the vyssotski family

9 bidgillion pictures

2009-10-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hello, all~ I hope this finds you all doing well! We have been super busy with adjusting to life as a foursome, dealing with various and smallish frusterating scenarios that add up to be a big headache and a really good opportunity to trust God, look to Him for provision, and a reminder to count our blessings - as they are many. I won't go into details about the frusterations, but i will share about the blessings. Going through our photos since the last post brought a smile to my face today and i was so hard pressed to pick out some to put here that i ended up just including alot and if you get bored, you can just stop reading. how about that? ;) Some of these won't be in chronological order, but oh well. you'll figure it out.

Alexei and Daddy were out riding his bike yesterday. He is getting pretty good at going on his own. He has to stretch a little bit to reach the peddles, but he puts forth a valiant effort.

Here, Daddy is giving Anya a bath. Boy, does she love her bathtimes! It is one of the quickest ways to get her in a happy mood if she is irritated at the world ~ though those times are few and far between. She is such a happy and laid back kid! we are so blessed. every time you look at her she smiles at you.

our two precious goofballs. Alexei and Anya are already super tight. they smile every time the other one is around. Alexei is constantly wanting to kiss and touch her and she is usually up for it. She is already laughing at his antic.

We have discovered the wonders of playdough. Alexei usually doesn't sit still for 2 seconds together, but if playdough is on the agenda, he will sit for an hour and a half playing with it - usually this entails you sitting there and creating whatever he requests. the usual fair is a rocket, a car, airplane, semi truck, a dog, a bowl for the dog to drink from... and then there is the occasional demand, err, request for something totally abstract that really makes mommy stop and think for a minute, such as the island of madagascar. he literally wanted the shape of the island. hmm. sometimes it is an action verb and that really gets the creative juices flowing. I bet my skills at the game cranium have improved dramatically. oh the minds of two year olds, especially mine. ;)

Grandpa and alexei creating a race track. "Grandpa is fun" - alexei.

I love Nick so much. I don't know many dads that would initiate a water war where the kid gets the elephant trunk from the slipping slide (thanks aunt kristin) and the daddy gets a bucket for a helmet and a pool for a shield. daddy doesn't get a weapon. i don't know who had more fun - judge for yourself.

one of our weekly visits with great-grandma kathleen. every time alexei walks in the door he asks for "grandma cookies" - he knows she has some waiting for him everytime. i think her house is one of his favorite places. it was one of mine growing up too. and it's the same vanilla wafers. :)

alexei with two of his favorite buddies from playgroup and church: jonathan on the left and logan on the right. they are all within a few months of each other and boy, can they get each other going. when logan's mom picked him up from church nursery a couple of weeks ago, she said logan and alexei were side by side on two rocking horses rocking as hard as they could with one arm flailing in the air and both gleefully screaming "woohooo!! woohoo!!" i think they should be on a lacrosse or hockey team together when they get older.

aunt kristin loving on miss anya. i love anya's little sundress - it's one of the two outfits i have ever bought for her. the day that i found out she was a girl.

Dell had a "take your kid to work day" and alexei had a blast! i think he thinks daddy gets to go to a fascinating and fun place every day. they had computer games and icecream. can't be that.

hanging out at central market enjoying 30's music. alexei is a good dance partner. his little feelings get hurt when he gets refused by older women (5 year old girls). it makes me sad as his mommy.

we are trying to put the idea in alexei's head that pooping on the potty is alot of fun and worth stopping what you are doing to go. i don't think he is at the point of agreeing with us yet. maybe before he is 12. oh well.

she seriously does smile at you every time you talk to her. too cute.

yes, that is a smiley face sticker on anya's forehead. do all second born children just get used to that? i have a feeling she is going to have to. it doesn't seem to bother her too much.

the wonders of playing in the rain. it is funny to me that when nick and i first got married, he didn't get that i wanted to go out and play in the rain with him. now he is the one who is out splashing in puddles for hours on end.

for some reason, when i ask alexei to smile for the camera, he interprets that as, cock your head to one side and give a goofy grin.

we just got back from our annual family vacation to port aransas. we had such a blast together. we really needed that time away as a foursome and then really enjoyed grandma and grandpa and mr. phil and mrs. barb joining us for the second weekend. God was so sweet to give us that time together.

the weather was really nice for the most part. on the two rainy days we went to the USS Lexington and to the Texas State Aquarium - both of which fascinated alexei.

alexei was a little ticked off that they wouldn't let him fly a plane off the deck. he finally settled for a flight simulator.

alexei should know all about this equivalent of time out. we need a brig at our house.

there is a picture at my parent's house of me on this same anchor in front of the USS Lexington with my family and some friends when i was just a couple of years older than alexei is now. time sure does fly.

life for a two year old is so easy.

flying a kite together. alexei is tired after a long day of playing at the beach. those moments are so rare and so sweet when he actually cuddles up against you and wants to be held. gosh, i love that kid.

alexei was fascinated by the dolphins.

and the stingrays. one little one kept swimming to him to be touched. don't worry it was at the aquarium and there weren't any stingers - we are not that nuts. well, actually... ;)

this is the first time anya ever reached for and held a toy. this is right before she turned 4 months. and she also rolled over for the first time on the trip. super exciting!

enjoying lunch and conversation on our porch overlooking the beach. alexei was napping.

alexei got so tan from playing in the sun, it was really funny when we took off his diaper at one point - his little white butt almost blinds you. ;)

grandma and anya hanging out at the beach.

it cracks me up that alexei always holds the bat backwards. unique, but then again, that is just alexei for you.

Far-Mor (Bobby) came to visit a couple of weeks ago. we really enjoyed hanging out with her for a couple of days.

the first expedition in our double jogging stroller. it was so sweet when alexei voluntarily put his arm around anya, i had to take a picture. i hope he is always a little protective of her.

a couple of days ago mommy was about to go nuts. i think God put this idea of making vegetable soup in my mind, b/c it went from a very frusterating afternoon to one of my favorite pretend memories with him. we got his play food out and talked about the difference btwn vegetables and fruits and then we fixed a vegetable soup and fruit salad for grandma to enjoy when she came to visit. after we made the pretend food, alexei helped me cook his first dish - cornbread. he took his role of holding the bowl while i dumped ingredients in and then stirring it up very seriously.

who needs expensive toys? card board boxes are all you need to make wobots (robots), tanks and tunnels. what more could a kid need?

you get a gold star for making it through this mega post! until next time....

filling in the gaps of the last 10 months or so ;)

2009-07-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

well, we are 6 weeks into being a family of four and we have survived - so far. :) i think we are staring to find a rhythm and are really enjoying watching both alexei and anya grow and learn new things daily. sleep is getting better, though we are still wrestling with anya's gastric reflux and just started our third med. hopefully it will work the magic i've heard others say it did for them. thankfully she is gaining weight really well - she was 10lbs 10 oz. a couple of weeks ago. i have fallen in love with my crockpot. i hadn't ever really put in the effort to find vegetarian crockpot recipes before, but man, have i been trying them out lately! it is so nice to fix a meal in the evening after alexei is in bed, let it cook overnight and have it ready to go for lunch or dinner the next day. there are all sorts of little tricks to figure out to make having 2 kiddos in diapers as smooth as possible. i would love hearing ya'lls ideas if you don't mind sharing. i am definantly in the try it out and see what works stage.

Since there was such huge gaps between my last few posts, i wanted to throw in a few pictures of the highlights between September until now as well as some (more than a few) pics of anya during the past six weeks. Six weeks! Can you believe it? Time sure does fly. please do not feel obligated to read or look at all of them- i just wanted to post so some enquiring family would have a chance to see some pics.

when i was typing my post in february i hadn't transfered pics from our time in WV so i am going to throw in some here. for Christmas, Nick, Alexei and I flew to WV to spend time with Nick's american family. We thoroughly enjoyed catching up with all of them. Alexei and Anya have 3 cousins through that family - Benjamin, Elsa and a brand new little girl, Lily, born to Ryan and Dawn just last week. Here is a pic of all of us at the dinner table enjoying our Christmas feast. sorry it is such a small scale.

Here is a picture of Alexei playing with Far-Mor (swedish for father's mother). How many kids get the blessing of having a Far-Mor, a Babushka, and a grandma? :)

Bobby and Sam gave Alexei, Benjamin and Elsa similar hats that were super cute. you will see a better pic of it further down. I don't think Alexei knew quite what to do with the cold. He was not a fan of bundling up before going out- a true texan, though he is half russian.

Nick's coworker and friend, Richard was sweet enough to take us all up in his airplane a few months back. Alexei has been fascinated with planes even more so since then.

my boys- aren't they handsome?

Alexei is so into bugs right now, a true boy. any time he sees or hears a bug he holds up his hand like he is ready to catch it given the chance. it is super cute. you'll have to get him to demonstrate his bug catching stance to you next time you see him. :) here they are chasing a stray roach that chose to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Alexei turned 2 yrs old on June 8th, but since anya was due in late may, we celebrated his birthday in early may so we could be sure and have his party with his buddies from playgroup and with family that was in town. we had a great time hanging out in the backyard (hard to believe since we have been enduring 100 + temperatures after 10:00 am here lately), eating sub sandwhiches together, watching him open gifts - mostly hotwheels which he is enthralled with, and eating lots of chocolate cake. what more could a two year old ask for? :) i can't believe he is already 2. it really has flown by. here is a pic of cousins patrick, daniel and friend abe from playgroup with nick on the porch swing that was converted to hang from our tall oak trees in the backyard. the swing now goes almost from the back fence to the house spanning the entire depth of the yard - another of nick's fun enhancements.

yey for chocolate cake!

ok, thanks for bearing with me on the catch up of our lives. now we are up to the more recent history. here we are leaving the hospital with anya 6 weeks ago.

here is alexei welcoming her to our home. He continues to be such a sweet big brother. every time he goes to rub her head - his favorite thing to do - he says "gentle, gentle" and is just about as gentle as a 2 yr old boy full of energy can be. we are working on not touching her as much when she is asleep and on figuring out where to put the toys he wants to share with her (on her tummy is better than on her head). it is so sweet to see them together. anya has started to light up when he is around and seems not to mind it too much when alexei yells his excited greetings to her about three inches from her nose - "Hi! Hi!"

the first couple of days... boy does she love to be swaddled TIGHTLY. it is amazing how she will work so hard to get out of it and then scream b/c she got loose. so much of a child's behavior reminds me of my behavior with God. He is so patient with us.

meeting great - grandma kathleen for the first time.

after her first sponge bath... she really loves baths - she hasn't cried during any of them. i am thankful for the baby tub now that her umbilical cord stump fell off. it is so much easier to emerse her and do it all quickly before she gets cold.

we have definantly gotten our use out of our pool passes this summer at the neighborhood pool. alexei loves the water and it is so fun to watch him play in the baby pool. he likes the big pool somewhat, but loves running around where he can reach. he has started to go underwater and is doing good about holding his breath. maybe next summer we can do swim classes with him.

