Our Citizenship is in Heaven: 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!!!