Congratulations Stas!

Best news here.

Stas, I am so proud of you! Not that I wouldn't still be proud otherwise. You have put forth so much effort and time towards your studies and your career, and I am glad to see you rewarded for it. I am always impressed with your dedication to your studies and your enthusiasm in learning something new (whether it be varying sections of the Tax Code or a new game). I love you!

Walk with Mimi

Our boys were lucky enough to have Mimi offer to take them out for a walk this morning. Actually, Mom offered to take Nik out. Then after seeing how desperately our poor dog needed to get some exercise figured she might as well take him, too. It takes a brave woman to manage a stroller and a leash!

 

Loyalty

Buster will sit by the door and wait for hours, literally hours, for Stas to come home from school. Now that is what I call loyalty.

Face off

Buster is frustrated because he wants to play with Nikolai but knows he's not allowed.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

Shades

Niko borrowed Nolan's sunglasses for a bit last night.

Six month well visit

I was going to title this post "My Mammoth Baby" but had a change of heart. Nikolai had his six month well visit yesterday, and just as we expected, he is quite the big boy!

Height: 27 3/4 inches (7.485 cm)  83%

Weight: 21 lbs 2 ounces (9.5821 kg) 92%

Head: 18 inches (45.72 cm) 92 %

 Niko LOVES these keys!! Thank you Svetlana!!

Out for a walk

Niko, Buster, and I were going a little crazy in the house this afternoon, and we decided to go out for a walk. The weather  wasn't too bad; just in the low 80s with lots of sun. That is so much better than when we moved here, although I am looking forward to wearing something besides shorts and t-shirts all of the time. Anyway, back to the walk--

Niko in the BabyHawk Oh Snap!. This baby carrier deserves a post of it's own. Or maybe five posts of its own. When it came in the mail, I literally was jumping up and down. Alot. I think my dad was a little worried. But more on that later. Or not if I never get around to it.

Buster!

cool old barn

pretty view in front of the barn

Photo session

impromptu photo session with the new phone. why are camera phones just so much more fun to use?

Things of note:
-two big bottom teeth (the newest top one is still hiding)
-his romper is size 18 months; his socks are 12-24 months; this kid's a tank!
-he has the most adorable smile that could make me cry if I think about it too much.
-i love his chunky legs!

testing

Practice post from my phone.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.2

Babywearing

This is awesome.

When images of Licia Ronzulli cradling her baby daughter while attending a voting at the European parliament showed up online, you could almost hear a collective sigh (and "Aww!") from working moms worldwide.

Fittingly, the European parliament was debating proposals to improve women's employment rights and opportunities as 35-year-old Ronzulli of Italy snuggled her 7-week-old baby Vittoria, who slept peacefully throughout the proceedings, in a sling close to her heart.

Ronzulli's colleagues gave her a round of applause as she got up to speak on behalf of women.

"I am here symbolically with my daughter Vittoria to think of all those women who cannot reconcile serenely pregnancy and jobs, professional life and family life," she said.

"It was not a political gesture. It was first of all a maternal gesture -- that I wanted to stay with my daughter as much as possible, and to remind people that there are women who do not have this opportunity (to bring their children to work), that we should do something to talk about this," she told the Guardian.

Ronzulli says does not plan on bringing her baby to work on a regular basis, though. "It's an official meeting, it's not a creche. You can't have everybody coming in with children who might cry or who might want to play ... I'll come when it's possible. If I can bring her, I will. If it's not appropriate, then I won't."

Hey remember when I used to blog?

Yeah, me too.

Well my dear bloggy friends, it feels like a lifetime has passed since the last post. And it pretty much has.

Here is what the family is up to:

We moved back to the Homeland, Texas (not to be confused with the Motherland, Russia). We are currently living with my parental units for the time being. Besides tending to the most handsome little boy in the world, I am still working for TE on a part-time-ish schedule. Part-time-ish  meaning that it takes about seven hours to get fours hours of actual work done, and a couple weeks out of the month there is much more work to do than just four hours a day. I'm basically doing the same work that I did in the office as a full-time employee, but without all of the fun chit-chat and time-wasting meetings.

Stanislav has started the LLM program in Tax Law over at SMU and has the privilege of driving an hour to and from, four to five times a week. After the first two weeks of school, all I can say is that it is better him than me, because I would have run away crying after the first assignment. And I mean even listening to the assignments makes me want to cry. This stuff is HARD, demanding, and intense.

Nikolai is amazing. He really could fill up about a million posts all on his own. I will try to add in some post-dated posts to commemorate the actual events. He is now rolling over (both ways: front to back, and back to front). He has one adorable little snaggle-tooth that has emerged from his bottom gums. He's been pretty good to me in the nursing department (especially with the new tooth), but still trying to get a hang of the whole sleeping thing. He lays on his back with his legs straight up and then flops from left-side to right-side over and over again - while somewhere between sound asleep and wakey-wake. He smiles and laughs so much. He is very interactive. He's such a sweet, happy boy. We are so lucky. And his new favorite thing is watching his mom dance around in her desk chair singing along to her Pandora "Soundtracks" station using lots of jazz hands.