this was a couple of days after we got home. anya hung out with a fan blowing in the garage while nick, alexei and i had fun washing our cars and spraying each other. again, this was before it got too hot. i sure miss those days.

alexei liked washing the top of the car especially. never has my CRV been so clean on the roof. we should have just tied a sponge to his diaper.

the airplane has continued to evolve. it is now painted to match the buran russian space shuttle, a propeller that turns, an extended life battery so they can go further in their explorations of the neighborhood and has an MP3 player that plays Abba songs and alexei's all time favorite song, "life is a highway" sung by rascal flatts as heard in the movie "cars" (another alexei favorite). below they are eating peanut butter and jelly while cruising around the brushy creek water park. anytime we are in a public place with the buran, kids come out of the woodwork and alexei is getting really good about sharing his toy most of the time. it's like a really cool and original carnival ride. :)

alexei loves to bring toys for anya. he puts them on her stomach and gets really upset if i try to move them. he was feeling especially generous on this day.

another afternoon at the pool.

how sweet is that?

on alexei's actual birthday, we decided to go check out the austin zoo. we had never been before. it was pretty warm, but we enjoyed seeing everything. he especially liked the choo choo train.

alexei @ 2 years and anya @ 2 weeks. i am so blessed.

after we returned from the zoo, we pulled out the fingerpaints for the first time and alexei had a blast.

he and daddy had fun customizing the boran - as if it wasn't original enough ;)

alexei LOVES hanging out with grandma. she has been so helpful coming over almost every day for a little while after work. it is so nice right before dinner time to have an extra pair of hands to entertain, hold and give me a little break.

we love it when grandpa stops by on his days off to swing, color, go to the pool or play basketball. we are so blessed to have them so closeby.

little smiles.

alexei is starting to try out riding a bicycle. we try it for a few minutes and then he'll get frusterated so we'll put it away for a few days and try again. he is getting pretty good at it. it has been so much fun seeing him learn so many new things lately.

Father's day - those are 2 amazing dads. i am so thankful for the role models my kids have. not many are so blessed as they are.

here is the christmas hat again :) alexei had woken up from his nap and started to explore his drawers. when i went into his room to bring him downstairs, he had pulled out his christmas hat and a swimsuit and wanted to put them on. he wore them a good bit of the afternoon and i couldn't resist getting a picture.

it is suprising to me how expressive anya is already. i had heard that girls have alot more facial expressions than boys and i am already seeing it. though, alexei can be pretty darn expressive himself.

this is one of my favorites. ;)

congratulations! you just survived a recap of the last 10 1/2 months of our lives! thanks for caring enough to get through all of that. hopefully i can post again before another year flies by. ;) we'll just have to wait and see about that. :) signing off.

9 months later...

2009-05-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

ok, so you know that blogging was not as high on my priority list as naps were when i was pregnant :) so here is a super quick update. i will try to post pictures of highlights of our family's time together throughout the pregnancy if i have a chance.

the pregnancy:

went smoothly, although i did get to experience the joys of major acid reflux, sciatica and more back pain - none of which i had as badly with alexei's pregnancy. i was spoiled the first time around. the only concern was that at anya's 36 week ultrasound they noticed that her left ventricle in her brain is dilated and they had us go to a perinatologist a couple of times to keep an eye on that. we just had another ultrasound on her brain done this morning and found out that they are not concerned about her ventricle being enlarged - they are calling it normal. praise God! thank you to those of you who were praying wtih us!

the birth:

went very smoothly, was 6 hrs long (vs. alexei's 12 hr labor) but felt twice as intense as my labor with alexei. my water broke around 8pm on sunday 5/24/09, more intense contractions started around 10pm, and we got to the hospital at 2am. i was bummed to find out i was only 4cm and 80% effaced (i had been 3cm and 50% effaced since thursday) after 4 hrs of intense contractions, but we progressed quickly and within 2 hours we were starting to push. i guess the nurses didn't quite understand when i was telling them that i went fast when we got the end of labor with alexei - they were rushing to find any random OBGYN who could catch anya. thankfully they made it just in time - 12 minutes, 3 contractions and some intense pushing later, anya nikolaevna vyssotskaya arrived weighing in at 7lbs. 11oz. and 20 inches long.

big brother alexei, grandma, grandpa, aunt kristin and uncle john all came to meet miss anya and welcome her into the family. this is their first viewing right after anya's first bath.

mommy getting some snuggles from her little buddy.

first face to face meeting for the siblings. alexei is cautiously optimistic. :) he immediately showered her with about 10 kisses and pointed out her ears, eyes, nose and mouth. the true test comes when we take her home this afternoon. i appreciate any prayers for a smooth transition to a foursome at home. :)

this was taken right after my water broke and we realized anya was on her way to join us!

sharing the good news!

is that a smile?

thank you for caring and being a part of our lives! i'll do my best to keep the updates coming.

mommy vyssotski signing off to try to add to my 3 hrs of sleep within the last 48hrs or so. :)

update on the past 4 + months

2009-02-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

so, it's been a while since we have updated :) sorry about that! we have had quite a bit going on. on the beach trip with the family i last blogged about in september, nick and i found out we are expecting our second little munchkin. we have since learned that it is a very active little girl! we are pretty sure we are naming her anya nikolaevna (middle name is the traditional russian daughter of nikolai) and we are super excited as we anticipate her arrival around may 27th.

i've posted alot of pics in an attempt to fill you in on some highlights - i'll try to keep it brief. first are some pics from the family trip to portaransas - i had bought the big brother shirt a month or two before we got pregnant in a large size hoping we would be getting pregnant soon and wanting to let nick know by seeing how long it took him to notice alexei's shirt. it took a couple of hours - but he was excited when he did realize the significance. :)

alexei and daddy had a ball together - though here they both look pretty intense as they are focusing on molding perfect crab, shell and sea horse sand art. :)

digging to china- alexei was pretty amazed by this.

nick, alexei and i had a few days together before my parents and sister, kristin and brother-in-law, john joined us for the rest of the week. we really enjoyed our time together.

i am pretty sure the point of this tent is to keep alexei out of the sun. that didn't really happen as much. he had too much to do in the sand and water to stay put for long.

grandma and alexei hanging out.

all of the guys are in on digging to china now. :) alexei was so focused and a little intimidated by the hole. he was fine as long as he could keep a comfortable distance.

alexei was a monkey for halloween. it was his cousin daniel's outfit last year. he loved his costume. for weeks afterward, if he saw it laying in my room or if he found it in my closet, he would beg to put it on and wouldn't let me take it off until bedtime. even then he wasn't too happy about it. :) it was especially cute when he would bend over and look between his legs at his tail.

alexei still loves bubbles. he gives the best belly laughs ever if you catch him in the right mood when you are playing with him. the simple pleasures in life.

my "knights of spoonafoonia" - you'll have to ask nick about that one. :) another cheap form of entertainment - aluminum foil helmets.

such a guy - skateboarding in diapers - this is as we were about to head home from thanksgiving dinner at uncle jim and aunt judy's. he had a bit of an explosion earlier - thankfully it was warm enough outside:)

this is his first experience with getting to play aunt kristin's harp. he is totally fascinated by music - the harp, guitar, and piano especially.

as is the longstanding family tradition, we went out with my mom's side of the family to elgin tx the weekend after thanksgiving, to pick out a christmas tree at the elgin tree farm. the event includes petting random animals they have there, taking a hay ride to a section of trees where they drop you off to go find the perfect tree (or in our case a 9 ft. crooked tree that took 2 hours to put up in our living room, much modification to a tree stand, and a massive test of nick's patince - they sure look alot smaller out in the middle of a field when you are cold and are trying to hurry) and cut it down, drag it back and load it up on another trailer so you can tie it to the roof of your car. then comes the most important part of the tradition - eating at a BBQ place in elgin on the way home. you know, the kind of place where plates are frowned upon and only butcher paper is the acceptable eating surface ;) mmm so good. nick was a trooper as he ate his veggie burger that was packed for him and his fair share of beans, potato salad and coleslaw. ;)

alexei loves playing at the park. these particular shots are at the central market playground - it was so fun to remember bringing him here for one of his first outings in austin about a year and half ago! time sure does fly.

for christmas, nick built (actually is still building) an airplane for alexei. it started out as a rocker type of toy and then for those of you who know nick you won't be surprised that it had to become mechanized and now it can drive, has a parental control unit, a gas pedal, steering wheel, propeller that turns and trunk that opens. alexei loves driving it especially if other kids are around to admire. such a show off ;)

ooohhh power tools!!! complete dude.

alexei is completely into planes, rockets, balloons, space shuttles, anything that flies pretty much. where do you think he got that from? can we say nick's mini-me? ;)

oh yeh, and choochoos are next up in the coolness ranking.

i couldn't ask for two more fun guys to hang out with every day. i am truly blessed. i have no idea what it will be like adding another little one to the mix, but as interesting as our house stays, i am sure anya will be plenty entertained just watching her daddy and big brother explore, experiment and discover new and exciting things. as active as she is already, i have a feeling she is going to give alexei a run for his money. :)

ok, i am ready for bed. thanks for hanging in there and being patient with me. between morning sicknesstthe first trimester and ongoing occasional punyness (is that a word?) since then and alexei's continual string of sicknesses (we have had croup 2xs and strep once this month so far), i haven't been making blogging much of a priority. always feel free to call or e-mail if you want more regular updates on our lives. :)

blessings.

15 months old!

2008-09-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

hey, guys! sorry it has been a couple of months since i posted last. we are doing well. alexei is 15 months old and is starting to say some words: "apple", "rock", & "yogurt" are some of his new ones. funny story about "apple" which was the first word he said really clearly besides "dad", "mo"m" uh-oh", and "wow": we have a couple living with us for a while, the walkers, (they are super sweet) anyways, meagan has a mac computer and alexei went over to it, pointed and said "apple" plain as day with no prompting. it was hilarious, especially given that nick works for dell. :) alexei loves being super active and keeps nick and i laughing with his outgoing and joyful little personality. we are entering the realm of learning how to disipline as needed - he definately has a mind of his own. but he is doing really well overall.
here alexei is with great-grandma and cousin tiffany drawing together.
nick's american parents, bobby and sam came to visit last weekend. we had a really good time together. unfortunately we didn't get a picture of all of us together. we'll make sure and get one at christmas time.
alexei loves shoes and especially his yellow crocks because he can put them on himself...
but sometimes he gets them on the wrong feet. :)

we've been out sailing a couple of times recently and though hesitant at first he really enjoys the experience and being able to get in the lake.

all boy. :) not the last time i will have to clean that window i am sure. ;)
we went rock climbing together for the first time since he was a few months old. it was great to be out and enjoying the company of some dear friends.
his first hair cut was much needed around 14 months - he had a serious mullet going on. he wasn't so much a fan of the whole salon experience. the lady cutting his hair is vangi. she cut my dad's hair for the first time the day i was born and gave me my first hair cut when i was a couple of years old. i was a baldy for a while. so it was fun to take him back to her to get his first haircut.

alexei decided to try running down hill towards a meter cover (like a manhole cover in our front yard) a couple of days after he learned to walk really well. that didn't go so well for him but he was a trooper.
his first knee booboo. he was actually being really tough until i put the bandaid on. he really didn't like the bandaid. what is with that? i though all kids love bandaids? maybe i need the cartoon ones. does that make it better?

our little wild man ;) sprinklers, mud, sticks, puddles... what more could a little boy ask for?
my little buddy.
he has such a funny little sense of humor. i love his expressions! he keeps us laughing all the time.
he loves to wait on the other side of the door for you to open it and say peek-a-boo. he hasn't learned to turn the doorknob yet - that will be a whole new world to look forward to. :)

we are about to head down to corpus christi for a week's vacation. it'll be just the three of us until thursday and then my parents and aunt kristin and uncle john will be joining us through sunday. i am really excited to get some good family time together.

i will post more after that.

thanks for your patience with me and for caring about our family!

