Happy Birthday to Lindsay!!!

I, Lindsay, am officially 25 years old, a quarter of a century. And, as strange as it sounds, I really do feel a year older. Maybe that's because when I turned 24, I had never lived alone with my husband, and therefore never really had to take care of a house, and I had no children. How much has changed in one year!!! Well, I had told Andre a few weeks earlier that because this was my first birthday in Ukraine, I wanted it to be really really special. He definitely delivered. Here's how the day went:

It all started after I was done feeding Noah at about 5:30 in the morning. I went into the kitchen and was surprised to see signs that Andre had made for me.

I got tears in my eyes when I saw them, because it reminded me of how thoughtful Andre is. He knew that I'd be awake with Noah in the middle of the night, so he made these before he went to bed and hung them up for me to be surprised!

Once I woke up for the day and fed Noah, Andre, Nikita and I checked my email to find lots of e-cards and emails wishing me a Happy Birthday. It was fun being remembered by those across the ocean. After I fed Noah again, (If you can't tell already, our day was broken up into parts depending on when Noah needed to be fed. :) we went to a wonderful Italian restaurant here in town with the whole family. It was so much fun to be there and as a whole family, all four of us, was a huge treat! Noah was hungry again! After that, we got in the car again, and we went downtown. We got out of the car, and Andre told me that I had this much money and 15 minutes to spend it! I was shocked at first, but then I sprung into action! I found these awesome brown dress shoes that I've wanted forever! They were right there! Yeah!

Andre told me that we would have had more time to shop, but one of his friends was having a problem with family or something and really wanted Andre and the pastor to talk to him. So, Andre said we needed to go to the church. I thought there might be something up, but then I rebuked myself for being so selfish. This guy was having a hard time, and I could only think of myself. Well, I was right! We got to church, and there was a surprise party there for me! It was so much fun. It was super funny, because Noah was literally passed around the circle from one girl to the next to be held and cooed at. He loved it! There's a picture of our friend Sergey and two Tanya's.

After the party, we went to Valya's house (Andre's grandma), and she had made cake for us to eat! Here's a picture of her, Noah and Nikita. (By the way, we went to the doctor today, and Noah weighs 13.6 lbs!!! Wooh, that's a big boy. He's not even 8 weeks old yet.)

It was such an amazing day. I don't think that I will ever forget it. I am so grateful to God for giving me a husband like Andre, family and friends that make me feel so loved!

Things I Can't Believe

At our wedding in America, my sister gave a toast about things that she couldn't believe. The list included things like: "I can't believe my sister is old enough to get married." and "I can't believe my sister speaks Russian with her husband, Spanish with her mother-in-law and English with anyone who will listen." :)

Anyway, I thought I would make my own list of things I can't believe. Here they are (in no particular order):

I can't believe that...

• Noah is less than a week away from being 2 months old!
• We have 2 kids, when last year at this time we had none!
• Lindsay is approaching a full year without being in America!
• Merek, Annika and Keira are so big!
• Nikita is going to be starting school in 7 months!
• For a few short months, we get to have the oldest and the youngest grandchild, until Nicole steals our thunder again with her 3rd! :)
• Even though we live across the ocean, we are still able to stay close to our family!

God has been so good to us! That's something I can believe!!!

Family Pictures

We took our very first family pictures with Noah visible, not in Lindsay's tummy! :)

Check the next post to see Nikita's first dunk!

Slam Dunk!!!

Yesterday two basketball players came to the house to talk to Andre. One of them decided that he would help Nikita figure out how to slam dunk. Well, his efforts paid off, because Nikita is now a slamming machine! He got a basketball hoop for Christmas, and he's putting it good use! We are both so proud of him!

Here's one of the very first ones! He's so happy!

You have to love the Cars slippers! Man he's got some ups!!!

Stretch!!!

Poster Dunk!

This is to show how high he's actually jumping.

Here's a video. Sorry that it's sideways. It's worth it, though!

Hitting our Groove

So, it's been a month since Noah was born! I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant and seriously wondering if this little boy was ever going to come out of me. Well, he's out, and it's been a whirlwind ever since. We've definitely had our ups and downs, unfortunately, more downs than ups. He's so sweet, so that helps everything. It's been really hard for me to nurse Noah. I got an infection which didn't help. There has been a lot of culture shocking going on with the difference in opinions and incredible amounts of old wives tales that exist here. Basically, we've had to learn how to find exactly what God wants us to do with this kid and do it, not caring about the opinions of everyone else. That's hard to do, but we're working on it! And we think that we're finally starting to hit our groove!

We had a good Christmas. We celebrated with Nikita and put new ornaments on the tree and waited as Santa, Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost), to come and bring us presents. Nikita loves his new basketball hoop. He's been spending a lot of time at Valya's house (Andre's grandma), because Andre's mom came into town from Spain for a few weeks. He's enjoying the time there, playing with the neighbor girl. He's excited to go back to pre-school when break is over! :)

This was the first New Years that I, Lindsay, have ever spent in Ukraine. Here, they start the festivities at midnight, instead of winding down about then. We had Valya and Andre's mom over for the ringing of the new year. We ate and made toasts, and then Andre and I went to church to have a party! It was really fun. We were up until 6am, just in time for Noah's first feeding. It's a shame he didn't realize that it was New Years. Oh, well. It was so great to be able to see this celebration, which is way bigger than Christmas here. Andre and I always have fun showing each other traditions from our homes. :)

Here's Noah in his first outfit. It says "Little Cowboy!" This was his New Years outfit! He's grown a lot in the last few weeks. At birth, he weighed 9.22 lbs, but he went down from there to a low of 8.38 lbs. But now, he's chunked up to 10.14 lbs!!! He's such a good boy!!!

Here's his "I win" sleeping position. We've started swaddling him, because he sometimes wakes himself up. :)



Andre already has him training.

Nikita has been hanging out with grandma and great grandma a lot since grandma came in from Spain. Here's grandma holding Noah.

We hope and pray that you all had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year!!!