Milestones and nature photos

Day 33 August 23

Nikolay taking Adriana's training wheels off. All I had to do after they were off was teach her how to "push off " and remind her to keep pedaling when it gets wobbly, and she was great! She has so many natural abilities.
Day 34 August 24th (our 9th anniversary)

This bug was so interesting I just had to take a picture of it.And Annika was so cute using this wrapping paper tube as a telescope, so I have PODs for Aug 24.
Day 35, August 25th Our new friends took us to this really cool rose garden that has a stream next to it. Ariel and Adriana ran ahead while I stayed to buckle Dallin in his stroller, and they got in the stream before I got there. Soon after they saw that they weren't "in trouble" they "accidentally" fell all the way in. Oh, if Nikolay had been there, they never would have heard the end of it, but I figured that I need to let them have some fun in their childhood and run crazy and get messy (while Papa's at work).
Day 36 August 26
Ariel and Adriana have been learning how to count money and earning money by doing "jobs" around the house. They were talking about their piggy banks and Annika said "I put my money in my piggy bank too." It almost broke my heart, because she didn't really have one. She does that a lot like when people ask Ariel what grade she is going into Annika says "I'm going into second grade too." So I went to the store after they were sleeping and SEARCHED for any kind of piggy bank. Finally I found this really cute one in the baby section. It says "my very first piggy bank" one it and it was love at first sight for Annika.
I told her several times to keep it on her dresser and not carry it around because it is very breakable, but I guess some lessons you have to learn by experience.

Day 37 August 27
This is the biggest praying mantis that I have ever seen! It was almost 5 inches long. The girls wanted to kill it, but I didn't let them.
Day 38 August 28
They went out to the far edge of our lawn and started digging up dirt and sifting it. The comradary as they worked together was to be commended.
Day 39 August 29

Lock Ridge Park again. I just love that place. This was my "cool" idea for a picture. I might keep experimenting with it. I love archways.
Here is my latest attempt at good photography. Click on it to see it enlarged, it looks cool really big. There are lots of colorful birds around here like blue and red.

Talking about tongues

Day 32 , August 22

Day 31 August 21
The other day to try to show her off her knowledge Ariel said to Adriana, "Do you know what a tongue does?" to which Adriana replied, "Um, it wigggles?"
"No, you put something on it and it tells you if you like it or not."
Not to be outdone, Adriana asked,"Do you know what hair does?"
"It wiggles."
"No, it relaxes."

Funny. funny kids.

Name that Tune

Day 25 August 15

Adriana woke up with her pajamas like this. I think it is pretty amazing. How did she do that in her sleep?Day 26, August 16th
We went to New York City to see Emily and Jacob. It was a lot of fun (minus Nikolay getting frustrated finding parking spaces) and so good to see them and spend time. Emily went with us to the American Museum of Natural History and to Central Park and then Jacob met up with us at Max Brenner later.
Emily took this picture of us in Central Park, on our way to the Belvedere Castle. Our last family picture was in February. I guess we'll keep trying to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time.

Day 27, August 17th
I didn't remember to take my POD until it all the kids were asleep, so it was either Nikolay or Taz. I finally figured out how to get him to smile, I just laugh right before I click and that makes him laugh. I think I'll experiment more with black and white.
Day 28, August 18th
This is Annika's fake smile for the camera. She is holding walnuts that fall on the ground on our way to our trail in Lock Ridge Park. She collected 20 of them that day.
Day 29, August 19th
Dallin, Annika, and Ariel painting with sidewalk paint at a friends house.

Day 30, August 20th

The kids and I were sitting on our bed waiting for Nikolay to finish with the computer so that we could read the Book of Mormon together and have our prayer. So, we started playing "name that tune" with the xylophone. I played "I'm a Little Teacup" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Then Ariel and Adriana played songs that they are learning on the piano. After we exhausted our repertoires, they started making up songs, but the catch was that the rest of us were still supposed to guess the words to their made up songs. I was the only one who found it funny. Everyone else was trying their darnedest to guess the made up words.

Interesting photos VS. cute photos

Not all pictures are created equally. Most of the pictures I post probably fall more into the category of cute pictures of my kids than good photography or even interesting. Tell me which is better cute, good, or interesting



Day 24 August 14

This one I'd consider cute, although the lighting is good too.
Day 20 August 10

This one--interesting. Doesn't it look like he is going to spit water at you. Just wait till he sees this on here and I'll have to delete it. Oh well.
Day 21 August

This one--cute.
Day 22 August 12

This is my attempt at good photography. Don't think I should start selling postcards yet.
I almost didn't post this one because I already had a picture of the day, but isn't it cute? We have been playing a lot of bad mitten lately.
Day 23 August 13

There we some other cuter pictures from this day but I thought this was a lot more interesting.