- morgan

alexei at 13 months - installment #3

2008-07-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

our third set of photos from alexei's 13th month ;)
here he is learning to slide with grandpa. grandma and grandpa got him this cool little slide that can be indoor or outdoor for his birthday. right now it's gracing their formal living room - the mark of a true grandparent house. :)

here is alexei taking some of his first steps! he just started walking since july 4th. first with a push walker that dad's side of the family gave him for his birthday ( a pooh bear train) which he absolutely loves, and then the next day he decided to try to walk on his own. two days ago he started walking around alot - like rather than crawling. he had been taking maybe 8-10 steps to me or nick, but now he is cruising, actually more like running all over the place. i think he decided to skip the walking part. i wonder who his daddy is? ;)
this morning he heard nick talking in the kitchen and said "da da" for the first time and walked in and found him. he kept saying da da when he was with him, it was really cute. he has been saying mama for a few months but besides that, "uh-oh" was his only other word and he just started saying that when he dropped things a couple of weeks ago.

here is daddy pulling alexei around the backyard. we have a little "hill" in our backyard he loves to roll down. he has only flipped over once. ask nick about that. ;) he was fine.

if you look closely, you can see his first tooth on the bottom left. he got that on 6/20/08 - i think he is working hard on his second one.

he is starting to gain weight again. he lost a lot while he was on the first two rounds of antibiotics for a nasty ear infection we have been fighting for a month. he didn't want to eat any solids, just nurse. thankfully during this third round we are almost finished with, he still has an appetite and his stomach isn't as upset. since he had the hand foot and mouth disease over his birthday weekend, he has had another cold, was healthy for a week or so and then got this ear infection that has been crazy persistent. please pray that he will totally heal b/c if it isn't totally cleared up when we go back to the pediatrician next week we either need to go see an allergist to see if he is truly allergic to penacillin drugs (he had a reaction to amoxacillin when he was 8 months old) so we can have more options to treat him with in the future if he isn't allergic, or to an ENT to see if we need to do anything more serious. this is only his second ear infection - it's just lasted a month. poor little guy. it's hard to tell what is teething and what is ear infection at this point b/c he holds his ear when he is teething as well. thus the check up next week.
ok, i need to publish this series of installments and go get him. he's playing around in his crib. short nap today. bummer. :) thanks again for keeping up with our little lives.

alexei at 13 months - installment #2

2008-07-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

ok. so our second set of 4 photos from picassa:
we had so much fun at our new parent's sunday school class picnic at brushy creek water park! the sprinklers pop up out of the ground and the kids can run/crawl around and the parents can stay cool too! and it's free - even better! :)

our water baby. :)

this is alexei in his little car that his play group friends pitched in and got him together at his surprise birthday party i mentioned earlier. he loves riding in it. his feet can't quite reach long enough to propel himself, so nick put a bungee cord in the bottom and alexei has learned to prop his feet on top of it so they don't get caught underneath. smart kid. i am not at all biased. ;)

i have some more pics of him with daddy pulling him in the car i'll try and post in the next set of 4. thanks for your patience and bearing with me :)

alexei 13 months - installment #1

2008-07-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

[sorry the order didn't work out at all. i tried to post it backwards so the first would be first, but apparently it posts by time you created it. i don't know. sorry for the goof up. hopefully it will be better next time. :) ]
hello, everyone! we just got picassa so i am trying to figure out how to post photos from there, and it won't let me do more than 4 at a time. i don't know what i am doing. so you'll get a couple of posts today. don't complain, it's better than nothing. i was about to do one photo per post so 4 is an improvement. ;)
so alexei had his birthday, y'all saw those pics already. we really enjoyed hanging out with my dad's side of the family that weekend. you see them here (lft to right top row) uncle mark, grandpa matt, aunt candy (bottom row) great grandma, grandma katy, aunt zo and the three of us. we hung out at the marina and at the oasis with them the afternoon of alexei's and really enjoyed the beautiful weather.

alexei loves the swimming pool! he and daddy have so much fun together! i'd imagine in just a few years alexei will be doing his own laps in this swim lane. :)

alexei's little play group friends threw him a surprise party (really the moms did;) since they couldn't come to his party since he was sick with hand foot and mouth disease. this is the same playgroup that came out of the square one new moms group that jan henegar started at our church last fall. alexei is the oldest out of the bunch by about a month. left to right is logan, kaitlan(our neighbor friend), molly, alexei, abram, and bailey. it is so fun seeing them grow up together! this first year really flew by! alexei doesn't like hats. :)

alexei loves when daddy puts him in boxes or bags and "drives" him around. he is still a little sleepy here. :)

ok. i'll post another 4 photos. :) sorry. eventually i'll get this figured out.

alexei just turned one!

2008-06-17T09:09:00.000-07:00

hello everyone! we've had a crazy past couple of months. we've been sick the majority of six weeks with strange and wonderful things which i won't bore you with the details. alexei is at the tail end of his second cold in that time span so hopefully this will be the end of it for a while.

we had a birthday party for alexei on 6/7/08 though he was actually born on 6/8, but it was really sad b/c since he had the hand, foot and mouth disease, we had to uninvite all of his little buddies 2 and under from our playgroup at the pediatricians recommendation, although adults were supposed to have been exposed to it alot, so they were ok to come. we still had fun with my extended family there. however, i must not have been exposed to it when i was younger or didn't have enough antibodies or something, b/c i got it the morning of his party. we were staying at my parents house that week b/c our AC was out for a little over a week. they were super helpful with alexei and getting everything going for the party. i think alexei still had a good time and he got some neat little toys and new books which i am especially thankful for as i have memorized all of his old ones after reading them multiple times every day. i am sure you know how that goes. :)

alexei still has no teeth, though his two bottom ones look like they could erupt at any moment - though they have looked like that for a while now. oh well.

he is standing really well on his own and occassionally takes a step as he is reaching for something, though he hasn't let loose to walk yet.

he is in the 80% for his height but has dropped down to the 5% for weight. the dr. said it is probably no big deal - that it is just how he is built, but wants to do some blood work just to make sure everything is ok.

here are some pics of the last couple of months. my friend caryn took these pics of alexei when he was 11 months.

we went camping with my dad over memorial day weekend. alexei loves the lake!

this is alexei's little playgroup that came out of our square one new moms group. these little guys have been together since the beginning. it has been such a blessing to us.our munchkin:)cousin tiffany made the birthday cake and nick and i decorated it - tiffany taught us how. :)alexei's birthday party with our family.big number one!"i am not so sure about all of this hooplah""this is a lot bigger chunk of food than they usually give me to eat"alexei ended up handing the cake to daddy so he could feed him. this is his first taste of sugar. he ate the whole piece!

cousin key will gave alexei an elmo electric guitar. we have alot of fun with it.this is alexei's actual birthday. my dad's side of the family were visiting my aunt in san antonio and came up for the day. we celebrated with steaks, potatoes, salad and drove out to the marina and enjoyed sunset at the oasis. lots of good family time! here he is cooling off in the pool in the front yard with grandma and great grandma.it's official! i am one year old! we are so blessed to have him! thanks for being a part of our lives!

sorry it's been a while...

2008-04-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

...since i last had a chance to write we have had 2 birthday parties (nick and mine) and all the planning that entails, a great trip to colorado so i could be in my dear friend's wedding, alexei and i have both been down with some kind of virus deal, we took our first camping trip as a family of three, i got to help host baby showers for two sweet friends (one of them had her baby last week - oh so cute. definantly makes me think about wanting another one before too too long. ;), and we have had so many fun times with our wonderful sunday school class, the new parent's class - it has become a huge chunk of my life. alexei is still working on his teething (still no teeth.). i wouldn't mind so much that he doesn't have teeth, but that he seems to be really uncomfortable so much of the time. his little teeth have been right under the surface of his gum for a couple of months now and he has been holding his ears and fussing. i took him to his pediatrician yesterday to make sure it wasn't another ear infection, but she said he looks totally fine, that it is probably just the teething. i am so thankful for baby motrin. and for antibiotics. i have mastitis again. stink. what did they do before they had antibiotics?

ok, so that was probably more info than you wanted. on to more interesting things...

alexei is 10 1/2 months old now - wow, does time fly by or what? he is such a sweet heart. he is really getting into reading books, he loves turning the pages and on the one lift the flap book that we have (my dear friend, becky, gave it to him for christmas) - "dear zoo" he is really good about opening the flaps and knows which direction each one opens. he gets really excited every time a flap is lifted and does his suck in- squeal-whole body stiffens up move that only alexei can do when he is excited. :) his other favorite book of the month is "the very quiet cricket". every time we get to the last page where the quiet cricket finally is able to make his beautiful sound when he sees a cute girl cricket, alexei dies laughing every stinkin' time. it is hilarious. on a long day we'll just sit there and read that book a couple of times and then we'll resort to just rereading the last two pages so we get the effect when you come to the last page. it is just as much for my entertainment as it is for his.

nick hung my birthday present in the trees in our backyard. my parents got me this really cool canopy covered swing that is supposed to just swing peacefully on your porch. you all know what those look like. well, mine apparently wasn't exciting enough and needed to be improved. (as do most things in our house. ;) nick had already climbed two of our 40 ft. trees in our backyard with his rockclimbing gear and strapped an anchor to branches way up there to pass an old climbing rope he had through a clip so two ropes now hang down between the trees just waiting for fun to be had. we have clipped alexei's johnny jumper to it which he loves, because it becomes a swing/bouncer and with a pull on the rope that is in nick's hands, alexei can soar up 6 ft or so. he seems to really love it and gets super excited every time he gets in it. i must say he did get kind of quiet at the end of last night's jumping session, was looking around and when nick thought it would be good to get him out so we could get him ready for bed, he threw up. that's right. what kind of parents are we? ;) he still had a smile on his face when they came in from the back yard while i was getting dinner on the table, and he still was really excited, so he doesn't seem any worse for the wear, but i think we will have to tame down our jumping sessions a little bit. :) so back to what i started to say earlier with the ropes hanging from the trees and my birthday present... in case you haven't already guessed it. nick hung my swing up between the trees. at first, i lacked the vision that is second nature to nick. i wondered why a perfectly good porch swing needed to be improved upon. but i must say it is pretty cool. you can swing back and forth under the trees very smoothly and it is really relaxing. nick has mentioned attaching it to bungie cords of some sort, but i don't know about that.

