My 100th post or why I still love my dear husband

Nikolay glancing over from his reading this evening.
Disclaimer: The following post is probably the cheesiest so far, you've been warned.
If he ever sees this post he'll probably have me delete it, but that is a risk I am willing to take. I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I love my husband. That sounds like I could have copied it from the spoof blog Seriously So Blessed, but recently I have been reading a lot of blogs (because I don't have page turner of a novel to captivate me right now) and have noticed a trend to brag about your own Prince Charming. I naturally find myself comparing my prince to everyone else's and sometimes he totally rocks and sometimes he comes up short, but what does it matter anyway, I married him and not any of those other bloggers out there. Acting on the conviction that praising anyone rather than criticizing them is cathartic for the relationship I begin my bragging:
I have been telling Erin about how great his new job is for him, not only is he really growing in his career, but he recently was inspired to try a different approach the design of a medical device and he even flew out to Texas to present his new concept, which seems very promising. You can tell when he is working out an idea in his head because it looks like he is having a conversation with himself without moving his lips. He nods his head, gestures his hand like "on the other hand" then shakes his head, holds his chin up gazing at something invisible on the ceiling then redirects his gaze to a spot on the ground all the while pursing and relaxing his lips and nodding and shaking his head intermittently. Then his picks up the nearest available scrap of paper (be it the back of an envelop or the kids' artwork) and pen and draws out some design. I like to think that I am observing a genius at work when I observe this.
Another thing to admire about his intellect is that he absorbs information like a sponge. He is always reading the news online either from CNN of from a Russian online newspaper LentaRu. But he doesn't always talk about what he has read and surprises me when something randomly comes up and he knows all the details in and out about it.
He is also very handy. He can fix almost anything which has saved us a small fortune and he did a lot of remodeling projects in our house in Holladay, including laying tile in the shower and installing a porcelain sink in the kitchen. He is meticulous in his handywork and goes the extra mile where someone like me would probably try to cut corners.
He is a very consistent gift giver and gets really excited about it which is really cute, like when he came home with a 3 foot wide heart shaped balloon on Valentines day that played music when you bumped it. He has given me countless potted plants and neat things for the kitchen because he knows thats what I love. And he always gives me a card, which means so much!
I could write a lot more about why I appreciate him and how great he is (and I will in future posts, this is just the tip of he iceberg and I haven't even gotten into what a great father he is) but all of these attributes fade when I consider that special bond and sense of belonging that we share at crucial moments like bringing a child into the world or buying our first home when we look into each others' eyes and know that there is no one else in the whole world that I would rather be doing this with.



PS If you want to read about my political views or find out the nitty gritty details of how Ariel lost her biking/scootering privileges, check out my other blog.

Walking buddy

Since school started a few weeks ago I have been walking Ariel to school almost a mile away with Annika and Dallin in the stroller and Adriana on her bike or scooter. We won't get into how Ariel lost her biking/scootering privileges. All of the walking is great for my weight-loss program and it is great to be out in the fresh air, but best of all is my daily conversations with my new Alburtis best friend. She is also a stay at home mom. She has three kids and pushes a double stroller as well. It is just great to have someone to talk to everyday. Often times we just pick up where we left off the day before. We can commiserate with each other about child-rearing woes and husband/financial problems, and share recipes for new varieties of bean soup. She has lived here longer although she is not from here so she knows where all the neat places are. She is the one who took me to the Mennonite quilting shop that I wrote about earlier where I bought all that cool fabric. I guess I am just grateful I have her here to help me adjust to our new life in PA. So, heres to walking buddies!

going kinda crazy with the mosaics

Adriana WarholNew Clothes from Grandma Svetlana
The many faces of Annika

Mosaic

I have seen these mosaics on friends' blogs, and finally figured out how to make one, here . I just love all of Dallin's expressions. I should make one with all of the faces that Annika pulls too. Funny thing with all of these pictures, Dallin actually handed me the camera then backed up a little and started posing. It was SO funny.

Just Keeping up with the Picture of the Day

Here are my photo's from the last two days.

