Tea Party

Go Wildcats!

Peter came to visit today with his very nice roommate Aaron. Adriana got everyone to play Slamwich, after which I am sure that neither Peter nor Aaron wants to have kids (well maybe just on facebook). The girls got way into the game and very loud, but it was fun.
Adriana and Ariel tried to dress up like the Wildcats from High School Musical (their current obsession). They were planning on dancing for Peter but then got too shy.

Our Adorable Little Man

We had our family pictures taken at Target today and after we got home Nikolay took this one of Dallin and me before we changed. He has been standing up so much lately I have been trying to get a good picture of him, put he is camera shy.
I tried to take a picture of these three together, and they took turns looking at the camera, this was the best one of Dallin looking, so the next two pictures are of Adriana and Annika posing for the camera individually.

I don't have much else to blog about right now, but I may soon.... oh the suspense. If you know anyone in the market for a house in Holladay, let me know.

tag

I was tagged by Jessica, and it is perfect for Valentine's day, so here goes:

What is his name? Nikolay, although when I first met him he always went by Kolya (which he denies now) and for a few years he was officially Mykola, the Ukrainian version of his Russian name. So I can say that I fell in love with Kolya, married Mykola, and my husband's name is Nikolay.

How long have you been married? 8 1/2 years

How long did you date? We were actually engaged before we ever went on a date, but from the time that I came back to Ukraine and when we got married was 5 months.

How old is he? 31

Who eats more? Well he can eat more in one setting, but I eat more often. He usually doesn't eat breakfast, but eats his lunch at work and dinner when he gets home. I eat breakfast and lunch with the kids and snack all day long, then eat dinner with the whole family.

Who said "I love you first"? I know for a fact that he wrote it in a letter first, but I don't know who actually said it. Probably him because I remember wishing that he could say it in English. I wondered if it would feel different hearing it in English.

Who is smarter? Well that is a strange question. I'd have to say that we are both smart in our own special ways. He is smarter than me when it comes to math/science/engineering type things, like he has the square root of a million numbers memorized along with all kinds of formulas that I have never even heard of. He has a really great memory for facts, like he knows the capitals of most countries. We both really enjoy problem solving and when we were both preparing for the GRE there would be some problems that I could answer faster than him and visa versa on the logic problems. Sometimes I think I am smarter with language type things, but he is bilingual too, although he could never explain the grammar rules in either language, and I love (loved before my preoccupied mommy days) grammar rules and how they work.

Whose temper is worse? Thats a tough one, when I am under a lot of stress, and run out of patience, I can really lose my temper, but he can get really upset with the kids about things that don't seem like that big of a deal to me.

Who does the laundry? Me. He thinks I do way too much, but he has no problem with hanging clothes back up in his closet that smell. He thinks that I think everything stinks (it does). He also doesn't understand why I need to fold clothes. What else would I do with them, just leave them in the basket? How would anyone find anything?

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me. We did it that way when Annika was a newborn and her bassinet was next to our bed, it's just how the space worked out better.

Who pays the bills? The computer. Although I used to.

Who cooks dinner? I usually do, but he really like to cook meat, so he does quite a bit too, especially on Sundays. I like to relax from the kitchen on Sunday and he likes to cook, that is a change of pace for him, and he is usually starving when we get home from church.

Who drives when you are in the same car? He does. I would rather have him drive than listen to him telling me that I am driving too fast.

Who is more stubborn? That is a tough one. I don't think of either one of us as being stubborn. We can usually talk each other into things, sometimes it takes time, but we are both kind of push overs. Early on when we bought each other gifts we couldn't wait for the birthday or holiday for the other person to open it. (Literally couldn't wait: we made each other open presents early.)

Whose parents do you see the most? We see his mom the most because she lives near us, we see my parents a few times a year and we haven't seen his dad in 4 years.

Who proposed? He did in a letter.

Who has more friends? I guess I do, neither one of us keep in touch very well with people that we grew up with. My best friends are probably my sisters and there are lots of great ladies in my neighborhood who I consider my friends but mostly our relationships have to do with our kids, I don't have like close friends who know me super well here. yet...... Nikolay has good relationships with guys from work and he plays basketball twice a week with guys from church, but he doesn't have anyone who knows him super well either. I guess we are each others' best friends.

Who has more siblings? I do have hands down. I have 8 and he has 1.

Who wears the pants in the family? He does as much as a man married to a post-modern feminist stay at home mom can.

Well, I think I answered this tag a lot better than I did my previous one. I tag Carrie, Rebekah G, and Erin.

Atomicolicious!!!!

Or as Nikolay would say "atomic delicious" For all of you who are familiar with Goober's Lab, do you know how they decide which of the four atoms will become unstable? And how am I going to explain to my book club that instead of reading the biography of Ardith Kapp I got to the 13th level of Goober's lab and furnished a complete room in the wizard decor? Or when Erin said they needed a new blender, I wondered what happened to Pinkey Ears' one. (I have just been reading strangers blogs and was inspired to make really obscure references. Because Webkinz is as close as I am to being clued into pop culture. Sorry, I don't know about any new singers or albums or actors or films or books or musicals. I figure I can catch up on all of that and more after Dallin is in first grade.)
But in real life, I rode in an SUV for the first time tonight. I mean one of those huge ones that is like a living room on wheels. I think it is called a Yukon(because it is like the Yukon Territory in size). It had this little screen on the dash that I thought was a TV at first (that could be really dangerous), but then I figured out it was like a rear view mirror, wow, I didn't know what I was missing. So my friend called and asked if we were going to go to "family math night" at the elementary school. I was so excited to "go out" that I straightened my hair and I was going to take pictures of it so that Erin could see my semi-new haircut that you can only see when my hair is straight, but I guess Nikolay took the camara to Wyoming with him.(I'll post some of the landscapes he took after he gets back.) She was smart enough to get a sitter, but didn't mind me lugging all of my cranky kids along. Both of our husbands are out of town, so it could have been a cool bonding evening, if it weren't for all of the screaming, but I think that after having watched "Super Nanny" on TV last night while folding laundry I was more prepared to deal with it all. Wow, Jo really spoke to me last night. My visiting teaching companion also said something today that really kinda empowered me with the whole raising an emotional kid thing. She said something to the effect that when we feel overwhelmed as mothers that we should seek Heavenly Father's help, because he wants us to succeed and he knows each child and how we can best help them. Can you believe that I am typing this with one hand? I have a sleeping child in the other.