current alexei tricks include: being able to pull up and squat down quite proficiently, he tries to stand on his own and can stay up for a few seconds before grabbing for something to help steady himself, he is crawling like a speed racer, can make every sound known to man and then some (truly a guy), has attempted climbing stairs (thankfully we were there), absolutely loves balloons and is really good at grabbing them by their "belly buttons" so he can drag it around the house with him at all times, loves to dance to the music (really just bouncing up and down) with his little fisher price kitchen/living room toy thing i got on sale a few weeks ago, loves carrying around little stuffed animals - especially a little yellow chick i got in a baby basket along with a Dell onesie (they sure like to take over every area of your lives, huh? they even want to put their logo on your cute baby's chest;) . he loves to be tickled and thinks that dad is the coolest thing on earth. he was wearing his red t-shirt that says "my dad is my hero" yesterday that melinda cassidy gave to us when he was born. definantly suits him.

ok, so let me put some pics up here and explain them before alexei wakes up from his nap.

these are a few pics from our trip to portaransas in february. i know i already told you about that trip last time, but since then i finally got the pics off of our camcorder and can post them as well. so here you go. alexei is enjoying his second beach experience. his first was when he was four months old and we went with my family down to the coast, but he was much more active and could enjoy it more this time around.
we got to go up to colorado springs for my sweet friend, danita's wedding. i was one of her bridesmaids and nick was a champ for being willing to do super daddy duty during the rehearsal and wedding. we were hoping to go up to breckenridge so nick could ski, but a bad snow storm was on the radar so we decided to stay in denver for a couple of nights. we ended up having a great time with nick's american brother ryan and his girlfriend, dawn. we went to the denver zoo. i really like it. we went last year during spring break when we went up with my parents and kristin and john. i was pregnant with alexei, but this was his first time to the zoo outside of my tummy. :) you can tell he is pretty excited to be there.that's uncle ryan to the left with the beard. we love uncle ryan. :)here is aunt kristin with alexei in the swing before it got hung in the trees.trying out some fun tongue twisting moves. on his first camping trip, hanging out with his buddy, katherine. she is just a few weeks older than alexei. he did really well and slept all the way through the night. in fact, he slept better than nick and i did. :) i would love to do it again soon. we went with three other families from our sunday school class and loved getting to spend some good time hanging out and getting to know each other better.the boys wrestling on the floor after a long workday.the bouncy seat in the trees - you can see how it is rigged now. this is before he threw up. "what are these wierd things they insist on putting on my feet?" this was right before nick took him outside last night. alexei definantly prefers to be barefoot. ok, folks. that is all for now. thanks for caring!

more pics...

2008-03-03T21:37:00.000-08:00

during the month where alexei wasn't wanting to eat, we were attempting all sorts of methods to see if we could get him interested without force feeding. alexei wanted to suck on nick's apple, but didn't want us to put a spoonful of applesauce in his mouth. i think it's because we were sticking syringes with antibiotic, antidiarrheal meds, and occasionally motrin into his little mouth he didn't want anything being inserted any more. thankfully he got over that phase and is chowing down and i think putting on some weight.
this is at the beach when we had a windy, cool day and nick enjoyed his valentines/anniversary gift of a joystick to fly helicopters in battlefield 1942 computer game. you can tell they are both into it. ;)
alexei loves pulling up and in order to keep him from bonking quite as frequently, we took the lid off of the ottomon and put him in it along with some fuzzy friends. alexei loves his stuffed animals and is rarely seen without a stuffed animal or small plastic person clenched in his little fist.
he loves watching kids and cars go by through our low front window. perfect kid spot.

this was alexei's first movie theatre outing. :) at alamo drafthouse they have baby day on tuesdays so moms can take their little guys and people don't freak out if they make noises. alexei was fascinated for the first 10 minutes or so, then we were trying every trick to keep him occupied besides pulling on a friend's sweater on one side of us or yanking off the socks of his little friend on our other side. the last half hour or so i stood up with him in the back. i think we'll wait a few years before we attempt that again. but these are his buddies from church. they were all born within a few months of each other. alexei is the oldest by 4 weeks. it will be so fun watching them grow up together. ok, that's all for now! have a good night!

and it's march...

2008-03-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

ok - i have obviously let go of my original intent to post weekly, but hey, nothing is wrong with monthly, right?;)

we are doing well, but it has been a whirlwind month. alexei had his first cold which turned into an ear infection. so that was three weeks worth of ickiness - three pediatricians visits, an ER visit due to a reaction to the first antibiotic, and 2 antibiotics later, he is a healthy little guy again. :) it seemed like a really long month with not a lot of sleep, but i am reminded again of how blessed we are that a cold and ear infection is all we were dealing with. God has been so gracious to us.

almost 9 months and still no teeth. dang it. poor little guy is really having a tough time with those chompers. we appreciate teeth prayers - i am sure God hears them;)

nick took me and alexei down to portaransas for our 2nd anniversary a couple of weeks ago. we had a great time together although alexei was in the midst of antibiotic, diarrhea, and major diaper rash, so none of us got a lot of sleep, though he did finally start getting interested in solids again after deciding not to eat any for a month or so. now he wants to eat like 3 times a day. gotta love those carrots, bannanas and oatmeal;)
with the weather being as nice as it has, we spend as much of our days outside as we can. we love our new house being so close to the hike and bike trail, park and grandma and grandpa's house. alexei officially started crawling on all fours a couple of weeks ago after army crawling since christmas day. now he has developed a pseudo bear crawl type of deal which is really funny to watch. i think he is just trying to figure out the fastest way to get around. oh boy!
nick bought him his first remote control car last night:) alexei has so much fun chasing it around the house, but i think nick has even more fun driving;) nick also made him his first cardboard box tunnel which wind around our living room and has made residence for a few weeks now. we have so much fun crawling through there with alexei chasing us and laughing his cute little head off. i love his laugh! i think it is the best sound in the whole world. he is so ticklish and loves to give and receive raspberries. he is exploring all sorts of noises with his mouth and has discovered his tongue. he loves it if you mimick his noises or facial expressions - very easily entertained when it comes to bodily noises;) i need to figure out how to help him not to squeal so loud when he is so excited to see other babies his age. he has a group of buddies (i am friends with their mommies) and we hang out every week or two, but when he greets them with a shriek, he has made several of them cry because it startles them so much. he is such a social butterfly in a very masculine sort of way. he is pulling up (and occasionally falling off of) every thing he can possibly get his little hands on. it is so sad seeing those first ouchies show up. but he takes it like a man. i am so thankful there have not been any serious accidents yet with as active and curious as he is.
i am tired, so i am going to post some pics and hit the pillow. nick and i are trying to get him to sleep through the night/put himself to sleep again after his sleep scheduale was totally messed up while he wasn't feeling good and we were going up to comfort him and give him meds and put him back to sleep. last night was successful, we are hoping for the same tonight. so in review, ladies and gentlemen, your homework assignment is sleep and teeth prayers. ;) much appreciated.
hanging out on our back porch. alexei loves to be outside and pays attention to every little detail, a butterfly across the yard, the wind blowing leaves across the porch... he wants to know how everything works and focuses very intently on anything he is studying.

can we say "messy"? this is the first time he wanted to eat after a few weeks where he was n't interested in eating solids. it was so nice outside i took him in the backyard to attempt to feed him and he obviously took to it ok - he is wearing sweet potatoes, banannas, pears, rice cereal and i believe carrots. and he is working on a teething biscuit and obviously thinks he has conquered it. ;)do you notice the light shining down on the leaf? at least that is how alexei sees it. he will ignore all of his cute toys if there is a good leaf to hold and crunch and eventually attempt to eat if mom isn't quick enough.daddy and alexei in their tunnel. the first of many i would imagine.there are a few more pics i want to post but for some reason it won't let me. i'll just add them in a seperate entry. thanks for reading!

wow, it's already february!

2008-02-04T18:37:00.000-08:00

time is flying by at the vyssotski house. is it in yours, or is it just us? ;) it is so hard to believe that alexei is going to be 8 months old in a few more days and it's been over a month since i last posted! sorry about that!

we are doing well, nothing hugely new and exciting. alexei is getting much more adept at moving around, army crawling, pulling up on furniture or whoever is close by, getting up on his hands and knees - but still drops to army crawl position when he wants to take off after something across the way. we are having to start saying "no" alot more frequently. it's amazing the things that they reach for! why can't they reach for a toy or something safe rather than the wires, pulling off the bottom of the fridge, eating paper and all sorts of other wonderful things?

we are STILL working on getting our first tooth. man, i am so ready for that thing to come through. it really bothers him, sometimes he gets a low fever, he has fluid behind his eardrums from the runny nose from the teething. i took him into the pediatrician to see if it was an ear infection b/c alexei started holding his ears and fussing, and she said that it's not infected but that there is fluid there which causes uncomfortable pressure. stink. poor little guy. we've already gone through two bottles of baby motrin over the last month or so. so all that to say, please pray for his little chompers to come through, we would all really appreciate it.

he still manages to maintain his happy disposition and loves to talk to strangers. :) we'll have to cross that bridge later on, but for now it's lots of fun with mommy right next to him. he especially likes the nice cashier lady at HEB.

i started going to women's bible study on wednesday mornings at the church and so he had his first long morning in nursery. he did great! we started putting him in nursery when he was six months old for one hour at church on sunday morning while we go to the sermon and then take him with us in the ergo carrier (back pack thingy) to sunday school and usually he'll take a nap for about 45 minutes which is better than the no nap he would get being the social little bug that he is when he is playing with other kiddos.

ok, i am getting tired and i need to get some more stuff done before i hit the sack tonight, so here are some pics from this past month:

our good friends, patrick, kim and moyer stayed with us for a week in early january. we had so much fun together and it was so fun watching the boys (2 + months apart) playing together. moyer definantly had a big impact on alexei's interest in becoming more mobile. this is the only picture i could find of them looking the same direction. they were always on the move- strap them into their car seats and they don't have a choice! ;)

notice the cell phone in many of these pictures - it was his favorite christmas present from grandma and grandpa. he loves cell phones and remotes - such a guy!
this is over at kris and eryn's house when we got to have dinner with some friends of ours. daddy knows all of the tickle spots. :)hanging out with our sweet friend, kaitlanthis is the sunday morning a couple of weeks ago when we had alexei dedicated in church. the point of the baby dedications is to recognize and hand back to God the huge blessing He has given to us in giving us Alexei. he doesn't belong to us, we are just stewards for the time being and we want to raise him while keeping that in mind. we were so excited to have kristin and john join us from dallas and my mom and dad, who dedicated me on that same stage 22 years ago and kristin 24 years ago. God is indeed faithful! of course the one morning you really want to get to church early with alexei looking his finest, he had two poop explosions and threw up carrots all over his cute outfit as soon as daddy dressed him. so this outfit was plan b as we were running out the door. that's the kind of morning you are just having to laugh on your way to church when seemingly everything goes wrong. but we got there in time and he didn't flip out on stage or anything:)

daddy reading lermontov's poems at bedtime. alexei loves listening to nick's voice reading russian. i have got to start learning more!alexei started to get interested in his swing again. he likes to pull up on it and try to climb into it. once i put him in there, he was staring at all of the stuffed animals i had displaced from the swing so he could get in. he wasn't happy until they were all in his lap. he then started smiling at each animal and giving them kisses, especially the big bear that far far and far mor gave him for christmas. :)can we say, "teething"? ;) so excited to be able to pull up and reach everything on the table - oh no! the centerpiece is now on a top shelf - gotta start raising the level of baby proofing!

i took alexei out to our friend eryn's barn so we could meet her horse fancy and her new colt prince caspian. such a sweetie pie! it was a gorgeous day to relax out there with the horses and a jillion dogs. alexei loved it! alexei with "aunt" eryn meeting the other horses at the stables. ok guys, thanks for hanging in there! hope ya'll are doing well!
take care!

happy new year!

