My pumpkins in front of our house. )
 

Ding dong , trick or treat....

 

Halloween

Gabriels class just few minutes before Halloween parada. His school has halloween parade every year. All ( most of kids) dress up for this day and then during the parade they take a walk around shcools playgrownd. They also have halloween party with candy, cookies juices- FUN FUN FUN!!!

Sleeping Beauty Regina

Pooh Bear. Orange is Gabes color...

Regina and Gabriel Ready for Halloween

Regina gets it from me...

Today I attended my first parent-techer conference. It lasted about 15 minutes. Within that time Reginas teacher told me how Regina was doing and what should we do to make her perform better. Overall she is doing really well. We do have to work on letter sounds. She knows her alphabet and numbers and her spelling is good when word is at sight. I expected Reginas teacher to give me these news. I knew it all along. :)

Then on a other note- Regina gets upset really easily. Ex. If someone sits on the chair she wants to sit or she has claimed it is HER chair, she will get teary. SHE wants to be FIRST, FIRST , FIRST - so we have to work on that it is ok to be second sometimes. :)

Her teacher told me that we are doing great job raising her that she is doing awsome. That just did it. I started crying. I swear, I felt little embarrased, but I just could not help it. Being a parent is hardest work in whole world. And I guess that I just needed to hear that and it made me feel happy :).

Gabriel is getting more and more social every day. He learns something new every day. His name is long, and he had hard time spelling it out. 2 days ago he could not spell his name without my help. BUT today, when Regina asked from him how to spell his name he spelled it right G A B R I E L T A N!!!! Oh wow. That was amazing feeling. He also spelled fox and cat and dog. He is little slow compare to Regina but he is on his way being a very smart young man. He is something else.... :)

Wonderful day

Today was one of the best days I have had for a long time. :) After I dropped Regina and Gabe off to school I had very much needed conversation with one of the parents , whose son is in Reginas class. :) It was so nice to talk to someone who also has positive outlook in life and our parenting styles kind of match...

Then around 3-45 us and our very good neigbors went to Strawberry farms (Tanaka Farms)to a pumpkin patch. lol . We had so much fun.At first we all went to petting zoo. First thing kids had to complain was the smell. ThenGabriel screamed like a girl because he was afride of baby goats. I thought ok, at least Regina is doing good. Why did I think that way. Next thing I hear is BOTH of them scraming like 2 babies. lol . They both wanted to hold my hand, but I told them NO and I ran away from them. lol I know i am mean,l but hei, these pets were like baby cheeps, pigs, lamas, and others I'm not sure about. Suddenly they both calmd down, and wanted to feed pets( I guess they saw mommy was mean old witch who was not willing to save them from evil goats). lol We were in petting zoo about 30 minutes . When it was time to go Gabriel did not want to go. I was amazed. HE was inlove with those animals. He gave them kisses, hugs and sayed I love you baby sheep. lol

After petting zoo we took a tractor ride up to the pumpkin and vegetable fields were we picked our own pumpkins. Kids also ran around in hay maze, and chased each other. They had lots of fun there. We will be talking about this day for many many weeks to come. :)
Now both kids are fast asleep on their beds. It was wonderful to see Regina running around like she has never done before. She was running nostop for 10 minutes, jumping up and down and constantly giggling. :) She was happy today :)

Beach

here you go

I told kids to look at message board that was behind me. Instead them looking at it, kids gave me dirty looks 

Picturess/beach and weird faces..

Today I took kids to Laguna Beach in hope to get some beautiful Christmas card shots. As you can see Gabriel has this special way making pics look really, really goofy. In this pic, he is about to sneeze but looks like he is crying or complaning about getting his pics taken. lol This pic cracks me up big time.lol 

Star of the week.

This past week Was Reginas week in shool. She was star of the week. End of each week teacher pulls out one students name from hat( total 25 students). WHose name gets draws , gets to be Star Of The Week. During the one week period that kid gets to stand on line first( before entering classroom, and exiting classroom), sit next to teacher, share her favorite toy , etc. Regina was very exited to be star of the week. :)/

I also do volunteering in Reginas Classroom every friday for about 2 hours. My job is simple. I have to read books, make sure they do their writting and math right, play bingo and oher board games with them and make sure there is order in within that group who is with me at that very moment. I like it. I really do. :) Kids are fun.:) And Regina LOVES when I visit her school every friday. She tryes extra hard to impress me. :) ;)

Schedule for December.

Oh fun, fun , fun. We just got Reginas Schedule for December. I am little upset about the dates. First of all I told them That PLESE do not schedule anything on or around 16th of December because it Last day of school before winter recess. At first everything was perfect. We got our schedule and it was around 5,6,7,(i think) of december. AND now we got new schedule. And guess what- we have to be there 12,13,14,15- and flying back On 16TH!!!!!!! HUH??? I really think that scheduling people there do not like me very much. I tryed to call and change, but then we have to wait another month blah blah blah blah. Oh anyway, I am just trying to deal with it. I am sure that Regina will be sick again after we return from memphis. I just now it. On a happier note- Reginas Chemo ended on December 22nd 2004. One year anniversary coming up.....

