18 Months - A year and half already?

Yes, it happened again, I blinked and the little monkey grew into a little toddler! You are such a little boy now, full of spunk and personality. You are talking so much more now, saying a ton new words and repeating new ones every day which never stops surprising us. You started at the Russian daycare where Sascha used to be, and adjusted surprisingly well and fast, considering you are a bit of a clinger.

You love ALL balls, small, big, everything you point to that's round is a ball. It's definitely been an obsession for some time now.

Your stats are:
Weight - 21.8 lbs - 15%
Height - 32.5 inches - 54%

Even though you are considered "small" or "skinny", you eat very well. You try different things we give you and don't cause too much fuss about it... unlike Sascha. So feeding you is actually not too bad at all. Your absolute favorites are bananas, avocados, but like I mentioned you will eat pretty much everything including soups, oatmeal, rice, chicken, hummus, eggs, you even like my bean and cheese burritos. If you see us eating, you will usually come up and start pointing at it like you want a taste. A little while ago I started juicing lots of greens, and sure enough you love the juices. I do usually sweeten them up for you and Sascha with fruit, and unlike her you down those pretty fast.

You love throwing balls, and daddy has been laying on the floor with you teaching you how to throw a ball straight up into the air. He has started to train you into a little baseball player at the age of 1 and half. Daddy is convinced that you are a lefty, although I have noticed that you often move the ball into your right hand to throw, but I guess time will tell. You point at everything that looks like a ball and say "ball". You're also a good little kicker, you trail the ball and kick it right along.

You love saying "mine" or saying "give" but in Russian. Bye, bye. Hi, Mommy, Daddy are the usual words we hear you say and every once in a while you'll repeat a few others. We are still working on you being able to say Sascha.

My active little boy, who loves running around, and already starting to climb onto all sorts of things. You have such a little personality already. When you get frustrated, you definitely show it. If you don't want something you will push it away, and sometimes throw it a few feet in front of you. Since you are still not able to communicate very well, it can be pretty frustrating to you and us both to try to figure out what it is that you want. Sometimes it's food that you see, sometimes it's just you wanting to be able to feed yourself with your own spoon. You have definitely learned a few signs, "thank you", "please" are the most important ones, and when you do use them which makes me very happy.

The cutest thing in the world to us is your sweet smile. You are such a happy little boy. You love giving us hugs, kisses, and even blow kisses to others. When you see me come pick you up, you run towards me, and as soon as you get to me, you run towards the kitchen to get a cookie, once you have your cookie you want to be picked up immediately. You blow Galia a kiss good bye, and wave bye to other kids and we get on our way.

Photos from an outing to the Lake Poway. It's been hard to get decent photos of you, because you are constantly moving, but a few of these turned out pretty cute.

Phone Pics Update - April and May

Here is what we have been up to the last few months ... yes a bit behind since these go back to Easter. Photobucket decided to make life harder by not allowing me to make collages easily. I had such a great system going uploading from my phone directly through the photobucket app, but I had to find another way. Thanks Picasa! Anyways, here is life through my Iphonography. It's been a fun few months... and I am still catching up.

Our Easter/Passover weekend included lots of parties and egg hunt.A quick hike up Black Mountain with the girls - I have lived less than a mile from this trail and this was my first time hiking it (yes that's a bit embarrassing to admit), a visit to Balboa Park and the Space theater museum with the cousins, and Easter day at Breakfast and biking around Coronado Island.


Daddy was home early one day so he took the kids on a little adventure hike down the trail next to our house. The kids had a great time exploring. Sascha was very overprotective of her little brother, and they made it their mission to find as many "lost balls" as possible, since Cam is still ball obsessed. I enjoyed a mommy's night out with the girls while the kids enjoyed pop sickles. :) We went to a birthday party at Pump it Up and a Bubble party with Sascha's dancer friends and had a playdate with some old friends.



Sascha getting some rest between ballet and tap. Sascha finally agrees to cut her long Rapunzel locks. Her hair looked adorable styled in braids and flowers and is so much easier to brush now. Yay! She got to see her old friend Sebastian at his brother Ethan's birthday party, have movie night with mommy and daddy and visit cousin Angelina after her accident. The kids played in Baba's back yard. Sascha holds on to Cameron tightly going down our steep slide. I got to take Cameron to the Zoo and spend some one-on-one time with my baby boy the week before he starts daycare. Not to worry Sascha didn't miss out since Daddy took both kids to the zoo the following day while mommy & Inna took Baba to a Spa to celebrate her birthday.  :) Also we took the kids with us for a 5K PQ run. They weren't thrilled to wake up early ... and neither were we, but we had a great run. The daddys (J and Herbie) ran with the strollers, while Marjeri and I ran on our own, and yes they beat us there. The kids enjoyed checking out a fire truck at the finish line, and Sascha was smitten with one of the firemen.

