We met the Cookie Monster today

The three of us went to the library where they were holding a Sesame Street event. While most of the activities seemed to be for older kids, we did get to take a few pictures with the Cookie Monster. When we were in line for pictures, Sasha was happy as a clam and kept pointing at the Monster and waving at him. But the moment we got anywhere near the scary blue furry thing, she clung to me like we were leaving her with it forever! We did end up with a few pictures though.

A little Valentine's Day "photoshoot"

Sasha and I had a little V-day "photo shoot" yesterday. The reason I put that in quotes is... well, who are we kidding, I'm nowhere near a "photographer" to have a real photo shoot! I got a few really cute pictures and our Little Miss behaved beautifully (although I'm not too crazy about the lighting in these).

Bad nights :(

The past few nights have not been fun our house: Sasha keeps waking up at seemingly the same times, some time around 1-2am and then again at around 5:20am (this one almost to the minute!) We go in her room, change her diaper (which usually is soaked, and we're using the nighttime diaper now too), she fusses a little and goes back to sleep. Then she's started waking up for the day at 6:20am. Now, I know I shouldn't complain, we've had it really really good up till now (if we forget about her insane stint at 4 months, when she'd wake up every hour at night), but the kid needs to sleep... and so do we. I've literally let her watch TV for the last two morning and attempted to get some more sleep on the couch next to her (the one good thing that comes from this is Y making me coffee when he walks into the living room and sees me sprawled out on the couch under the blanket) before leaving for work. Sigh. This needs to stop. Soon. Or we'll have to start going to bed before 11pm... and I don't know how doable that is!

This is what I woke up to yesterday morning: Sasha learned to unzip both of her pajamas:

 

Then this is the attitude I got from her: 

Then of course she went back to being her sweet and cute little self:

Oops!

So it looks like I've completely slacked off on this blog lately. For the six readers that I have, I apologize ;) I will try to do better in the future. I think part of the reason is that I've been updating my 365 blog almost daily (which quite frankly, I'm a bit shocked about, because I did not know if I'd be able to get any decent shots every day... even if most of them are of my kid). Another part is that I'm having a bit of a problem figuring blogspot out: the old editor setting makes it hard to upload pictures and in the new editor setting I have yet to figure out how to post pictures and comment on them directly underneath (or put any text after pictures for that matter). Wow, that was long. But that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
In the meantime, enjoy some photos of our little (can I still pretend she's little?) girl. We had a playdate on Friday afternoon which was a blast: Sasha kept trying to hold little Yeva's hand and kiss her, super cute. Then at some point, she started calling her "baby" which amused my friend Ira immensely. Overall, a good fun day.

Then on Saturday, we helped my sister and her boyfriend move into their new fabulous apartment. It was tiring and I'm pretty sure we all needed a day to rest and massages after moving all the boxes, but it was fun. We also went to see The Lovely Bones Saturday night (which I was slightly disappointed in, maybe because the movie ended up being so different from the book, maybe because it got so hyped up). Sunday, we even got to sleep in, because Sasha was spending the weekend with Y's parents. Then I even got to drive to the mall and back (which is a huge deal if you know me at all, I'm absolutely terrified of driving!)

So there it is, that's what we've been up to. I'm going to try so hard not to let this blog go. In the meantime, if anyone can help me with figuring out these new settings, I'd be forever grateful!

Heat wave and a weekend recap

We've had a bit of a "heat wave" for the past few days - it seriously reached 50F since Friday! It's been so nice and I wish it'd stay this warm until the spring is officially here. We've been spending a lot of time outside to try to soak up the warm weather.

 










Sunday, Y and I helped my sister and her boyfriend paint their new apartment. Then my parents kept Sasha overnight so we got to sleep in until 10am this morning! Crazy, but it felt so good! Oh, and we saw Avatar last night and it was AMAZING! No wonder the tickets are sold out hours in advance and there are crazy lines to the theaters.

Kissy face

Nothing much going on here these days. We try to get out and go for a walk at least once a day, but I've become such a wuss that 32F is entirely too cold for me... Sigh. My husband keeps asking me how I survived the much much colder winters in Russia. I just giggle and shrug it off, you forget so quickly and get used to warm weather of New York.
I feel like I've been posting so much on my 365 blog, but I don't want to neglect this blog. So here are a few absolutely adorable pictures of Sasha I took yesterday:

Fun weekend!

