Life is precious!

This week we lost our dear Uncle Johnny. He lost his fight with cancer Saturday morning at home surrounded by his loved ones. The night before Paul and I and the kids went to Jason Merandi's 30th birthday dinner, and in the middle of dinner Andrew said out of the blue "Bye Bye Johnny, Johnny Bye Bye". It makes me think that kids are aware of what is going on in the world around them, and we need to give them more credit. We are so happy that Johnny is no longer suffering and he is in a much better place. We will be attending the funeral this Saturday and Crazy Uncle Dude and Aunt Becky will watch Andrew for us and we will be bringing Miss Allison with us.

On to a happier light. This past Saturday Paul and I went to his 10 year High School Reunion. We are getting old!!! Scott, Courtney, Kelly and Lindsay joined us for the evening. We all got dressed up and left Gramma and Papa Demboski to watch the kiddos. We had a great time at the reunion just hanging out with each other. We met up with one of Paul's friends from college/H.S. John which we were excited to see. And I had a blast meeting Paul's ex-girlfriend Julie. Lets just say Paul's taste has improved ;). We ended up leaving the reunion early to get some real food and drinks that were half priced. We ended up at Hennesey's. This was the last time that we will all hang out as a group before Scott and Courtney go off and travel around the world for over a year. They are getting married next weekend and we cannot wait to celebrate with them!

Little PipSqueak AKA Allison is growing so big in personality but I am afraid she hasn't grown in pounds in the last month. She weighs 10lbs 7oz. She is in the 3rd% for weight and the 15th% for height. She is super healthy I am just going to give her a couple extra feedings a day. She is starting to giggle a lot and is enjoying her toys. I just cleaned out a bag of baby toys from Andrew's closet. It was weird to go through all of Andrew's baby stuff and pass it on. What is funny is Andrew was having just as much fun playing with the toys as Allison was. She sits up really good in her bumbo chair. Tonight I took her in the wagon with Andrew and she fell asleep in her bumbo chair. It was too cute. She is on a great schedule now and is getting better at the separation anxiety thing. She is making little noises "AhGee" is her latest "word". I took her to get her 4 month pictures taken and she wore my dress that I wore when I was baptised. It fit her beautifully and she was so good for her pictures and they came out gorgeous.

Andrew got his 2 year pictures taken at the same time and he did so good, I was shocked! Grandma Bug came with us to get the photos done which was a huge help. Andrew wore his rock-n-roll guitar shirt and jeans with his hair all spiked up. He was an angel and loved posing for the camera. He is developing such a massive personality. Just tonight he told me "peepee" so I said OK Andrew let's go potty, he then raises his pointer finger up in the air and says "A minute". I started laughing so hard because that is what we tell him all the time!! He is doing so good with the potty training thing. He is starting to get a little comfortable with his Elmo potty and he is standing when he pees and he sprays it everywhere!! So now we converted his Elmo little boy potty into a step stool so he now uses the big boy toilet.
Paul went to a retreat for his new elected position on the Pacific West Association of Realtors. He was gone for 2 days, so I was alone with the kids, and it went surprisingly well. I cleaned out closets, packed away clothes that don't fit and brought out the new hand-me-downs from Adrienne for both kiddos. They are all set for the winter now, which is a good feeling. We also hired a cleaning lady to come every other Wednesday. This has made such a difference in my life. Just picking up the house is a lot of work, but now that I have someone to do all of the deep cleaning is a dream come true!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

We celebrated Andrew's birthday last Sunday. It was a big Elmo party. We had a jumper, cupcakes and lots of toys! Andrew had a great time playing with his friends. We gave Andrew a power wheels, which he managed to flip over within the first 30 minutes. It was funny, but he was pretty upset. Scott caught it all on his new video camera and he posted it to youtube. Overall Andrew had a good time. He licked the frosting off of 5 cupcakes, tore open his gifts, didn't nap and managed to stay very happy and hyper all day, no huge meltdowns. I must say that Andrew's favorite toy is his guitar. He plays the guitar all day long! He sings and dances, it goes everywhere with him. I think he will grow up to be a rock star!

Today is Allison's 4 month birthday! She rolled over about 10 days ago from her back to her belly, which she didn't like very much because she isn't a fan of tummy time. She is such a mommy's girl. She did good for a while with going to other people, but she is back to her old habits and just wants mama. Which I don't mind because she is just a doll. She is now getting too big for her newborn clothes and is moving into her 3 month clothes, which is a lot of fun. She has enough hair that I can put a little clip in it. I love getting her all dolled up. I feel like I am reliving my little girl playtime dressing up my dolly.

I am back to work now and in the swing of things. It is amazing how I am functioning on only 3 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours. But is is working out nicely, Paul and I have had to adjust some things like cleaning and cooking, but we have nailed it down. And if I get my way, we will be hiring a cleaning lady to come every other week. We'll wait and see :)

We recently celebrated Christian's birthday here in Long Beach at Mother's Beach. Rochelle and Damon and the kids stayed the night at our house, we roasted marshmallows, and the next day we all went out to lunch. Andrew and Christian are catching up to each other so quickly. It is fun to see them playing together.

Last week Paul's mom turned the big 60 and we had a big weekend birthday celebration at Paul's folk's house. We had a picnic at the park, had a nice catered dinner Saturday night followed by a slide show of family pictures, gifts and of course cake. the next day, we went to Mother's Beach and played in the sand and water and went kayaking. It was Andrew's first time out on the kayak. He wasn't a huge fan of his life jacket at first, but once he was on the water, he was a happy little boy. He waved at all of the boats in the water and the paddle boarder and other kayakers. We went all the way around Naples Island. Paul got a good work out while Andrew and I sat together watching all of the people in the water. We ended the weekend with roasting marshmallows and watching Andrew, Matthew, Natalie and even Lexie and Allison dance and sing. Happy 60th Birthday Gramma Loco!