If you need a smile today, watch this!

These are the best dance moves ever! Ophelia totally got into the Sesame street credits song and I grabbed the camera.



One evening we were playing on the floor and after a tower of magnets was ruined by Ophelia, I exclaimed "OH, BLEEEEN!" , which means "oh, pancake" in Russian (it really is a true Russian word used to express frustration). She thought it was the most hilarous thing!

This past general conference weekend, we spent time with our good friends, the Mojicas. Mike's parents have a "cabin" two-and-a-half hours east of here and they invited us over. It was such a nice getaway. We went canoeing, miniature golfing, blow-up house jumping, we roasted hot dog by the firepit, while listening to PJ's guitar and singing song, PJ practiced his Spanish with Mike's grandpa, watched the new disney movie "Tangled" and ate caramel popcorn. All of that plus 8 hours of spiritually uplifting talks made for a wonderful time away from home. It seriously felt like we were there for 5+ days, but it was only 2 days. Ophelia had so much fun playing with Ashlynn and Cameron, and holding, talking to, waking up, consoling baby Maylee. Ophelia is in a stage now, where whenever she hears or sees someone cry, she exclaims "you K", which means "you are okay". Often she says it to herself as well :) Sweet girl!

The Mojica's dog came too, which Ophelia was extatic about! She pet him, playing with him, hugged him, and... gave him her food.

This is the "cabin"...now when I think of a cabin, I imagine a little hut in the woods. This "cabin" is twice as big as our house!!!! We had our own bedroom and Ophelia portacrib fit perfectly into a walk in closet :) She loved it and so did we!

Ashlynn tickling Ophelia:

Watching conference:

This weekend made me realize that Ophelia is capable of being out of her routine and loving it. Made me want to make more little weekend trips like this one.

Spring break 2011! Woot! Woot!

Don't know about you guys, but our favorite spring break vacation spot is Oatmeal, TX. In the middle of hill country, with no city noises, or light pollution. Fields of "nopales", beatiful views, fresh air, warm weather - what else do you need! Oh, and lots of good food, especially desserts :) This trip Ophelia got the word "dessert" down, which I shouldn't be surprised about :) This is us before leaving for Oatmeal, we try to wear Ophelia out by taking her to the park, so she sleeps the whole 3 hour trip down there.



See what I'm talking about? These are the desserts:



Yumm, yumm. These are called "kukens", which are German pies filled with fruit and custard. Sooo delicious! It was a quest to find the exact recipe that PJ's grandma used to use and this is it!
Here is Ophelia hanging out with Grandpa. It is so cool to see their relationship and connection growing with each visit. She loves tickling Grandpa's toes and pulling on his beard.



Celebrating family birthdays! Fun times! Love these guys :)

Ophelia's favorite part was the balloons:

Not sure who had more fun playing here :) Actually Ophelia did love this sesame street playground toy. It was made back in the 70s and the quality+fun factor is hard to compare with contemporary toys. It does NOT make noise for one. Second, no batteries required. We have never used as many batteries as we do now with having just one child! Note the Elmo toy on the left bottom. That one does make noise...unfortunately pretty annoying ones...like Elmo's laugh...sure glad it has an off switch. Ophelia loves her Elmo though. She can sing along the "Elmo song". I'll have to get that on tape some day. It's cute because she has no perception of low/high notes, but stretches the words :)

Ophelia being cuddly with Grandma after bath:

Here she is...welcome our little star...Miss Ophelia!!!

She enjoys all the attention she gets at Grandma's and Grandpa's house and the absense of time-outs! She gets all kinds of cool things, like... sqeeky shoes...wow, wish I had some :)

Springing forward!

Can't believe it's March already! And it's birthday season in our family. We celebrated by b-day by going out to eat and leaving Ophelia at our friends' house (the Hills). That was a nice tiny getaway. And, as usual, I was thinking throughout dinner about Ophelia crying or looking for us... yeah, right :) She was loving it at the Hills, exploring everything and running around a new house that she hasn't been to before. When we came back and I asked her if she wanted to go home, she said "no". I don't know why I am such a "worrier", she does so well with others!

