Happy Halloween!

Today we celebrated Sasha's very first Halloween. We did not put her in a costume, since we weren't going trick or treating anyway, maybe next year (and quite honestly, even though I do think baby Halloween costumes are super adorable, I could not justify spending $25 on an outfit she'd wear for one day... and with our luck pee or poop all over it, lol)

Sasha in her Halloween outfit...

She refused to wear the wonderful hats that Auntie Kristin had sent us, but did sit still for long enough for me to take a picture with her cute bib on.

We even got to carve pumpkins, these were our first, and I must say I think they came out pretty good (those are our names in Russian on each pumpkin) - it was such a blast!!

Gotta love this!!

Totally forgot to mention, the other day, I got a letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security saying that I will be contacted within 540 days from the date of my application (for naturalization) with the date of my interview. Seriously!!! Five hundred and forty days! Sigh!! Took my sister a year to complete the whole process, here's hoping it doesn't take me that long.

Some fun photos

"Bouncy seats are so much more fun when you lay in them sideways, mom"

My little monkey :)

Smiley face

It's been pretty cold around here the last few days, New Jersey even got snow, in October, eek! So this is what baby girl looked like on our walk today.



I think she looks adorable!

I gave my 2-week notice!

I just spoke with my boss and I'm officially a stay-at-home-mom!! Yay! I was a little nervous before calling about how she'd take it, but she was very cool about it and said that I have to "do what's best for my family", she's awesome!! Now I'm going to have to go in to get the remainder of my stuff there and the return my id sometime next week, but I'm officially unemployed (my husband says I'm now "retired" - I like the sound of that - retired at a ripe old age of 24, lol).
Baby Sasha has been fussier than usual all day yesterday and today, I think the poor baby is scared of the nasty weather we have going on here. She wouldn't go down for the night for a good 4 hours last night, I felt so bad for her. But when she finally settled down, she slept for 5 hours straight (which by the way makes it a week of 5-hour stretches of sleep at night, woohoo). I really hope that tonight is better for her, it just makes me so sad when she can't settle down and sleep, when she needs to. Now I'm off to go cuddle with my girl a little bit :)

7 weeks old today!

Our baby Sasha is 7 weeks old today. I know it's not exactly a "birthday" or even a round number, but I think it's kinda cool. In this short time a lot has happened! She smiles, she now giggles too - the funny part is that the first time she did both of these things , she did them for daddy; now she smiles back when you smile at her; she attempts to crawl, it's the cutest thing, you can see her trying and if you put your hand to the soles of her feet she pushes away and, I have to say, gets quite far - she can go our whole bed in only a few pushes! She coos and I like to think that she's talking to us. She likes to "stand" - when she's supported she keeps her legs straight now and it looks almost like she's standing :)

Ok, now just a few super cute pictures I've taken of her in the last couple of days:

"I love my new swing, it's so cool!"


Daddy thinks that baby Sasha may end up with blue eyes after all




Enjoying some naked time this afternoon...


And then some tummy time too!

And here's Sasha enjoying her new swing:



Oh, and in mommy-news, I only have 2 pounds to go to my pre-pregnancy weight! I'm quite impressed with myself, especially considering that I didn't even start exercising, imagine, what I can do with some situps, walking and a little cardio!
Oh, and P.S. baby Sasha has slept for at least 4.5 hours each night for the past 3 nights! I think we're on our way to something really good here!!

Today is our anniversary!

Yevgeny and I got married exactly a year ago today! It's crazy how the time flies! We spent all of today hanging out, just the three of us, went to Prospect Park (where we went for our wedding pictures last year) and then we went out to dinner while my mom watched baby Sasha for us (Yevgeny took me to the same restaurant where we had our first date more than five and a half years ago, it was so sweet!)



Us in the park


Going out to dinner (I swear I'm not that round, it's just the way the top is!)


This is what is left of our wedding cake, we ate half of it on our 1 month anniversary....


... but hubby refused to eat it a year later!

8 hours!!

Eight!! You read that right, eight hours: our little girl slept for 8 hours last night. Of course we aren't so smart and only actually slept for 5 of those (we stayed up to see Sarah Palin on SNL, which wasn't even that good). So yeah, we have a superbaby!!! Yay!
Plus we got a bunch of "baby gear" from Zhenia's cousin's friend! There's another bouncy seat, a swing, and even another car seat! We are so incredibly lucky. Baby girl is very very excited about it (ok, in reality she's sleeping right now, but she'll be in it as soon as daddy puts them together!)

Inappropriate picture of the day...

Today as I was feeding little miss Sasha, this is what she did, gave me the finger... No appreciation whatsoever ;)


Ahh, we love our little girl!

Thanks, Auntie Kristin!

This weekend we got a package addressed to little Miss Sasha, lol (hubby even made a comment about how I can't open it because it is a punishable offense to open mail addressed to someone else!) It was from mommy's friend Kristin, she sent us some Halloween stuff, it's so cute. There was a t-shirt, two hats, some socks and a bib. I tried taking some pictures today, but little miss was not in the mood so this is all I got:


"Ok, what is this thing you put me in?"


