Park Playdate, Birthday Party & Xmas Lights (yes... still catching up for December)

We had a great play date with the Slavin's at the park where I actually got a chance to take a lot of fun photos of the kids.

We also ran into one of your classmates from school - so the 3 of you guys played really well together. Of course one of the special treats of this park is that every 20 to 30 minutes a train comes by. You all pretty much dropped whatever it is that you were doing to watch the train when it quickly rode by. Cameron loved the slides as usual and he also really liked the swings.

At the very end when we were heading out, Sascha and Matty decided to hold hands and walk to the car together... yes it was an awe moment.

That same evening we went to walk around Christmas Card lane near our house and had a wonderful time. Matty and Sascha really enjoyed the few houses that had the trains set up. Also the Mrozek's joined us on the walk. Bailey was super excited, her and Sascha ran around like crazy. We had a hard time keeping them off the lawns.

... And here is a load of instagram photos

Riding in a train with grandma & hanging out at Balboa Park. Love the photo of the 2 of them on the blue chair. Sea World with Cousins and Grandpa, playing in the snow. Enjoying a cookie at the preschool holiday lunch, making a holiday craft, reading to Cameron, and making cookies at a holiday party with mommy, dance performance, Hannukah lights, watching a movie with Matty during lunch after your park playdate, movie date with daddy, hanging out in the cart at Costco.

Family, Friends, Christmas Lights & trains, what can be better?

Also Sascha got to celebrate a friend's Birthday at Dancelogy. It was Sophia's princess birthday party which was a ton of fun for her, and even had Cinderala coming to it.

December Holidays

It's been a crazy month! I can't even begin to remember everything that we did! I started writing this post mid-December but since I never finished I decided to just keep adding to it. Now it's mid - January and I am trying very hard to catch up.

We went to a ton of Holiday Parties, decorated cookies & watched lots of Christmas movies. Daddy had the whole 2 weeks off with the kiddos, while i had one week. We went to Sea World twice where Sascha got to play in the snow. Sascha went to Disneyland w/her grandparents and cousins again. She met Santa there and asked him for a toy reindeer. We went to see the Christmas lights on Xmas Card lane near our house and near Aunt Inna's house in Poway. We also made it out to Santa's house in Poway where Sascha once again saw and took pictures with Santa. There she asked Santa for a butterfly toy. Cameron started screaming as soon as we put him next to Santa, so he didn't enjoy it as much. Sascha loved the lights, and the decorations. It was different this year to see her really take it all in.

We introduced the Elf on the Shelf and it really helped Sascha be a good listener (well... most of the time). She was so excited every morning to wake up and look for him to be in a different spot in the house. She got very good at finding him, and once she spotted him, she screamed for us to come over and see where he was sitting. She named him Mr. Troy and he was part of our family for 24 days. She was actually very sad to find out that he will not return after Christmas, and it took a lot of explaining to convince her that he is back at the North Pole along with Santa and will return next year.

We celebrated Jeromey's Birthday a few days early with a few friends and yummy Sushi. We even had a day to ourselves to spend time together without the kids which was a big treat.

We lit candles for Hanukkah, and I had so many small things (and still a few toys from their birthdays) that we had enough to give them a little gift. This became something Sascha really looked forward too ...hmm... could it be because she got to open a present every day? So every evening she asked is it time to light the candles yet?

Christmas day started off by Sascha looking under the tree with amazement. It took us well past midnight to get everything wrapped up and ready to go. It was such a magical morning because she truly believes in Santa. The night before we made a Ginger bread house and left milk, cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer. She checked and saw the cookie crumbs and was reassured that our house was not missed which meant that she got on the good list. It was pretty magical to watch her really believe in it, and be so excited and in the moment. She was thrilled to get her "butterfly toys", and other gifts to open. It was fun having 2 kiddos open gifts. Cameron wasn't super interested, but Sascha was more than willing to help him. They are two lucky kiddos! After opening our gifts and having breakfast we headed to Jeromey's dad's house and spent the rest of the day there. Santa actually paid a visit to their house. Sascha was beyond excited, and Cameron was just in awe and observing. It was a great day spent with both of our families. Grandma Sherry came by a few days later and we also got so spend some time with her as well.

