So, what's a hay ride?

That's what I asked some of girlfriends last week and got an amused look..."you've never been on a hay ride?". That night got the same reaction from PJ. No, I've never been on a hay ride! Apparently it's a very American tradition, not practiced in Eastern Europe. Well, the whole fall theme is way different too. Here, fall season is all about pumpkins, Halloween, cornucopia, fall harvest, Thanksgiving. Over there, fall seasons focuses on beginning of school (always September 1st), leaves changing colors, storing up for the winter, harvesting apples of all shapes/kinds/sizes, bird triangles heading for the south, lots of rain in the beginning and then first frost and first snow...

So, me and Ophelia headed to the Flower Mound pumpkin patch and had our first EVER hay ride. I guess I expected something way more exciting with all the hype about it... A lap around the area in a trailer behind a tractor while sitting on top of hay. Well, now at least I know what it is!



Ophelia enjoyed seeing the farm animals. She kept adding "Mr." in front of all animal names for some reason: "Hi, Mr. Goat!", "How are you dooni, Mr.Donkey?"





Those bounce houses are her favorite these days:



Later I found out those wagons were meant for big pumpkin transportation. Well, I got me a big pumpkin and hauled her all over the pumpkin patch :)











I couldn't fit into that bowl...But Ophelia and I had a great time at our first pumpkin patch!

Big 2 photoshoot!

My friend Vipha who took Ophelia's pictures last year, took some more awesome shots for us this year. The pictures turned out great! Here are some of my favorites:















Thank you to VNG Photography!

It's a...BOY!

Time to update our blog! Have not been so good about it lately...I have to justify, so here are my excuses:

I read all of the Twilight series and LOVED it. I have been missing out! I thought of it as some silly love books, that everyone was too overly obsessed with...and now I am in the club :) I loved the Harry Potter books, so I guess I should have guessed I would love these as well. I am glad to have started reading when all four books are aleardy published, so I could enjoy the whole story. It is a total chick flick, love story, teenage drama, but sooo intriguing, addicting, clean, and exciting! I spend about two weeks spending all my free time reading those books, thus the blog was on hold.

Our laptop broke...and it hasn't even been 6 months since we bought it! I had to ship it to the Lenovo support people twice, because they didn't fix the problem the first time. Turned out to be a faulty hard drive...Glad that we had all of our files and pictures backed up. It has been working fine since then, but without it for two weeks, I had limited internet access, so no blogging either.

I have been putting together photo books from our vacations to Ireland, 3 years ago, and the one this summer. And also I have been trying to work on Ophelia's baby book. I am so behind on it and the new baby is on the way and will need a baby book too! Once again, the blog was on hold.

Now that I am finally back in blogging business, I am happily announcing that we are having a little BOY! And are so excited about it! Here is face:

Side view:

And the "manhood"! See the arrow pointing at it?

Crazy and exciting! Camille is having a boy as well. So come next year our family will have two little additions on the boy side!

The scary part was that we had to have an emergency ultrasound to make sure the baby was OK, and that's how we found out that it's a boy. I was looking for my knitting stuff (nesting issues), that was buried under some pretty heavy boxes in the closet...of course, I can do anything, right? Well, not so much, being 18 weeks pregnant. I started bleeding and had to go to the doctor's ASAP. Everything checked out normal (more answers to prayers!) and we got to peek in the womb!

We prayed about the name just like we prayed for Ophelia's name. We were flipping through a hymn book one Sunday and stopped at the page of the names of authors. One name immediatly jumped out at us: Emerson! We loved it! It was confirmed first to PJ when he was reading something else, and Emerson (Ralph Waldo) was mentioned there and then I was reading a book about Lamaze birthing and they randomly quoted Emerson as well. Anyways, we feel really good about it and are moving forward with faith!

Big Two!

We had such a great time for Ophelia's b-day this year. Grandma and Grandpa came to stay with us as they journeyed back from their trip up north. Ophelia loves to have extra playmates around. She constantly would say "Hey, Grandma!"  or "Hey, Grandpa!" and then "C'mon, Grandma! Let's play!" Grandpa's German rhyme with lap bouncing was a huge hit, not only with Ophelia but with her baby doll and bear :) Here is Grandpa (baby doll and bear) all worn out:

Here is Ophelia's first time eating corn on the cob. Grandma and Grandpa brought a bunch of freshly picked corn from North Dakota and it was so juicy, soft and delicious:



Here is our birthday girl. Apart from Grandma and Grandpa, auntie Cami and uncie Mark came to stay with us for the labor day weekend, and the Mojicas came for the party.

