Happy 20 Months Old Cubby!!

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH CUBBY!

HAPPY 20 MONTHS!!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Guess what I didn't have for dinner tonight?!

Shepherd's Pie!! Yippee!!
Can you tell how happy I am?

Thanks Dada & everyone else who supported my rebellion against dinner last night.

I am THRILLED I didn't have to suffer through that again.

Oh, and dada - - can you tell I'm sitting in your chair?

I climbed into it all by myself (and didn't even fall!).

Then I sat there and yelled out "DADA! Uv U!"

Translation = love you!

Mommy's been making me practice, so I'll have it perfected by the time you get home.

Night night!!

Cubby

I think he cursed me out in Russian!

Photo taken just seconds before the Russian cursing began:

He's suffering from hat hair, but he's still cute, huh? I thought so, too, until I made the mistake of trying to remove the new mittens so Cubby could eat dinner. Apparently that was a very poor choice - VERY POOR. I had no clue the mittens would trump dinner but they did tonight. At least I had the camera out & ready to document this smile before his evil twin made his first appearance!!

It's been super cold here the past couple of days (low 20's in the morning & mid 30's in the afternoon). I've been trying to find baby mittens with no luck whatsoever. Grandma was out today and ran across the mittens Ilya is wearing in this photo, plus a bunch of others. They're a smidge too big for his tiny hands, but they'll do and are definitely better than nothing. They're also adorable w/ little dinosaurs on the palms to help him grip things.

I let him try the mittens on as soon as we got home from daycare at 4:30 and he loved them. He ran around the house for an hour laughing, clapping, singing and chattering - - but NOT giving up his new mittens.

When dinner time finally came around, I snapped the photo above and then tried to bribe him to give me the mittens. He seemed like he was okay with the bribe but once the 2nd mitten was off his hand WATCH.OUT!! Yikers he had a fit and I'm pretty sure he said things in Russian that no 19 month old should ever say - especially to their mama!

He was in a foul mood throughout dinner and bathtime, and opted to fall asleep about 20 minutes earlier than nor...

Ilya here. Forgive me for interrupting, but you might be in a "foul mood" too if someone swiped your brand new mittens and then forced you to eat something called SHEPERD'S PIE. Then they even thought they'd pull one over on you by mixing your precious fruit into the disgusting SHEPERD'S PIE to trick you into eating it. Yeah, that might work with the first two bites but hello!!! I am 19 months old you know and deserve some credit!! Sheesh!

...mal. WOW! I told you Cubby's not his normal self. Usually he doesn't interrupt like that. Sorry everyone!

Anyway, I learned my lesson with the mittens and I also think I picked up a few colorful words from the Russian language. Despite the drama session we had this evening, Cubby peacefully fell asleep in my arms and I soon forgot about the uninvited evil twin who stopped by earlier.

Spin Cycle & a round of Jeopardy

Jeopardy Clue: What/who weighs 22 lbs, is 32" tall and cute as a button, smiles constantly and, as of today, will not get lost in a snow storm? The answer will follow after this short commercial break:

Hi Dada!! You'll never guess what I learned to do today and wouldn't stop doing all night till I was forced to sit down and dictate this letter for mommy to type to you. Someone at school taught me to go round n round n round n round, then to change directions and go round n round n round n round the other way. That was pretty fun while I was at school, but once I was home I added my own little flair to it....SCREAMING.REALLY.REALLY.REALLY.LOUD and laughing really, really, really hard when I got too dizzy & fell down. Oh, and then I started doing my new "kick" dancing move when I was dizzy and that was just beyond hilarious to me. Mommy said the shreaking was too painful for her ears and I told her her eardrums are just old. Then, the spin cycle made me upchuck my milk all over mommy and I about peed my diaper from laughing so hard over that! You should have seen her trying not to throw up herself. It was great! I'll have to show you my new talent when you get home next week. Can't wait to see you again when you get home from Germany and have you hug me tight & maybe even spin with me! Toodles for now. Mommy says I need to go to bed. Love you dada!

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Here's your Jeopardy Answer - - Gotta love the massively bright green winter coat. Thanks Gram & Gramps!

