Happy Birthday Pop-Pop

We had a few different celebrations for my Dad's 60th (!!) birthday. First up was a bbq in my parents backyard.

We enjoyed cake and ice cream.

Pop-Pop poses with the grandkids.

Olive chills after the picture.

Next up my parents, Mel and I went to the SF Food Wars Pie or Die contest to try over 20 kids of pie!

The event was awesome and the pies were delicious! Here are some pics of the various pies.

And here are some pics of the guests enjoying the pies.

Can't wait until the next SF Food Wars!

They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab (TooSoon?)

I am a self- professed blog stalker. I mean, one of my favorite things to do at night is to scroll though my list of friends' blogs and catch up on what everyone is up to. Or friends-of-friends blogs. Or sister's of friends-of-friends. I mean, really, it's kind of a problem.

It started out innocently enough, I would look at my friends' blogs - I mean, that isn't weird, right? I have links to their blogs on my blog so I was being pretty transparent about the whole stalker thing. But then. I was reading a friend's blog and happened to see in her bloglist two other girls that we went to college with. Now, I am not particularly friends with these girls, I mean, we are friendly but it's not like I am on their Christmas card list or anything. So I started reading their blogs. I rationalized it by the fact that we all went to school together (I even worked with one of them during college - so that's better, right?) so it wasn't so weird when I started perusing their blogs. And then, I happened to notice that one of them had a bloglist on her page and...during a fit of boredom...I started reading those blogs. What?! Those of you that are my close friends (because I know this blog has to generate it's fair share of blogstalkers itself) should not be too surprised by this, knowing my slight tendency to voyeurism. So all of sudden I find myself reading blogs of people I have never even met. Some of them live in different states! I rationalize it by saying, okay, so so-and-so may live in Texas (allegedly) and we have never met, but our boys (her oldest, my only) both seem to be on the same growth rate (as in non-growth) and I always enjoy her stories about shopping for clothes two age groups ago...they are so familiar..poor Nikos was just complaining when we were in Twain Harte (not that you would know we we in Twain Harte since I haven't blogged it yet) that he was wearing baby swim shorts. Of course, since they were 12-18 month I couldn't really argue it. Anyway.

I started coming to the realization that I had a problem on two recent instances. Instance #1 (which actually took place a little while ago): Taki and I were watching one of our tv shows...let's call it CSI (I think NY or Miami) and one of the actors on the show starts choking (due to shellfish allergies or something...obvs this is not the point of my story) and I say "OMG (well, I said the words because I think saying the acronym would be kinda weird)...that's my friend's husband!!!" and I'm all super excited like me and his wife have BFF heart necklaces or something. And Taki says "Really, who?" (since he pretty much knows all my friends, at least by name.) And that's where I say "well actually, I don't know her, I just read her blog." What?! Okay crazy. Instance #2: I'm scrolling through a bloglist on another friend's site and I stumble upon one about someone that recently got transferred to another country...say...Down Under. Again, anyone that knows me knows that I have an affinity for blogs that are set in the LA area or abroad. Long story short, I spend a decent amount of time on said individual's blog (how did he pull off this job transfer, and could it be something that I could do too?! ---not sure if it makes it more or less excusable that I was doing this while I was unemployed.) I get to a blog post at a bar in the city where the "main character" is cutting his going away cake with a sword & I realize "holy crap, I was at that party!" I had put together a happy hour at my previous job & we had ended up sharing a room with this guy's going away party - crazy coincidence, right? Fast forward to a birthday party where we are at the friend's house with the bloglist and I tell the story "as in 'how crazy is this?'. Fast forward again to another bday party at the friend's house and, in the midst of me mediating a firetruck power struggle between Nikos and another little boy the kid's father says to me "Hey, aren't you the blog stalker?" and yells to his wife that I am there. Great. Full on crazy.

So, what lessons have I learned? How am I changing my behaviors? I'm not! So I happen to know a few too many details about people I have never met - I get excited when they get proposed to in Disneyland, or have a third boy, or their serviceman husband comes home from the Middle East, or they move to Australia. I may be a loser, but at I am embracing it!

Best Olive Story. Ever.

Sorry to all the locals who have already heard this story.

So...as you may or may not know, I am a little obsessed with sleeping next to my children. As in, my kids never slept in bed with me, they have both always been in their own cribs (so un-Berkeley!) and we pretty much kicked both of them to the curb (their own room) at 4 weeks. I am not even sure if Olive made it four weeks in our room or if we had her join Nikos earlier. In addition, we never really napped together - not saying that I was not (okay this still may occur) napping at the same time...it was just in my own bed.