2008-01-01T20:12:00.001-08:00

hello, everyone! i pray this finds you doing well and refreshed after the holiday season! we had a wonderful christmas here in austin with my family. it was so nice having nick home from work for a week (thanks, Dell!) and being able to just hang out, watch some movies, get lots of projects done around the house and enjoy lots of quality family time.
new years eve was quiet with just the three of us. we enjoyed dinner with our friends the sanchez' and alexei crashing at 7pm.not having a TV, we just watched a movie and enjoyed a quiet evening together. first time i have not watched the ball drop in NY in i don't know how many years. i trust it did though ;)
new years day has been good, except for the part where i got rear ended coming home from running some errands. i was so thankful that nick had alexei at home - that would have scared me to have him in the car with me. i am ok, just sore. one of those deals where on a right turn the person behind you assumes you are going while you are waiting for the other cars to clear. but it could have been a whole lot worse. his car was totaled, but thankfully, i think mine is just going to need the bumper replaced. we'll find out.
alexei has been so much fun these last few weeks. he started scooting around much more on christmas day which was fun. he can get across the room pretty quick now! definitely a new phase of baby proofing. he gets his butt up in the air some of the time, but other times it is still more of an army crawl. but he is getting a whole lot more proficient at it. if there is something across the room (particularly if he sees a wire - oh no!) he will crawl across anything in his way to get to it, including you if you happen to be lying in his path.
he is eating solids now - so far his menu includes: rice cereal (he likes it alot better if it's mixed with another pretried food), sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas and we tried avocado but that was a definite no judging by his facial expressions and gagging reflex. :) we'll try it again in another month or so. man, do poopies change! stinky!
he got some really fun toys for christmas. grandma katy struck gold when she got him a little cell phone that lights up and plays different tunes with each key you press - he even holds it up to his ear - how did he figure that out! kids are crazy observant.
ok - i need to head to bed. sadly nick goes back to work tomorrow and "normal life" kicks back in.
may God bless your families richly in the new year!
here are some pics to get you started off with a smile.

nick came into the kitchen where i was preparing for an outreach/get to know your neighbors type of christmas brunch that we co hosted with some friends and had put alexei in this christmas bowl. thankfully the camera was nearby. :)

he loves his bath time! watch out, b/c everyone gets soaked with this little splasher!
who needs a spoon?
nick is quite creative about entertainment apparatuses when he needs to accomplish something while on baby duty. we have had a wooden duck hung by it's pull string, a stuffed bear tied under the armpits, a giraffe hung by it's neck and an aquarium fish music thingy tied up all by various strings in nick's office (and at one point suspended from an empty wrapping paper roll hanging above his bouncy seat) just within arms reach of alexei, so he gets the added entertainment of not only jumping in his bouncy seat, but having moving targets to try to grasp as they fly past him. will he have issues when he grows up? is it considered baby torture to always make it nearly impossible to play with the toys that are arms reach away? he sure gets excited when he does get a hold of one of his toys.
he is doing really well with sitting, although...
we still have occasional accidents - notice he is still smiling and in essentially the same position. :)but a smooth recovery was in order ;)christmas eve at great-great uncle bob and great-great aunt muriel's with grandpa matt.helping grandma open her gifts! aunt kristin is so much fun!enjoying our new back yard! it has been fantastic weather here the past few days. he loves being outside!grandpa went sailing with us a few days ago - alexei liked it a whole lot better than he did on his last trip when he was 2 weeks old. ;) he had fun steering the rudder with grandpa. a born sailor. ;)happy new year!

nick's american family at thanksgiving

2007-12-13T17:38:00.001-08:00

the boys playing battlefield at thanksgiving :)

2007-12-13T17:37:00.001-08:00

alexei's hat

2007-12-13T17:34:00.001-08:00

6 months old!

2007-12-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

hey everyone! hope this finds ya'll doing well! we made it back from west virginia and have been enjoying getting more settled in to our new home, preparing for Christmas and enjoying life with a six month old! alexei's current stats: 16 1/2 lbs. (40 %), 28 1/2" long (95%) and an average head ;) (although i think there is nothing average about his little head - proud mommy ;) two days after he turned six months old he started to sit on his own for 10 + minutes without falling over, and he got his cute little bootie up in the air when he was scootching around - another step closer to crawling ;) he has been enjoing playing with his first truck which i gave him on his 6 month birthday. he loves his little pyramid of rings - you know the fischer price toy that has been around for a few generations :) he absolutely loves to play peek-a-boo especially when daddy is holding him standing on the one of bottom stairs and mommy hides behind the wall and we both jump up at the same time and yell peek-a -boo!! and alexei laughs so hard that his little face turns all red and daddy and i can't stop laughing either! ah, the simple joys of children - our lives have lightened up so much since we have had alexei. i think i have smiled and laughed more in the last six months than i have in my entire life combined. God is so good to us. :)

we'll be home this christmas so i am excited about that.

here are some pics of the last couple of weeks.

this is alexei getting his first big teddy bear from far- far(sam) and far- mor (bobby) (grandpa and grandma in swedish) at our early christmas gift exchange while we were up there for thanksgiving.

the three grandkids - alexei, benjamin, and the newest one on the scene elsa with alexei's aunt monica.oooh it is so cooold here! sam's sister elizabeth made matching hats for the three grandkids - they were a big hit. the other pics that were posted individually on here were from our time in west virginia also, i got them off of bobby's website.all bundled up! alexei konked out at the airport after waking (us) up every hour on the hour and then needing to be up at 2:30 am austin time to make it to the airport. don't know if it was from teething or what b/c he had done great all week up there. but man were we pooped with a grand total of about 2.5 hrs of sleep in nap size bits throughout the night.
these are all of alexei's little tummy mates - the kids whose parents were in the same bradley (natural childbirth) class. we had a reunion last week. and guess what came in the next few seconds...he turned immediately to whitney and started to give her multiple wet alexei kisses on her little cheek! all of us parents died laughing, but i think whitney's daddy got a little worried. :)in continuation of our annual tradition (19 years running) we went with my mom's side of the family to a nearby little town called elgin which has a christmas tree farm. we always meet up, ride out there together, take a picture on a pile of hay in front of a bunch of farm animals, go on a hay ride, hunt for the best christmas tree, cut it down, bag it, load it on the car and go to elgin for some excellent BBQ. gotta love tradition! :) it's the kick off of christmas every year. so here we are introducing alexei to it.most of the gang. cousins, an aunt, great uncles and aunts, grandma (alexei's great grandma), my parents and some friends, all pile in for the traditional family picture.alexei's first hay ride. he sure loves anything that goes. all boy! the first vyssotski family christmas tree - we didn't have one last year since we were in WV."what was that?"on the way home from elgin we stopped by our old place (which we rented out finally, praise God!) to get a family picture together in front of it. good baby book picture. :) hopefully we'll get one together in front of the new house before long.and the grand finale - ya'll are awesome for hanging in there this long! lots to catch you up on. we gave alexei his first "solid food" this morning! this is the sequence of faces in reaction to the rice cereal. :)

"should i trust you?"

"i don't know about this...""hey, that's not so bad""what's next?!" he only took about three spoonfuls then started making more icky faces and turning away, so we figured we'll build up gradually as he gets used to it. :) thanks for caring and sharing in our lives! have a merry christmas and may God bless you and yours richly with a happy new year!

happy thanksgiving!

2007-11-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

hello, all! ;)

we are up in west virginia visiting with nick's american family - 12 adults + 3 little ones makes for a full house and lots of fun conversations going on all at once.

alexei had his first plane rides on wednesday and did really well overall. he had a little fit before we took off on one flight, but soon fell asleep and all was well. we just had one delay and had to sit on the runway for an extra hour, but he took it well.

we moved into our new house on the 10th of novemeber and we are working on unpacking slowly but surely. i would guess we have about 85% unpacked. 16 people came to help us move which was awesome! we are excited about having more room to have people over.

alexei is 5 1/2 months old now and is so much fun! he is a really happy and outgoing baby - loves meeting new people and getting them to smile at him. we went through a few weeks of him waking up every few hours when he would roll over and scootch to the corner of his crib and gets stuck in the corner. he hasn't figured out reverse yet:) thankfully he has started to sleep better once he rolls over and is sleeping through the night again.

he loves being around activity and people - the saucer with the toys around it that he can stand up and bounce in is still his favorite.

ok, here are some pics of alexei, the new house and some from thanksgiving dinner last night.

i'll post more pictures of the house once we have the boxes out of the way.

lots of running room for alexei in the backyard!5 months old!sam, eric (sam's dad) and tony (sam's brother-in-law) enjoying the changing leaves and windy evening.anticipating thanksgiving dinner!alexei was in his little saucer toy thing just out of the picture and nick was taking the picture. but they were there. ;)alexei loves watching his cousin benjamin play. benjamin is three yrs old and elsa is his 2 week old little sister who is gracing our presence :)this is alexei enjoying eric, his great-grandpa who shared his testimony of God's faithfulness to him as he immigrated with his young family of wife and 4 kits to california from sweden in 1953. what a blessing to get to meet and spend time with him!we hope you had a great thanksgiving! and merry christmas not too far from now!
-morgan

long time no see ;)

2007-10-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

sorry guys! it's been like three weeks! my bad! :)
so, on to the story of alexei's doings:
we went to the beach with grandma and grandpa and uncle john, aunt kristin and the three of us and had such a fun time. we went to north padre and stayed at the island house condominiums - the only bummer was it was too short. just one full day down there, but it was worth it. we'll definantly have to make it a family tradition. so here are some pics of alexei at the big water and with la familia.
notice the matching swimsuits. that was one of nick's father's day gifts. they were so cute. ;)

we were so proud of ourselves. no one got sunburned. yey us! we ohlson ladies have some pale genes. :) enjoying lunch at a seafood place nick scoped out for us. we enjoyed the shrimp alot.

we love uncle john;)
it was so fun getting to visit with kristin and john - they came down from dallas for the long weekend. looking forward to having christmas with them here in austin!
alexei has gotten into his johnny jump up - he has finally started to jump and swing and all sorts of fun stuff. before he was just into the toy that was attached to it. ;)

he is starting to reach for toys that aren't within arms reach now.
and he loves mirrors... and kissing that cute baby that is looking back at him;)
many happy moments spent in this stand up saucer whatever you call it. thanks to cousin tricia for lending it to us! it frees mommy up to get dinner ready occasionally. :)
i love this outfit on him. all boy! daddy and alexei at the park for a family gathering - unfortunately i didn't get any really good pics of alexei with the rest of the family - we'll work on that at greatgrandma's birthday party in a couple of weeks. she is turning 85 yrs old!
well i need to go and change ANOTHER poopy diaper. today has got to be a close to record day. not really. it just feels like it at times. but at least it's a cute little booty.

love you guys. thanks for your patience with me getting this out there.

oh, and thanks for praying! we are closing on our new house in milwood on thursday and moving in on nov. 10th. we have a potential tenant coming to look at our current house on wednesday so be praying that works out if she is the right one and also for patience, energy and time to pack everything up with a teething but very cute 4 1/2 month old! :)
take care! - morgan (for the rest of us)

4 months old! can you believe it?

