DJ's Birthday Bear Picture

I can't believe DJ is already 5. Where did the time go? He starts school in August. :(

Here is DJ's birthday picture with the blue bear. I'm so glad he enjoys taking pictures with the bear for his birthday!

He asked me if he would still had to take pictures with the bear when he turned 1 million 12 years old. My answer - OF COURSE! :)









Here is a little montage of years past with the blue bear.

1st Birthday -



2nd birthday -



3rd birthday -



4th birthday -



And the most recent - 5th birthday!



History of the bear -
How did the tradition of the birthday picture with the bear come along? Well....

On the day DJ was born, mama and papa Cruz saw this giant bear in the hospital gift shop. The feet say "baby boy".

As we were laying in our beds, in walked this bear with papa. It was DJ's first stuffed animal on his birth day. That was when I decided that the bear would be a great tool to see just how big DJ (and now Cody, too) gets each year. I am hoping they cooperate and let me take their picture every year until they are 18....or if I can push it...forever! :)

Funny how giant that bear seemed when he was born. Now, it is his wrestling buddy since they are the same size!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DJ!!!

This post is a day late, but...

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY DJ!!!!!

This picture was from his party on Saturday. More to come later. Also stay tuned for his picture with the "blue bear"!

Gian

Gian tries to hide from my camera so this time I made a special stop just to take pictures of him. We had to make sure there were not any people there to see him otherwise he would not have let me take his pictures.

Another Day at the Park

Because it wasn't over 90 degrees, we decided to take a trip to the park. The kids had a blast playing with Kacy.

Cody and Kacy on the play structure.


Kacy and Cody on the slide. Look at the smile on both their faces!!!!



Kacy - isn't she so pretty?! :)



DJ - not wanting to stop and pose for the picture



Cody is finally getting the hang of running without falling over. I brought him to the field and he was in a full sprint!





This is our future linebacker! Look at those moves!

A Visit with the Other California Slapes

We had the opportunity to spend Father's Day with Doyle's brother and his family. They live about 1.5 hours away, but will be leaving California in July.

Although the cousins hadn't seen each other in a few years, they were instant buddies and DJ and Jordan shared conversations about WWE and video games.

DJ and Zoey:



DJ, Zoey and Jordan and their funny faces while eating ice cream:



When we asked Cody how old he was, here was his answer:


Only 2 and trying to be older already!

A picture of Cody and one of his biggest fans!



What a sweet face!

Build a Bear Newbies

Last Thursday, Build a Bear came out with their 4th of July bear. Because Cody just loves DJ's St Patrick's Day bear, Doyle and I thought that Cody would like this one as well. So...on Thursday, the kids and I went to Build a Bear so that Cody AND Gian could get their FIRST Build a Bear bears!!!

Here Cody is smiling as he saw the bear. Usually, we show him a bear and he yells and tries to throw it down. This bear was an instant hit - he grabbed and hugged it!



Here Gian is trying to be discrete about his selection!



Cody has never "stuffed" his own bear before, but has witnessed Cody and Kacy do it LOTS of times. Apparently he remembered protocol and ran straight for the hearts to pick his.



He was also anxious to get the stuffing started so he hurried up and stepped on the pedal to start the stuffing machine. Unfortunatley, no one was there. Finally someone showed up and the pumping began (this is after we were repeatedly told how we were the first to buy these bears and that we were going to receive a complimentary towel and collector's pin).



Cody helping with the pedal.



Gian made Kacy do the stuffing for him since he was embarrassed. When the dude doing the stuffing found this out, he made Gian hold his bear high in the air and yell "I LOVE MY BUILD A BEAR" several times!



Here Cody is doing the "hug" test!



The bear's "first wash". Gian tried to get out of it, but what's the build a bear experience if you don't go through every step?



Last - the naming of the bears! When I asked Cody what he wanted to name his bear, he firmly yelled "DADA". Dada it was!

I would mention Gian's bear's name, but he would probably get mad. :)....



So...instead I will share some intimate moments between bear and boy. So tender and touching, ya?

Nut Tree

A couple of weeks ago, Doyle and I took DJ to the Nut Tree. DJ had a BLAST so we decided to take Kacy and Gian there, too. I think it is targeted more for little kids, but Gian and Kacy still had fun. If they tell you they didn't, they are lieing! LOL The pictures below are proof that they had fun!

Here Kacy and DJ are on the plane ride. Poor Cody wanted so bad to ride this one, but wasn't tall enough! Maybe next year.



The bumper cars were more Gian and Kacy's speed. They were nothing but smiles!



Poor Cody was too small for this one, too!



Kacy was a little too big for this ride, but she's such a good sport that she will ride whatever ride DJ asks her to ride.



DJ discovered the horn for this car and honked it for the entire ride. I think that was the highlight of his day!



And representing the Coast Guard (in honor of Papa), is Cody! FINALLY a ride for him!



They had this cool "air balloon" ride that went up into the sky and from there, you could spin it. No one else wanted to spin, so we made Gian ride by himself.



Here all the kids are enjoying the rocking horse. Can you tell which kid enjoyed it the most???









Next was the carousel. Cody loved it so much that everyone had to ride 2 times in a row. Plus, we had the carousel to ourselves so no one kicked us off.








Is it just me or is there something wrong with a duck coming out of the frog's behind????



And the last ride for the day was the train!



I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the roller coaster ride since I had to ride it with DJ and I didnt' want to bring the camera on the roller coaster. It is a cool little roller coaster that is just perfect for DJ. He rode it 4 times this visit. He even holds BOTH arms in the air throughout the ride and yells out "WOOHOO!"