Today, after school I took kids to bookstore where we spent about an hour. After that we did and checked out some pumpkins ( again). We did not buy anything, but I did get this awsome pic of my kids. :)

This pic is taken on May 18th, 2004. It was one of Reginas "good moments". I look at this pic now and I can see that there was something wrong with her , but back then....

Gabriel and I had some one on one fun today. First we went to the mall and just played there for a while. Then we had Terryaki chicken and after our meal we went to pumpkin city. lol. Gabriel chose his pumpkin and drew face on it. So there you have it. Now I have 2 "Pumpkins". :D

:D

SHH, I ran away from Gabriel. lol HAHAHAHAH( evil laugh from Regina). Yup, every time Regina thinks she does something funny or smart, she pulls her head between her sholders, closes her eyes and laughs the laugh only she can way ONLY she can laugh. Next thing you know, Gabriel runs downstairs screaming- REGINA TOOK MY CAR AWAY.
There is never dull moment in thins house. There is constantly something going on. Dress up parties, laughing, screaming, crying, chasing around the house. Most favorite game for kids now is "WHO CAN CATCH KITTY FIRST". Poor cat. 30 minutes of intense cardio for him and lots of scrams from kids because cat is just way to fast ....

Regina is doing pretty well right now. Last monday I signed her up for some Hula dance lessons, and now every monday for 45 minutes she practises and dances hula. :) She also knows how to read now. She knows about 40 words and can read simple sentences ( THIS IS CAT, I AM GIRL, I SEE BALL, etc. It is so much fun to see her learning to read. Seems like reading comes really easy for her. And her teacher has really good system worked out to teach kids to read. They get one or 2 new words every week , and little baggy book with it. AT home we practise reading those words and she remembers them really fast. :) She still enjoys doing her homeworks every day. It is not much, but it is fun . I learn with her. :)

Wohoooo

Regina has her first loose tooth. It is one of the bottom ones. When she showed me her loose tooth, I really, really teared up. I laughed and cryed same time. I feel so exited about it. SHE IS LOOSING HER BABY TOOTH!!!!!!! So cool :D

OK Kathy and everyone else...

Here is the 5th sentence from my 23'd post,
And let me tell you about that test.(I'm sure it makes no sence to you). lol

Anyway, it was one of MY worst St Jude days. Regina had Psych test done on that day( about 3 hours Long) And some questions they asked from her were really hard. She cryed during this test, I cryed when she started crying. After her IQ tests she had radiation therapy. First 2 weeks she received RT , she always got sedated. And this was beginning of our long ride- her third radiation day. When they but her to sleep and I went out to get something to eat, I just broke down and started crying . I leaned against the wall and just cryed. I felt really"small", confused, upset, sad, mad, angry... People kept walking past me and once in a while somebody stopped and offered napkin and brought water, and asked if they could do something. But there was nothing they could have done. And all the hugs, and words that people sayed, made me cry harder. But I finally did stop crying and it felt soooo much better. I did not get any answers, but I got rid of all the frustration that was in me at that moment. >>><<<

Today I did something I nave never done before. I know how to crochet, but It was my first time ever crochet hat. Yep. It came out ok. I did not have any patterns handy, so I just did what I thought was right thing to do. I did make few minor mistakes, but at least now I know how to make perfect little pink hats for girls. ( Or boys) Gabriel allready ordered his hat . lol. He sayd it has to be blue.

October...

Unbelivable, it is October allready. It sure does not feel like this year is almost over. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Chirstmas- are you all making plans for these fun holidays? Nick will fly to china again tonight and returns before december 5th( he'll be gone for 2 whole months). For halloween Regina wants to be princess, she allready has outfit, Gabriel is still not sure. But he did mention that maybe HE wants to be princess also. I guess, I just dress up as evil stepmom- or corpse bride- something that scares off all the candy beggers.

For Thanksgiving- Our friends invited us to palm springs. How fun. I was really looking forward for Thanksgiving this year. Last Year Regina was in st Jude Hospital with fever and I HAD to eat hospital turkey :( There was beautiful Thanksgiving dinner in Target house, but since we were inpatients that really did not do any good for us. :(

Anyway- it will be looong and lonely 2 months. I am very sure both of my kids will get really sick ( that is unwritten rule). Every time Nick goes to china they get sick. Punishment for me. They will not listen to me, they will not clean up theyr messes and they will not play nice with each other. lol ...
.........................................

This past saturday we went to Big Bear to Celebrate octoberfest there. Gabriel and Regina were not very exited about this trip. Someting about name BEAR just made them little suspicious about this beautiful place. They did like the little cute cottage we stayed in, but they hated the place where October fest was on. It was to loud for them, people looked to scary and weird( they thought so). But they did paly couple of traditional fair activities like trying to hit the balloons with tarts, and throw balls into baskets. etc. Regina won cute tiny mouse and that was it. :) After we had our dinner, we left our kids with sitter and we ourselves went out and drank some beer and ate sourkraut with sausages.