2007-10-10T14:59:00.000-07:00

hello, everyone! sorry it's taken me so long to post again! we have had a whirlwind couple of weeks!

alexei had his 4 month check up and shots yesterday. sad. :( he is looking good, the dr. said. he is 15lbs 11oz. and is 27 " long( his height is 95%! ) he is hard at teething, so between that and shots yesterday he isn't feeling super swift right now. lots of mommy cuddle time. so this might be brief. feel free to askme to fill in the details in person.

update on the house i mentioned in the last blog entry: God answered some very specific prayers as we were considering it and He paved the way for us to buy it - closing date is november 1st! we are super excited - it's over in milwood, about a mile from my parents, so it will literally be over the river and through the woods to grandma's house we go - at least over a creek and through the greenbelt, but from a kid's perspective it might as well be a river and woods. :) ask us more details later, no time now. :)

alexei, grandpa matt, grandma katy, and i (morgan) got to go down to san antonio and visit with alexei's great grandpa gus and his wife gardis and great aunt ann and her husband martin. it was a good trip and fun to catch up with everyone.
here are some more of bobby's pics i promised from their visit here last month.

getting so big! he will hang out in his bumpo seat for all of 2 minutes before he gets fussy. i really wish he would like it more. maybe once he can sit up a little sturdier on his own he'll like it more.
this is at our new house - we were getting it inspected (it passed the test;) we'll take more pics when we move in.
daddy sharing his devotional time with alexei. he likes to listen to us read and is only slightly damaging the pages when he grabs at them;)
some more of bobby's pics from our time together at mozart's. this is the steering wheel from his jogging stroller. such a guy. he already grabs the wheel like he is going to drive off.

the johnny jumper is a fun toy for him right now. he mostly likes the lights, sounds and buttons on the toy, not quite into the jumping part yet, but he'll probably figure that out soon.
hanging with grandpa matt
cuddling with grandma katy
totally conked out! :) so cute.
ok, that's all for now folks! off to entertain my four month old.

our drooly little buddy;)

2007-09-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

hey, everyone!
we're doing well. alexei is growing like a weed and teething, so nap times are less regular and he can be a bit more irritable which makes mommy a little more tired too. :) but overall we are having alot of fun.
we had a fun visit with nick's american parent's last weekend - for those of you who don't know nick's story, sam and bobby ericsson are the couple who God used to sponsor nick and bring him to the states for some christian college education and God took it a different and much more long term direction than any of them expected. we now consider them extended family and thoroughly enjoyed our time with them while they were visiting. you'll have to ask nick about it sometime. :)
nick and i have been looking at houses in the milwood area for a few months now and it seems like God has directed us to one that we are excited about. we put in an offer over the weekend so we'll see what happens. we'd appreciate your prayers and i'll let ya'll know once we have decided anything for good.
on to the pictures. :)
alexei snuggled up in his sling taking a cat nap while nick, bobby, sam and i enjoyed a dinner at fresh choice. yummy salads. :) bobby got this great shot of alexei in his car seat. gotta love that smile. :)
this is a shot our friend, krista, took when alexei was "watching" daddy play volleyball with our friends from church. i love this outfit on him.
the boys hanging out while bobby and sam were here.
alexei's first encounter with his rattle. i put a wrist rattle on him too, but he is not as into that. he was actually shaking the sea horse rattle though which i thought was pretty good. :) of course everything is going into the mouth at this stage.

sam, nick, and alexei when we took a hike down at the barton creek greenbelt. some of the paths sam and nick had to carry alexei's stroller on for a ways. quite a workout! the water is beautiful down there right now. ya'll have got to go down there and check it out!
alexei looking adorable in his jogging stroller. ;)
on the trail with the gang.
alexei and mommy enjoying a mellow moment - pretty rare these days. he is all activity and ususally wanting to stand up in your lap. i guess that is part of teething too.
ok, he is needing some mommy time now, so i have to go. i am hoping to post some of bobby's pics up here soon - she got some great ones of him.

take care!

3 months old!

2007-09-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

hey everyone!

sorry about slacking last week. this might become an every other week kind of blog. ;)

two fun things that alexei started doing on his 3 month birthday are 1) he rolled all the way onto his tummy from his back! he had been trying for a few days but finally got his arm out from under him and was able to scootch on this tummy about a foot! i think he is going to be an early crawler, but we'll see. and the #2 cute baby trick is he will now grab a toy that we hold in front of him and pull it with both hands to his mouth! really exciting! :)

we've been having lots of fun the last couple of weeks. over labor day weekend we went rockclimbing with some friends (well actually, alexei and i just watched, but alexei was really excited about it - i have a feeling he'll be on the wall shortly after he learns to walk;) ). we've been playing lots of battlefield 1942 (computer game), and we also had fun watching daddy play volleyball a couple of times with friends from church and we went on our first walk in the baby jogging stroller yesterday, which was very exciting. ok so here are the pics (what you really came to see):

alexei's first toy grabbing experiences:

rockclimbing at the greenbeltgetting ready for churchplaying battlefield 1942 - and don't worry, nick only held him like this for a couple of minutes. though alexei did thoroughly enjoy it and was totally engrossed which tempted us to leave him in the tummy pack, we decided that we probably shouldn't be filling our 13 week old son's brain with even the nongruesome images from battlefield 1942;)our first walk in the jogging stroller. i told you he was excited;) actually, mommy was the excited one, because he finally fell asleep after walking one block! he's been kind of wierd about his daytime naps lately. hopefully we're not starting a bad habit.our little buddy loves his swing - and so does mommy! :)well, thanks for checking in! more to come in another week ...or two;)

12 weeks old tomorrow!

2007-08-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

hey, everyone! sorry it's taken me so long to get the post up!
we are doing well - alexei is starting to laugh a whole lot more and is really interactive. when he is laying under his little gym thing he kicks at the bars so that the toys shake - don't know if it's intentional or just thought it was a fun thing to do. :) he loves to lay down next to each other and read books - he listens really well and his eyes are glued to the pictures. so much fun! i think his favorite is" goodnight moon".
he has outgrown most of his 0-3 month clothes now and is in size 2 diapers! it is crazy how time flies! as excited as we are about watching him learn more and more and his little personality coming out, it is sad to see the infant stage passing away so quickly. it has been a whole lot of fun and looking forward to a whole lot more fun ahead, Lord willing. :)
aunt kristin and uncle john came into town this past weekend to see alexei and celebrate kristin's 25th birthday - lots of fun family time. :)

i have gotten several comments from people that i don't have enough pics of myself in the blog - that's because i am typically behind the camera, but here is one but it's not the best of alexei. i think he was hitting his limit on photo ops. :)

"talking" to grandpa. it was really funny - he kept going for like 10 minutes. :)the dudes hanging out - grandpa matt, daddy, alexei and uncle john.
super cute hawaiin outfit a friend lent to us:)

we've started playing more music for alexei using the computer's media player which has that graphics program where cool designs in different colors move to the beat of the music. he loves watching the colors move and sometimes bounces a little to the music. he hardly blinks. it's really fun to watch him enjoy it so much.
getting really good at holding his head up and pushing up on his arms so he can look around the room.
i bought this t-shirt for him back in march when kristin, john, my mom and dad, and nick and i went to denver for spring break. as much as daddy loves to ski, i think alexei is destined.:)

it reads:"i may be small but i can ski with the big boys - brackenridge colorado" super cute.

ok, that's all for now. thanks for caring!
-morgan

my little buddy ;)

2007-08-17T14:52:00.001-07:00

hello, all! i hope this finds you doing well. :)

we are doing fantastic - enjoying our little munchkin more every day. hard to believe he is 10 weeks old already! his antics keep us amused. we are so proud of him.

here are some pics from the last week with him.

our little bruiser;) he is huge compared to an earlier pic in his carseat!

i love this outfit on him. it's such a guy outfit. i think it's one of the three or four i have bought for him. :) he's already almost outgrown it!our little man. gotta love the camo and potbelly. ;)my boys and their handsome smiles :)all tuckered out. you can only fight so many battles as a little guy. ;)

he's a little chunk! ;)

2007-08-09T14:35:00.001-07:00

we just had our 2 month checkup with shots today - no fun. (the shots part that is) the dr. said he is looking really good. he is 13lbs 1 oz. believe it or not which puts him in the 80% and is 24" long putting him in the 90% for his height. craziness! he is already outgrowing his 0-3 month clothes - i don't even think he has worn them all yet because for the first month he still had his umbilical stump so we pretty much just kept him in baby t-shirts and cotton pants. wow they grow fast. i can't believe he'll be 9 weeks old tomorrow!

so, update on the cool baby things that he does:

- laughing and "talking" more. he is laughing hard now when we kiss his tummy or play with him. he loves daddy so much - he lights up when nick talks or comes into the room. alexei knows that nick = fun! he is super interactive- if we make a noise he'll coo back at us and we can go back and forth for a good 15 minutes before he gets bored and moves on to something else. :)

- he is raising up alot higher during his tummy time

- when he is on his back or in his bouncy seat he kicks his feet really fast like he is running in place and gets this really wide eyed expression that is super cute while making some totally guy noises/grunts...

- he is tracking objects better and follows us around the room when we are walking around

- he has figured out how to raise his legs, lift his bottom and roll onto his side! he did it twice yesterday without any help or coaching!

- he will sit in my lap and look at the pictures in books when i read to him although he gets bored after one or two - definantly a man of action.

