2010...at a glance.

January. We had a bittersweet reunion with many cousins, aunts & uncles we don't get to see very often when the patriach of our family, Blaine Bradshaw aka Pa, was laid to rest.


February. We took a trip to Tahoe for Papa David's 60th birthday.


March. We experienced a spring heatwave that we thought meant a warm summer to come. However, we were lucky we took this impromptu trip to the beach in March because it never really warmed up all summer.


April. Mia turned 8 and we celebrated over, and over, and over. She had a birthday party at Bounce U. We went to a Taylor Swift concert. Most importantly, she got baptized.


May. We welcomed a new member to our extended family. Sarah and Angelo had their first son, Luca. He's our 3rd nephew.


June. We had a fun family trip to Lake Shasta with my parents and both my brother's families. Unfortunately NONE of us took a group shot.

June needed 2. This flashing before our eyes was quite a shock, scratch 3 and done. We will be adding a 4th child due in February 2011.

July. After all the fun at Lake Shasta we decided to put in a "pool".


August. We finished out the summer break in SoCal and went to Legoland for the first time.


September. A memory that will forever scar my mind, Noah severed the top of his finger in a door. I know it could have been way worse, but still not a fun moment.

October. Had a week's worth of Halloween festivities, even the kids were tired of dressing up when the actual day of Halloween rolled around.

November. A relaxing weekend in Yosemite.

December. Celebrated a wonderful Christmas surrounded by family and friends.

Christmas events

We have been to see Santa! All three are believers.



We bought and decorated our Christmas tree. Aaron went out alone and picked a funky one, but once we threw some lights and ornaments on, it's not so bad, pics to come!

The kids participated in the City of San Mateo's 38th annual Festival of Dance. The city runs all kinds of dance programs and the festival is a recital for all the classes from ballet to hip hop to seniors jazz. This year's theme was "A Wish for Wings". The kids were in a dance for city of San Mateo employees' children. They were the Partying Penguins. They did a great job! Even shy guy Noah participated and kept up with the group.








Lastly, the ladies from work threw me a baby "sprinkle". It was coupled with our Holiday Party and I had a great time. It was so nice to have 4 hours to myself!

All about the XY

To say I was not excited to be pregnant a 4th time would be an understatement. Then I began looking through our picture files and finding pictures like this...



And this...




I started feeling more excited. I can't wait to see our kids faces when they meet their new brother. He is going to be so loved. I was thinking I can't believe we're adding another boy. I remember when I first got my job working with kids in the Fall of 1997. I was a preschool aide for 3-5 year olds and I helped with the after school program for 1st-5th graders. After working there just one year I said in a staff meeting "If I had to choose between having all boys or all girls, I would choose all boys." Now, here I am with 1 girl and 3 boys and I can't help but feel like someone was listening all those years ago. My boys are so charming and lovable I can't believe we're lucky enough to have another one (who better be just as lovable and charming and not some holy terror)! I really wonder what he'll look like since I don't think my boys look alike. No matter what I think he'll fit right in with these guys.

Our only issue with boys is their names! With Kai, the name was picked even before Mia was born and then once he arrived and I wanted to call him Sam instead, so I settled for Kai Samuel. Then Noah arrived or you could call him Tanner. Yeah, we still have not legally changed his name even though we decided when he was a month old that he was our Noah, not Tanner like we decided in the hospital. Now with our 3rd one we want to get this right with no regrets! Well we've settled on Eli for his first name, but the middle name is completely up in the air. I feel like throwing in the towel and not even adding a middle, but I don't want him to be mad at me later on for not giving him a middle. We KNEW if it had been a girl she would have had my middle name, Christine. So trying to figure something out for this boy has become frustrating. I want to use something from my side and was considering using my maiden name 'Billen' for his mn. However, I like the idea of them being able to use their mn as their first name if they choose later on and Billen isn't a name you could really use as a back up. We're thinking maybe Christian since it's close to Christine, but I don't really like how Christian Shong flows together. I don't know?! Why is naming so hard, boys in particular? This is one thing I would like to have nailed down so that we don't end up scrambling like we did with Noah. Sometimes I wish babies were like Cabbage Patch dolls and just came with birth certificates.

Thanksgiving past, Christmas at last!

This summer when we first told the kids we were having a baby we tried to set up a timeline for them to grasp that the baby wasn't coming next week. So in July when I was telling them "first school has to start, then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Years, then Noah's birthday, THEN the baby will be here." Christmas seemed very far off. I can't believe Thanksgiving was a week ago and Christmas is in three weeks! We had a nice low key Thanksgiving at Aaron's parents house. We had a lovely dinner. We got stuffed like we were supposed to. Would you like to know what my boys dinner consisted of? Turkey and rolls. That's it! Massive amounts of beautiful food laid out on the table and their plates had only beige food. Mia did a little bit better. They were just saving room for dessert. I was so thankful for the four day weekend we had to mostly hang out and relax. We slept in, did some good cleaning, went bowling, saw Tangled and got Christmas decorations up (excluding a tree). All in all, a great holiday. Now let's get Christmas past.