We had a wonderful weekend and I just wanted to share some pictures from then.
Saturday, after dropping Miss Sasha at my parents' house, we headed to NYC to hang out with my dear friends with whom I studied in Paris. Two of us live in NY, one in Boston and one is moving to London this Thursday, so yeah, we had to get together before Gretchen left. And Saturday just happened to be exactly 5 years from when we met for the first time in Paris.




On Sunday, we went over to one of Y's coworker's house for a mini get-together with their group. We had such a wonderful time, played Pictionary and some Wii, Sasha slept cozily in her Ergo. After she woke up and ate her lunch, she entertained everybody with her dancing and chased Y's coworker's little boy around, who blatantly ignored her. We all had a blast!



Papa playing Pictionary


Sasha tried pizza for the firs time: she seemed absolutely uninterested in the crust, but ate all the olives, peppers, and cheese off of it








Helping papa play Wii bowling

16 months checkup and shots!

Ugh, today was not a good day for little Miss Sasha! We had an appointment with her pediatrician this morning, we had to make just one little stop on the way there: the library to pick up a book they had on hold for me. Less than 5 minutes after leaving, Sasha fell asleep in her stroller, and slept through the library, through the walk to the dr's office, and for 20 minutes while we waited to be seen. She got two shots, she cried and looked at me like I was betraying her, snuggled into me and didn't want me to let go. She was fussy for the rest of the afternoon, but finally slept for a good hour at around 5pm. Poor little thing! I'm hoping it's just a reaction to the shots and she'll be back to her happy self in a couple of days.
Here's Sasha playing mommy to two of her dolls this morning, it's just so precious, I had to share!


And here she is, peacefully sleeping through all the craziness at the dr's office:

16 months old today!

Miss Sasha is 16 months old today, which is just a little short of a year and a half. Somehow that seems like another big "milestone", even though I know it's just a number.
Our little girl is still babbling a lot, and now saying a bunch of new words. She tries to say the for "fish", but it sounds very funny, but at least she's consistent with the way she says it. So I'm not entirely sure if that counts. She's saying a few English words now, in addition to the Russian words: baby, wow, and bye (it sounds like "baaa", but she waves so enthusiastically when she says it). I think she's trying to meow, but it sounds like she's saying "me". Not so much on the other animal sounds though.
She now knows and can point to a lot of body parts too (and not just her own, other people's and her dolls' too): eyes, ears, teeth, tongue, cheeks, forehead (go figure), head, hair, arm/hand, leg/foot, belly, and belly button! Sasha now has 12 teeth (those first molars are all finally in).
Here is one good picture from today and one from a year ago:

Started a new blog!

Because I clearly do not post enough pictures on this blog, I had decided to start another one, solely dedicated to pictures. I came across a very neat idea of taking at least one picture a day for a year and blogging about it. How cool would a look back at 2010 be? Now since Bubblegum is dedicated mostly to our little Miss Sasha, 365 moments of 2010 will be a random mix of everything that is happening in our lives (you can go to the blog by clicking on the name or by going here: http://yuliyasphotoblog.blogspot.com/) Hope you enjoy!

New Year party #3

When we got home this morning, we opened our presents from Grandfather Frost (pretty much, the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus). Among other things, Sasha got a spinning toy, which she helped papa assemble:




But mama's new gloves were by far her favorite gift of all:


Finally, our last party of the holiday season was today at my parents' house. My uncles, aunt, and cousins came over for a quick get-together and we exchanged presents and ate some of the left-overs (why, oh why, is there always so much food at these gatherings of ours??)

With great-grandma, watching as auntie Anna opened her presents


The three of us


Sasha spent most of the time trying to kiss everybody, including her new best friend Emily


Finally, Emily succumbed to the cuteness!


Playing with grandpa L. and Emily's camera

Phew, that was a lot of partying and gift giving for just a few days, but how fun! I love the holidays! Now I need to devise a plan on how to let Y leave the tree and all the wonderful decorations in our apartment as long as we can ;)