Teddy Bear Corner

Less rock, more Jazz...

2010-11-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, even though this blog is supposed to be all about Mikey, I'm going to make an exception for this entry because I came across a really great article that I think anyone should read if they get the chance. It'll make a lot more sense to you if you love NBA basketball and have been following the Jazz recently with their two come from behind wins this week in Miami and Orlando, but even if you don't like basketball, the main ideas are worth thinking about. It's about inspiring others, being consistent, working hard, having a positive attitude and (I quote) 'about how every darned thing on this planet can be influenced by the smallest things.' These are all things, of course, that I hope Mikey learns and applies as he grows up (so there's my excuse for including it in his blog:). I love the 'cosmic irony' part about Coach Sloan towards the end:) The article is called 'Less rock, more Jazz' and here's the link:
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/21551/less-rock-more-jazz

Enjoy!
PS So the article makes a little more sense for those of you who don't follow basketball, Maurice Lucas died of cancer on October 31 this year at the age of 58.
PPS Lena and I both loved the picture above of Millsap. Isn't it cool!:)

First Birthday! First hair cut! plus some other pics

2010-11-02T16:01:00.001-07:00

Ok, guess while I got the momemtum going, I was able to quickly add a random selection of some of the latest pics in addition to the three previous entries I just did. Don't even know how many pics I've added and looking over them, there are some that I added by accident when I wanted another pic, but oh well. I'm too lazy to change it right now. Daylight savings time makes me feel like I have an extra hour at night, but I should probably get to bed anyway (cuz Mikey doesn't care what the clock says - he's on his own time). Few quick comments on the pics below - didn't Lena make a beautiful cake for Mikey? She's amazing. He made a mess of it though and I was the one that got to pick him up afterwards:) Mikey loved having Bucks up in Moscow for his birthday, as you can tell by the pics. I loved how concentrated and serious he was when he was figuring out how to blow those cazooee thingies. It was (and is, cuz a few are still kicking around) hilarious. My how our little guy is growing up! Looks like he's already figured out how to hold a football and run with it. We just love our little buddy!

Mikey's first trip to the US continued

2010-11-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

Mikey's first trip to the US

2010-11-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I finally get around to updating this blog and get halfway through attaching pictures and it stops working for me... oh well. I'll try to get the other half of the US trip on here another day, and after that I'll try to get some newer pics of Mikey's first birthday and haircut. Haven't blogged so long that I forgot how to do some things so I'm keeping it simple - couldn't figure out how to make the picture up top smaller and I'm not going to worry about commenting each picture, just a couple of things to point out, cuz they're all good:) Probably could have filled a whole album with the pics Lena took at Thanksgiving Point - what a beautiful place. Also, I love the picture of Mikey asleep while I'm wearing him when we went hiking in the Uintas - it looks like he has a halo around him:) I alway knew baby's got special protection from above when they're sleeping, and now we have it on camera. Too bad one of my favorite pics didn't make it into this half, too. It's so dynamic! It's Mikey with Kevin at Dru's birthday and Mikey's about to let go of the mask Kevin's wearing and it's about to snap in his face... oh wait, I just got that to go through. Here it is. I love the expression on their faces. Kevin knows what's coming and you can only wonder if Mikey knows what he's doing:) Anyway, thanks everyone for making our trip great!

Grandparents from US visit to Russia this summer

2010-11-02T14:13:00.001-07:00

Mikey meets his grandparents

2010-07-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

My mom and dad have been here the past few weeks so Mikey got to meet his grandparents from the US. They absolutely loved being together! I took them back to the airport earlier today so they're on their way back home and Lena, Mikey and I are planning to come out soon after them. Haven't had a lot of time to blog, but we took lots of pictures while they were here so there's a lot to post but for now I just picked out a couple of my favorites from my iPhone. The top one is obviously them on Red Square in front of the Kremlin, Lenin's Tomb and St. Basil's Cathedral. The other one is mom with Mikey swinging. It was nice having them here, a real eye-opener for them I'm sure, but I think they had a good trip. We're looking forward to ours.

Blowin' dandelions!

2010-06-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

Finally figured out how to post a video from my iPhone. Listen to his laugh!!

May 9th! Victory Day!

2010-06-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

Walking on Lenin's Square in Voronezh on Victory Day, commemorating the 65th anniversary since the end of World War 2, or 'The Great Patriotic War' as they call it here in Russia.

