Christmas 2009

This Christmas was not only memorable because of it being Emily's 1st Christmas, but also because Viktor's brother, Andras, was able to come over from Scotland for two weeks. It was a busy two weeks, indeed, but we enjoyed giving him a taste of our life in the States. It was also special to finally have someone from Viktor's family meet Emily!

Andras and his girlfriend, Betty.

We spent 4 days in Bloomington with my family. We enjoyed visiting with my parents, brother, uncles, aunt, and grandma. Here I am in a deep conversation with my Uncle Mike...who also got to meet Emily for the first time. She was a big fan!

Here we are getting ready for Christmas Eve dinner. Viktor and I took turns with Emily who was sleeping in the basement (so he is missing from the picture).

Emily opening her stocking.

Thanks to my dad, we all had fresh brewed lattes every morning.

What better way to welcome Andras and Betty to Bloomington than with IU t-shirts.

Here we are with our good friends from Asbury (who are now in a church in northern Indiana), Dan and Steph. We met up with them for lunch in downtown Indy on Saturday.

Stay tuned...more blog updates to come!

Just a note...

We have had a busy couple of weeks since our last blog post. Viktor's brother, Andras, and his girlfriend, Betty, arrived on Dec. 21st from Scotland. Since then we have been busy showing them around the area, celebrating Christmas (in Bloomington) and New Year's, and playing a lot of Phase 10 and Settler's of Catan! We spent a couple days in Indianapolis to visit some dear friends and also had Emily's baby dedication at our home church in Bloomington. As of 10am this morning, Andras and Betty are back home in Scotland. We are slowly getting back in a routine and Emily is wondering where her friends have gone! On top of all of this, Emily has been sick since New Year's Day. We have been to the doctor twice since Saturday and a test today confirmed she has RSV. Poor girl! She has a nebulizer to help with her breathing at home. Each session takes about 10-15 minutes and she puts up quite a fight. We are hoping and praying for a quick recovery and that her small lungs will be protected from any further complications.

I have many pictures to post, but those will have to wait until another day. Happy 2010!

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!