This week in pics...

Emily says, "look at my new trick..."

It's finals week for Viktor....this is what our living room looks like. I think we're all ready for finals to be over, haha! Viktor has obviously been working hard and is ready for (and deserves) a good break!

Reading with mommy before bed...and yes, she loves to turn the pages for me (regardless of whether or not we are done reading a particular page).

The only way I got her to nap one day was to give her something to snuggle...

Helping daddy study for finals....

Check it out...her hair is growing! :)

Don't even think about crawling yet, miss Emily!

Taking a study break with daddy. Emily is quite the distraction these days!

We've been busy...

We have been super busy the past few weeks, as you’ve probably noticed with the lack of blogging. It’s hard to believe our sweet baby girl is 4 months old! Emily is a happy, healthy baby! She has now mastered rolling over (in both directions!), she is belly laughing quite a bit (daddy is too funny to resist), she can take her pacifier out of her mouth, move it all around, and (most of the time) put it back in her mouth, she loves to read, and she talks (babbles) to us all the time. She is still sleeping great at night (7pm-8am), but would rather pass on the naps. I guess she just doesn’t want to miss a beat. She usually takes 3-4, 45-minute naps a day, but on occasion she will take a good 2-hour nap. It is so fun to watch her grow and develop as she discovers new things every day! We are so blessed!

Here is an update of what we’ve been doing lately. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

We celebrated Viktor's 30th Birthday on Nov. 16th.

All ready for the OSU/Michigan game!

Listening as her friend, Ellie, reads to her.

We went to Bloomington for Thanksgiving and she loved playing with Uncle Eggie.

A visit with great-grandma Carolyn.

A fun Christmas picture in Fountain Square Mall after Thanksgiving.

Getting ready for the Canopy of Lights in downtown Bloomington.

Mimi took us shopping and had to show Emily all of her new clothes.

Viktor put up Pop and Mimi's Christmas tree this year.

Emily was really fussy one evening (not typical) and my parent's neighbor, Myra, and Uncle Eggie had the magic touch...she was entertained by them for long while and all of her fussies went away.

On Sunday after Thanksgiving we had a chance to visit with our good friends, Doug and Kristin. We had a great time catching up with them. Emily thought Doug was pretty funny and she and Kristin became great buds very quickly.

4 months pic...before she found the bow.

I was wondering when she would find her bow...it only took 4 months! :)

Cheesin' it up for the camera.

This is how much Emily enjoyed putting up our Christmas tree...she slept through the entire thing!

Our stockings are hung! Thanks to our sweet friend, Deanna, who knitted stockings for Viktor and my first Christmas together...she just sent us a third stocking for Emily's 1st Christmas!

Our tree all decorated!

Heading to downtown Wilmore for the Christmas tree lighting and Wilmore Old Fashioned Christmas. We didn't last long; it was sooo cold. Emily was a trooper as always.

Thanks for checking in! Viktor will finish classes this week with finals the following week. His brother will be visiting from Scotland, with his girlfriend, in just a couple weeks. We look forward to celebrating Christmas together with family. God bless you this Christmas season!

Fall Family Fun!

Our sweet butterfly...

Emily has been up to a lot of things lately, as usual. We just can't believe how much she changes every day. Yesterday she blessed us with her first belly laugh! I put her on Viktor's shoulders and she thought it was hilarious. She laughed so hard for about 5 minutes. It was precious. Today she has been rolling over like crazy! She rolled over a few weeks ago when we were in Bloomington, but she has since mastered her new trick. Right now she is rolling from front to back, but she is half way able to roll from back to front. She tried so hard tonight, but got stuck on her arm. It has been such a joy to watch her discover the world around her!