Dada!! Hey...Where's Dada? :-(

Well, as I type he is 1039 miles from home and 3047 miles from his first (but not final) destination. Ouch! It hurts just typing that. Hopefully the seat on the plane isn't quite as painful. So, anyone wanna take a guess at where he's headed? I'll give you a hint - it's going to be a "lange reise" (long journey). It's up to you now to figure it out. Look for another clue tomorrow if no one guesses correctly.

We had a great send off for Norm yesterday. Our friends Daryll and Dawn, who live about an hour away, came over to meet Ilya for the first time. They went to church with us and then came back to the house for a few hours. It was wonderful to finally spend some time with them, get caught up on their kids' lives, and just enjoy each other's company. Here are a few photos Ilya wanted to share with everyone to prove just how fun plastic plates can be if you have an active imagination and you're 19 months old!

Ilya has really started associating "dada" and "mama" with Norm & me and I LOVE it! In the morning when I get him from his crib he yells out "Hi mama!" and then whispers "Dada!!" all the way down the stairs until I put him in bed with Norm. He's also quite the chatter box when he gets home in the afternoon from daycare. As soon as we pull into the garage, all I hear is "Dada! Dada! DADA!" until we get inside. The he runs like crazy to Norm's office screaming "Dada!" all the way and doesn't stop until he finds Norm at his desk.

It's about the cutest thing I've ever seen, but today was a little sad because Dada wasn't in his office when Ilya got home from daycare. Ilya ran to the office, no dada. Ran to our bedroom, no dada. Ran back to the Great Room, no dada. Kitchen, no dada. You get the point. I could tell he was disappointed and it both broke and warmed my heart. I LOVE how attached Ilya is to his daddy. So, to pass the time a little bit I broke out the camera again and stalked our son until dinner time. Here are a few glamour shots:

So, Norm, when you finally finish up with all the trains, planes and automobiles and you settle in to read this post know how much Ilya & I love and miss you. You currently have another 2620 miles to fly but Flight Aware is soon going to lose track of your flight and I'll just have to wait for your call on my cell to know all is well. Hopefully the train portion won't be too bad either. We can't wait to hear you've made it safely.

Ilya begged to write tonight's post but the poor little guy was exhausted from school and passed out cold at 7pm exactly. He wants you to know he will definitely send you a note tomorrow. Oh, he did mumble one thing before closing those sweet little eyes - -

Night Night!

Fan Mail

The President of my Fan Club (that would be me!) passes along apologies to the 35 people who have sent email messages over the past 2 weeks and have yet to receive a reply. Your messages are important to me!! I will reply to each one before Sunday - - I promise! I've been extremely sick and email fell by the wayside there for awhile. So sorry but please keep the messages and comments coming. Bloggers thrive on feedback!

Have a great day,
Kar

Pardon me while I gloat (and later confess)

Reason #1:
Remember when I forced Ilya to play dress up back in September? If not, visit this post to refresh your memory. Well, he may still feel a bit slighted but he’ll eventually recover from the ordeal. I mean come on…when’s the last time you saw someone this stinkin cute??!!

Most of the photos we ordered were of the autumn scene, but I crack up every time I look at the winter one. You can so tell that the kid is ready to BOLT right outta that chair!

One of my co-workers asked how they were able to get him to smile so big in both photos. As anyone who has met Ilya in person can attest to, our son suffers from ESS (more commonly known as Eternal Smile Syndrome). I swear, that smile is plastered on his face nearly 24/7. It’s awesome and amazing and beautiful and heartwarming, and so worth all of the homestudy, social worker, finger print, USCIS, dossier and travel frustrations we dealt with. Parents in waiting - - DO NOT GIVE UP!!! Don’t!!!!

Reason #2 (sit down for this one):
I COOKED tonight! And not just for Norm & Ilya, but for the gourmet chef herself, Grandma! And get this…SHE.LIKED.IT and even said she would want it again!! Yes, even if I were the one cooking it.

Have you recovered from the shock yet? Because there’s more. I didn’t just open a bag of frozen food and toss it in a skillet or the microwave. Nope, not tonight. Believe it or not, the same person who mistook FLOWER for FLOUR last week, actually followed not 1, not 2 but THREE recipes! I used 2 skillets, the stove top, the oven, measuring spoons and cups, aluminum foil, who knows how many different spices, olive oil, soy sauce...I'm exhausted! The left overs weren't even tossed in the trashcan - they were lovingly packed away in tupperware for someone to enjoy for lunch tomorrow. Or so I was told.

