Photo Shoot

My amazingly talented friend, Tristen, took some darling pictures of my kids today. Here are just a few of my favorites.....

Great G'ma, Uncle Will, and Dance!

Last week my brother in law, Will, was in town from Hong Kong. A couple times a month now he flies the LAX flight and gets to spend a day or two here. We were able to come up and meet him for lunch with some of my family. It was so fun to see him! Davey got to meet him and his Great Grandma Nielsen for the first time. Here are a couple of pictures....

Great G'ma Nielsen with Davey

Uncle Will with Davey

Ellie has been counting down the weeks, then days, and then today, hours (since she woke up this morning) til her dance class started. She and a few of her friends are taking ballet, jazz, and tap. She had the greatest time and can't believe that she has to wait a whole week to go again!

This is Ellie before class

Ellie and her best friend Autumn

After class Ellie said she wants to wear her hair exactly like this every week. She looked so cute!

What?!

I just told Nicolas to go upstairs and get dressed and this is how he came down......


This kid is always making me laugh!!

"Survival Mode"

Newborn + Beginning of Summer + 2 other kids = Craziness!
Anyone thinking of having a baby at the beginning of the summer, think again. I have realized that these past few weeks I have been running in "survival mode." And I am barely surviving! Having a new baby around is the easy part. He has been such a great baby. It is entertaining a 5 1/2 and 3 1/2 year old all day long while having a new baby around that I am struggling with. The first two weeks weren't bad because I had a lot of help and the kids were in camp and then up in Newport. This week was our first week on our own and even though I thought we stayed pretty busy, there still was a lot of down time at home which led to a lot of chaos. Hopefully the next month and a half of summer will go better than the first couple of weeks! Here is a little highlight of our week......

We gave Davey his first bottle and each kid got a turn feeding him. He loved it!


We went up to Ashley's and played at the Ladera Ranch waterpark


We spent an evening at SeaWorld with cousins

Davey slept through most of it!

Davey went to his first Padres game!

We went with our friends Mike and Megan. It was a great game - $1 Hot Dogs and Drinks and the Padres pulled off a win!

This was the scene at 11:00pm - Ellie woke up when we got home and Matt let her hang out on the couch with him. She is such a daddy's girl!!

4th of July in Newport

For the past 7 years we have been going to the Marriott Newport Villas with all of the Staffieri family for the 4th of July. This year I wasn't planning on going but since I had Davey so early I decided to go for a few days. The kids went up on Tuesday afternoon and I met them up there on Thursday morning. We had our biggest group yet with the addition of two of Matt's cousin's and their families. It was a lot of fun and all of the kids just had a blast. When I talked to Nicolas on the phone Wednesday night he said, "Mom, I'm having Super Fun!"

Nicolas with Andrew and Spencer (Matt's cousin's boys)

Matt took both kids boogie boarding


Michael and Nicolas

Our first family picture didn't turn out too great because Nicolas wouldn't do it unless we were in the plants! So there are a bunch of shadows and he is kind of hidden.

Nicolas, Ellie, Siena, and Helen

We had a couple of hours to kill while we were waiting for the fireworks to start so Matt's mom had some fun songs and dances for the kids to do. The kids all did a "performance" that they had been practicing all week. It was really cute!



The kids lounging by the pool

Nicolas, Matt, and Ellie at the pool

My cute little guy hanging at the pool

My darling boys!! Aren't I a lucky mom?