Sept 20, Ariel Writing a Letter




Ariel said a funny thing tonight. We were reading in Alma chapter 30 about the freedom of religion and I was trying to explain that we have the choice to go to whatever church we want and people go to all different churches, and then she said, "Our church in Utah was the one true church." I asked a few follow up questions and it turns out that she really did think that we are no longer attending the one true church because we are going to a different ward now, so then I tried to explain the difference between a church building and a church organization. Funny kid moment.

Sept 21 Adriana and Sunflower Seeds


Thanks for the votes of confidence Erin and Emily. I am working on a "political" post in my head, I'll probably write it out tomorrow on my other blog. Hey, Rebekah, and Maegan, and maybe even Mom, if you guys are reading this just leave a hi for a comment, I will feel so loved. And I wish you would start blogs too, I would love to read about your families and see pictures of your kids or lambs respectively. Well I guess Mom might have some 4 legged kids as well.

Photos of the Days

September 17 POD I took this one late at night and Papa was pretty grumpy, so I had to crop him out of the photo.
I am still trying to keep up with the Photo of the Day challenge. But sometimes I wonder if pictures of my cute kids gets dull after a while, so I have been (finally) reading the manual for my camera and have tried to take some landscape shots. I was really inspired and humbled by Emily and Heidi's dad's amazing photos on his blog. After seeing my feeble attempts you will realise that I have a long way to go before I can take even halfway decent pictures of landscapes. The other night as I was driving out of Alburtis, through some cornfields there was an awe-inspiring sunset and I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera, then the next night I brought it and tried to capture it, but, no dice.
September 18 POD
This was almost the color of the sky, just imagine it intensified like a million times, but the foreground was visible like in the next picture.
This was exactly the same shot, but with a different setting on the camera, so you can see the lovely cornfield, but the sky looks bland. I guess I really do need to take a photography class sometime. I'll put that on my to-do- after-Dallin-is-in-first-grade list.

September 19 POD Dallin is my ever-ready subject when trying to keep up with taking a picture every day. I love his chubby profile, sometimes I try to imagine what his face will look like as a grown man.

Sorry I haven't been writing much. I really am planning on it and planning to get inspired (as if that is something you can pan for) to write about something interesting, like politics and why I strongly believe that one issue that a president doesn't have much control over is not enough reason to elect them. Rebekah, and Erin, you know what I am talking about, I am just to shy and non-commital to make bold political statements on my blog, I don't want to alienate anyone who might be reading it. I have found that most people that I really like and get along with don't necessarily share my political views, so I keep them quite. I don't know if that is a wimpy attitude or not. I really wish wimpy was spelled with an h like whimpy.

Letter to the Tooth Fairy

After a lot of excitement and blood, then panic and tears, I suggested writing her a letter, after all, she should understand, right? I love how she said the tooth fairy could check her mouth to make sure she really lost it. When Adriana saw Ariel's letter, she asked where the blood was in the picture. Ariel said the family prayer tonight and asked to "Please bless the tooth fairy to come tonight."

Too many elbows...

Sept 13 POD Sometimes the ground is interesting to me.Sept 14 POD Dogpile

Sept 15 POD Masks

Tag

Erin did this tag and I haven't done on in a while so here goes:
Three things each:

20 years ago:
1. I had super long hair. The boys on the bus made fun of it and said it looked like a bird's nest and pretended to spit in it just to get me to turn around. It wasn't until I was 14 that I cut it in the middle of the night (much to my mother's horror) and was introduced to hair gel. (Thanks Matt Haliday)

2.I rode my bike to the mall once a week with my trumpet strapped to the back for trumpet lessons. A lot of the time I hadn't even practiced for a whole week.
3.My main sources of income were babysitting and selling friendship bracelets.

10 years ago
1. I was serving my mission in Gorlovka, Ukraine.
2. We started getting our monthly allowance in dollars because exchange rate was dropping daily and hourly becasue of the Russian economic crisis of 1998.
3. I received love letters from Nikolay.

5 years ago
1. We were planning our trip to visit Ukraine.
2. I was working part time for the Boys and Girls Club.
3. Adriana was only 3 months old.

2 years ago.
1. I was exercising regularly. Even going to a Capoeira class.
2. I grew so many tomatoes I gave them away by the bagfulls.
3. I was pregnant with Dallin.

1 year ago
1. Seems like yesterday.
2. Started blogging.
3. Went to the hospital a lot with Ariel.