The Shong/Brown/Caltagirone/Garcia Thanksgiving


Nana and the boys


Mia and her auntie


Aaron and his uncles


Soon to be six silly Shongs

Aaron's first love...

Should I be jealous? She's beautiful. She's rich. She's available. They worked together for two summers and even though they had met each other before then, that's when he fell in love. I've known about her all along and the thing is I've been taken in by her charms as well. Our whole family rejoices whenever we go to visit her. Her name is Yosemite. Yosemite is beautiful whether she's covered in snow or sweltering hot. Yosemite is rich in history and gorgeous scenery. Yosemite is available to anyone who is willing to travel to where she is. We have been lucky enough to make the trip just about every year since Aaron and I were married. Our latest trip was Veteran's Day weekend and our time there left us all feeling relaxed and rejuvenated. It's so hard to not fall in love when you get to feel like that every time you go. So no, I'm not jealous. I'm thankful that Aaron introduced us and shared his first love with us.

Leaving triple digits

Today I have 1oo days until my due date. I'm on the down hill side of this pregnancy, but I still feel like I have a LONG time left. My guess is a Feb. 15 or 16th arrival so that makes it 90 or 91 days.

Here we are.

A little update on what's going on around here.

Mia started 3rd grade and absolutely adores her teacher, Ms Fil. At her school they have a long standing tradition for the 3rd graders called Historic Halloween. All the 3rd graders pick an actual person from history to report on and dress up as. We already had Mia's greek godess costume when this assignment rolled around so to get good use out of it I went back to ancient Rome (figured the clothing was similar) and found Julia Caeser, Julius Caeser's ONLY child in marriage. Mia enjoyed the assignment and the class presentation was really cute. Mia also just finished her fourth year of soccer. This year her team was "The Monsterz" they started out strong, but kind of fell apart by the end of the season. By fall apart, I mean only 6 girls showing up to games and practices. Those poor girls were playing games 6 on 10 with no subs. Aaron and I figured it with AYSO every other year is good. Last year was good, this year wasn't, so next year should be good again.
Kai is in Pre-K and I can't tell you how relieved I am that we decided to wait and put him in kindergarten next year! Socially, emotionally and educationally he is where he belongs. Kai loves music, he loves dancing, he loves having friends, what Kai doesn't love is "learning". He regularly tells me "mom, I don't want to learn, I just want to play." Whether we're trying to do letters, writing or math he see's through the disguises I put on the subjects and does his best of getting out of doing them. It worries me a little that learning doesn't come easy to him. I don't want him to always hate school. He already pretends to be sick, he is a champion at forced throw up. He knows it gets him out of doing things he doesn't want to do. He'll make himself throw up and say "see, I'm sick, I can't go to school." He did it tonight actually after I told him 1.)No, you can't wear your costume to school tomorrow. 2.) No, it's not show and tell day. Well wouldn't you know, not 5 minutes later he throws up and tells me he guesses he can't go to school. That kid has the sweetest side, but sometimes he can drive me bonkers!
Noah has been our comic relief as of late. He just loves making us laugh and he will do just about anything to get a chuckle out of us. His finger is almost better and he just started going with no bandage at all on it. It's going to look a little different, but at least he has the whole thing. He truly has been a tough guy through all of this and it doesn't stop there. He and Kai had just gotten their flu shots and Noah looks over at Kai and goes "Kai, stop crying, you're giving me a headache." I'm so happy that Noah is finally started school and getting to make his own friends! He had to borrow Kai's friends and is always the third wheel for playdates, it so nice that he is making his own buddies. He's in my preschool class and is every bit as independent in the class as he is at home.
Aaron and I are doing well. Aaron says this is the easiest time he's ever had working at the airlines. Flight schedules are lighters which means he spends more time in the break room watching TV. We also got a new truck! It's a Toyota Tundra and it seats 6! Aaron finally talked me into it. I loved having no car payments, but he said his truck was pretty much worthess as a family vehicle because he can only fit two other people in it. Now we have a great back up when my car's in the shop or just as another option to take camping. I have to admit I like the idea of throwing all that gear in the back, while our whole family can be in the cab. That 6th spot is only 3 1/2 months away from being taken up. I'm definitely showing now, strangers are no longer afraid to ask if I'm expecting. The kids love feeling him kick and bump. It is so different having all the kids understand what's going on, I'm excited to see what it will be like when he actually gets here. Halloween was great, but I'm very glad it's over. We had some kind of Halloween event every day from Wednesday to Sunday. Mia was tired of wearing her costume, she actually asked if she could be something else on Halloween night, but there was no going back at that point. Up next is our Yosemite trip, I'm so looking forward to a weekend away!