Many days of sniffles

This has been a tough week because of our little Ophelia's cold. I guess, I am assuming it's a cold and praying that it's nothing more serious. She has been caughing a lot, having some trouble breathing and sleeping. She hasn't been eating well. I realize more and more what my Mom meant when she said she would rather be sick herself than seeing her kids ailing. That's exactly how I feel. With maybe some complaining, in exchange for words of comfort, I can take a cold any day (or week). But when it's my own child...I just feel so so so bad. The other day, after her nap, she was just laying on the couch with her paci and blankie in hand, and watching me. She just seemed weak and not her playful self. Those are some hard moments as a mother...

The past two days, it has been getting better though. We borrowed a humidifier from our friends, the Stahelis, and at least she has hardly coughed at night at all, being able to sleep well and letting me sleep. One problem is that extra humidity in our house will likely lead to more mold. But at this point, I would rather have a better-feeling baby and deal with the mold in other ways. Maybe we'll put a dehumidifier in her room, once she is over this thing :)

Here are some pictures from the ward Chritmas activity:

Thanksgiving break

It is always nice to take a couple of days and go away to the hill country. We enjoyed hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa a lot! New toys, new books - Ophelia loved it. And after we left, Grandma loved spending a day of getting the house back in order!

This Thanksgiving was different from the years before in that I really worked on not stuffing myself and it actually worked. I feel that I came back same size that I was before I left and that's a big accomplishement!

Here is Ophelia in her Thanksgiving outfit. She was going to wear long sleeves, but the temperatures were in the 70s, so we had a change of plans:



We saw some deer right outside of the window. A mother with two kids:



Playing with Grandma:



And here is her favorite enterntainment of the weekend :) as she was ours :)



Alright, winter, we are ready for you, you can come now :)

7 years and counting!

This November marked PJ and my 7th wedding anniversary. How exciting! We've definately done some learning and growing together, but we are so IN LOVE and very HAPPY to be together. We found each other at a dance at BYU. Got engaged 2 months after that and got married after 7 months of knowing each other :) Some may judge and say what they want to say... and if it was my child I would frankly be worried too ... BUT we are a perfect match and that was confirmed to us plenty of times, we simply figured that out quicker than normal couples do! We are way excited to continue our love through all eternity! Here are some flashback pictures. Enjoy!

Our engagement picture (August 2003) :



Our wedding day (November 25th, 2003):



Our special temple, the Salt Lake Temple:



PJ actually never kneeled down to propose to me (he did it while standing up, with shaking knees...maybe he should've kneeled), but this picture made up for it:

And here is why all of this had to happen:

This is actually Ophelia's passport picture in preparation for our summer vacation!

November fun!

It has been a really warm November this year, so we have enjoyed going to the park a lot. Ophelia learned to say "fpa", which means "to the park" in her simplified Russian. We also took her last weekend to baby-modeling auditions. We went back and forth about it with mixed feelings. But it all came down to "why not?" and to the fact that if she can start earning money for her education bank account right now, that would be awesome! She now gets to sleep in the car with the help of her doggy-pillow:



Developing Ophelia's love for books: (this book is her fave)



PJ and I have built Ophelia a little house out of a big box. For now her soft toys are housed in there and she pops in once in a while. I am guessing she will get more into it in a year or so, when role playing begins.

Front-yard creatures...He won't do so well now that the leaves are turning brown :) What is he doing on a purple plant anyways?

These next pictures are from November 18. The leaves are now starting to fall down. I am trying to train Ophelia to rake them :) Do you think she'll do it for $1 per bag :) what if I'll tell her it's for her education fund? :)

Special Thursday

What a special day November 4th turned out to be. For the first time ever, Ophelia called me "mama". It wasn't just babbling or her trying to say "more", she actually looked at me and said "mama" (with accompanying sign, of course). It was soooo very special and touching. I think before that moment, I never really internalized that I am a Mother. It's just been simply things I do: I take care of her, hang out with her, tell her things and talk back at her babbles, but it's not someone else's child I am babysitting here...it's my daugther. And I am her "mama"! Now, officially! The cute part is that she says it with a French (or Spanish) accent, with a stress on the second "ma".

To make things fair, she also said "papa" that night as well :) She is just so smart!