The ribbon tied to Mikey's binky is a symbol of victory that people wear on Victory Day. The tie it to their cars, back packs, etc.

This turned out to be a nice family portrait.

Meeting my first cousin...

2010-06-02T22:36:00.001-07:00

"We weren't too sure what to think of each other...

but Daniel thought I tasted good...:)

and he let me play with his toy dog, which tasted pretty good too:) Daddy tells me I have a whole lot of cousins waiting for me in America!

We both love being held by our grandmas!"

Daniel is actually Mikey's '3rd' cousin. Lena's cousin had Daniel 5 days before Mikey was born.

A walk in the park by our house...

2010-06-02T22:17:00.001-07:00

Dandelions...

I love my mommy!

Fountains...

Did I mention I love my mommy?

Tulips...

Can't wait to go swimming!

2010-06-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

We found these baby tigger swimming trunks for Mikey and couldn't pass them up. He's absolutely adorable in them! It seems he even acts more energetically when he's wearing them. Our little Bam Bam:)

First car vroom vroom

2010-06-02T21:43:00.001-07:00

"I like to ride my new car with a balloon in the living room...

In the kitchen...

Standing up outside...

While blowing bubbles...

With my daddy...

And sometimes when it goes vroom vroom, I'll make a '2cool4u' face like this!"

Ok, we bought Mikey this cool car and he loves it. It's supposed to be for babies from 12-36 months and the people at the store couldn't believe how confidently our little 7 month old got on and started going! We can hardly believe how fast he'w growing ourselves!

It was daddy's birthday!

2010-06-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, check out what a fun party:)...

http://www.babytv.com/kingofbirthday.aspx?comp=91417&step=play

Our little acrobat:)

2010-05-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have seen this on Lena's facebook, but I decided to post this here, too. Gee wiz, he's just over 6 months old here! He's so strong and coordinated for such a young age. He can balance like this for about 15 seconds (maybe longer?) when he's feeling up to it. We're already teaching him how to scoot of the bed and couch feet first without hurting himself. He crawls around so quickly now we can't take our eyes of him for a second! What'll it be like when he starts walking?

Random pictures taken over the last month

2010-05-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

Yum yum

No paparazzi please!

Getting the DVD's thrown all over the floor

Love the innocent, crooked, toothy smile:)

Looks like he's going to just take off running!

Love being on daddy's shoulders:)

Wish you could hear Mikey laugh... the sweetest thing in the whole world!

Ok, ever seen the National Geographic show 'Seconds before disaster'? Well, this is the last expression on his way down before making a face plant, poor little guy didn't know what was happening and we didn't catch him on time. He'd climbed into the laundry basket but when it fell over, he just kept holding on to the sides instead of catching himself. Live and learn, little buddy:)

Ears look like their glowing... definitely 'Heywood' ears:)

Splish splash! Chewin' on bath toys.

Baby Beethoven:)

Where did this look come from? Looks like he's going jump and attack someone!

We actually got this on video - him falling asleep while holding up his bottle, but waking up every time it droops too low:) Maybe I'll try posting that another time...

Doesn't he just have the biggest, most beautiful eyes?

Love the hoody... thanks Steph!

2cool4U. Peace out:)

Some Easter pics

2010-05-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

Better late than never... here's Mikey playing with eggs on Easter:)

Latest iPhone pics

2010-04-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a bunch of the latest iPhone pics we've taken. I could spend a long time commenting on all of them, but I won't. Just enjoy:) I'm not to picky about them being a little blurry sometimes if he's got a cute expression. These are more or less chronological, but backwards. The one where I'm holding him in his yellow sweater is him on the day he turned 6 months. 6 MONTHS! Time flies! Love his toothy grin:) One more thing - in the couple of pictures where he's opening up his mouth real wide, for some reason he reminds me of Scott as a baby:)

We've got teeth!

2010-04-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

We were surprised that Michael started getting his teeth so early (just after 4 months) since ours came in a later (or so our mothers say:). We took this picture a few days ago, which makes him 5 and half months old here and you can see for yourselves that his first two bottom teeth have already come out. It makes his open-mouth smile and laugh all the more cuter!

Passport Pictures - Orange Shirt Session, sitting up

2010-04-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

I've been bad at posting new pictures here lately... in fact I just realized that I didn't post anything at all in March! I'll try to do better...