New years was a bit less exciting. We decided that it would be pretty impossible to stay up till midnight and try to put 2 kids down to sleep at another house, so we celebrated New York time. It was the first time ever I was in bed by midnight on New Years! How un-russian of me. I remember how awesome New Years had always been, the one night where you get to stay up late and party! Things have definitely changed a bit since the kids came along. I am hoping to resume that ritual once they are a bit bigger and are able to enjoy it as well. On New years day we met up with my family to exchange gifts and grab a bite to eat. It happened to be pretty late this year so our annual walk around La Jolla was in the dark, but it was still great to hang out with the family right before we leave for our 6 day Disney Cruise vacation.

Kids at Santa's house... Cameron was not excited to meet this bearded man who called himself Santa


Working on the Ginger Bread House. Sascha was very particular about how she placed the little candy balls on it (just look at the side of it, she color coordinated them... starting from purple - her favorite color).

Christmas morning. Lots of excitement from both kiddos. Sascha had to learn to take turns opening gifts, but she graciously helped Cameron open his presents. The big tent was actually a birthday gift of hers which she got a bit after the party and I meant to let her open it on her actual birthday but it got so hectic and she opened so many other gifts that I completely forgot to let her have the tent, so it became one of the gifts from Santa. She loved it! She also loved the Flying turtle ride (daddy loves cruising on it too... since he's just one of the kids). The last photo is a book that Sascha picked out with Daddy to give to Cameron. It was so sweet how excited she was to be able to give it to him. Cameron got Sascha Hello Kitty slippers which she was happy about as well.




Family photo in front of the tree and a day at Grandpa's house. Tony dressed up as Santa, and the expressions on the kids faces were priceless! Sascha was in awe. She got a Rapunzel doll from him and was in absolute heaven. She loves her, brushes her hair and sleeps with her.
Also a picture of Carolyn who adores Cameron and wants to hold him every chance she gets.


Grandma Sherry came over to spend the day with Sascha & Cameron and helped them open their gifts as well. Cameron is rocking out to some music in daddy's super awesome headphones. Cameron playing with a car that he got from Santa, and the last photo is of the boys in their pirate hats getting ready for pirate night on our upcoming disney cruise.


And lastly a picture of her next to the Hannukah candles

Wow... I really should have broken up this post into 2 or 3.

Cameron 13-14 months

On December 15th Cameron took 4 - 6 steps on his own. Seems like only a week or two before that he started to walk with the walker in front of him and now he's taking actual steps. He is very into throwing things at the moment. It doesn't matter where he is, but if he gets a hold of something it will be launched! Makes a diaper change pretty challenging since you will no longer lay still unless I occupy you with something very interesting. You repeat little words like (da and ma) all the time and you started to mimic our hand gestures, or a little bit of sign language like the sign for milk. Also food throwing has been added to your fun little games you play. I don't enjoy that one so much, since I am the one doing the clean up and boy does it get messy! Sascha tryies to get very stern with you when you throw food and tell you "NO!" . You look at her, and then you look at us and you giggle and throw the next thing. Very amusing! Sometimes you do understand that we are upset at you, and your lower lip starts to fold over and you look so sad like you are about to cry. That look kills me, it's like I just hurt you so badly because I said "NO". It doesn't work on daddy, but you definitely get me with it.

Right around 14 months you really started taking off, Cameron is now a walker! You are so proud of your self. You can turn around, walk, pick something up and keep walking. If you do fall on your butt or knees then you start crawling, and a week later you have figured out how to get up on your own.

Sascha seems to be very excited about your accomplishments as well, she frequently tells you to walk to her and then gives you a big hug when you get there. What a sweet big sister. :)

I started calling you "my eater" because you seemed to like just about everything that I put in front of you. Well that was short lived because after about a week or so, you started to get more picky. At the moment you love avocados, but you pretty much refuse most of the other veggetables that I put in front of you. Also you started to be difficult with meats as well. Wonder what happened there? Because just a few weeks ago you would devour everything I put on your tray. That was making me so happy, especially when I have Sascha on our hands who's meal choices are very limited because she refuses to try anything.