Buster is great! It took him a while to adjust to protecting about four times more square footage than our apartment, plus several more entrances/exits, and a yard!. He is the defender of his new territory, but still gets scared of my mom's wind chimes. 

Being near family is awesome!!!! We get to see Plip and her fam periodically and were able to catch D & Jami and the kids on their way home from Utah. I am really, really glad that Nikolai will get to grow up near his cousins and build those bonds of closeness. Mom and Dad are great. It is fun to wake up every morning and bring Nikolai out to the kitchen to get loves from his Mimi and Pops.

After being here for a month I finally feel like maybe we are sort of settled. It is incredible how much work moving (especially to a new city, let alone a state!) can be! and we didn't even have to find a place to stay! Well, I will try to get better at posting and update the world on our lives (for all three of my readers who care). I am sure I am missing about thirty things in this post alone. Sorry. Also the camera cord is in a box labeled "Home" in the back of the storage unit, don't ask. It's a sensitive subject. (J?K Stas, love you!) So pictures might be a little scarce. I'll see what I can do.

For now you will just have to settle for this one my dad took with his phone (taken Aug 31 @ 5 months):

First tooth

At some point between this morning and this afternoon Nikolai cut his first tooth!

15.5 Weeks

Look who fell asleep on the way home from church:

He was talking up a storm and then got suspiciously quiet. I absolutely love this little guy!

14.5 Weeks - Almost rolling over

It's been a really big week for this little guy. He got to go to a baby sitter on both Tuesday and Thursday while Mommy went in to work. Thursday he got to learn what it would be like to have three older siblings - so much attention! Tuesday he learned how to blow bubbles. Friday he was so close to rolling over; I have about five videos of him on his side kicking his legs around. I didn't want to look away and miss it. He's so close to rolling over! He just has to figure out how to get around that bottom arm. He loves his Jungle Gym and can reach and kick all of the toys that hang down. He is fascinated with the camera. Whenever I get it out (like when he is "talking" or blowing bubbles or just generally being adorable), he becomes intrigued with it, and I get the "deer in headlights" look. We'll have to learn how to avoid that one. He's way too young to start hating the camera. Buster is anxious for Nikolai to get bigger so they can play. Buster will bring his toys and place them at Nikolai's feet. Then Buster's acts confused why Nikolai won't play fetch with him. It's pretty cute; they will surely be buddies before long.


Pictures & videos from this week here, 12-41.

Motherhood

Thank you Nicole for sharing this video.

13.5 wks - Idependence Day

Our Fourth of July was pretty mellow. We just went to church and hung out around the house. As much as I love fireworks, I didn't feeling like traumatizing Nikolai and throwing off what little consistency of bedtime that we have. He did however manage to wiggle himself nearly off of his play mat. I set him down in the middle and later found him here:

Mobility here we come!!

On Wednesday (6/30/10) Niko learned he could put toys in his mouth! But his hands are still his favorite to chew on.

 

Photos from this past week: June 160 - 163; July 1-11.

San Fran

Thanks for all of your tips on traveling with a baby. Nik did great on the plane and was a champ the whole trip. Eventually I'll get around to the details, until then click here to see my sister's Facebook album of the trip. She's got a bunch of cute one's of Nik up there! Enjoy!

Flying with baby

Nik and I are headed out to San Fran for a little b-day celebration for my dear Mommacita. She'll be celebrating in "the land of fruits and nuts" with her five daughters and one very lucky grandson.

So here's my solicitation for all the advice you can give on flying with a baby. Endow me with your knowledge!

9.5 weeks

This dude's a tank. At church today we met a 3 month old baby that also weighs 13 pounds, but looks way smaller. Oh boy, where will Nik be a month from now! But seriously, I hardly recognize this guy as my little baby. He's getting too big so fast! I love all of the random happy noises he's started making, and he is really getting to be more self sufficient - like he only has to be held 80% of the time as opposed to 90%! But I love doing it!

The little guy did great again at church. He eats during sacrament meeting time, is super alert and happy while Stas teaches his Primary class, and then sleeps during YW.

It is really exciting to start to see some patterns of behavior/routines to our day.

This morning Nikolai had wiggled around in his swing until he found this unusually comfortable position:
Whatever works little man!

Commentary on baby clothes

Yes, that's right. I am writing a whole post just about baby clothes. And it probably won't be the last one either.

First - today was a sad day. I packed away all of Nik's newborn-sized clothes. He's been wearing 0-3 months stuff for a while, but now he's officially no longer a newborn.

Second - what is with the size variation? Yeah, these two sleepers are supposed to be the same size (0-3 months). Hardly.

Note: the green stripes is in the top three of my favorite outfits on Nik.

Third - this sleeper has the shortest legs ever. Seriously they are less than two inches long. Definitely not for our baby!


Okay, that's it for now, but I'll undoubtedly share more opinions later!