She got a hang of opening presents really quickly! 

Grandma's special fruit pizza was amazingly tasty and looked so good it was sad to ruin it:

More b-day pictures were taken by Auntie Cami and are to appear on the blog soon. Meanwhile, these are some quick shots that I took in between serving food.

We got a doggie-shaped cake again this year, making it a tradition now :) She blew the candle in the middle of her happy birthday song (and I was worried that she won't know what to do since we didn't practice this year...silly me) and dove into the cake...with a spoon! Yes, a year after her last birthday she matured enough to realize that she does not want to get dirty with cake anymore!

It is just crazy for me to look at pictures from just a year ago and see how my little girl has grown! Her talking skills surprise me daily. When we had grandparents here, Ophelia would sit at the kitchen table between me and Grandma. Instead of stretching her dirty hands towards me with her usual "Ooo, dirty!", she stretched the right hand for Grandma and the left hand for me to wipe :) very efficient indeed :) One time papa was sitting there instead of me and Ophelia was eating yogurt. She announced that her hands were dirty and stretched one to Grandma, who wiped it with a napkin, and one to papa, who told her that the hand was clean and did not need wiping. She then dipped that clean hand into yogurt and stretched it for papa to wipe: "Ooo, dirty!" We cracked up for a while at her solution to the problem...not dirty? oh, well, here it is dirty now! 

A couple of weeks ago Ophelia and I were playing with her little baby crib, she was inside, so couldn't get out. She dropped the paci far enough not to be able to reach it and turned to me to say: "Mama, quick, sosa! (meaning paci in Russian)". She wanted me to go get it, which was fine with me, except that we've been working on "please" and "thank you", so I turned to look at her, waiting for a "please", instead she looks at me seriously and says: "Mama, do you want time-out?" :) :) :) My mouth dropped! Bossy girl, I could not believe it! One, this means she totally realizes that not listening has consequences of time-out. And two, she knows there are times when mama needs to go to time out too (I was hoping she will not find out about that until after she is at least a little bit older)!

Ophelia is my sweet little girl and is ready to give a kiss and a hug anytime of the day. She brings so much joy into my life and I am so grateful to have her sweet little spirit join our family two years ago. I love to listen to her talk, I love to see when she discovers new things (the excitement in her eyes), I love that she always asks "What are you dooni, mama?" (meaning "doing"), and I think it's the cutest thing that her normal pace is running everywhere! At her 2 year doctor's visit, she measured at 50% for height (33 inches) and 7% for weight (she is just 23 lbs). She continues to grow, even though it is at her own pace. Her head is in the 75% percentile (big head!) for circumference. No doubt, a smart girl sign :)

August happenings

The time slipped away from me as the new semester began. Seems that we have stuff to do all the time. Ophelia started her weekly tumbling and music classes at the Hurst rec center. She loves the music class and is kind of getting tired of tumbling - mostly she just has a hard time sitting and following the teacher's lead, she'd rather be running around and doing the obstacle course or the trampoline or the balance beam. I think I'll try a different class next time.

PJ and I went on a fun date in August. Despite over 100 degree heat, we had lots of fun! The ropeline people almost didn't let me do it when they found out I was pregnant, but you could barely even tell that I was. I think my belly grew the next few weeks following our date about 4 times that size.

Our little queen bee continues to grow and come up with fun things to do. It is so amazing to see her imagination grow and thinking skills expand...like sticking Mr.Potatohead face parts into her own face: ears, mouth, hat, glasses...she had a hard time with the nose :) And here she is making a "beard" for herself:

I made some homemade playdough and Ophelia is a huge fan. She likes to make pretend mama, papa and Ophelia. Sometimes we make pretend couches and cribs and the other day we made pretend church :)

Here is how big she's gotten, despite the fact she doesn't realize her own dimentions yet :) This babycrib suffered some damage already!

And PJ has expanded his skills to include sushi making! And he is really good at it! Yumm-yumm!

Exciting news!

