Путевые заметки

Сняла в Hakone Gardens

clickable

I am looking at our living room and laughing at myself. Such home-grown environmentalist as I am, having room full of plastic toys. And there is much more in the other room!
The only redeeming point that I see for all of this is that all these toys were given to us by other people. Either gifts or hand-me-downs, where a few kids were using the before. We'll pass them onto someone else.:)

here is a pic of Annika and her stuff. She is such a bug!

Reading more about the GMO modified foods. This website has a lot of info on that.

"Genetically modified foods are linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. They are banned by food manufacturers in Europe and elsewhere, yet GMOs are present in the vast majority of processed foods in the US."

Check out their NON-GMO shopping guide.
Also here is another an interesting article from Executive Director of Huffington Post, Jeffrey Smith where he spells out his views and takes his turn debunking GMO myths in his regular blog in the Green and Politics Section.

I knew about this a while ago, but surprisingly my dad (of all people) during his visit raised more concerns about this, so I am doing some research. It looks like "going organic" would solve the problem.

I made the switch to only organic dairy, eggs and chicken 10 years ago. I am a little more flexible with beef and pork due to the cost. But then we don't buy it quite so often anyways. And of course I buy only organic for the baby. We do shop a lot on Farmer's market, making sure that we buy from organic farms. But now decided to switch to completely organic food at least at home.

It used to kind of annoy me when you come to somebody's home, and they make sure that you know the meal on the table is all organic. Or warn you that some of the ingredients are not. So, I am not going to be psycho about it but whenever there is a choice, buy organic.

Better for us, better for the planet! Besides, in this consumer economy political voting happens not only at voting stalls but often in the supermarket when we make choices about products that we buy. Supporting organic industry, supports not only our own health but organic less harmful farming practices that cause less damage to soil, animals and the overall environment.
 

Found a neat website about how eating a Peanut Butter an Jelly sandwich once a week helps the environment. I think I am there already since I eat a few of those during the week.:)))

This is their mission:
"The PB&J Campaign is working to combat environmental destruction by reducing the amount of animal products people eat. The PB&J Campaign approaches positive change one meal at a time by illuminating the differences one single dining decision can make."

( Some numbers to support this.. )

 

More about this topic read here

Well, our weekend trip to gather mushrooms was successful! We found about 3 pounds of Chanterelles.
Annika was grossed out when she touched them. here on the picture you can see her pulling her hand back, haha

Yesterday Annika and I went to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose. Let me just say: We had a BLAST! What a cool place for kids, even small ones. So many wonderful things for the little ones to explore and they are done so well. Even as an adult I had a great time there.:))  I think we'll be going often now and you'll see more images. :))
Thanks Mom threeoutside  for giving us the membership for Christmas!:) Great experiences not things!:)))))))

Since Annika and I so love bubbles, here are 3 of BUBBLY EXPLORATIONS that we've had together  with our friends




 ( 2 more explorations )

More pics from the trip here

Well, it took us 16 months into the whole baby adventure to finally do the sleep training and now Annika sleeping through the night!!!!
This is so sweeeeeeeeeeettt! Those people who don't have kids or who's kids sleep through the night have no idea how hard it is to wake up 2-4 times a night!

There are also TONNS of books written on the subject as most people struggle with this. And many approaches are completely opposite of each other and for different reasons unacceptable for us. Like Ferber method of crying it out or approach of Dr. Sears of sleeping with the baby. Finally my pediatrician said that simply stopping breastfeeding at night might do the trick especially that physiologically Annika doesn't need a feeding at night. She is of a good weight and is 15 month old.

Besides by 15 months Annika already could go to sleep without anybody patting and singing to her. We have a bed time routine and she knows that it's time to sleep. But this all didn't help her to soothe herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the night. So we decided to stop breastfeeding at night or at least not until 6 am in hope that this will help her sleep through.

