WELCOME TO THE FAMILY BRAYDEN!

Brayden Milenko Dugorepec is finally here.

Brayden arrived a little early too. His expected delivery was calculated for September 26th. He was born on Wedesday, September 12, 2007 at 12:39am. You can click on any picture (I believe) and it will enlarge the photo for you.Brayden weighed in at 7.5 lbs. and was 19-1/4 inches long.
He was born with a head of dark brown hair - just like Mommy.

Just as excited when Lexie and Lauren were born, Bella (above) is all smiles while she holds her little brother. She is very gentle with him and always asks to hold the baby.Lexie didn't quite warm up to Lauren when she was born. Probably because she was upset with the fact that Lauren was getting more attention to her. However, this time around she is very happy to be a big sister (above). Although she keeps calling the baby "Ryan" (my best friend Donna named her newborn son Ryan and Lexie keeps thinking that's our baby's name too), she's starting to refer to him as Mr. Brayden. She will even correct me if I call him something other than "Mr. Brayden." Very funny and cute.
Now Lauren (above) is very interested in this baby. She knows that she has to be gentle with Brayden and that she has to be a little quieter. That doesn't mean anything to an 18 month old though. Lauren loves to hold and kiss the baby. She will wake up in the morning and search for Brayden in hopes to kiss him and laugh at the fact that she just gave "Baby" a kiss. If another member of the family holds the baby, she must hold him too. Yes, she's also EXTREMELY jealous of the baby. She does like to hit the baby in the face and if we say NO, she'll kick the baby. Nothing serious yet but we're trying to nip it in the bud before it even starts.

Daddy is very proud to have his "SON." Although he has been catering to the girls and their every need, it's only a matter of time before he gets to finally sit down and enjoy one-on-one time with the newest member of the family.

Sorry there are no pictures of me in this blog. Take a wild guess who always had the camera. The few pictures of me that turned out were Milenko's "candid" shots of me making completely stupid faces or they were so blurry that you don't even know who is in the photo. He thinks that candid is better than just a nice smile. Thank Goodness he doesn't scrapbook with me! I'd never look at the albums!!

This is just the short version of Brayden's entry into the world. I'll post the WHOLE story and more pictures on the other Blog. Just click here: BABY NEWS or on the Baby News link on the upper right of this page. It will take you to our other blog.

LEXIE'S 1ST DAY AT PRESCHOOL

Okay, it may not be Lexie's first time in preschool, but it's her first day this year and she is just on Cloud 9. After watching Bella go to Kindergarten for the past 2 weeks, school is all that Lexie can think about.Daddy and Mommy both took Lexie to school today (of course with the assistance of Lauren too). Milenko was able to capture her morning on video tape while I tried to operate the regular camera. Lexie is in Mrs. Z and Mrs. Terry's class this year. It's very exciting for her since these were Bella's teachers when she was in the 3 year old class. The teachers always treated Lexie so well and she certainly remembers these teachers for that reason.
Each morning, the kids start off in a circle and have morning prayer. (It's a Luthern preschool.) On the first day of class, Daddy was able to sit in the circle with Lexie. After this though, it's kiss Mommy or Daddy good-bye and have circle time by yourself. She's used to this since she did it so well in her 2 year old class last year. Another bonus is that we say the same prayer at each mealtime that Lexie says each morning in school. She's one of the classmates who can say that prayer all by herself. :)
After things settled down, we were able to interview Lexie's little sister, Lauren. We asked her thoughts on what she thought of Lexie going to preschool. She replied "Blah ah oh ah blah." Although the smile is the best translation, it really means "Cool, I get Mommy all to myself and I don't have to share with anyone."

Needless to say, she doesn't understand that Baby is on the way. :)

BELLA STARTS KINDERGARTEN!

OUR "KINNYGARDENER"

Well, today was the first day of school for our first born! Bella started Kindergarten at Fredericksen Elementary in Dublin. Her teacher is Mrs. Moirao and from what I've seen, she's an absolutely pleasure! Big Disney fan too!

Bella has the early bird schedule so she gets to go to school from 8:30 - 12:15 every day. She was so excited as she grabbed her new Tinkerbell backpack and her Bratz lunchbox and got ready for school this morning.
When we walked into the classroom the first thing that the teacher pointed out was her cubby hole and her new seat. She's changing all the names on everything so they say Bella instead of Isabella. (We only call her that when she gets in trouble!)
There are 20 kids in the class and 19 of the 20 showed up today. That's a pretty large class of 4-5 year olds for one teacher! I've gotta' hand it to ANYONE who has that much patience.
Daddy video taped the whole thing while I was snapping as many pictures as possible. With Lauren and Lexie in tow, it was a little difficult to get all the good shots in. In fact, we had to give Lexie a backpack and lunchbag too so she didn't feel left out. It was very cute how she wanted to be like her big sister.

Daddy took off the morning for this event and we went out to breakfast to treat Lexie and Lauren to some special one-on-one time. Boy, it sure feels different when there are only 2 kids in tow. How on earth are we going to manage with 4 kids? We'll find out in 3 weeks!

P.S. No, we didn't cry. I think that sending Bella to preschool for the first time was the hardest on me. I bawled my head off that day. This was a day like any other - and Bella made it easy as she said "Bye Mommy, Bye Daddy" and went back to coloring.

Meet the Dentist

The Dugorepec Family goes to the Dentist.

July 31st - Bella & Mommy get to go to the dentist for a check-up and a teeth cleaning. Since Mommy's only 8 weeks away from delivery, the cleaning portion couldn't happen. Instead, Mommy started getting dizzy, hot, feeling like throwing up and going through some major contractions. Needless to say, Mommy's routine was stopped immediately. However, this was Bella's first time at the Dentist.
Bella wasn't so sure about sitting in the dental chair or having anyone work on her. Within a few minutes, the dentist was on her good side and was able to help her brush her teeth and do a fluoride treatment. She didn't get to have her teeth polished because she was a little scared but after the hygienist gave her a new toothbrush, she was more willing to cooperate.
Dr. Toi (Mommy's dentist as a child too) counted Bella's teeth and she has 10 on top and 10 on the bottom.

As we were leaving the dentist office, Bella tells me: "Mommy, can we go back to the Dentist tomorrow? That was fun!"


August 2nd - Lexie and Daddy go to the dentist today. Daddy went first and Lexie got to watch him get his teeth counted, talk with Dr. Toi and then get his teeth cleaned by the hygienist. While Daddy was finishing up, Lexie met with Dr. Toi who gave her a quick check-up and even took x-rays. She's was so good and was so easy to work with.
She headed to the hygienist chair just afterwards and was great. She got her teeth polished, a fluoride treatment and even learned how to floss her teeth with the "string." (We use the dental picks at home since they're easier to hold.) Afterwards she was able to pick out a toothbrush and a few goodies from the toy basket - just like Bella.
The great news is = the kids LOVE the dentist and want to go back tomorrow. How many kids do you know who cry to GO to the dentist? :)

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!