St. Nicholas Day

We celebrate St Nicholas day during the Nativity season each year. Our stockings get opened on this day and we tend to make special treats for others. This year we made special star cookies--sugar cookies with sprinkles. You'll see Arseny getting a cookie for breakfast as a real treat on the Morning of St. Nicholas day. We colored and decorated a calendar of St Nicholas (which I didn't get a picture of) On the eve of St. Nicholas day we go to Church and the kids leave their shoes downstairs during the service. The story of Saint Nicholas is read after the service to the children and all the while downstairs the kids shoes are being filled with treats (oranges and gold coins -chocolate). It is a lot of fun and I of course failed to bring my camera to take a picture of the filled little shoes. I did however get some pictures of the morning of St Nicholas Feast day. The kids are sporting their little reindeer antlers and so is daddy on one of them.

Let is Stop, Let it Stop, Let it Stop!

I must admit. I'm not very thrilled about all the snow that we've been getting. It's been so hard to get around with two toddlers while big and pregnant. We have however explored the snow and the kids got their chance to play. Arseny likes it but could take it or leave it...I think he likes looking at it more but Kyra on the other hand would stay out in it all day if I'd let her. So the snow stuck around through the holidays and then melted away over the course of a couple of days. Yesterday (New Years Day) we got the chance to clean up the yard(our huge pine tree dropped a bunch of heavy branches in our front lawn). Then Matt woke up this morning opened the front curtains only to find that it was....SNOWING AGAIN. So now we have a couple of inches and it hasn't stopped yet. We'll see how long this batch stays...hopefully not long.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Matthew and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this December 18th! However, our plans were majorly spoiled by the BAD weather and we ended up staying home...we couldn't even get the car out of the driveway the snow was sooooo bad. Fortunately a couple of days later we had a break in the snow and were able to get around and actually went and saw a movie together and then went out for coffee and desert after! It was fabulous to go somewhere without our kids. You forget how nice it is. Here are some fun pics I found while making an album for Matthew for his anniversary gift. The first pic was our official engagement photo taken in 1997. The second there is a fun one of us while we were dating. The third is our official marriage ceremony 12/18/98. The last is a favorite of us graduating college together at EOU in 2004. So much happened in 10 short years and I can't wait to see what the many more in our future will bring.

ITS A BOY

Well first and foremost ITS A BOY! I must say we had our ultrasound this last month and discovered we are having another little boy! We're thrilled! I'd have pictures but I forgot the dvd that I was supposed to bring! Ok so here are some other pictures from December...Kyra was not happy that I stuffed her into her new snowsuit to take a picture. Fortunately it was just in time for our record breaking snowfall that happened mid december. Another event was that Arseny got a "big boy" bed and here are the kids LOVING it! Of course now we're having going to bed issues not to mention that naptime has gone out the window with this new found freedom. We're debating about bringing the crib back as a reminder...we'll see. Kyra sporting her lovely hat and Arseny is wearing his "Priest"vestments and practicing censing, with his beloved censor. More to come!

My apologies!

I'm sad to say I have not been keeping up with my Blog!!! My attentions have been snagged by my recent discovery of facebook. I've been having so much fun I've forgotten to post on the blog!!! I must say the Blog is much nicer to use to let people know what's going on as opposed to the facebook page where you only just get to say tidbits. Ok so here we go...