So anyway, we need a passport picture, white background, for Michael and had a photo shoot with him today. So this is what he looks like now. We took lots of pictures to have something to choose from. Here's a sample. It kind of went like 'Orange Shirt, sitting up', 'Orange shirt, laying down', 'Orange shirt in highchair', 'White shirt, sitting up' etc etc etc and like all babies was so wiggly/blinking/active it's going to be hard to find something we need but got a lot of cute pictures anyway as you can see.

More smiles!

2010-02-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

Finally getting around to adding more pictures/videos to our blog. I've almost forgotten what it is to have 'free time':) The last time I sat down to update this more than a month ago, Lena was in the hospital with Michael. We're glad he's doing better now. He's got so much energy! I love the picture with him looking in the mirror of his book. Plus, the bottom picture here makes us think - that's the exact expression we'll see from Michael when he's a teenager and doesn't want to get up in the morning to go to school. Too funny:)

Balls!

2010-02-28T11:24:00.001-08:00

Couple of random pics

2010-02-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

Couple of random pics - we watched the NBA All-Star Game together, rooted for the West and Deron Williams. To bad we lost, but it's just the All-Star Game. Go Jazz! Also, Michael helped me make pancakes for the Russian holiday Maslanitsa (the pancakes represent the sun coming in the spring... we can't wait for winter to be over!)

Holdin' on, standin' up

2010-02-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

Little video of us playing together. Most of the time he doesn't stumble anymore when we do this!

Applause, anyone?

2010-02-28T10:12:00.000-08:00

Mikey on the keyboard. Love his expression at the end of this video!

Smiles!

2010-01-11T10:11:00.001-08:00

Wow! 14 blog entries in one evening, with two videos and lots of pics... that should make up for a month of not blogging through the Holidays. It might seem like blogging overkill but this is the only way our family in the US can see him for now. It's nice to finally have high speed internet again. I just got back to Moscow this morning by train to go to work. Mikey's had a fever over the weekend and I need to go back to Voronezh anyway on Friday for some residency document stuff so Lena's down there with him and her parents until we drive up together next weekend. I miss them already, especially after spending all this time updating our blog:( Michael smiles for us everyday, but it's so hard to catch it on camera. Above are a couple of succesful attempts (he really smiles big when I lift him over my head like he's flying:) Anyway, hope you enjoy what I've posted cuz this is it for a while... I'm all blogged out.

Looking at one of his new books

2010-01-11T09:51:00.001-08:00

Isn't that a cool book? It's got mirrors, a bumpy green frog, a fluffy white sheep, a soft yellow ducky and everything! Side note: A Jazz game was shown on TV over here during the holidays which happens once, maybe twice a season. Too bad they lost at home in SLC to Denver by turning the ball over like a million times! I don't blame Mikey for falling asleep during the fourth quarter cuz it wasn't pretty.

Presents for Mikey!

2010-01-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here's some shots of Mikey with the presents we wrapped up for him. The wrapping paper ended up being more interesting to him than the presents inside! Too funny! We love his little feet sticking out and then him hitting one of the boxes. We got one of him under the tree with his other presents cuz for us having him here with us is the best thing we could have asked for. Oh, and take a look at the last picture. Isn't that the best smirk? Sly little guy... wonder what he's up to?

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

2010-01-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

This video was taken on December 25th during one of his 'Baby's First' photo shoots (you can check out that blog entry below). When I asked him if he wants to wish us a Merry Christmas, he tries so hard! We were totally not expecting it. It's the first time we heard him make the 'Ma' and 'Ka' sounds together so we think he was trying to repeat what I said. I guess that means the noise that comes right after is his attempt at 'Happy New Year's!'

Looking at Lion and Monkey

2010-01-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

Too bad he put his hands up in front of his face for most the video. He usually smiles and talks to Lion and just stares at Monkey and Elephant.

Christmas Call, December 25th

2010-01-11T09:14:00.001-08:00

This is Mikey's christmas day call with his grandma and grandpa in America. These are some of the expressions he was making along with his gooing and gaaing. The top three are the first three right in order and you can follow his expression from 'What's this?' to 'Surprise' to 'I kinda like this':)

Outside in the snow

2010-01-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

We don't have any real good in the snow pictures with Michael yet, which is more our fault for not always having our camera with us because there's been a lot of snow. That and the fact that we don't spend a lot of time with him outside in the cold. We spent several days shovelling. These were taken when we came home from a walk with Mikey. It gets dark pretty early and most of the snow was shovelled before we left. What you see in the one picture of me shovelling is just the snow from our car. You can also get a view of the street in front of Lena's house.