Here's our menu:
Baked Asparagus
Mandarin Pineapple Salad
And a really yummy Pork Chops Recipe which I doubled - I'm a pro now!!
Yield: 4 Servings
4 pork chops
1/4 Tsp pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 can (10.75 oz.) cream of potato soup
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning

If you're interested in exactly how all this was cooked/prepared shoot me an email & I'll pass it along.


Lest you think an imposter is writing my blog now, let me tell you about two of my less stellar moments from Monday. There were far more things from Monday & Tuesday that I could tell you about but I'll save it for another post. I share these classic stories with you because I honestly feel that you can never take yourself too seriously. There are always reasons to laugh at yourself...especially if your name is Kar. So here goes:


1. Monday morning (which BTW should be banned from everyone's calendar as far as I'm concerned) I tried to multitask. Not a good thing when you take Nyquil at 11:30 the night before, knowing full well your alarm is going off at 5am and Nyquil tends to knock you on your tooshie for a minimum of 9 hrs. Anyhoo, my multitasking consisted of trying to drink coffee while washing dishes. Specifically, I attempted to take my last sip of coffee while squirting soap in the sink. Much to my dismay, I dumped my coffee in the dishwater and squirted the soap in my mouth. I kid you not. As Ilya would say "Mmmmmm!!! Yummy!!"

2. Shortly after the soap snafu, I headed upstairs to get Ilya ready for daycare. I'm usually very organized, bordering on obsessive, when it comes to making sure I have everything set out that I'll need in order to get him & me out the door. I pulled his preselected outfit out of his closet, woke him up, carried him to the changing table and got him dressed. As we were walking out of his room, I suddenly felt odd. Perhaps it was that warm, wet liquid running down my side and leg. Yeah, I got peed on, but how? Why?? Seems all my preplanning went right out the window the moment I forgot that the dirty diaper I took off him needed to be replaced with oh, say a clean one!! Who forgets to put a diaper on a 19 month old child? Stupid Nyquil...

So there ya go. Gloating & confessing...how very refreshing. Wonder what tomorrow has in store for me? One thing's for sure - at 7am I'll walk into my son's room to wake him up and I'll be greeted with that same smile you see in the photos above, and all will be well with my soul. All will be exceptionally well!

Nighty night,
Kar

Favorite Photo Friday....but on Saturday

Marriage Tip: Never go searching through the photos on your significant other's cell phone, unless you are really prepared for what you might find...such as:

Absolute Cuteness!!


That's a lotta doggie!


All curled up


Notice the sagging jowls!


GO AWAY!

She's such a lady!

Uhhh.... ??????

This is what the kitchen normally looks like when I attempt to cook. For the record, I was NOT at home when this happened. Honest!

Okay, enough nonsense. I do have a real post coming soon! Enjoy your weekend.

Kar

Just call me Giada de Laurentiis

I’ll admit that Giada may have a few more points than me in the looks department (remember, my blog = my interpretation of the world no matter how obscure!). However, with my new found “Domestic Divaness” (Norm’s words, not mine) my culinary skills are absolutely, 100% in sync with Giada’s. After reading this, I’m certain you’ll all wholeheartedly agree.

I’m at our grocery store the other day when this frazzled man approaches me & asks for help. He said his wife was preparing a special dinner for them, and that he needed to buy flower to give her. He said he was nervous because he had never made that type of purchase before and had no clue where to start.

I thought it was a little odd that he had never bought flowers for his wife but whatever, I decided to help the poor gent. I told him a good place to start would be with her favorite color. He looked at me kinda weird and said “Huh?” So I asked again what her favorite color was. Very slowly, and a bit hesitantly he replied “Um, red. I think her favorite color is red.”

Great! I had him follow me over to the refrigerated flower section. Once we got there, I noticed he was looking at me kinda weird again. He asked if I was sure we were in the right area, and me in all my wisdom said “Well, yeah! Look at all the flowers here, and there are even some red ones!”

SIDE NOTE: At this point, some of you may have caught on to where this is going.

He kinda chuckled at me, turned a couple shades of red, and he turned his head so he wasn’t looking at me in the eye anymore. Me, not getting the joke right away, asked what I had missed. He said “I’m sorry, we seem to have gotten things a little screwy here. My wife is making porkchops and I need FLOUR so she can fry ‘em up!”

