The Papaioannou Family Blog

No time to blog…..but 6 or 7 photo albums up in the new photogallery of our trip to England way back in the summer of 2010.

Click here to go straight to them

Another morning at the park today and it must have been at least 80 degrees. Sienna is quite the willful little madam, especially, it seems, about her outfits. believe it or not, she chose today’s ensemble, complete with hair barette, sunglasses and pink bracelet.

Oliver is the daredevil speed demon of the family, and spent most of the morning narrowly avoiding running over small children on his bike.

Question of the day:

Alexander : Mummy, how did the earth get builded?

Me: Oooh that’s a good question. Why don’t you ask Daddy when he gets home?

Alexander: Why? Because he knows more stuff than you?

Sienna’s latest verbal accomplishments:

“Oliver don’t!” (occurs pretty often)

PooPoo!

Open, on, off, out

Cheese! (when being photographed)

Dora!

Bun Bob! (Spongebob)

Cookie!

Obviously I’m doing a terrifc job parenting, as you’ll notice my 20 month old is obviously eating too many cookies, being pestered by her brothers and watching both Dora and Spongebob on TV.

This week has been fairly eventful. The most major news I’ll save til I’ve mentioned it to most of the family (and no, I am not pregnant).

We had a great Easter. On Saturday at our local rec center, there was the annual egg hunt for the kiddos. Basically over the grass are strewn 1000’s of empty plastic easter eggs, which the kids collect and put in baskets.

They can then exchange their eggs for an Easter Candy goody

bag (on a serious note, really, do we need another holiday centered around sweets, I think not).

I forgot the camera of course, but managed at least to get a few shots no my phone of Sienna looking mighty cute collecting eggs. Oliver and his buddy Sammy, had a bit of a  disaster, they became so focused on finding the “Golden Egg” for which there was a special prize, they did not collect ONE SINGLE EGG. It was pretty funny.

Oliver has been engrosed in a great project this week. I’ll let you guess what it involves………..Yep, you got it, trains!

He bought some buildable wodden model trains with his pocket money and spent HOURS sanding, painting, and gluing them together. Anyone who knows Oliver will know this is a big deal since he rarely spends time focused on an art project. But we were all very proud of his work.And in the car the other day he said, “Mummy, when soccer is over, I think I’m going to go to Train Drivers Camp.” Just like his Grandpa’s !

Alexander is doing very well. No seizures for a while. He worked on his homeowork tonight. An animal project which he did about rattlesnakes. He was super proud of his poster.

And as for that special news, well the winds of change are blowing and things are  ceratainly about to change around here, for the better.

A couple of weeks ago I won a Brazilian Hair Straightening Treatment at a local hair salon here in La Jolla. It’s the second thing I’ve won this year which I have done through my Twitter account. All I can say is that my life has been drastically changed by this treatment. No longer do I constantly have to scrape my hair back in a tangled mess. Instead, I look like the girl from the Timotei advert 20 years ago, with hair sa straight as a needle. Luckily now, I’ll be able to look glam whereever I go, now all I need to win is an entire wardrobe makevover

Poor Alexander has been ill this week He had several days at home, a bout of nasty seizures after 2 weeks with nothing, (he often has seizures if he is sickening for something) and a trip to the doctor revealed he had Strep Throat. He’s now much better after some strong anti-biotics.

For those of you who don’t know Sienna, let me share something with you. She is a monkey. A mischeivious, up-to-no-good-with-a-big-grin-on-her -face little tinker. When the house is quiet, you panic, she’s either climbing the boys bunk beds hurling all the bedding and stuffed toys off the top bunk, or she’s creating a masterpiece on the floor or wall with permanent marker. I mangaged to capture a few images (on my phone so scuse the quality) of her latest endeavours. Usually as I am cleaning, putting laundry in or pop out of the room for a few minutes, here is what I come back to.

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I looked at this the other day and realized it’s been a disgustingly long time since I’ve updated this blog. Too much facebook and twitter that’s the problem.

Let’s face it, to try and write posts to fill in the gaps would be, well, pointless and boring. And quite honestly, with the state of my brain these days, I can’t even remember the last time I went to the toilet, never mind what happened 4 months ago. Sufficed to say, I’m starting over from now. Honest.