This year so far
1. Spent New Years and the subsequent 10 days in Rady Children's Hospital with Ariel (and Dallin).
2. Ariel finished treatment in February.
3. Moved to PA.

Today
1. Going to write a talk for Sacrament meeting tomorrow.
2. Going to go grocery shopping for our dinner guests tomorrow.
3. Going to take the kids for a walk in Lock Ridge Park.

Tomorrow
1. Give a talk in Sacrament meeting.
2. Have dinner guests.
3. Relax.

Next year
1. Hopefully our house will be sold.
2. I will be wearing my skinny clothes again.
3. We will be planning our trip to Ukraine.

I tag anyone who wants to respond!

Kids say funny things

Here is my picture of the day: Ariel giving Dallin a piggy-back ride.
Adriana enters my room as I am getting my clothes out to take a shower, "Mom, Annika was dumping yogurt on the couch and licking it off."
"Did she lick it all the way off?" (Cuz I don't really want to go all the way down the stairs to clean it up.)


Riding in the car passing over railroad tracks Ariel asks, "Mom how do trains get on the tracks to start out with?" Now there is something to think about.

Playing the Piano

Adriana's favorite thing is playing the piano. Not only is she good at learning new songs and practicing them over and over until they are right, she also likes to play around on the piano repeating different combinations of notes and exploring the piano. Today she was intently listening as she went down the scale with the same pattern of finger movements. I had to take a picture of how "into" it she was.
I often find her laying on the piano bench playing with one hand, odd but I guess it is relaxing for her. She can read the notes now but she'll often refer to songs like, "Mom, you know the 4 4 3 2 1 3 4 4 2 3 1 song?" About a year and a half ago I felt it was really important to get a piano, but we didn't get really serious about it until this summer, and now I understand why it was so important to get one.

We need this one!

I haven't been baking very much lately. When we first moved in I was so unhappy about our temporary housing situation that I didn't feel like settling in. Baking just seemed like I was giving in and making this house our home, and I was fighting that idea. For the whole month of July I kept saying, "When we buy our real house..." But Ariel had a doctor's appointment today and I had asked a friend in our ward to watch the other kids, so I felt like I should send along something yummy as a nice gesture and so I wouldn't feel bad about my kids eating their food. Weird and complicated, huh? Maybe I'll delve into the psychological issues behind that in my other blog someday. Anyway, Annika was so excited to "help" me. It was so cute, she kept getting out random kitchen utensils and telling me that we needed them. In this picture she is holding up a potato peeler, you know, for making blueberry muffins. Whenever we are going somewhere new, she gets a piece of paper and draws a map so that we can get there. When it was time to add the eggs she informed me that she knows how to crack an egg. I tried to show her how I did it, and she very gently tapped the egg on the side of the bowl and then very forcefully crushed the egg with her fist over the bowl. It was hilarious. Then she said, "That is how I crack eggs." Luckily, the egg shells all stayed attached and I caught them before they landed in the bowl. I really like to indulge her when she is so serious about her made up realities, but it gets problematic when she has too much information that is inaccessible to me, like when she "wrote" a letter and asked me to read it. It was line after line of up and down peaks. I made something up and then she got frustrated and said, "No, it says....."

Eastern PA vernacular

A few times today it really hit home that I am not in Kansas (um, I mean Utah) anymore. People say things differently here. The first example happened this morning.
I thought about driving Ariel to school today because it was supposed to rain, but at the last minute the kids talked me into walking. As I was getting Dallin and Annika into the stroller, I saw my friend and walking buddy coming toward me from her house down the street. She said, "Are you walking? It looks like the bottom is about to fall out."
I paused, trying to decipher her meaning, then I said, "Oh, is it about to rain?"
"Yeah, I'm driving."
"Oh, I guess I will too, we wouldn't want to get stuck in the rain." And as soon as we came home from dropping Ariel off, the rains came down. I wanted to get a picture of what the sky looked like before the "bottom fell out." But this is actually of it raining behind our house. Right behind those tall trees is a railroad.