******TMI ALERT*****POTTY ALERT******

Here are some exciting news going on in our neck of the woods lately. Ophelia is starting to go potty!!! We have had several poopies in the potty now! The trick has been to put her on the potty right after mealtimes (that's when she usually goes in her diaper). Mommy and Daddy have been noted to do a "potty cheer dance" to keep Ophelia on the potty and encourage her to go. Then when she poops, we throw her up in the air, yelling "wooo-whoo" and telling her what a good job she did. I think she enojoys all the fuss and attention :) Have not had any pees in the potty yet...partially because it is hard to time those and also I don't put her on the potty other than after meals. We will be working on that...Here is a picture of one of our little triumphs:

******TMI ALERT*****POTTY ALERT******



When I asked her to smile for this picture, she stuck her tongue out instead...funny girl.

I look at my blog and realize that it has been a year since I started it! The sad part is that with each month less and less posts are being posted.I need to work on that, because I love that this blog is like a photo/video journal of our family and it is fun to look back and see how things change, how I change, how our family changes...speaking of family changes...I guess that is also the reason I have not been up on the blog as much as I used to. I have been soooo tired lately, by the time Ophelia goes to bed, I am totally beat too and fall asleep on the couch pretty much every day. For the past month I have been also feeling really nauseous and who is the cause of all this??? This little buddy:



YES, IT'S TRUE! I am 11 weeks pregnant. It is really exciting! Just as exciting as Camille, my sister-in-law, being pregnant too and we are 6 or so weeks apart! She is due on January and I am due in February. Two little cousins are on their way into this world! Talk about excited grandparents :) Wow :) The due date is actually February 22nd, a day after my b-day, what a present that would be! Also, come to find out it is going to be a leap year, so if the baby comes 1 week late, a 29th of February birthday is unavoidable.

When we ask Ophelia if she wants a baby brother or a baby sister, she bluntly says "no!". Yesterday she asked for popcorn instead. She would rather take popcorn at this point than a little sibling. Well, it just means that she NEEDS a little sibling. A little someone to take care of, to think about, to share things with, to wait for, to talk to, to play with, and to share mama's and papa's attention with (that's going to be the hard part). The day after I told her that there is a baby in my tummy, Ophelia told me she has one in her tummy as well...A couple weeks later, she also declared that Papa has a baby in his tummy too. Wow, it is going to be crowded around here with three new babies on the way :)

Ophelia is becoming a little babbler, she loves to talk on the phone and if you happen to actually listen to her, she will talk and talk and talk. Too bad 90% of it is still untranslatable into English or Russian, but she does have a lot to say! She also can sing a ton of songs: popcorn popping, snowman, follow the prophet ("fa-la-la-la prophet" according to Ophelia), ABC's, itsy-bitsy spider, I am a child of God, head shoulders knees and toes, spi moya radost' usni, daleko daleko and others tha I can't think of right now. We need to set up a candid camera to record some of these, so I can post it.

We have NOT been enjoying the 108-110 degree heat that has been going on for the past month and is here to stay for another month (at least). It does not help me feel less tired or nauseous, that's for sure. I did say that I moved to Texas for the reason of loving the hot weather, but... there is an exception to that, which is being pregnant. I wouldn't mind it as much if it didn't make me feel light-headed, exhausted, and queezy. Can't wait for some cool weather! Or Rain!

That is all for now, in the headlines in the newpaper of our lives.

In the summer heat...

Right after our trip we headed to Granpa's and Grandma's house. There was a little family reunion of the Franke side of the family. It was the first time in our 7.5 years of marriage for me to meet PJ's cousins and their families.



Ophelia loved the reunion for this reason:



She is such a little water bug!

Then we made a trip lake Buchanan and Ophelia went on a boat ride for the first time in her life. She did not want to keep a kiddie life vest on, no matter what we said, but her floatie swim suit worked for the time being. A new word entered her vocabulary: "waterskiing". She still talks about mama and papa going waterskiing on the lake. Grandma already made sure to get a pair of kiddie skiis for when the time comes for Ophelia :)

All that was back in June actually and now it's July and I realize I haven't taken that many pictures at all. Ophelia and I have been going to the NRH2O water park about once or twice a week. We do it in the mornings, before nap time, before it gets too hot...which is a relative term, because it still is incredibly hot. With each time we go there, she gets braver and braver. Today she went on a long toddler slide all on her own! I am scared to take my camera there, because inevitably Ophelia will want to look at the picture just taken, and water just doesn't go well with cameras. But it's a fun place and I am happy to have the season pass to just be able to go for a little bit at a time.

