This is our family in a NUTshell

DOBRON

Diligent

Obedient

Brave

Reverent

Optimistic

Nutty

 Allison Ryann

affectionate

leader

listener

intelligent

smiley

obedient

nurturer

Allison is a good soul. She loves music and helping around the house....and most especially the two together. She is gaining more courage as the months go on and her latest feat was riding on the California Screamin' roller coaster (it goes upside down!) which is now her favorite ride. She can often be found drawing or reading. She LOVES school and is probably one of very few kids who doesn't want the school year to end. She is an excellent student and it comes easy to her. She also loves to help me bake and organize.  If the only thing I have to get on her about is hiding dirty clothes in nooks and crannies in her room, I can't complain. She is a great big sister and a good example. She has a little testimony of her own and she's very excited to be baptized next year and has set a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon before she does! We waited a long year before getting pregnant with Ally and she is a blessing in our home!

 Gregory "Cole"

cheerful

obedient

leader

example

Cole entered our lives with a bang. He's been our zero to sixty kid. As you can tell from his picture here, Cole is a genuinely joyful boy. We love to watch him play sports. He's surprisingly great at soccer, and just finished a fun season of baseball! (Dan's secretly hoping he takes that route and can one day be his coach.) Cole's got a smile that will melt your heart, and skin that soaks in the sun. He is a sweet brother to his little sister and can often be heard around the house talking to her in a high, sweet voice asking her to do things with/for him.  He and his big sister love to play together too, and thankfully, his sister's joy for learning and reading is rubbing off. Cole asks almost every time we drive by the school, "When do I start Kindergarten?" Not soon enough for this kid. He has officially started to read and loves it. I'd like to think my love for reading has rubbed off on both of them! He has no fear (which could give us trouble in a few years ahead.)  He loves being a helper too and he most especially loves being his daddy's shadow on Saturdays! Cole can turn his mood around in a wink.  He is 100% boy...we're just trying to help his voice box pick up on it. He is a hard worker and loves working in the garden. We're glad we have him around to help balance out estrogen in the house! 

Kaitlyn Reese

kissable

active

interested

talkative

light-hearted

youthful

neat

 Kaitlyn has added some spice to our lives. She was a pleasant surprise to our family! Some people are just born with big personalities. (I always wished I had one myself.) And this girl's got one. Kaitlyn is happy and funny and talks about things all day long. She will play in a playroom by herself and be content not to be bothered. She loves to color just like her sister. She loves babies and books.  She clings to me anytime I leave her with someone else, but then runs off to play the second I'm out of sight. She says the cutest little prayers. I want to bottle them up and be able to hear them forever in her cute little voice.  She also freely and frequently tells me she loves me, just because. She can often be seen with her hair right in front of her face and not even seem to notice it's there. She thrives on patterns and once one starts, it sticks. Today's latest is needing a bandaid on some "owie" before nap. And the kid has owies. She is a rough and tumble kid and it will be fun to see what she's into as she grows! Kailtyn is a bright light to our family!

Easter Sunday

After an eventful trip to Park City for Spring Break, we made sure to be back for Easter Sunday where we were able to see sweet little Maggie Staffieri receive her baby blessing. It's a small world - Dan and Matt were best friends growing up in Del Mar, then Dan and I met in Utah, and then a few yeas ago, my parents and Matt's parents ended up in the same ward. Weeks before Easter, our parents' ward split and they split from each other, but the same sweet lady was playing the organ from when I was growing up and some of the kids who were in diapers last time I was around, were passing the sacrament! It was fun to be together again with our families. I hardly recognized Ellie-she looks so old! We sure love this family and were thrilled to hear they are moving back to San Diego from Arizona! We were glad to be a part of their special day. We wouldn't miss it!

  

 The must have "family Easter picture." It was a bit breezy.

 This is why we call him Uncle Matt ;)

 Our handsome little bugger, Cole. Check out those dimples. Lady killer.

 Our darling little Kate. The head cock says it all. *Melt*

 And our sweetheart, Ally. (How does she look so old!)

 

We ended the day with my family as we enjoyed homemade rolls and dinner together. Then the kids played school and Ally was the teacher.  We love living near our cousins!

Birthday bash at Chuck E Cheese

Because our family has a few birthdays within a few weeks, we love to get together for a big birthday celebration.  My brother invited us to Chucky Cheese to celebrate with his son and our two birthday kids.