Put your left foot in

Day 18 August 8
Dallin Playing Peek-a-boo
Picture of all of our hands.
Day 19 August 9
Fabric for my latest project.
My new friend, I'll just call her C, took me to a Mennonite fabric store. On the way there we saw ladies in long dresses riding bikes and wearing little white bonnets. While we were in the store two girls who looked like they were about ten, wearing long homemade dresses were looking at fabric. They were really nice and one said to the other, "This looks really cool."
Then the other replied, "Yeah look at this cool apron."
"Yeah they have really cool bonnets at this store too."
"I think everything at this store is cool!" I was surprised that they sounded just like mainstream kids.
The sales ladies were really friendly and in the middle of the transaction the phone rang and I got to hear Pennsylvanian Dutch (which is really a dialect of German) for the first time.


Two funny things with Annika and telling left from right. The first one happened a few months ago and I was helping her get her pants on. I said, "Put your left foot in. Now put your right foot in." To which she replied, "And you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around." Imagine that in a cute toddler voice, and I didn't even know she knew that song.
Yesterday I was helping her get her shoes on and I said, "This is your right foot," and we put that shoe on, then, "This is your left foot." And she said "No that is my wrong foot. This is my right foot and this is my wrong foot." Matter-of-factly looking at me like "Mom don't you know anything?"

Diving in

Day 16 August 6Adriana climbed in this hole and asked me to take her picture. Nikolay has been teaching me about how to use the camera, so my pictures of the day might be improving.

Day 17 August 7
At swimming lessons, Ariel has been having a hard time keeping her chin on her chest for diving in, so we decided to practice at home in our "soaking tub." I guess it paid off because, today at swimming lessons, Adriana got to try diving for the first time and did it like a natural. Ariel was so proud of her. After much perseverance and patience on the part of the swimming teacher Ariel got it too.

On another note, last night I was telling Nikolay about my plans to go to NYC with the kids and much to my surprise he said that he wants to go with us. We'll probably be going next Saturday. I can't wait. Up until now, he has boo-hoo-ed all of my notions of venturing out.

It is funny, I don't really feel like I am living "out east" yet because we are surrounded by cornfields and shopping is further away than where we lived in Holladay. Someone from here asked me how I like living here and if it is a lot more fast paced, because she had heard that the East is more fast paced than the West. I just laughed to myself and smiled. I catch myself laughing a lot because I think that people are trying to be funny, but is just that I am not used to the New Jersey type accent yet. It seems like in the movies people with that kind of accent are always comical so my first reaction is that they are joking, then I realize that that is just how they talk. Like I heard some ladies conversing rather animatedly in the store and I busted up laughing because I thought it was a big joke and they just kept going and going and I realized that they weren't joking at all. It is really fun.

more photos-four thousand words

Day 15
Last night for family prayer, Dallin folded his arms all by himself for the first time.

Day 14
I have been getting pretty desparate to actually take a picture every day this was right before bedtime and Annika was being silly.

Day 13
We went for a walk in Lock Ridge Park again last Sunday and attempted taking some cute pictures in the ruins again.

Day12
Ariel learning how to play bad mitten in our backyard.


I was so excited to move here because on the map it looks so close to lots of neat places like Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., but now that we are really here the thought of venturing out into any of those cities with 4 kids is overwhelming. Rebekah gave me a pep talk yesterday about how NYC is doable, so I am planning on making the trip before school starts. Now that Emily and Jacob are there we are super motivated to go.

Catching up

I am planning on emailing a lot of my friends from Utah to let them know how I am doing here and tell them about my blog, so here is a quick update on how I am doing. Great. It was really hard at first without our belongings for about two weeks, but after the moving truck finally came I got really busy with unpacking and organizing. Then I got kind of burnt out on that. The Lord is really blessing us with lots of neat people around us. We have had a few opportunities to "let our light shine." We have a really great ward of down-to-earth, loving, caring and inclusive people. I am getting to know the other moms both in the neighborhood and in the ward. I was really sad to leave Holladay and my comfort zone, I even had dreams the first few days that we were still there, like Katie calling me about carpooling. But, now I feel like we are really here for an important reason, which the Lord is showing us in small ways.
Although I was dreading moving into a townhouse for the first year, it is actually OK. It is a nice new one and we have a lot of great neighbors. Ariel and Adriana are making lots of new friends in the neighborhood. They are also taking swimming lessons.

In my blog I started a "picture of the day" challenge so that will explain the past few entries.

It has been hard to take good picture of the day pictures lately. I tried to figure out which member of the family I haven't posted a lot of pictures of lately and I figured out that it was me. So after many attempts, here one that I like of myself, with Adriana.

Day 11

And here is one that Nikolay likes of himself.
Day 8
This next one didn't turn out that great but it was the only picture that I took that day.
Day 9
Here is the beautiful borscht that I made yesterday. I think it is a very photogenic soup because of it'd beautiful color.
Day10