PJ is gone to Mexico this week. So...Ophelia is in charge :) Here she is taking a picture of us :) Doesn't she look like "the boss"?

Actually she really has been getting into coloring or "drawing" as we call it. It's pretty amazing to see her being completely occupied with it for 20-30 minutes at a time. She makes sure to have a crayon mark in every corner, in every white spot she can find! Today I did have to teach her that we ONLY draw on paper, not on the white walls, or the table, or mama's face...

PJ has been practicing his Spanish a lot down there. He gets to translate for his parents and some more americans who came down there to help out with summer Bible school for the kids in the poorest neighborhoods. Sounds like he is loving it, but we sure miss our papa a lot! Ophelia asks about him at least 4 times a day and today when I was putting her to bed, she gave me a kiss and said "bus'ka papa", meaning "a kiss for papa". So sweet! But I had to tell her to save it for later. We were going to go to Mexico at first, but just didn't feel like 110 heat and no a/c is the best place for Ophelia and me...

Vacationers

I realize this is probably the only time in our lives (or close to that) that we were able take a 4-week-long family trip to Europe. We had a great time! We bored our family to death with all of our vacation pictures, so, lucky for you, you won't have to go through that torture. Here are the best of the best.

Packing up for vacation... Wouldn't it be so nice just check-in the kids on the plane? The trip was was a disaster... Ophelia stayed up almost the whole 16 hour trip, cranky, whiny, and all. Needless to say, PJ and I were cranky and whiny too!



First day in Dublin and already getting into trouble:



Just realized this is the only decent family picture of us three from the whole month in Europe...



Love this picture! My parents look great and Ophelia... well, she is just smelling the flowers :)





Ophelia became a tourist attraction in Stephen Green park in Dublin due to her running after the birds and yelling "birdie! birdie! birdie!". One bird was lucky enough to even get stepped on... People not only were watching her but also taking pictures of her :)



Our trip to Germany was exciting! Despite the scare of E.coli cucumbers and tomatoes in North Germany, we still enjoyed eating out. It turned out in the end that it was sprouts that were tainted and we never ate any. This was in Travemunde in North Germany.



Lubeck, Germany:





Back in Dublin, Ophelia (the blue little speck) running around St.Patrick's cathedral:



The fam:



London trip:





Madame Tussaud's museum. Doesn't PJ remind you of Bruce Willis?





We stayed with my best friend Nastya and her roommate Vlada. They were great hostesses despite lack of toilet paper and expired milk :) They took us to a little town of Rye on the coast of England.







PJ and I took a day trip to Northern Ireland. I didn't know it is a country that belongs to the UK and they use pounds, not Euros.





This is a famous rope bridge right on the coast. If you are scared of heights, you may want to consider never visiting this place.







Giant's Causeway should be considered another great wonder of the world. I am so amazed that something like that was made in nature, no humans involved, all through volcanic lava works, ice, and basalt salts!







Our trip back was hard and long. Ophelia did sleep a lot though. Unfortunately it was on my lap... She was so exhausted on the last leg of the journey, car ride from airport to home. But the minute Ophelia got back home and saw all her toys, it was like Christmas morning! She got so so excited! Every toys she picked up, she exclaimed "Wow! Cool!". The living room was a disaster:



10 things that I learned during the last month:

1. Always buy an airplane seat for your 21-month old.
2. Benadryl works for some kids, but for some it does not...Ophelia falls into the latter category.
3. Vacations without kids are awesome!!! (PJ and I went to Germany and to London on our own while Ophelia stayed with grandparents in Dublin)
4. It only takes 4 weeks for a 21-month old to start speaking Russian when immersed in it.
5. Mom's cooking always tastes better!
6. When in Dublin, always carry an umbrella with you...or better a rain poncho. And summer temperatures are 50-60 degrees F! Now that I am sitting in 100 degree weather, I can't believe that 2 weeks ago I wore jeans and long-sleeved shirts.
7. When they say London is expensive, trust them! It's true! It is ridiculously expensive...
8. Germans are extremely punctual! To the half minute...
9. Ophelia's new favorite dessert is whipped cream from a can.
10. I am getting old and stuck in my ways...meaning that I'm having a hard time leaving the comforts of our home for a long time and I am happy to be back!