Weekend recap

We had such a fabulously busy weekend full of family and kiddos. Seriously, awesome. Oh, and there were monkeys involved (and I'm not talking just about the kiddos): there were actual monkeys - at the Bronx Zoo!

We then headed to my cousin's birthday party where we had a blast (as usual)

Sunday, we ran some errands and went to my uncle's housewarming party:
All in all, a wonderfully busy weekend!

Kristin and Joe's wedding

Yes, it took me nearly two weeks to go through all the pictures, but they're done. And I like a lot of them.
We had such a wonderful time at Kristin and Joe's wedding. There was just so much love, you could feel it in the air. There was so much happiness and so much dancing. It was one of the most fun weddings we've been to!

 

Tales from "sadik"

So I'm going to start by telling you all about how confused I get with all the different institutions that the kids go through before they enter school. Where I'm from there is a "sadik", an all-encompassing place where little kids go until they start 1st grade at the age of 7. They do arts and music, they play, they nap, they eat, they go for walks. And yes, they learn things they need to know to go to school. So it's really like daycare, pre-k, and kindergarten all wrapped nicely in one. So when I refer to the Sasha's sadik, it all makes sense. But when I'm talking to someone in English, I always always take a second to figure out what to call it: school? pre-school? daycare? And I pretty much always use different words for it.
The question come sup a lot about how she likes it there. Well, she does. A lot! Every Monday and Wednesday morning when she gets up, I tell her we're going to sadik and she runs for her shoes. And keeps yelling "sadik" all the way there. On Monday, when I was picking her up, she saw me, waved and said "hi, mama", but kept playing with her puzzle; she then threw a fit when I try to  drag her out of there. And this morning, a miracle happened. She didn't cry at all when we left. She looked a bit displeased, but other than stretching her arms out to be picked up, she was completely comfortable! And some other little girl in her class called out to her "Sasha hi" when she saw her. How cute is that!?!
Z thinks that by Monday, she'll be waving bye to me and telling me to leave.

Some very exciting news!

This month has been quite an exciting one: first Sasha's birthday with its two-part celebration, then Kristin and Joe's wedding (pictures are still coming, I have about 50 left to go through, sigh), we wont some money in Atlantic City (and with my luck, that is a very exciting thing!) And now *drum roll please* even more exciting stuff: my (not so) little sister just got engaged!!!
Her now fiance (I've always thought it was such a glamorous word to say) proposed to her on their vacation in Mexico last week. They both are just beaming (and of course, so are the rest of us). I just love those two!

Please forgive the quality of these, it was really late on Sunday night and I completely forgot the flash and of course was too busy squealing in delight to check the pictures before it was too late!

 

And I stole this one from Andrey's facebook, because I just love the look on Anya's face and you can see the ring a little better

We did find out on Sunday night, but I was not allowed to put it anywhere on the internet until my sister had a chance to tell all her friends and family herself (which is an understandable request really).

Guess what we did this weekend ;)

We went to Atlantic City (while Sasha stayed with her grandparents) and won some money!

Updates and pictures post

I realized today that there are a couple of things I haven't updated on in a while, so here goes. First, my weight loss journey: I mean, it's been how long since I last talked about it? Exactly! To tell you the truth I haven't properly worked out in months. I went for walks almost daily and doesn't chasing a toddler around count? I really really need to get back into working out. The problem is, I really don't like working out. So I'm looking at either trying out a gym while Sasha is in daycare or signing up for yoga/pilates classes, hopefully that'll keep me more motivated (or, I know, booking a vacation to somewhere tropical usually does the job ;))
Potty training. It sucks. Sasha is full-time in underwear, but we still have accidents here and there.She tells us about half the time when she needs to go (heck, she told me she needed to pee during our swimming lessons yesterday and made me get out and get her to the toilet!) and usually always pees when I sit her on the toilet, like before going out or bed. So the 3 day potty-training did not quite work its magic on this little girl, but it definitely gave us a great start. We got Sasha the cutest froggy toilet seat that she just adores! Now the nighttime has been worse: it started out decent with her waking up dry about half the morning, but in the last couple of weeks, she's been waking up completely soaked in the morning. Poor kid! So I finally caved and bought her some pull-ups for nighttime, I'm just hoping that won't mess up the progress we've already made.

Sasha wearing her fabulous Paris t-shirt with her new toy organizer

 

This is how my child sleeps apparently

 

Girly girl :)

 

Sasha helped me put a chair together yesterday and actually seemed to enjoy it!

P.S. I still owe pictures from Kristin and Joe's wedding last Saturday, but I took nearly 600 and going through them is a bigger pain that I had anticipated.