Today’s news? Well I had one sick kid 5 y/o at home all day. One 20 month old forced to stay at home all day becuase of afforementioned sick kid. And one lucky kid, who had school, a play date, and then a soccer match. So at least one out the 4 of us had some fun. No, that’s actually a little harsh. I did have fun today. I immensely enjoyed picking up 8000 metallic sequins that littlest P decided looked better on the floor than glued onto paper. And I had even better fun making a dinner, that all kids refused to eat so I caved and made chicken nuggets in the microwave *shock horror*.

But the best part, forgetting the woes of the day, and snuggling nose to nose, with three little stinkers.

One of the gifts that Sienna received was a dress made beautifully by Hanna, Papous wife. The proud Grandpa wanted some photos of her wearing it so we did an impromptu “photo shoot” in the garden. Some of them were lovely so I thought I would share.

*****GARDEN PHOTO SHOOT*****

To celebrate Sienna’s birthday we invited over some friends for “Happy Hour’” at our place. It was a super fun evening with lots of good company, and well behaved kids. The kids played on the jumpy allowing us overworked parents to enjoy a drink (or two or three.) Sienna was a super star, looking cute as a button in her little party dress. A very fun time was had by all. For photos click the link below.

******SIENNA’S PARTY PHOTOS******

And here’s a video of us singing Happy Birthday to her, little peanut!

Singing Happy Birthday to Sienna from Jo Papaioannou on Vimeo.

I know I always seem to be saying it but really , time is whizzing by these days. Sienna’s first birthday has been and gone and I can hardly believe it’s been a year since she wimpered her very first cries.

She had a lovely birthday, at least I assume she did as she didn’t actually tell me! We bought her a little climb and slide thingy for the garden. The boys have done well from this present, as they enjoy it as much as her. In fact, within several hours had concocted a scheme to collect buckets of water and pour them down the slide to make a water slide. They are an industrious pair.

She had some lovely presents, especially loving the musical octopus from Uncle Martin and Aunty Lou.

For photos from her birthday click the link below.

Sienna’s first birthday photos

I just found these on my computer. These were of us a couple of weeks ago at the party of a friend of ours.

Well, much has happened since my last blog, too much to blog about in one sitting, especially given that as soon as I start typing you can guarantee one of the little loves will wake from their naps

The boys have been home from school for over a month now and so summer has begun with a bang. The main trick is to keep them busy, which mainly involves outings to the zoo, Sea World, the Science Museum, the Train Museum, the park, the beach, the swimming pool and more. It’s certainly busy around here.

I’ve posted a bunch of albums that show some of what we’ve been up to.

Alexander is doing Karate twice a week, he has his white belt and is working t/w his yellow. In June he participated in his first competition and did some sparring. Check him out in his full helmet and gloves! It’s a full contact sport, even when you’re (which mummy had stupidly not realized). Basically, first to punch or kick the other wins a point First to 3 wins. Alexander got to the semi finals of his group and we were really proud. Unfortunately he is plagued by seizures, daily. Medicine is still in flux and medical professionals have no idea how to really help. I’d give more info, but honestly, by  time you read this, things will change again and who knows what will be happening.

Oliver is full of beans, as stubborn as an ox, and hugely entertaining. His imaginary play is wonderful. His sport of choice is soccer and he does it every week. Both boys can now swim as you can see from the underwater photos in Palm Springs. Sienna is a water baby too and loves to be in the pool or the ocean.

Alexander’s birthday party was a hit. A Star Wars Jedi Training Camp….no work at all to organize, it did not take me 2 weeks to plan and get it together, I did not go over board at all….(I kid, I totally did)

Sienna is blooming. She’s a peanut, I don’t remember the numbers but she’s in the 10 percentile for size and weight…..a little poppet. This does not however, prevent her from wreaking havoc on the boys who call her Dooku (after Count Dooku in Star Wars; he destroys things, as does Sienna when they are playing) She is a one man wrecking crew, who of course has NO interest in playing with the many toys bought just for her….she’d rather destroy lego, or knex or train tracks that the boys have spent hours building. Brilliant.

Speaking of Sienna she is now walking (attempting to run) and has realized it is the quickest way from A to B. She has 5 “words” Mama and Dada, baba (bottle), nana (banana and food in general) and uh (up). She is terrific.

So that’s it, my time is up, the littlest is awake and I’m needed. Enjoy the photos.

Zoo

July 4th

Alexander’s 5th Birthday Party

Palm Springs 09

Underwater

Karate Tournament