6 months old

Lucas turned 6 months on September 11th. Its crazy how time flies when a sweet little bundle turns into very much an interactive little boy. We celebrated with lots of play time, giggles, granma and grandpa made a celebration dinner with "French Potatoes and Pork Chops" i.e. baked pork chops with potatoes with lots of ooey-gooey cheese. We even had some pink champagne to celebrate lil man's 1/2 year mark!

Things Lucas can do:
- ROLL! everywhere and anytime
- giggle and make everyone laugh
- makes funny boy noises
- sits up with some support
-eats solids like cereal and baby-food fruit and veggies, and favorite of them all are apples!
- continues to love his milk; gets super excited when sees the bottle with milk

- grabs the bottle with two hands, though cant quite figure out how to hold it long enough

-goes to sleep by himself (day time ONLY!)

- sleeps thru the night (9pm - 8 am)

-knows us and smiles when sees his mom and dad (scared of strangers)

-puts everything in his mouth

- Zoozu is his first love!

- falls asleep on bumpy rides i.e. walks around our neighborhood (we have really bad roads around here)

- slaps toys with his right hands

- wakes up and always smiles

- curious about adult food

Grandma's dinner

I got a Computer for my half year BDAY!

Now we can chat, grandma Locklear!!

I am 6 months!

super cute!

oh, my pumpkin :)

this is what we wake up every morning to! Thank You, God, for your blessings!!! Thank you for this little boy...what a precious gift he is

End of August and some September

At the end of August we visited my extended family on my dad's side, his uncle, cousins, etc. I havent seen my third cousin since we were like 8 years old, so it was cool to see each other and each others children. Somehow I managed to forget to take pictures of her and her little girl :(. I guess next time we see each other, I'll be 50.


Front yard, those black things in the leaves are very tasty grapes that they use to make wine.
Right to left: my babushka (grandma) Kseniya, babushka Tanya, my babushka Kseniya's brother, dedushka, Tolya (babushka Tanya is his wife)

Dedushka Tolya hangs newspapers on a laundry line to "air out the smell"

kitchen in their hata (house)


living room (notice the carpet on the wall)

same living room, different wall (different carpet!)

Everette really wanted a picture in the Ukrainian hata
TV in the room was made in USSR! Its probably considered antique by now

One night we went out for dinner with my friend Vika and her husband Denis. Vika and I grew up together, went to kindergarden together and hung out during school years. We had a good time and it was good for Everette to talk English to someone besides me (Denis speaks pretty good English). Once Denis leaves out to sea for about 5 months and Everette to US to work, Vika and I will have a lot of time to hang out :)

This is what Everette had that night: pork with potatoes and mushrooms grilled with cheese and pickles! I liked the pig-looking skillet

Lucas is growing fast and rolling ever which way, so we got him a playpin - made in Ukraine.

Its small but it will do for now

"I see you sneaking up on me, Mom!"

Cold August Day:

nothing to do, so I thought Id make an applesauce

Peel and chopp the apples in small bite-size pieces

Add: 3/4 cup of water, 1tbsp of sugar, some cinnamon

Boil, turn the heat down, cook for 15-20 min

Cool it off! (like my polka-dot pot??!!)


Enjoy! Better than the storebought; we dont have applesauce here, so this was pretty awesome taste of home. The whole family devoured it with blinchiki (crepes)

Watching movies with Daddy

fun with Lucman

such a love bug

I think this picture was taken after both of them took a nap :)