Family (summer) Vacation 2012

Not sure if you guys are aware or not, but travelling with five people is very difficult.

1. Not too many resorts actually let you have five people in a room (even though that one person is a four month old baby who sleeps in a car seat).
2. The resorts that do let you have five people in a room- charge you an arm and a leg just because you have that one extra person. I also think that a lot of resorts are starting to be a bit crazy about having four (4) people in a room. I mean really???
3. Once you do decide where you want to go and find that resort you CAN stay at- you have to spend an arm and a leg getting ready. Having girlz is crazy I tell you :)

Here is my story of our  Summer Trip to Dominican Republic- Tropical Princess Beach Resort and Spa

We usually go on vacations in the month of June. It must be the 'European' in us but we are use to going to tropical places in summer and icy cold ones in winter. This year with five of us we decided to go back to DM (been there 3 times already) and try out a new resort.

 

The actual trip was not bad at all. Niki was four months old and slept most of the trip there and back. The two other girls did get into few fights on the plane but all in all a good trip. Our resort was not too far from the airport so we didnt have to sit in a bus for too long. Once we got to our resort we had to wait for four hours until our rooms were ready :( boooo. It was HOT ..STICKY ..and we were not dressed for 35C at all :). Once we had our rooms we changed and headed for the pool.

Kiddies loved this pool. It was right in front of our room, ton of shade and chairs so we did not have any problems finding a place to sit and relax. We met some great people from Canada who also happen to be Serbian and they had two girls as well- lets just say it was a bonus :)

 

The trip would have been even better if the local people did not show up on the weekend. Lets just say that they are not the most 'clean' and 'proper' bunch. They would eat food in the pool, jump around you even if you were holding a little baby, loud and crazy until the weeeee hours at night etc. Aside from that little hick up, the hotel and a trip was a great success. I am not sure if we would go back to the same resort but it was definitely something that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Familia at Dominican Republic- Tropical Princess Resort

 

 

 

Has it really been that long

Oh wow ...where do I begin!!??

How about at the place where it all ended? or perhaps started?
Lets say ...that having three kids is NOT and I do repeat NOT a walk in the park! Of course it has its ups I am not going to deny it ..but for the most part it is serious work.

My now 5 year old (Ema) started SK this September. She has a new teacher, new classroom, new bag and a new attitude. She is no longer the youngest person in her school and with that come new challenges. Since she learned the letters and the numbers in JK she feels that she no longer has to learn new things since she already knows 'everything' (according to her :)). Anybody has the same problem out there?????
She wants to dress herself in the clothes she wants to wear and not what I pick out for her. I have a feeling that this is something that is just beginning and I can only imagine how 'great' it is going to be once I have THREE TEENAGE GIRLS on my hand. I think I should start saving my money now for clothes, cars, makeup and shoes :)

My 2.5 year old (Elena) is the middle child and often shows those signs more than perhaps I want her too. She is in a "mine" stage and if I cry really loud I might get things to go my way mode :) WELL not on my watch. Other than the constant crying part- she really is a great kid. She listens and does almost everything we ask her too. She loves her older sister Ema and always wants to play with her, which is not necessarily the feeling shared by her older sister :). Elena is good to the baby and wants to share everything with her (including food and drinks which is not always the best thing). She learned how to ride a bike and loves playing outside.

Nikolina who will be 8 months tomorrow is everything I secretly did not want my baby to be :). She is tooo clingy (is that even a word???- well it is now :)).
She does NOT sleep during the day!!!! 90% of the time she is awake and wants to be cared for ..and that 10% of the time when she is 'sleeping' she likes to be held :( boooooooooo for that. The other girls were not like that at all. They went to bed when I told them and stayed in their cribs and just relaxed even if they were not sleeping. NOT this one I tell you. As soon as she sees that nobody is in the room or beside her she starts screaming her little head off. If you put her down and she is not 100% asleep- all hell breaks loose.
She likes to eat milk (bottle) the most. She is ok with cereals and fruit no problem and an occasional carrot or sweet potato baby food. I try my best to get her to eat regular food like we do but she is not wanting to have anything to do with it.

Hmm lets just say that if I dont stop now I will write things I may not want the entire world to hear :) so yeah ..for now ..that's it :) xoxo

Two for One Special :)

It was a vaccine day today :)
Elena got her 18 month vaccine today (she has been a bit sick these past couple of months so we are running a bit behind) and Nikolina got her 2 month vaccine. I call this 2 for 1 special :)

For those of you who know Elena- you will vouch when I say that she did not cry at all- she did get upset when the doctor put a band-aid on her cause she hates those things :). She thinks that band aids are booboos and she doesnt like them at all. She was sitting on the chair watching Mickey Mouse Club House cartoon on my iphone while doctor gave her her vaccine. She didnt even twitch :) She just looked at him as if he's lost his marbles and continued on watching the cartoon :)

Nikolina on the other hand is a different story. The first needle was ok- nothing at all. When the doctor gave her the second needle- HOLLLLLLYYY MOTHER :) she cried like a baby :))) it was the strangest cry I have ever heard. Poor baby- good thing it only lasted couple of minutes and then she calmed down.

On our way out of the office- Elena got two cookies and everybody in the waiting room laughed and one of the ladies said that Nikolina sure has some goood lungs on her- cause everybody heard her :)

When we got home I made my version of Musaka and Carska Pita (which is like a corn-bread muffin thing :)). I will post the recipes and pictures on my other page a bit later. Kidz love both of them. They are fast and easy to make :-).

FOOD

I just wanted to do a quick blogggg :)

I have created a new page for all the recipes I am going to be talking about on this blog. You can find the recipes right here http://aniramsrecipes.blogspot.ca/

I am starting off with my kidz fave spaghetti and meatballs recipe; and will follow up with a dessert recipe that my daughter Ema LOVES. I do have to get my recipe card out for this one so it will have to wait until some other day.

Now that Im typing I might as well mention that I had a great weekend :)
Weather outside is horrible (true Canadian weather) however it did not stop us from having fun inside. Both big sisters were good and listened as much as 4 1/2 and a 2 year old would listen. Niki (the two month old) has been a bit cranky and did not want to sleep too much during the day and then once the night comes she likes to fall asleep after midnight :) I guess you can say that she's got mama syndrome and does not like to go to bed too early- lucky me.

I finally tasted stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut.

Lets just say that the stuffed crust part looks SOOOO much better on TV than it does in real life. Pizza was Ok- it was a bit too salty for my taste and the stuffed part was too salty and it had too much garlic powder. Pizza crust was way too thin and they were way too CHEAP on toppings.
Now Im not sure if it was just my bad pizza experience or are all of the pizza hut pizzas this bad? We did order ten (10) wings and they were great. For $37 I expected a lot more :(
My food review was 4 out of 10 :)