This past weekend we celebrated Halloween (not that there is anything to really celebrate...so maybe it is better to say, we participated in some community activities, haha) with some friends. I wasn't going to dress Emily up in a costume, but I ran across this butterfly costume at Old Navy and couldn't pass it up...it was only $2! So, we had ourselves a little butterfly for Halloween. We first stopped at our friend's house, Mama and Papa Long, for a quick visit. Then we went to downtown Wilmore (woohooo!) to Treats on Main. They close it off for Halloween so the kiddos can trick-or-treat at the businesses. It was a lot of fun to see many of our other Seminary friends with their kids all dressed up in cute costumes (lots of babies--a giraffe, a bumble bee, and a pumpkin, to name a few)...and of course, some of our friends were dressed up, too! Afterwards, we had planned to have an evening full of fun fall foods with the Bevils. We had chili, witches fingers, and ghost potatoes (see Missy's creations below)...oh, and a pumpkin roll and chocolate mice (sorry, no picture, but another one of Missy's creations). Needless to say, we had a fun night to welcome the fall season!

Enjoy the pics below.

Daddy tried on the costume first...Emily was not too sure about it!

Our little butterfly! Good thing it was a cold night...she was pretty bundled up in there!

Our little family.

Missy's ghost potatoes.

...And the witches fingers (bread sticks). Missy is so creative!

This is just a random pic to show you how mommy does chores these days...Emily let's me vacuum, make the bed, do laundry, etc, while she happily tags along in her sling.

Another random photo, but too cute to pass up. One of my student workers went to Disney World a couple weeks ago and brought back this Pooh Bear. Emily thinks it is the greatest thing. She will cuddle it, try to eat it, and even hold hands with it. By the way, this picture was not posed...she was really holding his hand!

Our happy girl!

On her way to rolling over...and probably crawling, too!

3 month pics

We love you, sweet girl!

Date night...

Last night, Viktor and I went on our first date since Emily was born. We left her in the care of our wonderful friends, the Bevils, and ventured out to church. No, this isn't a typical "date" as most of you are probably thinking, but we had a great time. We participated in an event sponsored by our church in partnership with Feed My Starving Children. There were about 700 other people there to help (we were one of many shifts this week) package food for starving children around the world. In about 1.5 hours time, our group managed to package enough meals to feed 461 children every day for an entire year. That is a A LOT of food! It was basically an assembly line-- one person opened the bag and put it in the funnel, then another person gave a scoop of chicken flavoring/vitamins, another gave a scoop of dehydrated vegetables, another gave a scoop of soy, and another gave a scoop of rice. Once the bag was complete it was weighed, sealed, and packaged to be shipped. It was such an amazing experience and we would highly recommend it to any of you looking for a creative date night idea. Of course, you have to find a local site to participate. Check them out and see if they'll be in your area!

A whole lot of pink...

As mentioned in my previous blog post, Emily and I went to Nashville, TN a few weeks ago to participate in the Race for the Cure. It was pretty amazing to see how many people were there supporting the cause. It meant a lot that I could participate in something that will support breast cancer awareness and research, and Emily and I were proud to walk in honor of some of our dear friends who have battled with breast cancer over the years. Emily was a trooper and enjoyed her first 5k...Missy thinks she needs to participate in more 5k's in the future...we'll see about that one! Enjoy the pics from our pink weekend!

Here we are before the race...it was pretty chilly, but the rain held off! Oh, and I didn't plan for Emily to be wearing pink, but she sure did fit in with the rest of the crowd!

If you look closely you will see some pink wigs...this, among other costumes (including men in pink tu-tu's) kept us pretty entertained throughout the day.

The crowded streets....

Emily slept almost the entire time...she was such a trooper!

Missy and Aunt Ann...aren't they cute?!?! Her aunt was so sweet and hospitable all weekend. We had so much fun!

At the end, all the breast cancer survivors were ushered under the pink balloons, while the rest of us went off to the side and cheered them on.

Obviously, Missy knows how to hold a face when distracted...not so much for Emily and me. This picture is a result of two ladies trying to get Emily to smile, but really they just looked ridiculous...I couldn't handle it and Emily didn't quite know what to think.

This was Emily's first hayride at Gentry Farm...she was all tuckered out from the race earlier in the day and could care less about the other fall festivities. :)