You also let us know if you want something or don't want something. You stretch your arm out trying to point to something on the counter and nod your head yes if I put it in front of you. On the other hand if you really don't want something, you start shaking your head back and forth indicating that it's a definite 'NO'. You really seem to know what you want. If I put blueberries and other fruit on a plate, you will pick out all the blueberries first. Bananas are also a big favorite of yours.

In the last month you have finally learned to "sleep in", meaning you don't wake up screaming at 6 am or earlier, your usual wake up time is around 7:15 now which we really like.

For some reason you started to cry during your baths. At first it seemed like you were freaked out by some bath toys, so we took them away and left you with the ones you seemed to like. Now it just seems like you really don't like the water too much or when we dump the water on your head.

Here are some photos of you from the last 2 months.

All of these were taken with a phone camera, I love that even when I don't bring my actual camera I can just snap a quick photo and I fall in love with some of them, because they capture such a moment and tell a story (at least to me)... it's not something I can get back once it's gone. Like the first picture here when you were w/daddy at Balboa Park - you wanted to go thru the spining metal gate and you didn't want to hold anyone's hand. The 2nd photo is of you at the park in Del Mar with the ocean behind you, you loved the swings that time. 3rd is a snapshot of you learning how to walk - leaping forward with your hands up in the air between daddy and I. The last photo has a story behind it - you had decided to wake up just after 5am and scream until we got you your bottle of milk, then by 8am I fed you breakfast, and you were in your high chair finishing up some fruit, and in a matter of minutes I turned back and saw that you were completely asleep in your chair with raspberries all over your mouth - just classic!

This last photo I adore! It shows your sweet and playful demeanor. You were sitting on my lap dragging all the stuffed animals down from the back of the couch, and you liked this blue one from Monster's Inc., so you held onto it. You kept putting your face on him, giving him kisses.

Sascha's Holiday Dance performance

Sascha loves to dance. She loves going to dance class, and she absolutely adores her teacher Ms. Jackie. We've never had to make her go, it's always been something that she looks forward to.

Twice a year Danceology puts on a Recital show. This was a Holiday show, and we of course had to participate. For some reason Sascha doesn't like dressing up. She doesn't get excited about the costumes, it makes her nervous. As soon as we picked up the costume, she told me a few times that she doesn't want to go up on stage, which made me question why we signed her up for the performance in the first place if she is not going to be excited about doing it. Of course she really enjoyed it last time she performed in June, but we did have a hard time convincing her to put her balerina dress on. This time around a similar thing happened at the dress rehearsal. She saw everyone in their costume, but refused to put hers on. Luckily I was not by myself, and daddy came to the rescue. He didn't really give her an option, and put the pretty blue dress on her and she was fine with it. She twirled and danced with her friend Sadie, plus other dancer friends, and had a great time. At the actual dress rehearsal she also did very well and followed all of Ms. Jackies moves so we were excited to see her perform!

On the actual day of the performance, she once again seemed nervous, but didn't fuss about putting on her dress, she seemed comfortable in it now. Baba, Deda, Grandpa, Aaron & Grisha all came to watch our little dancer. Unfortunately we didn't get there early enough to get good seats, so we were pretty far away, but the munchkin did very well. She was a bit hesitant when I dropped her off, she really didn't want me to leave, but when I picked her up she was so excited. She yelled "Mommy, I wasn't scared! I went up on Stage and I danced!" We all told her how proud of her we were, and how awesome she did! Cameron was a total trooper as usual sat thru all the performances. After the intermission, we were ready to watch the Nutcracker which Sascha was very excited about. She watched the whole thing sitting on grandpa's & mine laps and loved it. Cameron fell asleep in Deda's arms, half way into it ... it was nap time and he decided that he had seen enough dancing.

I hope her love for dance keeps growing. We really enjoy these special performances. Besides being super cute because of the little 4 year old kiddos that are in them, I hope they teach her confidence which will come in handy in years ahead.