New Year's Eve!

2010-01-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures taken right on Mikey's first New Year's Eve! He loves being with his grandparents! Too bad his other grandparents are so far away:( Oh, and for those of you unfamiliar with the Russian tradition, the President of Russia always makes a short congratulatory holiday speech on all the channels on New Years Eve. The clock strikes midnight as soon as he's finished, which explains why you can see President Medvedev on the TV in the background. It's a recording, of course, or else he'd have to repeat the same speech for all 11 time zones!

Baby's First!

2010-01-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

We found a real cute 'Baby's First' Santa hat and got some good pictures out of it. Some of these are Christmas December 25th, some are New Year's and some are taken on January 7th, the Orthodox Christmas.
I love how big his eyes are in the last one!

Bath time!

2010-01-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

By some of the looks on his face, he seems quite surprised that some would dare take pictures of him in the bath:)

Random sleep pictures

2010-01-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

Isn't he adorable?

Making cute faces in his crib:)

2010-01-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Random at home pictures

2010-01-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

I love his expression when I hold him up high:) The top picture is him getting bundled up in his car seat before his first trip to Voronezh.

Walking around the mall...

2010-01-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of us with Mike in December at some malls

Having fun at home before going out...

2009-12-13T10:41:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics we took before going out last weekend. The teddy bear is the one we finally picked out for him to be 'his special' teddy bear friend.

Bunny outfit

2009-12-13T10:19:00.000-08:00

If you've checked this blog lately, you'll have noticed the new photo we've put up top. We ordered an Anne Geddes bunny outfit for Mike, size 3-6 monthes thinking it'd be cute for Easter, but it turns out that it fit him perfectly when he was less than 2 months so we had a photo session with him in it. We got so many adorable pics that I can't possible post them all but I've picked out a few here. The outfit must be very comfortable because he only had his eyes open for the first pickures and then was out cold the rest of the time no matter where we put him. I've included a picture on his bed, a couple on his playmat (a close-up pic and a 'butt-up' pic:) and the first two. Anyway, enjoy!

'Walking' with daddy's help

2009-12-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to get some videos posted on this blog and finally have had some time to do it (plus a little cooperation from the computer which wasn't letting me at first). Mikey loves standing up, even though he can't on his own yet. He'll even start 'walking' when he's in the mood, and we were able to catch it on video this time. This was taken November 30, which makes him 6 and a half weeks old here. What an amazing little guy! He tries so hard:) We're having so much fun with him. Oh, and for the record, at the end of this clip when Lena cuts me off at 'You are such a little...' the next word I said was doll.

Mikey on his jungle play mat

2009-12-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

ATTENTION! It seems this clip just refuses to be downloaded on blogspot (maybe it was too long), so I put it on my backup myspace account. Although it's a bit choppy, theres the full-screen advantage. Here's the link to copy/paste:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=0&release=101418251

Michael just loves his jungle play mat we have for him. He doesn't have very good eye-hand coordination yet (correction, he doesn't have any eye-hand coordination yet:) but as you can see he's kind of figured out if he swings his arms around, stuff will start moving and rattling when he accidently hits it. Oh and bye the way - thanks Steph for the outfit - it's way cute:)

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday. Didn't get to sit down until 9:30pm taking turns cooking and taking care of our little teddy bear but it turned out great. Here's a pic.

Really tired...

2009-11-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

Friday night at the end of a long work week. We thought we'd stay up and play, but we're too exhausted. BTW, this really reminds me of that blog picture of CJ and Kaitlin:)

Some random pics. Oh so cute!

2009-11-22T12:16:00.001-08:00

Here are some random pics of Michael taken recently. I haven't got around to reformating this blog yet, but since it's been a while since I last updated, I decided to make a bunch of entries today, this being the fourth and last one I'm doing. Three of these pics are him in his swing in which he's sleeping as I type, although they were taken a few days ago. One of him is him sleeping in his crip with his hands up and under my blanket that was made for me in Australia when I was a baby that mom so kindly sent over here. There's one of him getting all bundled up and dozing off before going outside today. And the top one in his striped outfit I took literally just a few minutes before doing these entries. (Although I had to take a break between entries to help out with bath time:) We love being with our little teddy bear! Anyway, enjoy the pics!