That night PJ and I were talking in the kitchen, when Ophelia got suspiciously quiet somewhere in another room (I should've reacted sooner...I guess this was a learning experience). We came out into the living room to find this:



WOOOW! This is a no-no-no and she totally knows she is not supposed to touch the toilet paper. PJ started laughing and I was trying to keep a staight face, so she knew that I was not happy. But it was hard to do with her showing me what she has discovered:




The funniest part was to watch her pick all the paper up again and put it on top of the toilet. I am guessing she was trying to put it back where it belongs:

Funny girl! She did go to time-out for that...after I was done taking the video of her :)

Hawoween :)

Of course, on the night that I was super excited to take pictures of Ophelia, I forgot my camera! Why does that always happen? Heidi let me use hers (thanks a bunch!) and the battery ran out on me...But here are a few pics of our cute puppy-dog:

At first, Ophelia was sitting on my lap and checking everything and everyone out at the ward activity. But eventually she warmed up and went off without looking back. She touched different costumes that kids had, explored different activity booths (Sis. Blair's story time corner was one of her favorites), took a ball from one of the booths and carried it all evening long, and she also had her very first lolly-pop (needless to say, she LOVED it). Fun night!

Weekend in Oatmeal

We had such a fun weekend in Oatmeal. Oatmeal, TX - is a little piece of heaven in the Texan hill country, where my in-laws build their dream home. We love it out there! It is so beautiful and peaceful. It does take a little over 3 hours of driving to get there, however...Ophelia was not too fond of that, as you can see:



She was happy to finally arrive! Check out the pretty house and the new tiles in front of the house. Keep in mind, this house was built by a one-armed man. Sometimes I forget that my father-in-law does not have an arm, because he is so industrious - he is a real "handy man" :) He makes some amazing stuff out of wood. All Ophelia wanted to do outside is to play with the rocks. She loves re-arranging them...good thing there are a lot of rocks there :) Grandpa is trying hard to look away, because he has a place for each rock and now it's all ruined!!!

Aahh, Oatmeal, TX :)

Picking flowers at the side of the road.

Ophelia had so many new things to play with at Grandma's and Grandpa's. Here she is playing with some decorative Russian spoons. Is my child left-handed???

No, whew, she is right-handed after all:

Checking out the view, looking for the deer:

Unkie Mark and Daddy sure sound good!

That evening we went to a "cowboy stew" party. Some country music and a hot soup made for a fun activity. Ophelia was cheking out all the animals there. Here Auntie Camille is checking out a dog with Ophelia:

And then she found a horse. She LOVED it.

Moving her little body to some good tunes!

Chilling with Daddy:

Cheeeese!

Since I showed Ophelia that you can see pictures and videos on the camera, it's gotten increasingly hard to take a good picture of her. As soon as she sees me pull out the camera, she wants to sit on my lap and look at the pictures and videos. So, I get a lot of pictures like this:



Or like this one, with her running to look at the camera:



Say cheeeese, дочка!

Mommy-daughter days

Briefly...in pictures here's how my time as stay-at-home-mom is going:

We visited the Fort Worth Science museum with my friend Ashley and her two sons. Ophelia had fun exploring so many different things!



This is a little "grocery store" with shopping carts, registers, and groceries. It is awesome!



The water playground was so exciting, Ophelia felt like doing "ладушки" (pat-a-cake).



My other friend Ashley and her youngest son, Cade, have been exploring the Hurst park. Now that the weather is so nice and warm, not hot or cold, it is pleasant to be outside :) Here's the two of them taking a snack break.

What else do you do on a playground? How about reading a book?





All dressed up for church...oh, wait...no, no, no... not the cute bow!



Good, happy morning :)



At the playground in the mall. Who cares that there's probably a million germs in that place...the most important thing is having a good time! Besides, it probably keeps her healthier by being exposed to all those things. She loves that place so much! When at the mall, Ophelia gets suuuper excited when we are approaching the playground area, she can hardly keep herself contained.





At the park in our neigborhood: daddy has been joining us more now that it's not as hot outside.

At the Arlington library where we go for "bouncing babies" time every Monday:
She gets to sing (or rather listen to at this point) songs, listen to books being read, play musical instruments, dance to music, and play with other kids.

She likes to snuggle with the big fluffy dog at the library :)

At the park again:

We saw a dog there, and, of course, had to go pet it.

This is a little preview of Ophelia's Halloween outfit:

Soooooo cute!!!