You can see Sascha is a bit nervous and is biting her lip in a few of these... at least her hands aren't in her mouth. :)
Most of these were taken at the dance rehearsal, only the last one was on the day of the performance posing with Taylor. Her mom was actually the one who told me about this studio about a year ago when we met at the library. I am so glad I took Sascha to try it out.


Since we didn't get to take many photos on performance day, we took these once we got home. Sascha does have a little bit of blush, and blue eye shadow on... she actually let me put it on this time. Her lips are red because she enjoyed a lolipop right before we took these. :) No lipstick for her yet, I was too afraid that she would smear it all over her mouth.

Instagram Photo post... Nov & Dec overload

So instead of saying how busy we have been and how crazy our lives are (it's that time of the year again), I am just going to say we've been having a LOT of fun. So much fun that I have an abundance of pictures I have been taking and instagraming on my phone. I will be blogging more about the holidays later.

Recap:

Cameron w/a prince hat shopping at Michaels, Sascha practicing for her dance recital, Sarah & Sascha shopping at Costco before the big birthday bash, kids with their balloon animals after the birthday bash, Sascha playing with her new toys, Sarah feeding Cameron, Sarah & Jeromey went race car driving, Sascha making a turkey with Daddy for Thanksgiving, Sascha helping us clean up the back yard, Aaron & Sascha at the movies, kids reading.

Sascha & Kingston at the pond feeding the ducks.

Having a bit too much fun trying on some winter clothing while shopping with a friend. Sascha at the park with Sadie and a huge cookie exchange with work friends.

Recap #2:

Sascha on her Birthday. Decorating cookies & Singing holiday songs at a Holiday Party & Cookie exchange, Sascha helped us decorate the house this year (she was very much into it). She decorated the tree with Baba and the Banister garland with me. A few photos from my bday. My coworkers treated me to a cake, and J and I had a nice dinner out at Burlap in Del Mar and then a movie.

Sascha and I made snowflakes out of white paper. Cameron at bath time, in the crib and at a breakfast outing. He 's such a happy boy!

Recap #3
Daddy takes Sascha on Go Carts. Holiday party @ Hals with a downtown view. Daddy's Birthday cake & sushi. Making a ginger bread house on Christmas Eve. Christmas day at Grandpa's house.
Wall of holiday cards which I love receiving every year.




Sea World (with Santa & Snow Princess) Balboa Park, shopping, park and hanging out at home in our pjs and celebrating the New Year with ice cream and friends.

Sascha's 4th Birthday

My sweet baby girl turns 4! You have been talking about your birthday for days, may be even months. Seems like you were so excited to turn 4. On the day of, you showed everyone 4 fingers to let them know how old you are turning. We did have your birthday celebration 2 weeks early, so we celebrated big this year. On the actual day of, we got together at home, had dinner and dessert with family. Daddy was in New Orleans for business trip since he started his new job in Marketing, but he did his best to facetime us on the phone so that he was included in singing you a birthday song.
It all went by way too fast. 4 years! We happened to look through some videos of the last 2 years and I couldn't believe how little you were. How could I have forgotten those moments. Didn't they just happen? You are such a big girl now. I know I am going to keep repeating myself every year, but it's so true. You tell us you love us, every time we put you to bed. You give your little brother so many hugs and kisses that sometimes he can't handle them all. You are one loving and loved little girl.

Here are a few photos of you blowing out your candles on very bright flower cupcake sitting inside an apple turnover pie (Baba's idea... I don't know why we put your cupcake in it)
You are holding up my phone (that's daddy's face on it)



Opening your gifts... Cameron wanted to help


A few days after your birthday, we headed to preschool for a small birthday celebration. This is also something you were really looking forward to. We brought treats for the class and you had your special moment of holding the earth and walking around the sun 4 times representing the 4 years of your life. You seemed pretty excited about it and we watched in amazement how 24 kids all quietly sat in a circle together and watched without too much complaining.


You picked your little friend Sadie to help you pass out the bagels to the class.


We love you so much! There are so many things I wish for you, but most importantly I wish that you are healthy and happy! I hope you continue to grow into a confident smart and beautiful little lady.

xoxo,
-Mommy & Daddy