Oopsie. My bad!! So how do I possibly redeem myself now? Well, I didn’t and instead hung my head in embarrassment.

In a classic case of the blind leading the blind, we made our way back to the baking aisle. For what it’s worth, the baking aisle is where he first confronted me with his problem. Nice huh? We find the FLOUR and discover a whole new set of problems. Does he need instant, self rising, semolina (what the heck is that?), organic, gluten, whole wheat?? Now we’re really in trouble. I told him that my best bet would be to purchase the all-purpose FLOUR. After all, the name suggests that no one, myself included, could go wrong with something that claims to be “all purpose.” Right? Although he was very skeptical taking any advice from me at this point, he did put the all purpose stuff in his little basket, thanked me for my time, and walked away still chuckling.

I’ve found myself wondering how the porkchops turned out. Oh, and I have Cooking Channel TV execs beating down my door with offers for my own reality (how not to cook) cooking show! Yay me!

Rookie Mommy (nearly) Ruins Son’s 1st Halloween

Washington DC – From a costume too small to a dead camera to a Rookie Mommy with possible cracked ribs to a teething toddler, one little boy’s 1st Halloween came eerily close to not happening.

The Rookie Mommy claims to have had good intentions when she and Rookie Daddy bought the super cute Tigger Halloween costume for their son…TWO MONTHS AGO…yet neither parent thought to do a test fit of the costume in the weeks or days leading up to Halloween. Genius that she is, Rookie Mommy waited until 4:30pm Halloween day to see how her son looked as Tigger and to try to snap a few quick photos before heading out for the evening. Imagine her surprise when she discovered those cute little Tigger pants had mysteriously turned into cargo shorts sometime between August & October. Shocked family members, friends and neighbors unanimously agree - - failure to consider the fact that CHILDREN GROW would only be made by rookie parents. Specifically, these rookie parents!

Oh, and those photos Rookie Mommy wanted to display proudly for years to come? Sadly, it’s impossible to take photos with a digital camera if the AA batteries are dead, and you have none to replace them. Rookie Mommy went so far as to take batteries out of every remote, phone and child’s toy in the house to no avail. None of the batteries had enough juice to document the Cargo Shorts Tigger outfit. According to Rookie Mommy, she was able to redeem herself, however, when she remembered the camcorder took still photos. The camcorder battery was also virtually lifeless, but held up well enough to take 7 photos before dying along side the pile of AA batteries sitting on their front walkway.

Rookie Mommy tried to justify both lapses in judgment by stating that Halloween wasn’t as important for her son this year since he is too young to eat candy (what??!!), that he may have been scared by some of the older kids’ costumes, and that he wouldn’t have been up to going to more than a handful of houses. She also cited the 4 new teefers trying to poke through as a major cause for her son’s grumpiness and his desire not to participate in Halloween festivities. That's it...blame the kid!!

Not wanting her son to spend his first Halloween with absolutely nothing to do, Rookie Mommy decided a trip to the Fredericksburg Family Fall Festival was in order, rather than Trick or Treating. While her son enjoyed his trip to the fairgrounds, Rookie Mommy had to cut the evening short when her possible cracked ribs started acting. The fairgrounds were extremely crowded, and not more than 5 feet from the main gate entrance, Rookie Mommy started feeling like a human bumper car from all the people running into her and poking her already pain inflicted ribs.

The following bootleg photos document this family’s attempt to capture their son’s 1st Halloween. Here’s hoping next year goes much better!

Apparently, I like change

I didn't know this about myself until the wonderful world of blogging introduced me to digital scrapbooking, and now I am hooked. Norm thinks I'm addicted and is threatening an intervention. I say I'm just releasing my inner creative talent, and it's either digital scrapbooking (free!!) OR a trip to Michael's (expensive craft store with really expensive paper scrapbooking supplies). Digital scrapbooking it is! :-)

So, if the trend continues you may very well see a new header each month. I just ask that you bare with me through my new found creative phase. Well...I call it creative...feel free to call it what you want!

Also, let me know if the font color hurts your eyes. I'm not so sure I like it and I certainly don't want anyone leaving my blog with a headache or googly eyed!

Oh, and yes I do plan on updating Ilya's fans on his first Halloween. Stay tuned!