Anyway, whenever we go on vacation where we may be in one room (to read: my parents' Tahoe timeshare, Jen&Gus', Jennie Slinger's, Jayme&Beck's etc.) I always want to share the bed/aerobed with my kid because I am sure they are going to be all cute and cuddly all night. HA. So, this just in, Nikos does NOT cuddle. He takes up the whole bed and kicks and is generally not a fun person to sleep next to (and this from the kid who goes to bed and stays in the same position all night!) For some bizarro reason, I thought Olive might be different. Mostly bizarro since Olive is the craziest sleeper ever, to the point that I have had multiple mini-heart attacks thinking she is no longer in her crib when in fact she is curled up at the complete opposite end. I've also found her with her legs sticking out one side of the crib (my kids of the skinny chicken legs) and her arms out the opposite side. Okay. I digress...

Cecchin house, the night of the Beck party. Taki is out of town golfing in Palm Springs (I know, poor guy) so we decided it would be fun for the kids and I to spend the night. Nikos goes to sleep upstairs with Marco and Olive and I are going to sleep in the way downstairs (yes they have more than one downstairs so I have to say "way", after all, the Becks were in the regular downstairs.) Due to some miscommunication, we were down a pak-n-play (Tyler residing in the Cecchin PnP) so we had to get creative for Olive's bed. I felt like she would just get up/fall out of the loveseat so Jeff came up with the genius idea of flipping it around for her crib.

Picture (taken next morning) of the makeshift crib.

So Olive goes to sleep (8 ish? 9 ish?) while the rest of us (adults) are still chilling on the couch to the left of her, watching the Giants game. After the game and everyone goes to bed (11ish?) I make the (later-determined foolhardy) decision to bring her into bed with me (the couch to the left turns into a pullout couch.) So, she is pretty much dead asleep when I pick her up and bring her over into the pullout couch with me...never wakes up. All things are great for the first time I am sleeping next to her, she may not be so cuddly but it is still nice. Cue 2am when she wakes me up saying something. I am slightly confused, because, well, it is 2am for god sakes.

Olive: "Get out of my crib."
Me: (still half asleep) "huh?"
Olive: (calmly) "Get out of my crib."
Me: (realizing what she has said and somehow forgetting that she is 2 and deciding to reason with her) "uh no, this isn't your crib, your crib is over there (pointing to wall) this is the pull out couch (miming pulling it out.)"
Olive: "GET.OUT OF MY CRIB."
Me: "Okay!" (Curl up at bottom of bed, hoping Olive doesn't notice I am still in said crib.)

Yes, this actually did happen.

And here is the picture of innocence watching cartoons in the morning.


Happy Monday!

B-E-C-K-s!

The Becks paid a visit to the East Bay and we were fortunate enough to be able to join them at the Ceechin's for a pizza partay.

Olive debuts a new hairstyle (aka, slept with wet hair up in bun all night.)

The kids took turns playing baby bird where the baby bird was in the hamper nest.

Olive decides this party is a dud and tries to make some calls to get some her crew to attend.

Speaking of the life of the party...even Scabie enjoyed some pizza.

Nikos shows what losing at a tickle fight looks like.

The boys take a break for some Scoobie Doo.

Remember how I said this party was for the Becks? Well, due to Tyler's early bedtime, and the apparent fact that I no longer take pictures of adults, there is no evidence of them that night.

However, the next morning I did capture Tyler on film.

The older 3. (So weird that O is a part of this crew!)

And add a little Tyler to this list.

Sadly - the best pic of all four.

Yeah Becks - we love you. Can you move up here already? (Since I went ahead and got a new job up here and sorta ruined my whole "moving to LA" plan.)

Four Candles

Flashback to Nikos' birthday.

We had big plans for Nikos' 4th birthday - Thomas the Train party in his school garden, lots of friends and family invited. BUT IT RAINED. What? In June? BLAH!

Instead of a big fun party (that we'd talked about endlessly for weeks) we had a few smaller parties (since our house isn't big enough to host everyone if we can't use our deck...)

I made a last minute scramble to have Marco and Jeff join us for Mexican food on Thursday, the actual night of Niko's bday. We went to the same place we went last year (Juan's not our usual Picante) because they do a great job making a big deal for birthdays.

Here's the big Happy Bday song!

On Saturday morning (the morning of his cancelled party) Nikos and I ran some errands for his birthday breakfast with our families.

First stop - Starbucks and they gave him a birthday breakfast treat!

The Kienzle/Roberts and Romios clan joined us for birthday bagels and donuts. Blowing out the candle in the donut.

Marco stopped by mid-afternoon to give Nikos a sword for his bday.

For our final party of the day the D'Angelos and the Grochols joined us at our house and luckily the rain stopped long enough for us to be able to enjoy some time in the garden.

Katie and baby Jack.

Olive and Brookie.

Baby Jack

Reesey and Brookie

The birthday boy chills.

And more fun...

It was a little muddy...

Cracking up at the look on baby Jack's face!

Love how they look like an old married couple arguing over chores here. Ha!

Olive hitches a ride on Taki's rocking chair.

All the kids in the treehouse.

And finally - the birthday boy tows around Reesey (seems like lately their love/hate relationship has been all love) and then enjoys his cake.