This evening I went to the PTO meeting at Ariel's school, and as everyone started talking, I found myself giggling, because I can't get over the accent that people really have out here. Part of my brain thinks that they are joking when they talk. Did you ever see "Coffee Talk" on Saturday Night Live in the early nineties. Like the soft a sound sounds like a drawn out word "awe". When everyone applauded the new principal when he introduced himself, he actually said, "I'm verklempt," and meant it. Try saying words like call and Paula a few times with the drawn out "awe" sound, doesn't it make you giggle? Imagine yourself in a room full of people talking like that for real, not trying to be funny. I felt like I was in a movie, a comedy. But I wasn't, so I had to make an effort to contain my chuckles, so people would stop staring at me.
Another thing. People actually say, "PA," instead of Pennsylvania. Imagine people in Utah going around saying that they live in UT.

Just reading, Mom

I had a few minutes of unwinding time after my haggardly trip to Sam's Club (so sad that there is no Costco close by) before I had to go pick up Adriana and Ariel from their respective schools. I let Annika play in her room for a few minutes while I checked my email. When I came to get her ready to get back in the car, this is what I saw.



She had taken ALL of the books off her bookshelf. Two minutes later she had also removed the shelves. She didn't get reprimanded much because she was "reading." Just look at her cute finger pointing to the words.A few days ago Ariel wanted a popsicle for no good reason and so I told her that she could have one after she read a book, which she promptly did (Is that bribing or rewarding good behavior or coercion? Whatever it is it works for me.). Then I noticed that Annika was also "reading" a book, following the words with her finger and turning the pages muttering under her breath the whole time. When she was finished she said, "Now I get popsicle, I read book." I let her have one despite Ariel's protests that she didn't really read the book. Usually she gets treats for going potty. I winked at Ariel and said, "That is how 2 year-olds read." She just rolled her eyes and giggled.

Better than a tripod

Today is day 3 in my new go at taking a picture a day, but I have to post a few pictures for the past few days, because I just can't make up my mind. I had Ariel take a few pictures with me in them per Emily's request. Day one was Sept 5th from my last post, so day two was yesterday, Sept 6th.

We went to a free event at the Da Vinci Science center in Allentown, but when we got there they locked the doors and weren't letting anyone in until they found a lost child. It turned out alright although it was raining because they were serving hot dogs under a tent, so we ate while we waited. Ariel took this picture of us while we were waiting in line. Can you tell that my hair and face are wet?
"Help me dig up some dinosaur bones!"

Trying to get creative with the picture taking.Just to put it into perspective, my head is huge!
Guess whose foot is whose!
And here is what I looked like this evening getting the kids ready for bed. Not too glamorous, but that is my "season" of life right now. I guess Annika changed her mind about being in the picture at the last millisecond.

Well, there were a whopping 3 pictures of me in this post, I hope that will sustain you for a while. Next time I'll try some better photography.

Labor Day and First Week of school

I am way off on the picture of the day thing now. I missed the 30th and 31st of August and this week Nikolay took the camera to work for two days, so maybe I'll start all over and see if I can beat my record.
Here are some pictures of Labor Day.
Nikolay and the kids playing catch early in the morning. I am consciously trying to take more pictures with Nikolay, because I noticed that I hadn't been for a while.
Lock Ridge Park. We had a picnic dinner in the park for our FHE activity. Notice the kissy-face/gonna spit water at you face again, he is actually trying to hold back a laugh. Hey, I take what I can get when it comes to Nikolay and smiling for pictures.
I love this shot of Ariel and Nikolay joking around together. I had said that I needed some pictures of my handsome prince and Ariel was teasing him about being the handsome prince and he was futilely trying to defend his non-princiness. (come on spell check that has got to be a word even if kissy-face isn't).
I could take a million pictures of this smile.


Ariel on the first day of school.
Adriana in front of her bus on the first day of school. I had her ride the bus for the first two days, but it was extremely late (latest being one hour) both picking her up and dropping her off. So now I am driving her. They say that it will get better in a few weeks, and if it does, I may send her on the bus again.This was Ariel and Adriana on the first day of school 2 years ago. I can't believe how much they have changed.



Now that the "big girls" are in school, I have more time to play with these cuties (spell-check thinks cuties isn't a word either, I guess I'm not playing Scrabble with you Mr. Spellchecker guy!). So, far I am pretty impressed with the public schools here. On the first day Ariel said, "Guess what, we have music class at school. Isn't that awesome!" Yes, it is pretty awesome, and so are the many other specialists that they have at the school.