James the singer, Sonja's first lost tooth

Even though he keeps quiet at school (despite which kids obviously love him, approach him, even fight over his attention, boys and girls equally!), he memorizes every song in no time and sings away at home... I'm sure his music teacher would be shocked to hear how well he sings the songs she teaches the kids since she never heard him sing!
His repertoire, besides kids' songs like some pumpkin song, 'One little, two little, three little Indians', etc., includes Irish drinking songs, songs from 'Bijelo Dugme' ('S vremena na vrijeme', in particular), Yugoslavian kids' songs ('Preko brda, preko brijega', 'U jednoj zimskoj noci', 'Bila mama Kukutka, bio tata Taranta', etc.), one from my elementary school choir from years ago that I can still remember....Some of these are tricky to sing in tune, but this kids never misses a note!  And he is not shy about it--the only place where he doesn't sing is the school.
James is as perceptive and observant as ever.  Robb was joking the other day--telling the older kids what not to do to make me upset--and then he turned to James and said "James, don't smile."  He immediately turned the smile off and stayed serious for a few moment, until we burst out laughing and Robb said "OK, you can smile now."  Then he smiled.

 Potty training in September: various bribes in front of James -- they worked this time!

James learned in school how to push himself on a swing in September 2015--and he swings high!

Our little Halloween pumpkin

Sonja and her best friend Katherine

Michael, still chasing little animals

Nikolas is suddenly paying attention at his looks: he puts gel in his hair, takes more frequent showers, he is picky about clothes that he is wearing (I didn't get him a tie for a school concert so he kept hiding behind a classmate during the entire concert so no one could see him).

Nikolas and Michael both are doing an amazing job at painting and drawing--such creative, expressive, and unique art!  I want to save everything they put on paper.  Sonja's drawings are more girly and organized than theirs, not as dramatic for sure.  But she enjoys it a lot too.  Sonja and Michael will be starting the same art lessons as Nikolas with a local artist and they got very excited about it--Nikolas declared it was the best Christmas present ever.

Sonja lost her first tooth in early December 2015.

Some updates on kids!

James: sings perfectly:

• Irish drinking songs

• Good night songs: 'U jednoj zimskoj noci', 'Laku noc, laku noc, laku noc mali Guguli', 'Spavaj, snivaj, cedo moje malo', 
• Bijelo dugme: 'Ruzica si bila'
• He is picking up songs in English from school after his first week there (they must have recited an Eric Carle's book because I hear him reciteing it rhythmically at home now).
• He is starting to draw while sitting neatly at the little table, just like the older kids.  He'll put a bin of crayons and a bin of colored pencils next to his paper and look very focused as he draws using both left and right hand at different times.  We can't tell yet if he is a leftie or a rightie.

Nikolas is awesome at chess.  I'm having a hard time beating him.  He is still a Lego master, too, and a huge Minecraft fan.  He still also likes to draw, getting inspiration from Zoobooks and their photos of various animals.  Michael is getting into this too--looking at pictures and reproducing them.

Mikica: he draws well and has very interesting ideas (always some people/soldiers/animals in motion).  He pays attention to little details of his  drawings.  His handwriting is neat too, except that he tends to bunch words together (he is finally making them look like words and not a single word 2 rows long), but he is still flipping a lot of numbers and letter left to right (esp. J, 5, 6...) 

Sonja:  She used to usually draw a house and family in front of it over the past year, but now she likes color and abstract with lots of hearts and decorations, so her pictures resemble notecards.
She enjoys playing Othello, Backgammon, and Uno.
Her math is great, all addition and subtraction for her grade she is finding easy.

Both Sonja and Michael hover over Nikolas's shoulder when he gets to play Minecraft on weekends, that he completely hooked on since last winter.

Manners:
James beats the rest of the kids by far!  During meals, he sits properly at his little table facing the table, uses utensils (if I forgot to give him a fork or a spoon, he'll ask for one).  Nikolas usually stands at the table or leans with a knee on the chair and makes most mess.  Michael still takes forever to finish his meals, gets distracted by TV or by Nikolas, and Sonja mastered spreading food she doesn't care about all over the bowl to maximize the leftover and still be able to say that she is done.  I can always count on James to bring his plate back to the kitchen when he is done, while the others always need to be reminded.
James always says 'please', 'thank you', 'bless you' (after someone sneezes).  The other kids... not so much.  Nikolas isn't bad, but he is not as good at mannerism as James is.
In Serbocroatian, James says 'hvala mama' nicely.  I have to teach him to say 'nazdravlje'.
When he asks for something, he says 'Meni ... ', like 'Meni meka.' (asking for milk), whether he is speaking in English or Serbocroatian.  In English, he always adds 'please' at the end.  He knows to ask for 'pelene' (diapers), tene (tennis shoes, as opposed to crocs), shorts, majica (shirt).

