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