Daniel update

Daniel has been putting his finger in his right ear for the last week, so Stephen and I decided to take Daniel in to the pediatrician just to be safe. Well, Daniel's ears look great, "pretty as a picture" as the doctor said. The tubes are in place and doing their job. His chest sounds great and overall he is absolutely healthy right now. This was great to hear, I guess he is just discovering his body. I mean the little boy has been known to play with his "thing" during diaper changes :o)

Daniel also got weight during the visit and he is 28 3/4 lbs. as of yesterday (he will be 10 months in less than a week). This means that he managed to gain 2 1/4 lbs. in the last month and a half. Our tiny little baby! I hope he starts walking VERY soon or my back will go out!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, it is Tuesday, but I had to post these photos taken after Daniel's bath yesterday.

New Puppy!

My mother bought this baby poodle on Sunday. She is just adorable. She is a 3.5 months old apricot poodle, born September 17th, 2008. We decided to call her Julie. She really does not like the leash, but will follow mum around when she is off the leash. She seems to be very smart already. Mom tried to clip her hair yesterday and she would not sit still. Today mom promised her a slice of cheese and she set still for a few minutes so that mom could clip her face and tail (to make her look like a true poodle).

We have been wanting to have a dog around for so long, but were not sure if I could handle the responsibility in addition to Daniel. I am so glad mom did, Julie is a wonderful addition to our family!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Happy New Year!

What a busy holiday season we have this year! We are celebrating 2 Christmases (sp?) and the New Year. Why two Christmases, well, let me explain. Before the Communist Revolution in 1917, the Russian calendar was shifted by 13 days as compared to the calendar in other countries. So after the Revolution the government of the Soviet Union decided to shift the calendar to correspond with the rest of the world. However, the Russian Orthodox Church leaders resisted the change and declared that the change in the calendar does not change the date of birth of the Christ. So since then Christmas is celebrated on January 7th.

In the Soviet Union religion was prohibited so people did not celebrate Christmas. Instead, a lot of Christmas traditions were transposed onto the New Year, such as, Father Frost (Santa Claus) comes and gives out presents at midnight on the 1st, fancy dinner gets cooked complete with a turkey or a duck, families get together to celebrate and exchange presents. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, many people returned to churches and started celebrating Christmas, but the New Year traditions remain. Nowadays, Christmas is celebrated on January 7th and no presents get exchanged, instead people go to church and get together for lunch or dinner.

You can read about our December Christmas in previous posts. Stephen, Daniel and I celebrated the New Year with my side of the family. We prepared lots of gifts for each member of the family, and, of course, Daniel received tons more gifts. My Mum and Grandmother went crazy! After this Christmas and New Year, we can open a toy store out of our apartment. Stephen and I really do not know what to do with all these toys, we do not have that much storage. And he still likes his old ones. Plus we wanted to keep the ones he does not play with anymore for the next baby. Thanks to the tip from Krystal, I learned how to do collages, here is our New Year in one picture:

Project 365

If you read my long Christmas posts, you probably remember that I got a Nikon D40 and photography lessons for Christmas this year. A couple of days ago I read about Project 365, and found that there is a group devoted to it on Flickr. To participate in Project 365 you have to take one picture every day, preferably something that will remind you about that day, but it does not have to. You can go on my new Flickr account and check out the group. I only have one picture there right now since it is January 1st today :) Hopefully, with the new camera and lessons there will be some real progress in my pictures this year. Wish me luck!

By the way, I am adding the link to my Flickr account to my side bar so if you ever want to look at the progress, feel free to visit it.

Amazing Artist

One of my friends forwarded me the following link. This artist is amazing! He cannot read or write but can create sculptures inside an eye of a needle. Check it out here.