to decorate butterfly, ladybug, dragonfly and bumble bee cakes with frosting and treats. At 5pm we actually asked the kids to come inside because it was getting chilly. - oh yeah, Laura needed to take her kids home too. They were the last ones here.Brayden enjoyed having Auntie Sissy hold him - as well as Grammy, Baka & a few others who wanted to keep Brady occupied.

Here's perky Me with my new hair-do (or should I say don't!). I cut off 10 1/2 inches and now it takes me more time to do my hair each morning than it did for me to go out on the town with long hair. Sigh! I only cut it off so that it wouldn't get tangled in Brayden's little fingers as much. I'LL NEVER DO SHORT HAIR AGAIN!

My two favorite men!Bella & Lexie play with Zachary & Jordyn and some neighbors in the jumphouse.

Here's the birthday girl. She had such a good birthday party!

When it comes down to it, although my kids might seem like little horrors, they are so sweet and loving - even to each other.

There Lauren goes again. Picking a good one for Mommy!

Now that's a Son of a Scrapbooker!

Brayden had his 4 month check-up in January. The doctor said that he didn't need to go onto rice cereal or real foods just yet since the Boobie Juice was doing just fine and he was gaining weight like a 6 month old!

I couldn't resist trying to give him some rice cereal. He wouldn't take a bottle from me and he wasn't too keen about the rice cereal either. Maybe I'll have to ask Lisa (the babysitter) to try the rice cereal since she was so good at giving him the bottle.

Most of January was crappy weather. However, when the weather was nice, it was extremely nice! Here are some nice photos of the girls taking their car out for a drive.

Lexie waves hi while Lauren adjusts the radio. (Yes, it has a real working radio.)

I think Lauren likes it better when Bella drives.

Nah, I think she likes it when all 3 girls get to pile in the car together.

Lexie gave bowling a try in February. He friend Olivia had a birthday party and it was at the Dublin Bowl. They had the special bumpers up on the lanes so the little ones could play and they had some bright - but light - balls for the kids to use.The balls were still a little too heavy to Lexie but she found a way to "roll" the ball down the lane.

Daddy helped Lauren color the picture but I didn't realize she asked for a self portrait!

Baka is trying to teach Lauren how to drink responsibly. She's doing such a good job.
LAUREN TURNED 2!

We didn't do a birthday party for Lauren since her friends are Bella & Lexie. Lauren's birthday was on February 14th so we had a special Valentine's Day/Birthday lunch.

Here are my Valentine's.

Lauren enjoys her birthday cupcake.

....a whole lot!

Bella is participating in the Science Fair Project this year at school. She doesn't have to but she seemed really excited so we came up with a great project for her. She planted 2 sets of plants. They will stay in full sun, partial sun and then no sun. We'll check them each week and at the end, we will put a project board together and do something really neat with all the photos for the Alameda County Fair.

Lauren just enjoyed the great weather and the ability to get dirty by putting her shovel in the mud!

On February 24th, Alyssa (who also had a birthday on Valentine's Day) celebrated her 5th birthday with a pony party. The weather was cold, windy and pouring down rain - until the pony rides. Each child (there were 17 or so) got to go out on one of the 2 ponies for a ride. During their ride, not a drop of rain fell. It was absolutely perfect!

Here's Alyssa, the birthday girl, on Strawberry the Pony.

Donna helped Lauren put on her helmet to ride the pony. I didn't get any photos of her but Milenko did get a lot of fun video of her riding the horse.

Lexie kept yelling "Weeeeee" throughout the entire pony ride. Again, I was a little occupied with Lauren so I missed all the great photo shots. Milenko has it all on video though.

Bella absolutely loved this horse!

Stacie (aka Dr. Doolittle) helped show Lauren how to feed the pony carrots. She was terrified of the pony but each time it at the carrots, she thought it was so hilarious!

Okay, now you're up-to-date on the Dugorepec house and what we've been doing.

Brayden is Doing Fantastic

THANK YOU!

Thank you everyone for all your sweet email messages and phone calls with concern for Brayden. The great news is that Brayden is doing fantastic. He went to doctor for a follow-up on Wednesday the 3rd and by that time, he was only doing nebulizer treatments as needed.

We asked him if he wanted to get shipped to Grammy's house. he got so excited. We just could find a box that fit him.

He is currently on one treatment a day and has on little coughing attack at night. Other than that, he's just a regular 3 1/2 month old again. :-) Now just to get him back to his normal sleeping routine, we'll be in business.

Brayden Ended The New Year in the Hospital

On Thursday Dec 27th, I brought Brayden into the doctor due to his horrible cough and trouble breathing. He went onto a Nebulizer and I had to give him breathing treatments at home every 4 hours. They diagnosed him with broncialitis and a possibility of RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus). The next day I took him in again because he didn't look too good and was having more trouble breathing. The doctor saw him in her office and gave him a treatment. She was on the cusp of hospitalizing him due to his strained breathing but let me test out the waters at home knowing I would bring him in if he got worse. An hour after I left the doctor, he was worse.

I took him into San Ramon Regional Medical Center. After waiting for 4 hours, being tested and having xrays in the ER, they diagnosed him with RSV. Good news is that my sister-in-law, Michelle, works in the ER and helped rush us through. It was very comforting to have her there the entire time.

Around 1am they transferred us to ICU. I won't go into the details of the crappy nurse I had when we first arrived but having only a few hours of sleep the night before didn't make my crabby butt nice to a nurse who wanted to keep me awake all night long. We did get a private room and this is because RSV is airborne and very contagious. I'll give the description in a different color below if you want to read about it:

“Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia among infants and children under 1 year of age. Illness begins most frequently with fever, runny nose, cough, and sometimes wheezing. During their first RSV infection, between 25% and 40% of infants and young children have signs or symptoms of bronchiolitis or pneumonia, and 0.5% to 2% require hospitalization. Most children recover from illness in 8 to 15 days. The majority of children hospitalized for RSV infection are under 6 months of age. RSV also causes repeated infections throughout life, usually associated with moderate-to-severe cold-like symptoms; however, severe lower respiratory tract disease may occur at any age, especially among the elderly or among those with compromised cardiac, pulmonary, or immune systems.”

(Click on this picture and take a look at his right eye.
You will see that he has a blue eye with a pie shape of brown splashed in the color.)

Day one was pretty touch and go. Brayden went onto oxygen and was watched like a hawk. His breathing was bad but the doctors predicted it would only get worse. They were right on the money. By Saturday evening, he had a temperature of 103. This was a little scary because they though he had caught pneumonia and this was the reason for the spike in temperature.

Sunday morning he was still at 103 and wasn't going down unless he had Tylenol and Motrin in his system. They decided to do a CBC (Complete Blood Count) to see if he had infection and put an IV in the top of his head to hydrate him due to all the throwing up he was doing. The CBC came back negative for pneumonia. (Phew!) The fever was just another part of the RSV and so it needed to be controlled with Tylenol.

Monday morning was a brand new morning and although his wheezing had stopped, he was having a light temperature and now throwing up. They ordered an xray to see if he had contracted pneumonia overnight and that came back negative.

Although Brayden has the flu (compliments of me) and RSV, they saw how on top of things I was with Brayden and how closely I monitored him and felt pretty safe in releasing us for New Years' Eve. We came home at 4pm this afternoon and Brayden's spent most of the time sleeping. He's been on the albuteral treatment every 4 horus and seems to be doing well now that he's home.

I'll update the blog in the next few days on his progress.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!