- he has reached and touched his toes, though he isn't holding his feet yet or playing with them.

- and last but not least, the majority of the nights he is sleeping between 6-8 hrs at a time! yey, alexei!!! sometimes we still wake up for a 3:30am feed, but just a couple of times a week. mommy and daddy are so proud. ;)

ok, now for some pics:

8 weeks old! i am going to borrow my friend cheryl's idea and take pics occasionally in the bumpo seat to keep track of growth. he is doing so good holding his head up, but he does get tired after a while.

doing good with holding his head up and looking around!in one of his "talkative moods" - his is a mixture of cooing, singing and squealing. so much fun;)an action shot - he is doing his little kick routine where he kicks his feet up in down really fast while making guy noises. too bad it's not on video. we need to invest in a video camera. it's too cute to miss.;)daddy/son time - lots of cuddles and kisses go on between these guys - this is when nick got home from work the other night.a friend lent us this outfit along with some others. our cute little ducky;) couldn't resist taking a picture.daddy and alexei at the woolridge park for a sunday evening big band concert. we had lots of fun. before the concert we went to dinner with my extended family at fado's irish pub - that is such a fun place! i highly recommend it. i am glad my cousins, aunts and uncles got to see him before he got too big.our little guy enjoying laying on a blanket by the cows in the arboretum (for those of you who are not austinites, they are not real cows but large statues of cows. - i would not lay my baby in a cow pasture;) before fado's on sunday, nick, alexei and i had a little adventure at the river. we were trying to meet up with some friends from church on the greenbelt where there are some fun ropeswings. nick found a closer place to park than was initially recommended, which was great, but it put us on the wrong side of the river which is pretty deep now with all the rain we've been having. so we did find our friends but like i said, wrong side. well, after considering nick swimming across with alexei (he is a good swimmer, but mom wasn't too thrilled with the idea of an 8 week old in the water with the dogs;) and so we prayed really quick for safe crossing and along came these two really friendly guys in kyaks out of the blue, and they offered to take nick and alexei across! yey, God! mom got to swim - which was fun. we enjoyed the rope swing alot. alexei watched, don't worry.;) and nick found a shallow place upstream to wade through on the way back to our car. there is always some adventure when i am around my two guys. :) i am so blessed.

thanks for caring and reading!

7 weeks!

2007-07-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

hey, gang!

sorry it's been a couple of weeks since i've posted. i'm slackin on the job! :)

i am going to make this brief as i need to try to catch a nap while alexei is down for his. the short of it is that we are doing great! at 6 weeks alexei started to sleep in his own bed for daddy's sake. alexei makes lots of noises and grunts when he sleeps, so it's not the best for a light sleeper like nick is to have him right next to our bed. so it was a bittersweet moment - i think it would have been alot harder for me, but nick came up with this really awesome idea of hooking up his infrared russian military device and mounting it to the wall which illuminates the crib which has a web cam suspended above it. the camera is connected to a computer next to his crib which nick set up so that with a computer in our room, we can log on to see alexei while he's sleeping, (or not sleeping). it's sweet because we now have visual and audio on him with the baby monitor. since then nick has made some modifications and is using a different infrared source, but you'll have to ask him for more details - that's about all i've got on that:) but apparently we were the ones keeping alexei up, because since that night we moved him to his room, he has slept for on average 6 hours at a time at night except for two nights! we are thrilled and feel like we are starting to come out of the fog a little bit.

over the last couple of days, alexei has also started to pay attention to toys or objects around him more. for the first time he is appreciating his little baby gym with the suspended toys and is paying attention to the mobile on his swing. he is laughing and smiling more and is taking in all of the scenery. he recognizes mom and dad now and is experimenting with blowing bubbles. :) it is such a fun stage of his babyhood. :) we are so blessed and are falling more in love with him daily, if that is possible.

here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.

our "baby genius";)

dad and alexei hanging out in the office testing another cool daddy project. it's still being modified, but the basic concept is that nick made a solenoid that he hooked up to alexei's bouncy chair (which he loves) and it gently bounces him up and down like we do with our foot usually. we'll see if we can get the kinks worked out, but i thought it was really cool so thought i'd share the picks. :)

nick put the jogging stroller together - it's a bummer that we have to wait until he is 4 months old to use it, because it is by far one of our favorite toys. the steering wheel and gears make some really cool noises that we are getting a kick out of. they make these things for the parents, not the kids. :)alexei's first encounter with a computer and his first game of battlefield 1942 - at 7 weeks old he has got to be the world record holder for the youngest gamer ever. and no we are not going to be making it a habit to have our infant play computer games. although i am sure he will surpass me in computer smarts in just a couple of years with his daddy's genes in him.uncle john and alexei are chillin' at grandma katy's birthday dinner. we love uncle john...and aunt kristin. ;)our cutie pie.tummy time! :)alexei discovering the fun of the baby gym for the first time! he stared and giggled at the toys for a good 20 minutes.our dear friends patrick, kim, and moyer stayed with us for a couple of weeks while they were visiting austin and we had so much fun with them! we'll forgive them for being aggies as is obvious by the apparel. moyer is now 4 months and it is crazy to see how far along he is and to realize we'll be there in just a couple of more months! that is wild how fast time flies! alexei and his first buddy, moyer on a walk/ride together. :)mommy and alexei hanging out at the oasis last night. we went out there for our friend, lauren's birthday and had a great time. nick and i got to try out their free salsa lesson while grandma katy watched with alexei from the table.

5 weeks old!

2007-07-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

hey, gang. ok, i have no idea what i did, and i feel like a dork, but i can not get this stupid underline thing to go away. i've tried everything and my computer and my brain are against me, i am convinced. let's just chalk it up to wiped out mommy who, shall we say is not the most tech savvy gal around. that's why i married nick, brilliant electrical engineer that he is. ;) so for the sake of getting on with this little update and in hopes that i can grab a quick nap after this if alexei is gracious enough to sleep a little longer, we will just have to deal with the underlines. sorry. :)
so we are now at five weeks (obviously - the title says it all;) and having so much fun watching our little guy get more and more alert and strong. new trick of the week, he holds our hands and pulls his own weight to a reclined position to a sitting position and then uses his strong little legs to stand up! we are just stabilizing him, but it's all his grib and he is super strong. impressive! - you can't tell we are at all proud of him, can you?
another new develpment that isn't as happy but not that big of a deal is his little baby acne which you will see in the pics - did you know that it was due to my estrogen levels? i had no idea that's the source of baby acne. our nurse practitioner told me that at his last visit. learn somethin' new every day.
at the last visit by the way, he weighed in at 10lbs and 14oz. wild! he has a double chin and is definantly becoming an adorable little chunk. ;) mommy's biceps are getting stronger too. :) another noteworthy event is that we have officially graduated from newborn diapers to the size ones. i was hesitant (it's so sad to see him grow up so fast in some ways, but in others, the promise of more sleep when he is older is very exciting.) but after a few accidents where poop shot up his backside and got his onesie and mommy b/c his little butt crack would eventually hang out as his little diaper worked it's way down with all of his kicking and wiggling, i was convinced. it's amazing how well everything functions when babies wear the correct sized diaper. :)
ok, so on to the pics as i know that is the only reason ya'll are looking at this right now:
pic #1 the end of alexei's second bath in the bathtub. he really liked it up until the end and then he decided he had enough. we are working on his patience levels. :)

this is our little dude chillin' on the couch. check out the tummy! :)
cute outfit, and even cuter little guy. he is always in such a good mood after his morning feed. he loves to lay on his back and "talk" to us. it actually sounds more like singing. he is also throwing in alot more smiles and laughs which is really rewarding.
grandma katy and the munchkin hanging out. she and grandpa matt have been such a blessing in giving us breaks to run to bible study or church for a couple of hours, and today i got to go work out for a while at the dell gym and have lunch with nick (first chance we've had to eat out together since he was born and it was so relaxing - thanks mom! ;) notice the adorable shoes. :) they were only on for a total of 3 minutes, but i had to take a picture. i realized that i had been given about 5 pairs of new born shoes and he will probably outgrow them in the next week or so, so i had to try them all on and take pics. he was very patient. ;)
the guys - notice another pair of cute shoes. :)
our first visit out of many, to great grandma kathleen's house. she has loved on many a baby in our family - i am so thankful that she is here to love on mine. what a blessing!
daddy gave alexei his first bottle of pumped milk the other day so we have a back up in case i need to be gone. they both did great. :)
ok - he's awake - no nap for me. bummer. and i don't know what happened to the lines, but they are gone. sorry about the first half. still can't get rid of them. oh well. take care!

one month old and growing like a weed :)

2007-07-09T14:29:00.001-07:00

alexei is one month old as of yesterday! that is so hard to believe! he is doing well and growing bigger by the day. he is getting so much more active when he is alert, holding his head up, standing up in our laps if we support him under his arms, scooching across the couch on his belly, making all sorts of faces and noises and wiggling all over the place. :) he is going to be one active kid. how old do they have to be to sign them up for swim team and soccer? any other high energy activities you can think of? we need to start strategizing now how to give his energy level some good outlets. :) oh! and another huge event in the vyssotski house, he finally lost his umbilical stump last week and has a very cute inny belly button. :)
grandma natalia left for moscow this morning. we will definantly miss her, her helpful spirit and yummy cooking! :) it will be a whole new learning curve how to operate as a threesome, which i am really excited about. and i did get her to teach me how to make a few of her excellent dishes while she was here, so i am excited about trying my hand at some russian cooking.
the three of us and the three grandparents went to woolridge park again last night for an outdoor concert that was excellent - big band music. it was a huge turn out. i love the atmosphere - super laid back, lots of babies, picnics, and dogs. :) very austinish kind of summer thing to do. and outdoors which is the key right now for us if we are trying to get out and about(again trying to be obedient about avoiding germs. only one more month to go!) grandma katy has been super sweet to come over for one of the church services and watch the little guy so nick and i could go to church. that has been such a blessing and really refreshing to get out of the house together for a little while and hold hands. :)

here are some pics - i need to go feed alexei, so really fast: the two on the couch are alexei doing his scooching routine, the really nice looking lady in the picture with nick and alexei is my dr. - dr. ortique - super sweet lady, and the one of me and alexei is at the botanical gardens where i took natalia last week. the other one is just a cute shot of him in one of his fun pooh outfits. did you know there is a russian version of winnie the pooh too? same story except for no christopher robbin and owl is a girl. the animation and voices (of course) are totally different in the movie too. and another fun tidbit, is that both my mom, katy, and nick's aunt lena were called piglet or petachoke (russian spelling?) by their dads. isn't that fun? i might have already mentioned this, if so, please disregard. i just thought it was fun bit of trivia. :)

3 weeks old!