As usual, there are a few adults who seem to have more fun that the kids. (That would be my dad and my brother's father-in-law.) Always kids at heart.

Even Uncle "J" came to celebrate with us.

They each topped off the night with a visit in the ticket blaster. The hit of the night!

Brown-eyed beauty's birthday

Doesn't she look old?! For Ally's birthday date night we went to her most favorite restaurant -Oggies and then to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D at the theater! 

A birthday isn't complete without a Dixon/Dobron shabang! They start out calm...

The newest addition to the Dixon/Dobron family joined us for our family birthday celebration. Berkley knows how to break in a little girl getting over her fear of dogs. *kiss kiss*

Then the fun begins...

Notice who's at the heart of the fun...

Sometimes it turns violent (See head lock from Gavin).

In an effort to come to the rescue, Shannon gets pulled into the mosh pit.

And then we send the Dixon kids home crying. And that's how the shebang ends. Never a dull moment here at the Dobrons ;) Happy Birthday sweet Ally!

Disneyland

3 weeks of Winter Break calls for strip to Disneyland! We saw some characters we don't typically run into. I think Jasmine's mouth hurt from smiling all day. Not sure she likes her job.

Ally has officially been broken in and LOVES Splash Mountain now. Squeals of joy!

FAVORITE RIDE EVER!

Winter beach break

We squeezed on one fairly warm and sunny day during our winter break before school started up again. Once we get there--with all the effort it takes, it is probably one of the more relaxing things I do with the kids. They are usually really happy and get along well. It's nice to be away from the noise and business of an ordinary day. I'd say a visit to the beach is a great way to start off this new year!

I'll give you $100 if...

Those were famous last words from Dan at a reception we went to. It was a pretty formal affair, as most wedding receptions are. There was the Temecula trolly transporting people who had to park far down the street from the house. Tables were all over the backyard, and then down some stairs by the pool was another bunch of tables. The food spread was delicious and the company was great. As the evening started coming to a close we were chatting near the pool about maybe going somewhere for more appetizers and dessert. As we were there, Dan says to a friend of ours who dipped her foot in the pool to see how warm it was...I'll give you $100 if you jump in that pool right now...and without a blink--in she went, clothes and all. Word got up the stairs quickly and the host, and father of the groom came down with a towel hearing that someone fell in the pool. Needless to say, Dan totally had to pony up the next day at church and she took that hard earned cash without hesitation. It was awesome. I want to be like her one day ;)

We came outside on a calm Sunday afternoon and decided to check on our garden. It was then that we discovered that our bell pepper plant that looked to beautiful with it's large dark green leaves the day before, was devoured from the top down half way. As I looked closer, we discovered these nasty little creatures. They look pretty cool--kinda remind me of the caterpillar on Alice in Wonderland, but they destroyed our plant, leaving nasty black poops all at the base of the plant. (Later, over the next few weeks, they enjoyed the rest of our tomato plants.) Dan took them out to the street and proceeded to bang them with a hammer until their green guts came out. It made me shiver. SO brutal. But those things were literally hissing at us!! I couldn't believe it. We couldn't even pry them off of the stems, we had to cut off the stems they were on to get rid of them. Next year, I will be armed and ready for those nasty green things!!
At least our corn stalks are looking pretty!!

How old are you? TWO!

It's crazy to think that when Ally turned 2, we were 2 weeks away from Cole joining our family! So when Kailtyn turned 2 on the 1st, I couldn't believe how fast my little baby is really growing up. I mean, by this time, we put Ally in a big girl bed--as in a twin bed! to get ready for brother's arrival. I can't imagine putting my tiny Kaitlyn in a huge bed! Although it is pretty sweet when I go to put the other kids to bed and she climbs in with them and snuggles right in with a "bye mommy!" expecting me to let her sleep with them. Ally is super eager for her to join her in her room too since the addition of bunk beds we put in her room, anticipating the future change. BUT, I will be milking the time she has in a crib as long as possible!
This little gal has been so much fun to have in our family. She really has a lot of personality in that little body of hers. She has been my smallest size wise around the board out of all three kids. She may be smaller but she is definitely the spunkiest. The older kids really love her unconditionally, and although she and Ally get along great, she has a soft spot for Mr. Cole. She will sometimes crawl up on his lap and lay back for him to hold her. She almost looks as big as him when she does.