Mid-February, we started leaving her in nursery at church all by herself. The first day she did great up until 1/2 hour before church ended, when she was brought to me sobbing. She got a bit overwhelmed with kids yelling and running around. Since then the two following Sundays she did awesome. Apparently, she is a quiet one there, just listening and watching everybody. Well, let's give her a couple months to warm and then we'll see :)

Here's the signing video I promised of the "feelings" signs:

Today was our last tumbling class of the season. For the first time, Ophelia did the song moves all by herself, without me moving her limbs :) It only took 2 months! Of course, I signed her up for the next season already. She will also be starting a music class at the same rec center. It should be lots of fun! Here is our little tumbler:

To receive a stamp on your hand at the end of class, you are supposed to put your hands on top of your head. At least she knows where she needs to sit to get a stamp...may be the hands will come next season :)



Today is Registered Dietitian day, my professional holiday. Me and Ophelia went out to lunch with all of my friends from work. Hamburger lunch with waffle fries topped with italian creme cake, what else can a dietitian wish for???

To continue the birthday season, this weekend we are going to Oatmeal to celebrate PJ's birthday, as well as his brother Mark's and our sister-in-law Camille's. Yay, party time! Ophelia is excited to play with Grandma and Grandpa! Here is a flashback of them playing a couple of weeks ago:

Can YOU do that?

Here is some double-fisted nose-picking from Ophelia! Didn't expect that from such a cute little girl, did you?

I was trying to get her to sign her new "feelings" signs. The actual video of just that is to follow later...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks to my wonderful parents-in-law PJ and I go to go to a Valentine's dance up at the Stake Center. We had fun hanging out with good friends and I even got PJ to dance with me!

My sweetheart of seven years! It's so nice to go on a date once in a while to remember all the reasons why we fell in love :)

January update and February snow

January came and went very quickly for some reason. PJ had a bad cold right a week before the semester started and then I cought the bug and was out for a week and a half. I rarely get sick and being THAT sick is really unusual. The cold traveled into my ears, so I didn't hear very well. It was frustrating not being able to hear things and I feel very empathetic towards those who have to deal with that all the time... I am feeling great now and my hearing is almost back to normal. What a blessing it is though, that through PJ and me being sick, Ophelia didn't get any of it. It was soooo hard not to be able to kiss those rosy little cheeks!!!

While I was doing lots of resting, Ophelia got to watch A LOT of TV. Her favorite is Elmo (she even tries to sing his "la-la-la" song sometimes), but "signing time" is still a loved video too. I am amazed to see her recognize letters that she saw on Sesame street videos. One night, as we were reading a verse from the Book of Mormon with her, she pointed to the "B" symbol and exclaimed "bee!", which left PJ and me in amazment! Made me not feel so bad for letting her watch so much TV, since she is learning from it. For "signing time", we are learning about feelings and she has been mastering new signs for grumpy, silly, love, and surprised :) She has also been projecting feelings onto her doll. One time Ophelia fell pretty hard in the living room and cried for a while as I was consoling her. Five minutes later, she brought her doll to the same spot in the living room, dropped it hard on the floor, and started to fake cry, showing us that the doll was crying. It was hilarious! She did pick up the doll and consoled it too! I keep being amazed daily by my little girl, she is growing up quickly and learning so much every minute! Here's Ophelia watching her favorite show:

This has been a busy semester for PJ already, but we just keep the thought in mind that this is his last full-time semester, next one will be much lighter and it will be his last semester too. He is teaching two lower-level Spanish classes at UTA, which is a lot of responsibility, but a very good experience for him. He is also teaching an ESL class at TCC this semester and today was supposed to be the first day, but due to the crazy feezing cold weather all campuses are closed. So, it's a no school day! It snowed last night, so Ophelia got to see snow in person for the first time in her life. She wasn't too crazy about it...maybe because it was 20 F (-7 C) outside! PJ tried to get her to eat snow but she didn't want to do it :)

First haircut and tumbling class

Time came for Ophelia's first haircut. Although we loved those cute curls, for the sake of long-term hair-growing success, I had to chop them down. Bath time was the perfect place to do it. Opehlia didn't even notice what I was doing and didn't try to grab the scissors. A disclaimer: I've never cut hair before. I just cut straight across around her neck. Afterwards I thought I should've gone longer, because she looks like a boy...but it will grow back soon enought. Here is the before picture:



And here's after:



Good bye, curly curls!