Easter Festivities

Leading up to Easter, Sascha had a week break from preschool. Unfortunately she got sick midweek, but fortunately we really had no big plans to cancel or miss out on. It was some weird virus and after 2 days of fever, she was fine and ready for Friday - 3 parties in one day, and a weekend full of fun.

We started off at the Smith's house for an Easter potluck and an egg hunt for the kiddos.

The 2nd Party was another Easter Playdate at Nathan's house (a friend from preschool). We picked up Sascha's buddy Sadie and the girls enjoyed making crafts and runny like crazy on the grass field collecting more eggs. Cameron wasn't super into the egg hunts, he picked up a few and attempt to open and shake them and then drop them back on the ground. He had a great time just running around.

Then we were off to Inna's house for Passover dinner. After eating way too much good food, we were exhausted, 3 parties in one day was a bit much!

Saturday we went to Balboa park and met up with cousins Carolyn and Angelina. Grandma and Grandpa jointed us after their long drive from Vegas. Took some photos of the kids playing in the garden and the fountain and headed to the Space museum which was a lot of fun for all the kids. Cameron had a blast in the kids zone and Sascha was all over the place with the girls. We finished up at Souplantation and called it a day. Sascha actually was having a rough day, she wasn't listening, she fell running and scraped up her hand while at the park, and dumped a cup of water all over the table and her cute dress at Souplantation because she refused to sit in her chair. We were so frustrated, that we told her that Easter bunny may not be coming the next day. I think she took that threat pretty seriously and woke up early the next morning to see if the Easter bunny had in fact showed up with goodies. He didn't! Yes... we didn't get anything ready because I really couldn't see myself giving her a bunch of gifts after how she behaved that day. Also we didn't put any carrots out for the bunny... she forgot and we were too preoccupied with getting her to bed.
I felt a little bit bad about it after she walked back upstairs walked up to my side of the bed and said "the easter bunny didn't come?"... and I said "I guess not". She started to walk away pouting and we called her back and put her in the middle of us in the bed to have a little one to one talk. We said may be the Easter bunny will still come this afternoon if you are going to be a good girl and listen to mommy and daddy. I don't like using the Easter bunny or Santa to have her act properly, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I figure another day we can have a more in depth conversation about why it's important to do the right things. Also we mentioned that didn't put any food out for him, so that might also be why he didn't show up, just so that she wouldn't think he didn't show up because she was bad... but also because we forgot to feed him. :)  So before we went out to breakfast we left a few carrots and celery out for the Easter bunny in hopes that he would still come for visit.

We went on to have breakfast at the Mission (daddy's favorite place for French Toast), and then went to walk around Coronado Island. We even rented a rickshaw bike for everyone so we were able to cruise around for an hour. Cameron didn't enjoy putting on his helmet but once we got going, there wasn't a peep out of him. He loved being up on the bike and riding around, taking it all in. Sascha did well too and Baba and Deda survived even after Jeromey played an unintentional prank on all of us. As we started to get going on the bike, he never took the break off, so it was ridiculously hard to pedal especially when we hit the slightest hill. Haha, I think they both wanted to be done with it after less than a quarter mile. Then he finally realized we were trying to pedal with the break on  and released it and our ride became super easy and very enjoyable! Last time we rode on one of those with our friends while Sascha was under 2 years old when cousin Sarah came to visit and I am pretty sure Jeromey did the same thing with the break! Silly daddy!

Both kids passed out on the way home which was just perfect because it gave us enough time to put together their baskets and an egg hunt in the back yard. Daddy even crafted a letter from the Easter Bunny explaining why he was a bit late. All turned out super cute. Sascha was super excited to see that he actually came and helped Cameron peak inside his basket as well. The egg hunt was a lot of fun, although Cameron was really not into picking up eggs. Sascha kept on asking if we can have another egg hunt for a few days later...
Darn Photobucket has made changes to its site and now I cannot easily do a photo collage... so I had to be selective about the photos, and they are large in size.

Padres Opening Day

Considering how much daddy loves baseball, he doesn't usually miss this day. After we started dating, we have always gone to opening day together, we even took Sascha when she was 4 months old, but sadly I haven't been since. So this year we decided we were going and were able to score some really great tickets on the roof of the Western Metal Supply Building with food and drinks included! At first we only had 2 tickets, but slowly we were able to get 2 more thanks to our aunt Fran (Grandma Laurie's sister). We took Aaron for getting straight A's last semester, and because he loves baseball (it's his last year playing for Little League and he's super into it), and we also took my dad who is learning more and more about the game now that his grandson is so amped on it. Also it was his 65th Bday just a few weeks ago, so a perfect opportunity to treat him to this Opening Day Experience. We all got off work early and headed down to Petco Park. We even got lucky with a free parking spot (that has never happened to us on Opening Day, but then again I don't think we've ever gotten there before 2pm either)

We watched some batting practice, ate food, and before we knew it the game had begun. Unfortunately the Padre's lost, but I think we all had a really good time at the Park. 