She is talking a ton and says things that sound so crazy coming out of a baby's mouth. I realize I've deciphered her language and that I have to translate for those I leave her with. Nink is drink, buddy either means dino buddies, or binky, doose! is juice, baa (with a pat on the chest) is bath. Poor thing though, she gets speedy baths without even plugging up the tub. She loves them though and when I'm feeling super nice, I let her play in the bath to her hearts content. When I put her to bed, she always sounds like she's gonna scream the roof off, but then minutes and sometimes even seconds later, she's cool as a cucumber dozing off. She LOVES to play with her hair. ESPECIALLY if there is a binky in her mouth. She's created the cutest little curl in a lock of her hair, and sometimes she looks like a little pixie fairy when she gets up with the way she's pulled her hair to a point over her ears onto her cheeks. She also likes to tickle her ear with the ends of her hair. I LOVE IT. Her cousin Gavin used to tickle his ear with the fuzzy part of the corner of his blanky. He'd do it to you too if he really liked you. Kaitlyn's latest obsession is with babies and bottles. She has always loved real babies...especially my friend Autumn's baby boy. It's like she senses when he's around and then she's like a magnet to him. So this year, we got her her very own baby doll and a plain little crib from IKEA. Oh and of course, a milk and juice bottle--the kind where the liquid magically disappears as you tip it to feed the baby. She loves Elmo (which sounds like ewoe when she says it). (Hence the Elmo cake). She thinks she's 5 years old and can climb on the big jungles gyms and tries to ride scooters like her big brother and sister. Of course, having older siblings has caused her to adapt and fend for herself. If something gets taken from her by another kid, she sometimes will use the last resort....a bite! We haven't had too big an issue but no one wants to have a biter! She got a mark on her card at the gym day care a few weeks back (mostly for attacking her cousin, Gavin) That one seems unprovoked though. She LOVES Gavin but surely doesn't show it right. She gives many love bonks and pinches to the poor kid. Gavin's response is hilarious...."your baby hit me!!" He won't really refer to her by her name...maybe in an effort to deny he is related to the little attacker.
Daddy serenaded her with a little birthday song on her birthday. She loves it when he plays his guitar. It's a great way to snap her out of one of her whiny moments.
Adding her to our family was easy. She snuck right in unexpectedly, and then eased right into the mix. She had an easy temperament as a baby and has been fun of energy and smiles ever since. Of course you know what age 2 brings. Those 2's can be terrible. And they are here for sure....the kids has lungs people. But we love her and our lives with her in them! Happy birthday to my little gal!(After seeing this picture, I bought Kaitlyn her own girlie bibs....at least it wasn't the blue one of Cole's that said, "I'm not a girl!" HA!)

Surprise get away

For Dan's birthday this year, I went out on a limb and packed our bags...without him knowing, and hired his mom for help. First stop, we headed to San Clemente to go to Javier's for dinner. He had been craving it for months and I was too. I secretly got his brother and his wife to meet us there. Surprise number one accomplished! Next was surprise number two. We headed to the Hyatt in Long Beach for night. It was an.....interesting excursion. I'm pretty sure the couple in the room above us were on their honeymoon. I've decided that the Hyatt in Long Beach needs to invest in some DW40. Needless to say, we headed out of there fairly quick that next morning and entertained ourselves in a game of tennis at a local tennis club. It was really fun playing together. Dan is really good. I am not. It was fun to be active together though and to do something fun with just the two of us. It was pretty hot, and I got pooped pretty quick. We then headed to lunch and the next plan was a bike ride on the beach. As we got to the bike rental, Dan got this great idea to rent a double surrey and explore the boardwalk that way. It was pretty entertaining but MAN was it a workout. I felt like I was on the easiest speed of a 10 speed bike and was pedaling 30 times to go 5 feet. After a while made the long trek back, and sustained our tired bodies with a large order of funnel cake with ice cream on top. Nice lunch eh? People were staring at us while we ate it. It was pretty indulgent.
We then decided to say goodbye to the beach and do a little shopping at IKEA. We spent more than we needed to, crammed all our purchases into Dan's tiny car, and headed for our last stop- Ruth's Chris. We had some gift certificates there and used them up quickly. After an enjoyable early evening of dining, we rolled ourselves out of there and headed home. It's a amazing how just a night and day away together can.