2007-06-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

hello everyone! sorry it's been a while since i've posted. our little guy is keeping my hands busy most of the time and when he is sleeping either i try to catch a wink or am occupied with other things. Alexei is growing by the minute - it's amazing to watch the changes take place. i think sometimes they are harder for me to see as i am around him all day long, but it's when we put him in his carseat or watch him scootch across the couch during his tummy time that totally catches me by surprise. he is a precious blessing in our lives and though we are pretty pooped out from lack of sleep and staying busy with him during the day, we are so thankful for this season God has placed us in. at his two week check up alexei weighed 9lbs 5oz and is 21 inches long. he is definantly not starving;) he is becoming more alert for longer periods of time during the day which is alot of fun learning how to play together. it is so fun watching Nick with him. He is such a good daddy. i love my boys so much! :) these are some pics we took at mozart's this week when we went with grandma katy and babushka natalia. :) i know there are a bunch of pics, he's just so cute and makes so many facial expressions i had to share them. :)
daddy has discovered the football hold when Alexei is fussy and needs to be burped to get some air out of his tummy. Alexei loves it and it's definantly a daddy special as my arm isn't big enough to balance him on.
some more cute pics of our little guy, the king of facial expressions. :) self explanatory.

it is such a blessing have grandparents around. my mom, katy is having so much fun being near him and i love watching them together. and that natalia has been able to be here as well is such an added blessing. grandpa matt was cuddling alexei when we had dinner together last night and took him out on the swing and was telling him everything that they were going to do together as alexei grows up. he is one blessed baby to have so many godly people and rolemodels in his life. we don't take it for granted!

look at this serious little face! he does this really intense expression like he is trying to figure out what the world is all about. thankfully he is also cracking smiles and has started to laugh some too which is super fun. thanks for reading - hopefully i'll have time to post again before too long. God bless you guys and keep in touch! - morgan

some updated pics

2007-06-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

we are now13 days into parenthood. we are tired, but loving it. :) our Alexei was 8lb. 6oz. on monday when we took him to the dr. she said he is growing well - no wonder with how much he eats. :) we enjoyed celebrating Nick's first father's day at my (Morgan's) parent's house. it was a really relaxing afternoon. we are so blessed to have family so close by.

Alexei has this "little philosopher" pensive look that makes me think he is going to have his daddy's curious, figure everything out for himself kind of mentality. i need to start preparing myself for my house to be unscrewed piece by piece in a couple of years. :)

we enjoyed getting out of the house with the family and introduced Natalya and Alexei to central market - a favorite austin spot. there is a really neat deck that overlooks a playground that swarms with some really cute kids. :) the weather was beautiful, so we've been getting out as much as we can to the more unpopulated locations in austin since our dr. is pretty picky about us keeping him out of crowds. limit the germs. good plan.

it won't be long before i will wish for a moment of quiet chilling in mommy's lap. :) i can see him all over that playscape in no time.

it has been such a blessing having Natalya with us. she has been a huge help and with Alexei being the first grandbaby on both sides we are thrilled to be experiencing the first days with all of the grandparents nearby. Babushka's borsch is fantastic! Mommy needs to learn to make it just like her.

Daddy has a special touch with him. i love seeing my two guys cuddling. ya'll might see more pictures than you want of that, but i can't get enough. aren't they handsome? ;)

another adventure we went on was to take Alexei to zilker park. i spent many happy childhood hours there myself, so i was especially excited to show him around and promise him a trainride and icecream cone as soon as he is big enough.

another attempt to get out of the house was going sailing with grandma Natalya and grandpa Matt - grandma Katy had to work, which was sad. the trip was nice, but i think we are going to have to wait for a while before we try it again. sailing is a little tricky with a newborn who has occasional fussy spells and enjoys both eating and pooping alot. :) it got a bit warm out there so mommy spent her time trying to keep a blanket shading him and blowing on him to cool off his little skin. i think sailing will have to be a daddy and grandpa thing for a couple more months before we join them again. :)

more daddy cuddle time. :) we discovered this morning that the football type hold works really well when alexei decides to loose it for a little while. this limp baby was seconds before a flailing, screaming whirlwind of frusterated energy. go daddy! i am so bummed that he is heading back to work tomorrow. we'll miss him so much during the daytime. as you can tell by the sleepy look on our faces, please keep praying for good rest at night especially as Nick heads back to work. we love you guys! thanks for your interest and love!

11 days old!

2007-06-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

it is amazing how time flies by and yet at the same time it's kind of hard to remember what life was like pre labor. :) we are so in love with our little dude. i think God totally knows what He was doing when He makes babies so stinkin' cute. sleep deprived parents don't have to work nearly as hard to be patient with 2 hr sleep shifts or frequent poopy diapers with the little one being so loveable and easy to cuddle for hours on end. :)
we are doing well, just tired. we have begun to experience some of the minor bumps in the infant care road such as diaper rash, spitting up more frequently (pray he won't get reflux please), discharge from his right eye which the dr. says is pretty common - it's a clogged tear duct that we are going to massage 4 times a day and put a salve on 3 times a day - doesn't seem to bother him, just looks like a major case of sleepy dirt all day long. :) with hormones shifting and lack of sleep i think the little things are getting to me more than they should. i just hate when he is fussy and you can't figure out what is wrong or how to make it better. thankfully, those spells only come every once in a while. Nick has been a fantastic daddy and husband. i am so thankful he has had last week and this week to be at home from dell. that is such a huge blessing. Natalya (Nick's mom) has continued to be a huge help around the house and for giving some much needed breaks to grab an occasional nap or believe it or not, a shower (happening almost every day. ;) i need to get going for now. i am getting my back adjusted which is going to feel sooo good. i feel totally out of whack since labor. i'll try to get some picks up here in the next day or two so you can see alexei - he is such a cutie. :)
thanks for reading!

he is here!

2007-06-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

well, we didn't have to wait long! :) our precious Alexei arrived on friday, june 8th at 1:11pm. we were blessed with an intense but really good 12 hour labor. Nick and Christina, our friend and doula, provided amazing support and encouragement to me during the labor and by God's grace we were able to give birth totally naturally without meds. Alexei is a healthy little guy now, praise God, but at birth we had a little scare with the dr. saying that they couldn't hear any lung sounds on his right side. they took him to the NICU for an hour and half to monitor him and it turned out to be some fluid that cleared out on it's own. we realized even more so because of this experience just how blessed we were to be able to have him back in our arms just an hour and a half later (when this picture was taken) in the labor and delivery room while so many other precious little ones were still being monitored. since that time everything has checked out to be very healthy. he was 7 lbs 14.7 oz and 19.5" long. we think he is the cutest baby to ever be born, but we are not biased at all. ;)

first time in the car seat! it's been 48 hrs and we are on our way home! he looks so little in there, but don't let that fool you, he is not as fragile as he looks. :) he has such a strong grip it's unbelievable. he has been eating like crazy and is such a good natured little baby. Nick and I have spent countless hours holding him and just staring at all of his cute little parts. what a miracle a little child is! we are so blessed to have him.

here we are getting ready to go to our home. we had a great hospital stay at North Austin Medical Center and had fantastic staff the whole time helping us out and overwhelming us with information. it's like they give you a crash course in "this is how not to kill an infant" and send you on your way. :)

we had read some books but it's totally a different ball game when you are set free with a little human and become solely responsible for their care. it's really exciting though and we are enjoying every minute of it, though sleep deprived and a little foggy around the edges. it's amazing what a human body can still do without much sleep. :) it's hard to believe it's already been a week since he was born! going through the day today i kept reliving the moment when we saw him for the first time and they laid him on my abdomen. there is nothing else like that moment in the world. God is so amazing how He designed the whole birth process.

one of the many cuddle time sessions. :) we never get tired of staring at him - who could, he is so stinkin' cute! :) he loves to be swaddled when he is sleeping (Nick has become an expert swaddler) but during his alert times he loves stretching his little body as far as it will go and look around with those beautiful big eyes of his. right now they are a beautiful dark blue, but i don't know if they will stay that way. when do baby's eyes change colors anyways? i've been wondering. let me know if you are aware of that little tidbit. i would be most interested to find out. :)

it has been so much fun to become aware of his little mannerisms. nick makes this same face when he stretches out when he is sleepy. :) look at those little biceps! he has the cutest little deltoid muscles too. :)

ok - as i am rereading this it is totally sappy - sorry - i am a first time mom, what can i say. it makes me feel better that you are only reading this because you want to and i am not making you, and i promise i won't quiz you on the contents. if i were you would probably just skip the written part and just enjoy the pics;) in fact - i think i will call it a night on the typing and just let you look :)

they are self explanatory - cutest baby ever in the hands of his parents who are completely in love with him and happen to have a camera nearby at all times. :) i especially love the after bath pictures - he gets so alert and just looks around and makes the cutest faces. ok. i promise i'll stop now. hopefully i'll be good about keeping you guys updated with current photos. thanks for reading this far!

still waiting ...

2007-06-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

so... we are still waiting. :) i haven't posted anything lately b/c there isn't really a whole lot to share. you gotta love the last couple of weeks of pregnancy - all sorts of false alarms, lots of braxton hicks, nights with not nearly as much sleep as you need... :) but it's all good b/c we know our little guy could come any time! we had our 38 week checkup and things are progressing slowly but well. we are at 0 station now, 50% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated. he is still kicking a ton - really strong little guy.
we are super excited about nick's mom, natalya, coming to stay with us for a month! she gets in tomorrow night. we haven't gotten to see her since our wedding almost 16 months ago. i am really glad she can be here to meet him as he comes into our world. alexei is the first grandbaby on both sides so we are all pretty pumped. my parents have been having to restrain themselves from buying playscapes for their backyard - they are just a little excited. :) they have been awesome about helping us get stuff done around the house and mom painted some bookshelves for us that look really good. the nursery is definantly coming together. i'll post some pics on here in the next couple of days hopefully.
we'll let you know when things happen - hopefully sooner rather than later. :)
i hope all of you are having a happy tuesday!

morgan's disclaimer

2007-05-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

hello, friends and family! this is my attempt at doing my best to stay in touch with each of you as much as you want. you are free to check this as little or as often as you like and see (hopefully somewhat frequent) updates of the goings on of the vyssotski family - and if you are really lucky, some photos! :) the frequency (or the lack thereof) of your visits to this blog will in no way be taken personally. i have a horrible track record of checking my friends' blogs on a regular basis, but hope to get better at it.

in case you are not a close friend or family member yet, my name is morgan, and i am blessed to be married to the most amazing man on God's green earth, nick. we are super excited to be the new parents of alexei - the cutest and most intelligent kid around! (we're not at all biased ;) ) we actually haven't seen him yet, but we are told that he could come at any time now, it sure feels like it will be sooner than later, but we'll keep you posted on that. we were 37 weeks as of may 27th so we are now officially full term if we deliver! woohoo! praise God for that!
well, here goes nothing! hopefully we won't have a sum total of 3 entries in the next year, but no promises. i told myself ahead of time that i will not feel guilty if i end up being a flop in the area of joining the blogging world. hopefully this little blogging attempt won't be a disappointment to you, but if so, sorry! this is all i got for now. :) looking forward to keeping better in touch with all of you (hopefully!)