Daddy taking care of Mikey

2009-11-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics of me taking care of Mikey, changing his diaper and what not. Lena takes great pictures! I've got this trick I do sometimes when he gets fussy and my hands are busy - I put his binky backwards in my mouth and give it to him like a kiss while talking to him. The trick is to talk with clenched teeth so we don't drop it and to distract him from whatever's making him fussy. (I posted the pics backwards on accident - sorry if it looks like I'm taking his binky away from him and making him cry. Reminds me of the Simpsons where Homer spent Bart's childhood savings to buy paparazzi pics (ala Michael Jackson) of him droping Bart from a balcony. Homer: "When you look at the pics backwards, I look like a hero catching you":)

Our litle build-a-bear factory:)

2009-11-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

When we were at Disney Land a couple years back, we bought a teddy bear at the Build-A-Bear Factory, and even though it's not recommended, ever since Michael's been born Lena's wanted to see if some of our teddy bear's clothes would fit him. Here are the results:) The black leather jacket and jeans went well, but he really didn't like the sunglasses. Also, the football pants fit but the jersey didn't. It's a good thing we did this now, because he's growing so fast we probably wouldn't have gotten away with it later.

Look who came to visit

2009-11-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of grandma Nina and grandpa Sergei's visit. When Lena's aunt Tamara, uncle Tolya and two cousins, Anton and Zhenya, came, little Mikey had never seen so many people in his life!

One month old! Babushka and dedushka have come to visit!

2009-11-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

One month already! Some of the loose fitting clothes our little Michael was in at first are starting to get a little snug... he seems to be growing so fast! BIG NEWS Babushka Nina and dedushka Sergei (grandma and grandpa) from Voronezh were finally able to come up for a visit to see their new vnuk (grandson - pronounced 'vnook' like 'too'). The doctor said babushka should wait another week, but they couldn't hold out. They'll be here until Sunday with us. They are SOOO happy to have a vnuk and to finally be able to hold him. Babushka is absolutely beside herself with joy! It's so cute - she's like a little girl with a new doll to play with:) It's good for Michael, too, to reallize that their are more people in the world beside mama and papa (and Bucks:) Can't wait to have him meet the rest of his family across the ocean. We haven't taken hardly any pictures since they've been here. In fact the one right above is the only one so far, but we expect to take a lot more in the next few days that I'll post. All the rest here were taken a few days before they came. Enjoy!

Mikey and Bucks...

2009-11-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Mikey and Bucks still aren't sure what they think of each other. Bucks has never seen anything so loud and Mikey... well Mikey hasn't really seen much of anything, especially something so furry:) Judging by the kung fu moves he was showing, he's got his own ideas of what he'd like to do with our cat:) Probably good thing he doesn't move around just yet...

First walk outside

2009-11-04T06:39:00.000-08:00

Today it's been 2 weeks since we brought Mikey home from the hospital. This means that we've got the go ahead to take him outside and walk around our neighborhood. We were lucky because the sun came out (haven't seen it in more than a week) but it was pretty chilly - minus 1 degree celsius (or about 30 F.) so we had to bundle up and we didn't go very far. Here he is getting ready to go outside, a pic of the Orthodox church by our apartment, Lena standing in front of the Moscow River and a shot of our apartment building. (PS I could use some advice for making this blog a bit better... I see a lot of you have music, cool backgrounds, etc. on your blogs. I can't even get the pics I want in the right order yet and lable each pic seperately)

First smile :)

2009-11-01T07:17:00.000-08:00

This was his first smile we were able to catch on camera. What a cute kid!

Halloween!

2009-11-01T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finally figured out how to get a blog started! It took me a while to practice downloading pictures and stuff, but I think I've got the hang of it now and you can expect regular updates in the future. Today, Michael is three weeks old and yesterday was his first Halloween. We really didn't do as much as my family in the US, but we decided to put on these cute booties that were given to us and take a picture of him in his new swing.

Michael, almost one day old

2009-11-01T06:36:00.000-08:00

Looking out the window with a thoughtful, intelligent expression. (Contemplating the big journey of life he has ahead?:)