This week was Ophelia's first tumbling class. She had so much fun! She just wanted to run around and explore everything. At first we all sat in a circle and did some movement songs, then we summersaulted and bear-walked across the gym floor, then we did an obstacle course. I had fun too, can you tell? Here are some pictures and videos from it:

I am excited to video her in the last class, after the 8 weeks of classes are done, and compare them to these videos and see the progress!

Sweet babbles

Update on the rat...it's gone to the spirit world now! PJ got a big snap trap and put some cheese in it. One hour later it totally worked! Turns out our rat did not like peanut butter that we have been putting on traps for months, but would much rather each cheese. Wow, I should have taken a picture of the rat, it was HUGE. But maybe some of you are grateful that I didn't!

Meanwhile, Ophelia is cutting more teeth, which comes with tears and a runny nose. One thing I hope to remember as she grows up is when even she is sick, Ophelia is sweet and cuddly. As I was trying to rock her tonight, she put her head on my shoulder and her arms around me. She whispered "mama" and pat me. I could've done this all night long :)

We are working on her "please" and "thank you". She is doing really well: most of the time she can say "mo pea" and "ta tee" (translation: more please and thank you). Here is a taste of her babbling:



I asked in Russian for Ophelia to dance and then to give a kiss to Ophelia :)

Christmas break 2010

Sad to see the Christmas vacation come to an end, but it is good to be at home again. After we came back, we realized that some rats have moved in to our garage (or maybe have gotten less quiet now). The war is on... we are trying everything - sticky traps, poison blocks, expanding foam spray, snap traps, rat-repellant noise makers. For now, it's been unsuccessful - the rat flipped over the sticky trap, chewed through the wall insulaltion (around the foam), has not touched the poison blocks or snap traps, and seems to only be more annoyed by the noise. I really hope they will never find a way into our home!!!

Our vacation was great as usual and here are some highlights of it: Ophelia got to play with many new toys at Grandma's house:



She was such a happy baby the whole two weeks while we were there. She was a joy to us and to her grandparents. Unfortunately, she had to be on antibiotics for the first time in her life for an ear infection in her right ear. Now, looking back, I think she could've fought this one out without meds...The amoxicillin made her have no appetite and meal times were a struggle for all 10 days. But she made up the days following when the meds were done - she ate "like a horse" (according to Grandpa) and pooped like one too (sorry for TMI). At the doctors follow up appointment today we learned that she gained 2 pounds in the last 3 weeks! She sure is growing!

Ah, yumm, the famous Franke (PJ's Mom's side) family potato dumplings! I took this picture just for my Dad. When he got a chance to try these one year, he ate at least 6 of them. I won't get into how many calories these things have, but let me just tell you that the ingredients are potatoes, bacon grease and bits with lots of butter and salt as toppings :)

Matt and Judy's friends came for a dumpling experience too and brought their sweet dog. Needless to say, it made Ophelia's day!

This picture shows just how sweet our little girl is. When I am busy cooking or with the dishes in the kitchen, Ophelia out of the blue just comes and gives me a hug on the legs and says "mama". She did it with Grandma a lot too. So cute! She learned to say "Grandma" over the Christmas break, but the "grand" part has been missing, so "ma" is the only part left :)

She loves "playing" the piano:

Our little Mozart:



Her love of books continues to grow. Grandma got lots of new flap books for Ophelia.

She can't even put a book down while her diaper in being changed:

The blocks were played with a lot. She had fun crawling into the box:

But not so much fun coming out of it:

PJ and I had a little getaway to San Antonio and it was AWESOME! We ate at an interesting place called "Mad Hatters". Check out our veggie burgers:

We went on the tour of the river walk:

We visited the San Antonio temple.

It was a great getaway! Thank you to the grandparents for allowing us to have some one-on-one time!

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: