Favorite Foto Friday

Anyone has an insight into what he was thinking? Please share!

Baby Shower

I am still trying to catch up with all the things we did during my Birthday weekend. I think it will take couple more posts after this one to talk about all we did.

On Sunday, we went to a Baby Shower for our old friends Kelly and Tom. I've never been to a coed Baby Shower and it was a lot of fun. Kelly is due to have their firstborn son Bodi on March 23 and she looks too cute with the 8 Months big belly. Three of Kelly's best friends organized the shower and they did a very good job.

Here is Kelly (and Baby Bodi) and me:

Daniel, of course, could not miss a meal :) Stephen was trying to tease Daniel, but he was not paying attention, he had to eat. Did any of you, ladies, notice that you open your mouth when you feed your babies? Apparently, I do, my friend Lera caught it on film :)
They had a baby bottle drinking competition for the guys only. I tried to tell them to give a bottle to Daniel, but they did not, I guess they thought he is over-qualified. (The bottle was filled with water, by the way) Kelly and Tom had lots of baby-related gifts. We brought a baby grooming and emergency kit. I decided to bring a gag gift too. I brought a pink translucent negligee with feathers. Kelly and especially Tom loved it! And yes, Tom did wear Kelly's Mother-to-be tiara :)

I think Tom was more than excited, just look at his face - I think he is

thinking about starting on the second baby :)

Lera shot this beautiful picture of Stephen, I think it is awesome:

We had a blast:

And Daniel had to walk around constantly, being his precious self and flirting with all the ladies:

Happy Birthday to me!

This year there are a lot of big Birthdays in my family. First one, of course, is Daniel turning one next month, and second - Stephen turning 40 in April. Since Christmas I've been thinking and making plans for those two Birthdays. This year my Birthday was really not that important to me. I turned 29 on the 21st of February. The older I get the less excited I am about my Birthdays. Plus 29 is almost 30, and I do not know anybody who looks forward to turning 30. :) It seems like when somebody turns 30, she really becomes an adult, does that make any sense? I am confusing myself, HA!

I guess because I did not have any expectations, I had the best Birthday! A few months ago Lera, my roommate and best friend from college in Kiev moved to New York to pursue a career in broadcasting. Unfortunately, she moved to New York about a month after we moved to Atlanta. We have been exchanging phone calls pretty regularly in the last three months. And suddenly she said that she wanted to come visit, see Stephen and me, and meet Daniel for the first time. So a few days before my Birthday she bought a ticket and in the morning on Saturday we went to meet her at the airport. It is so crazy sometimes how the connection with some people just never seems to go away. We saw each other maybe 2 or 3 times in the past 10 years since I left Ukraine. But, we still communicate as as we did back when we were 17. It was so great to see her!

Mom cooked an awesome lunch for us:

And Julie danced wearing her pink dress:
Stephen invited a bunch of people for dinner and a drink at a restaurant/bar called "Book House". There were some of my oldest friends and some of Stephen's co-workers that I never met before. I had a wonderful time!

I was tagged

My bloggy friend Candice tagged all of her readers to play along and go to their Picture folder and open the fourth folder and post the fourth picture. I went to the fourth folder and it holds the pictures from Stephen's and mine Graduation from University of Alabama at Birmingham almost 5 years ago. So I decided to play along and post about it.

As fate would have it, Stephen and I graduated from UAB at the same time in May of 2004. His parents, grandmother and brother decided to come out and visit, and all of our friends were happy to come celebrate with us, so we decided to have a party. After the graduation ceremony everybody came over to a club-house at the apartment complex where Stephen lived. There were about 60 people at the party. It was such a special time for us, seeing our friends, family, some of the teachers, and co-workers all together.

Here is the fourth picture, my friend Olga made this beautiful cake for us:

And here is some more of the food we served:

Stephen and I in our robes at the ceremony:
Can you find us? ;-)

Stephen and one of his professors

Toast at the party:

My grandfather Emil and I

My Grandmother Inna and I

Somebody brought us these beautiful flowers:

This tag brought back so many memories, thank you Candice! Maybe I will go back and post some about our pre-baby life and adventures, we have tons of pictures, which you can always find at our picture archive.

Oh, and by the way, I tag everybody who reads this too. If you do not have a blog of your own, just email me the fourth picture from the fourth picture folder, I hope it is funny!!! ;)

Valentines Day (better late...)

I am so behind on my blogging. The last few weeks have been very busy and fun. I guess I should post in chronological order.

Stephen and I do not usually go out on Valentines Day, it is such a hustle to go out and fight the crowds and slow service in restaurants. This year, however, Stephen decided to take me out for lunch, not dinner and a movie. My mum had Daniel and we went to Melting Pot. OMG!!! It was so-so-so good! We had a 5-course meal that was just unbelievable. We did not make it to the movies, but went home and took a 3-hour nap with Daniel :) I felt like a giant python! Even Stephen did not want much of a dinner that night. :)

Professional Pictures

About three weeks ago we went and had professional portraits done. Daniel was not too happy with us for putting a shirt and a vest on him. And then the photographer scared him. I do not understand those guys, they work with kids all the time. Don't they know not to attack the babies right away, tickling and pinching them. I think the guy was trying to make Daniel smile, instead he got a big boo-hoo cry, and it took us forever to calm Daniel. You can see the tears a little bit on the first picture. Daniel did better when one of us was next to the photographer as Stephen and I jumped, made silly faces, and behaved like the total nuts that we are :).

I think Daniel's feet turned out the best :)

I guess we are back in high-school, and it is prom night:

I do not have a sarcastic comment about this one,

I think it is the best picture of the lot! Stephen looks about 10 years younger,

I guess I should get him some hats like that one :)
I am actually glad we got this kiss on film. Daniel is so over kisses now. He pushes me away with his fists every time I try to hug and kiss him, and he is not even a year old yet

Daniel kind of dancing!!! and where is the baby??

About a week ago Daniel surprised us by dancing any time he hears "Head, shoulders, knees and toes". He will not dance to any other tune:

I was sitting on the couch on my laptop and Daniel was playing on the floor by my feet. He was trying to remove my slippers from my feet. The slippers have become one of his favorite toys. Daniel and my mum's pup Julie like to chew on them equally, it seems :). Back to the point. I was looking up a store on Google and called them to find out whether they had an item that I needed in stock. When I looked up a minute later Daniel was GONE. I started running around the apartment calling his name. All sorts of crazy ideas started running through my head, I did not know whether I should call the police or Stephen or my mother or what else to do. Finally after searching for Daniel for what seemed like forever I heard a small noise from the kitchen. And guess what? Daniel was on the floor there, trying to pick up a minuscule piece of trash (I swept the floor yesterday) and smiling up at me. I have never been so happy to see him! He is not even crawling or walking yet - he rolls instead. I cannot even imagine what is going to happen when he finds a more efficient way of moving around. I am sure I will end up with a heart attack one day!

It's been a little while since I've posted. I've been reading a blog by a lady who is smart, witty, and very honest. She writes not only about the good in her life but the bad and the average. I looked back at my blog and found that I write only about the good in my life (there are some not so awesome moments around here, HA!). If I want to have a true diary of my life right now, I cannot keep it this way. So for the last few days I've been working on a couple of posts, one of which I started over a month ago but just could not bring myself to finish. More about this later.

For now, I've been trying to play with my camera some more, and here is the result:

Day at the Park

This Sunday Stephen, Daniel and I went to Mid-town Atlanta to Piedmont park to meet my dear friend Ilana for a walk.

This is my attempt at an artistic shot of the gazebo and its reflection in the water. I know I should have gotten a lot more water, the picture would have been better.

Here is the same picture with less zoom:

I've been trying to figure out how to blur the background

and just focus on the people and it finally worked

Daniel had a BIG blow out when we got him out of his stroller.
You know what I am talking about :)

No comment required:

Stephen played with the D40 too, look at the moon on top:

Daniel's hair never seems to want to cooperate,

it is always sticking out in all different directions :)

Wordless Wednesday

Daniel's Birthday Ideas - Help!!!!

I am calling to you, more experienced moms and dads, please help me figure out what to do for Daniel's First Birthday. It is still about 5 weeks away, so I have time left for the preparations. As per the latest count we have about 8-10 kids and 25-30 adults coming. I really like the Chuck E Cheese's but what are so many adults going to do there? Our apartment is not nearly big enough to accommodate this many people and we cannot rent out our club house. I am not sure where/how to celebrate in an adult- and kid-friendly fashion. Especially, since the ages of the kids range from baby (Daniel) to 11 year-old. Any advise will be greatly appreciated!

Almost on the move

All the books that I read about baby development usually say that babies start crawling, then pulling up, then walking. Well, Daniel is not going according to the books. Up until couple of days ago he did not even attempt crawling. He started walking with support about a month ago and wants to do it all the time (which kills my back). Now he is trying to crawl, he is not crawling yet, but does get on all fours and rocks back and forth. He usually ends up on his stomach and rolls around the room. This is his fastest way of moving. Today he pulled himself up to full standing position all by himself. I am so proud of my little (big) boy!

Getting on all fours:

Rolling around:

Getting closer to the couch and all the wires (he LOVES wires):

There are bubbles everywhere, everywhere...

there are bubbles in the air, in the air... Since Daniel was born I ALWAYS have a baby song stuck in my head and the bubbles song is the latest one. I guess this happens to everybody but that does not make it any less annoying If any of you are not familiar with it, it comes from the Gymboree class that Daniel and I go to.

And here is Daniel taking his first bubble bath:

Doesn't he look EXACTLY like his Grandmother Monnie in this picture?

All is well!

Today I took Daniel for his 8 week post-operative check-up with the ENT. Daniel got his ear-tubes back in early December. His ears look good, the tubes are in place, and his hearing is back to normal. This means that we can go back to the swimming pool. I signed Daniel up for swimming lessons in October and we managed to go for only one lesson before Daniel got 5-weeks long ear infection(s) which culminated in the surgery. Daniel loves the water! He loves baths and he enjoyed the swimming pool very much. Here are a couple of videos that were taken in October. Sorry for the quality - they were taken with a cell phone.