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 :)

smiley boy

I can reach my toes! and even put them in my mouth

Favorite cuddle object: cow Zoozu - not one nap goes without her (though we recently discovered it might be a giraffe..hmm)

Couple of weeks ago we took a stroll to a nearby park, ate some ice cream and had a russian milk shake :) I wish I snapped some pictures of the place, but I was too lazy - they had different things for kiddos to do, bounce houses, race cars, etc. But, of course, i snapped a picture of the most handsome guy around :)

We walked back to our place after a few hours at the park. Since it was still August and through middle of September people sell watermelons here. They are very sweet and very juicy..and they sell them like shown on this picture - on the street in big cages.

walking back home - took us about 20-25 min to get back. It was a beautiful summer day, so we enjoyed the weather and each others company (took some Aleve afterwards for pain in the legs)

My family decided to have a picnic by the beach. Picnic in Ukraine does not mean sandwiches and chips; it means shashluk and drinking. Well, since most of us dont drink (as much anyway) - only wine and beer was bought, because there is no shashluk without good red wine - in this country its considered a sin...almost :)

So this was our cooler - a drain in the ground.

You make do with what you got :)

My dad and sister's boyfriend, Oleg, starting up the fire for shashluk. And, yes, Oleg is wearing Speedos.

Daddy is working on putting shashluk on a kebab sticks

Shashluk before its good and done (its pork meat marinated for two days in mayo and onions, and some other spices I am not allowed to disclose:) )
it can only be cooked over smoke, not over fire
Side dish we grilled: Saluguni - armenian dish, salty thin bread stuffed with saluguni cheese and herbs. OK, its like quesadillas
During

After!

So good, I think I gained 10lbs that afternoon alone

View from where we hung out (we walk down to the beach later, sorry no pictures of us in the water, because I already dropped my camera into the sand once and now it doesnt zoom in)
Attempt at the self portrait of Everette and I. Attempt failed.
Lucas hanging out with grandma. Jacket and all, while we went swimming and tanning :)

And finally, our "bar" - a big rock we found in the woods and placed wine on top of it.
Note: no green grass.

Below are going to be some random shots I took throughout the month of August.

Eastern Orthodox Church/Monastery in our neighborhood

We took a mini trip outside of Odessa and drove by a huge sunflower field. My dad got out of the car and got us a big sunflower; we decided not to eat sunflower seeds out of it as they are not as good raw - they are better fried and seasoned, just like in the package

buying watermelon on the side of the road. Like the Russian tractor?!:)
mini picnic: bolied eggs, melons, eggplant caviar, cheese sandwiches, watermelon and Pepsi.

more watermelons on the side of the highway

See those huge bags of peppers? We bought one! Everette had more peppers this summer than he ever had in his whole life
Another park, near my school. If you enlarge the picture you can see kids swimming in the fountain area. Its actually forbidden, but hey, who cares?!

Happy baby Lucas

'drinking' water fountain - water comes out of the same fountain in the picture above

Some pictures of our sweet Lucas

one of the first vegetable feedings

My two favorite people in the whole wide world - I am so blessed. Thank you Lord!

Playing with aunt Vika

Some shots of ODESSA

Odessa's main black market. Unofficial, of course. They sell pirated video games, DVDs, etc 'under the table' but market them as licensed.

My dad's car

one of the many old streets in the city

the oldest bank in Odessa

just a street corner

Stay tuned for more :) I hope you are enjoying our adventures with us. There are much more to show and tell, but not enough time in the day to do so.