The sleep training took  about 1 week. I basically stopped breastfeeding before putting her to bed at night or for naps during the day to help break feed-to-sleep association and whenever she woke up at night. First few nights were hard as she expected me to go in and get fed. I didn't want to go in as I know I would give up and feed her and also she is so used to expect a feeding when she sees me.  Instead of me, Lars went in and that alone was a change for her, so she was getting extremely pissy. No holding, singing and patting was helping, so in most cases Lars walked out of the room and she cried. When Lars was coming back in, it was only pissing her off even more. After 3 nights though, it go better and over the course of the week even better. And finally she slept until 5 am! The next night she slept until 5.30 and the next night until 6 am. And today until almost 7, which means she got 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep!!!! :)))))))
I came in and fed her at 7 and she slept 2 more hours until 9!! This is unbelievable as she usually gets up at 7-7.30! It's so cool to get a good night sleep for us!! We can get used to this:)))))

I am still feeding her during the day and want to keep that up for a little while longer but man, this is a huge progress that makes life so much more enjoyable:)) See how important the subject is for me that I wrote such a long post:)))

Вот наконец-то сгрузила фотки со своего iPhone. Полтора года как они у меня там копились, в основном ребёнку фотаю, тк мой верный айфон всегда под рукой, есть некоторые даже очень приличного какчества. Если свет хороший и угол правильный, так вообще отличные фотки получаются, есть и забавные.

SF from Treasure Island


Traveling bug


( Много разного )

Ндааа... и такое бывает!
Перепост из журнала bujhm 
Ешё несколько фоток этого артефакта мочно увидеть здесь.

Внешний вид артефакта

Кубик 1:

      

      

( Ещё кубики )

Вот таким он нам представился под новый год


кликабельно

click on the images to see bigger version

( More bubbles... )

Our happy little family by the tree on Christmas eve.



Family album

I just love this image of Annika. Brave little explorer going in the scary red tube at the children's playground in SFO. She was reluctant to go in there at first but then with little encouragement, she climbed in. Way to go little bug! There is a big interesting world waiting for you to be discovered!:)))

It's almost a week since we came from Maui, Hawaii and I finally have a moment to post some pictures from the trip. Everybody had a great time including Annika! It was her first time swimming in the ocean. She just LOVED the splashing in the water, digging in sand and hang out with her grandparents.


Here are some highlights of the trip

Here am I again with the baby stuff:) It's time to post some stats for the record and some new pics.

- Weight 27lb (about 12.25 kg), which puts her into 94th percentile
- Height 83 cm, which puts her into 90th percentile
- Overall she is a healthy happy baby, she can walk, run, get down from the couch or a tall bed without assistance, climbs stairs up and down.
- She doesn't like to eat solids still. Still eats pureed foods and breast milk. She can master eating with a fork quite successfully but only pretends to be eating, doesn't actually bite from it, haha.
- She "talks" a lot but not many real words yet except "mama', "hi", "kisa" (kitty in Russian) and bubbles, which in her language sounds more like "babi" or "waba".
- Things she likes: Going to the playgrounds, where she climbs and rolls down the slides, sand, playing with mud and sticks and whatever crud she can find. She loves dogs and playing ball, dropping things into water or any kids of playing with water. She likes books and I can often catch her sitting down and turning pages. We bought for her a lot of books with hard covers and things that she can touch. Often she'll bring a book and wants us to read. She doesn't listed for long, just a few pages. But she has her favorite books, that she can listen from the beginning to the end.
- Things she doesn't like: going to bed is an everyday struggle, she never gives up without a fight. She is pretty impatient and and wants thing now and immediately. She doesn't like to be fed.
- Overall she is a happy healthy bug, very social and outgoing. Likes company and attention.

Here are some of the latest images of her.:)

Here is another beautiful mom and baby pair. Back in April I had a pregnancy photoshoot with Natasha and now she has a wonderful six-months old daughter Tatyana:)



( 3 more )

It seems like the simplest thing in the world is to have a baby. There are 6 billions of humans on this planet. Everybody does it. But people who didn't experience it themselves have no idea how much goes into it! I still can't get over the whole thing of me being alone and then having this baby growing in me and then giving birth and now we have a whole new individual running around!
Just a month ago I did a pregnancy photoshoot for my friend Lena and now just one month later, she has a little daughter Julia. How cool is that?! From a bump to a baby!:))) AMAZING!

click to see a bigger version

( More portraits )

Поздравляю ребятки, ещё раз со свадьбой! Любви, любви и ещё раз любви!


( the album )