"I suppose as long as you keep feeding me, I can deal with the hat too"


"Kisses to aunt Kristin"


"Mommy, enough pictures! And take the hat off now, you know I hate hats!"


"Ahhh, finally, some peace and quiet"

Happy birthday, uncle Mike!

Today is uncle Mike's birthday! He's currently in London, so we thought we'd send him a virtual hello and a happy birthday from all three of us :)

Busy weekend!!

Baby Sasha (and mommy and daddy of course) have a busy weekend coming up! Today, auntie Inna came to visit us for the first time since Sasha was born. Tomorrow, great-grandma is coming over - she hasn't been over in a while due to health reasons, so we're excited for her to come. Grandma and grandpa are coming over with her(and maybe staying over Saturday night because they have an early flight Sunday morning and we're so much closer to the airport). Then Sunday, my relatives who are visiting from Moscow are coming to meet the baby. And Sunday afternoon mommy's going to go get her eyes checked and get new glasses (hopefully my vision didn't get much worse since my last appointment and I am so excited about the new glasses!) Hopefully, Sunday afternoon will be spent relaxing and just hanging out.

Sasha slept for 6 hours last night!!

That's six consecutive hours! We got her ready for bed, fed her, bathed her at around 7pm, then she woke up hungry at around 9:30pm. So we fed her, went to bed about an hour later and then she woke us up at 3:30am!!

Now we aren't always very alert when we wake up in the middle of the night, so we thought maybe we had fed her at some point before, but nope, we definitely hadn't!!! Anyway, I'm sure it's a fluke and won't happen again for a while, but it was so nice to get a good night of sleep. For the past few days she's been waking up almost every 2 hours to eat and now this. Ahh, thanks baby girl!
Oh, and I know I probably just jinxed ourselves by posting this, but I couldn't not share ;)

She smiled!!!

Baby Sasha smiled. A real intentional smile! She's given us little half-smiles before too, but this one was different. Daddy came home from work and was playing with Sasha when she decided to smile :) And I got it on camera too!


"This hanging out with daddy is kinda fun..."


"Yup, I definitely like daddy!!!"

I finally did it!

For those following the looong saga of me becoming a citizen, I did it! I sent the application yesterday. Yes, I've lived here for almost 9 years and I just did it, but it's done. Now all I have to do is sit here and wait for them to invite me to the interview. Hopefully it won't take a whole year like it did for my sister (who by the way is now a citizen). Anyway, just wanted to brag, I'm really rather relieved that it's done and out of my hands now!

Happy anniversary, grandma and grandpa!

Today is the 26th wedding anniversary of grandma and grandpa (mommy's parents). We all wish them all the best, love and understanding, patience and excitement, happiness and many many more years together!

Sasha's 1 month old today!

Our baby girl is 1 month old today. I cannot believe how fast the time has flown. She's changing every single day! Baby, daddy and mommy went out for our first official "trip" since coming back from the hospital. We first went shopping and got all 3 of us some birthday presents. Sasha got new pacis and a Halloween onesie, mommy got a sling to carry her around in all day when she won't go down for a nap in her own cradle, and daddy was the most excited when he got a "baby on board" sticky sign for the car! Then we went for a walk in a park and took some pictures when we got home. It was a very good and happy birthday!


This is what happens when daddy dresses me!


All bundled up and ready to go!


She was so tired from all that walking around and shopping!




Hanging out with mommy at the end of a fun day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY SASHA!

I'm sick :(

I woke up with a fever this morning. So now I can't even take care of baby Sasha which absolutely sucks. Luckily my mother-in-law has today off so she came over to help out. It sucks not being able to take care of your own child! But at least I have the weekend to get better and Zhenia may even work from home on Monday if I'm still not feeling better. Ok, off to take another nap now. Will update later.

Back from dr's appointment

Our little lady is growing! She measured at 9lbs13ozs and 21.75" long! Did I mention she's eating supermilk? The doctor was impressed with her head control too. Overall she was very pleased with our progress. We're going back in exactly a month... and baby Sasha's getting her first vaccinations then. I'm a little (ok, very) nervous about that, so I chickened out and made the appointment for a Sunday so that daddy can come with us.
Now we're back home and Sasha is napping happily in her bouncy seat and is letting mommy get a bite to eat! Not too sure on the nap for mommy, I doubt it will happen today. Well as long as she lets me do some chores around the house, that'd be nice.

Another post (I couldn't come up with a title)

I haven't updated in a few days, but just wanted to drop by and say we're doing fine. We've had quite a few visitors this week, and there's more coming! Tomorrow baby girl has her one-month appointment with her doctor (cannot believe she's already almost a month old, but that's a whole other story and a whole other post). I'll update tomorrow on her progress, but she looks like she's gaining and growing :)
Another odd thing I've noticed lately, I think her hair is getting lighter! Her dark grey eyes have gotten lighter a while ago, but now her hair is beginning to look more brown than black, under certain angles, of course. Maybe she'll get her daddy's fun brownish-copperish (as a child) hair!