Nicholas is 5 years old!!!! February 11, 2012

My baby boy is 5 years old!!!!  Happy Birthday Nicholas!!!

For his birthday he said he wanted a chocolate sprinkle doughnut so Daddy woke up extra early and went to Safeway to get fresh doughnuts.  Then for lunch we went to Chuck E Cheese  and let him play all the games he wanted!  I had a coupon for 150 free tokens with the purchase of a large pizza so he had plenty of  tokens to play with!!!  For dinner he wanted Chick-fil-A so we went there and had Cold Stone afterwards.

These are some of his favorite things:

-Color:  Red
-Food:  Bacon
-Sport:  Baseball
-Toy:  Hero Factory Legos
-Ice Cream:  Cookies and Cream
-Restaurant:  Fenton’s

He is also very excited to start t-ball again and loves his Kajukenbo class.  His 1st tournament is next Sat so I will update with that soon =)

Meeting Monta Ellis, David Lee and Stephen Curry…….. February 4, 2012

We scheduled our meeting with them on a Friday after their practice.  We headed out to Downtown Oakland to their practice facility.  When we got there the kids were so excited and couldn’t wait to meet the Warriors.  We entered the building and the kids saw all these past Warriors players on the walls and they thought it was so cool!  We meet with the guy who was in charge of the contest and we hung out until they opened the door to their basketball courts.

Here’s the kids waiting for the doors to open so they could go inside =)

Once they opened the door they let us in to watch them finish up practice.  Nick loved watching them practice and every time he saw a player he knew he would get excited!!!

Some of the guys practicing

Riley, Laci, Nick and I watching them practice

Nick watching them practice

Laci said she was bored waiting for them to finish practice, but she was still watching them =)

My handsome boys in their Warriors gear

Technically we were only supposed to have a meet and greet with Curry, Ellis and Lee.  But as the guys finished practice and headed to the locker room some of them would come say hi to us and the kids.  The first person to come up to us was Andris Biedrins.  He was extremely nice and even took a picture with us!  He is also VERY tall!!

Another person who came over was Klay Thompson.  He was also very nice and let us get a picture with him as well

Monta Ellis!  He was very nice to the kids and he signed Nick and Connor’s basketball cards and a basketball we brought.

David Lee also signed the stuff the kids brought.  He is another very tall guy!  7ft I think

And finally Stephen Curry!  He is the kids favorite player!

Here he is with Riley and her shirt that she made when she did the Warriors dance clinic

And Nick with his favorite player.  And this was also his early birthday present

We had an awesome time meeting the guys and we are so happy that we got to meet them.  The kids can keep these memories with them forever and both boys have Ellis, Curry and Lee’s rookie cards signed by them!  Thank you Warriors for having these cool contests =D

Contest to meet the Warriors!!! February 1, 2012

We are really big fans of the Golden State Warriors and we follow them on Facebook and Twitter.  I noticed one day that they were having a contest for who can make the most creative “W” while voting for their favorite all-star player online of on the phone.  Dustin and I had this great idea of using the kids to make a “W” and calling the photo “Our starting 5″  Here is the photo that we submitted to the contest:

I got an email saying that we were chosen as one of the top 12 contestants and that they were opening up voting to the public.  The top 3 finalists would get tickets to the next Warriors game and they would have the fans cheer for whomever’s photo they liked the best.  I emailed my family telling them to vote for the kids photos and Dustin posted a link his facebook.  I watched the votes and they started rolling it.  At one point I noticed one of the photos were getting a lot of votes!  And by a lot I mean she had almost 1,000 when everyone else only had 10-20 votes!  Then I noticed another photo was getting up in the 800′s!  And it had only been about 3 hours into the contest!  I was so upset and I knew these people had to be cheating and voting for themselves over and over again!   I emailed the Warriors, the person in charge of the contest and the people who sponsored the voting.  Since voting had already started there was nothing they could really do.  After awhile I figured out how they were doing it and  after talking to Dustin and him convincing me to just do it too, I decided if I can’t beat them then join them.  I seriously sat on my computer for the next 3 days constantly voting for our picture over and over again!  My family all helped out as well when they were home and we got our photo up to 16,316 votes!  THANK YOU AGAIN to my sisters Jacqueline & Katrina, my brother Jaime, my sister in law Ana and my brother in law David for constantly voting the whole weekend!

So Nick, Connor and I went to the Warriors game to try to get people to vote for us.   I had everyone post on their facebooks to have their friends cheer for us if they were attending the game that evening.  I dressed the boys in their Warriors gear, hats and Nick even brought his big foam finger =)  They had the three finalists come down onto the court after 1st quarter.  I told Nick to be as cute as possible and cheer as loud as he could.  We were 3rd in line for being announced and I thought that was a good thing for us!  They announced the 1st contestants and showed their photo and a couple cheered, next they showed the 2nd photo and contestants and more people cheered.  Then it was our turn and everyone cheered!!!!!  Nick was so excited and as we were walking off the court he kept asking me “Did we win?”, “Do I get to meet the Warriors?”

Here we are on the big screen at the game

So we won the contest and we get to meet them soon!!!!

Nick’s 1st day of Pre-school January 31, 2012

I can’t believe it is already time for my baby boy to go to school!  Kindergarten registration snuck up on us fast and I was registering him before I knew it!  With him already registered for Kindergarten, I decided it was time for him to go to Pre-school.  I signed him up for a Kindergarten Readiness program, which is the same one that I signed up the two older girls for.  It’s only twice a week for 3 hours, but at least it gives him some time away from me.  The one thing I was worried about with him was separation anxiety because he won’t even let me leave him at his Kajukenbo class which is only a hour long!  But the 1st day of school came and when it was time to say good-bye he gave me a hug and started playing with the dinosaurs in the classroom.  When we picked him up he was so happy and excited to tell us about his 1st day and what they did in class and on the playground.

I’m glad that he is enjoying himself and making new friends.  I do miss him so much on those two days he’s at school and I’m thinking maybe this is actually more for me to get used to him being away then it it is for him LOL.  Either way it gets us both ready for when school starts in August =)  For now I look forward to him coming home with his school work and telling me all about the fun day he had at school.

My handsome little man!!!

Connor is 6 months old!!!! January 19, 2012

Our baby boy Connor is already 6 months old!  I can’t believe how fast these six months have flown by!  He is already half a year old.  He surprises us everyday at how fast he is with getting around the house.  He’s been rolling over since he was 3 months old and now he’s on his way to crawling.  He can’t get up on all fours yet, but he does look like a little inchworm when he is on the floor.  He can also sit up fairly well now, although he still falls over from time to time.  He is by far one of our best kids!  Always happy and smiling, rarely complains and like to sleep!  He is always watching his older brother and sisters wanting to play with them and laughing at everything they do.  His hair is getting very long and I want to cut it, but everyone keeps telling me to wait till he is a year old.  He is now on solid foods and he LOVES his vegetables and dinners, but he isn’t too fond of his fruits.  He is getting a little better at drinking from a sippy cup, but still refuses a bottle =/

We are very thankful and blessed to have our baby Connor and we love watching him grow everyday.