It was a gorgeously perfect day to be outside!

 Group Shot of the 4 of us

And the rest of the photos also taken with my phone and modified with Instagram

Our New Pet... Beta Fish

 A few months ago Sascha brought home a fish bowl with an envelope inside that said "Good for 1 Goldfish" with a dollar bill in it. Our next door neighbor Torrey brought it over after they had taken Sascha to an Elementary school fair. She said that Sascha had won it. I have a feeling they added the fish bowl as a bonus and brought it over for her. They are such a sweet family and we are so lucky to have them as our neighbors. Sascha absolutely adores the girls and wants to play with them all the time... but back to the fish bowl...It has been sitting in the kitchen window for a while now. She hasn't asked about it... not sure if she forgot or just didn't care.

We decided this weekend to take the kids to Petco (this was instead of going to the zoo... daddy's idea of course). Right before we got Sascha out of the car, daddy told her "You can pick out a pet fish to take home with us!" She was beyond excited. She could hardly get through looking at the cats, dogs and other animals without asking when will we go pick out a fish. The kids had a great time checking out all the different animals, little C would make all sort of noises watching the birds and the cats, and he's always loved looking at the dogs.

So when it was time to get her Beta Fish, she asked for a purple one... huge surprise there! We searched and searched and found the only purple beta (it's really more of a maroon color, but in different light it does have some purple streaks). She named it Pascal (yes, like the chameleon in the movie Tangled). She picked out the rainbow colored pebbles, and a little plant. We let her hold it in the car and told her that she has to be super careful because the fish really doesn't like to be rocked.

We came home and prepped the fish bowl, but couldn't put the fish in until the water was the same temperature as the room, so we waited to actually put the fish in till the next day. She was very helpful and patient. We even found a shell that we placed in the fishbowl and a little piece of coral (I am pretty sure we brought that coral from Bora Bora - our honeymoon... but I haven't seen it in years.) It turned out to be a very pretty and bright fishbowl, I think we were both happy with the results.

The fish refused to eat the flaky food we bought it, and then I remembered about the other food that they usually like so I replaced it and a few days later Pascal started eating! Yay, we were a bit worried there...

Also she renamed the fish mid-week and said that he is no longer Pascal, but his new name is now Pete. It was on a day I stayed home with her sick, and she asked if we can call daddy at work and let him know his new name, haha, funny girl. Apparently she remembered some Mickey movie or series where Mickey had a pet fish named Pete. So here we are owners of a new fish named Pete. Both kids really enjoy watching him and feeding him, so far so good. Lets hope Pete has a long life span. :)

 Our new pet Pascal... or Pete (next week he may have a new name so stayed tuned)

Watching and waiting

Cameron's First Haircut

My dear baby boy, I have not been looking forward to this day, and even though you ended up walking out a handsome little boy after your haircut, I still look at you and feel just a little bit sad.

It's always so strange to me to have this mix of emotions. On one hand I can't wait for you to get bigger, to become a little boy, a little man, to see what's in store for you. However, I feel a little bit of sadness with each little step you take, as you get more independent and now able to reach the top of the dining table or a counter top, as you start to climb up the stairs when we forget to close the gate, and yes as you get your first hair cut.

It was due. I knew it, and daddy convinced me that we needed to take you. The curls on the back would get all tangled up and I couldn't even brush them anymore, they started to turn into little tiny fuzz balls. April 1st was the day.

So I called and made an appointment for Sunday afternoon. You weren't happy about getting your hair cut. You tried to escape as soon as I sat you down on the chair, so I had to sit in the chair and hold you. You cried, twisted and turned, but we accomplished what we set out to do. The girl cutting your hair was very sweet and even gave you a lollipop. Sometimes you focused on Elmo which was playing in front of you or snacks that I brought which made you stop crying for a few moments, but most of the time you weren't happy to be there until she was done. It turned out super cute! It wasn't very short and we could still see the curls, they were just more of tamed waves. You are such a handsome little guy! And for all your hard work you got to enjoy a lollipop, your 2nd one ever!

Now I really need to figure out how we can attempt to cut your hair at home.

Seriously check out the crazy hair in that before photo. Crying... what he did most of the hair cutting process.
Pure cuteness... it's actually tamed, it doesn't look like much hair was cut on top... but there was.
Enjoying his lollipop.

Just to make it official