James's first day of school

James is a big boy as of yesterday!  He spent his first day at the Gainesville Country Day school.  His version of potty training is to hold everything until he comes home, so he created a huge puddle as soon as he stepped in from the garage.  In his way he is respecting mommy's instructions to not have accidents at school :)

Both days went well: he way happy (singing in the car) all the way to school, and then when he sensed that I was about to leave, he wanted me to hold him and I needed a teacher's help to pry him away.  They told me that he calmed down quickly and had a great day.

Getting bigger and older (almost a WHOLE one year old)

James has an awesome sense of humor.
A few weeks ago he started nodding his head 'no' when I waved no to him to stop doing something.  First he realized that nodding his head 'no' made us all laugh, but then within a couple of weeks he realized that it actually meant 'no', so when I told him to stop spitting water or grabbing some object, he'd pause for a quick moment, nod 'no', then stare me in the eyes and slowly repeat what he was just told not to do.
He also figured out that he is not supposed to grab my eye glasses, so now he does it any chance he gets, and he moves quickly, to trick me!  He'd also grab the kids' faces (just swipe his hand over their faces, maybe grab their noses, and giggle) when they come close to him.
As he crawls, when someone catches his attention, he'd stand up on his knees, bounce up and down a few times, and wave his hand (lately he's been stretching his arm out and leaning his cheek on that same shoulder, looking coy and cute!)  When I get back from work, he hears the garage door and is already waiting for me--when he sees me while the babysitter has him in her arms, he starts bouncing and stretching his arms toward me and smiling, giggling, screeching out of happiness!  Then when I grab him, he turns to the person who passed him to me (nanny, Robb) and waves and smiles to them like he is saying, 'look at me, I'm with mommy, I like you now even better now that mommy is holding me.' :)

Winter updates--Thanksgiving in Orlando, skiing

First, updates on James:
He just started picking food with his hands (Jan 2014).  He just didn't care before.  His favorite food is still breastmilk, although he's been eating 3 meals per day for a few months now.  He refused baby 'cheerios', the kind that melts in baby's mouth--wouldn't touch them and wouldn't put them in his mouth, and when I did, he'd gag.
Tonight he used the mesh for food correctly (silicone mesh that you stuff with juicy food and the baby chews on it and gets the juices and a little bit of the puree out), with pineapple in it.

Over the last couple of weeks, James is more interested in standing and even (slowly and wobbly) walking along sofa, the outside edge of the exersaucer, etc.  We are keeping the exersaucer and the walker around just for the toys, not for the seat. 

It's also been a few weeks (month or two) that he's been more social where he points his little finger at people he likes as if saying 'hi 'or 'bye', along with his little signature smirk with a closed mouth and a flirty look in his eyes.

December 25-January 3:  ski vacation!
We stayed with Adnan and Azra at their house in Denver.  We got to meet their boys, see Denver and its amazing surroundings (The Red Rock, etc.), and skied at Keystone and Eldora.
Nikolas was in ski school for 3 days and every day moved to the next level up (ended up on green at the end and went on the chair lift too).  Sonja and Michael skied for 2 days and loved it too.  Sonja was described by the instructor as 'wild' as she preferred to go straight down and only turn at the end to get back in the line for a little escalator lift.  All three loved it, especially Nikolas (mommy's boy!)  His instructors couldn't believe that it was his first time skiing.
When they weren't skiing, the kids were with daddy while mommy was on the slopes.  And they were beautiful...! (the kids too.)  Thanks, dad!

James decided that he was interested in going up and down the stairs in the house, and this was a bit of a challenge--keeping our eyes on his all the time.  The rest of the kids had fun playing with new toys with Adnan's kids (nerf...), walking to the playground by the frozen lake, making snow forts in the backyard, etc.  I enjoyed seeing my friends, seeing my cousin Sabina, and skiing!  Robb got to see his (our) old friend from Stanford, Mark, with Patty and their baby boy.  Overall, it was a wonderful trip!  We've never flown with 3 gigantic suitcases and a couple of carry-on before either....

New piano and rekindled excitement about playing

We treated ourselves (kids) with a new piano to replace that old antique piece.  We realized when the kids woke up from the nap and saw the new piano delivered that it would be worth every cent:  they immediately wanted to play it.  Nikolas was most excited about it, although he has been the one most against continuing piano lessons lately.  Just today he played his songs 4 times (I only asked him to play once).  He was amazed that all keys worked :) and he loved the sound coming from it.  He was persistent in getting his songs right when he made mistakes, and I didn't even have to say a word, he just kept playing on his own even when he got frustrated at times.  I loved it.

James loves crawling everywhere.  He surprisingly doesn't stuff things in his mouth the way Nikolas and the twins did.  He'll grab things to look and them and to feel them with his fingers but won't necessarily want to chew them.

He has a very 'adult' look in his eyes.  Today we went back and forth saying 'dada' and 'gaga' to each other while he held that look as if we were having a dialog

James lifts on all four!