Izzy's First Boy-Friend

Friday, July 31, 2009

Isabella's been at the same Russian family daycare for a little more than a year now. Being that she is half Russian, we really liked the idea of her picking up on Russian at a early age. But we wonder how much good this environment is for her. She speaks less Russian than she speaks as a Russian FOB! But I digress.

From the very first day she made friends with a Russian boy named Sacha. They are the same age, but developmentally quite a but apart. He's still not speaking coherently in either English or Russian. Everyday I ask Isabella about her day and who she played with. Our conversation goes something like this:

Me: How was your day?
Isabella: Good

Me: What did you do today?
Isabella: I play with Sachik, Wiolet (Violet), Ben...who else? Uh...teacher, Noya, and Ethan. Ethan is brown skin.
(Ethan is a cute African-American boy in her class. She has never before remarked about the color of his skin until recently. Sacha's Russian nickname is Sachik, like Ed's is Edik. Isabella's is Isabelka or Isabelitchka. And I think mine would be Lyditchka.)

Me: What else did you do?
Isabella: Noya cry. She get time-out.

Me: Why did she get a time-out?
Isabella: Because she hit me she get time-out.

And so goes our daily conversation. On Wednesday when I dropped off the kids, Sacha and his mom pulled up behind me. Isabella gets out of the car and screams, "Sachik, I like Sachik!" She runs out and they run to each other an both ye out each other's name. When they meet they hug and kiss. It was the most adorable thing ever! His mom and I laughed as they embraced.

She's too young to understand the concept of boyfriend/girlfriend. So Sacha is just a boy-friend.

Video: Ethan Crawls?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

It finally happened. Ethan has decided it was time to crawl. He sort of scoots and drags.

PS. Don't you just love his army fatigues, especially with the fist. It's like he's a poster child for some army recruitment ad.

Trip to the Beach

A few weekends ago we took the kids to Washington Beach, near Marina del Ray. It was crowded, but the weather was perfect. At home it was around 100 degrees, but the beach was a nice 77 degrees with a great breeze. It was an absolute perfect beach day.

I can already tell that Ethan will be much more of a water-loving kid than Isabella. Not to make comparisons, but Ethan loved sticking his feet in the cold ocean. He was laughing and screaming for more. Isabella stayed on the sand as if she were chained to go only so far. We all had a great time.

4th of July

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Unlike most people, we went to the desert to spend our 4th of July. It was a sweltering 108 degrees of extreme dry heat, but we were happy as can be. We rented a great house in the Twin Palms area of Palm Springs. It had the best amenities to make us happy all day long. We found them through Craigslist, but they also list through VRBO and all the other vacation rental sites. I would recommend this house to anyone.

pool - check
misters - check
air conditioning - check
sound system - check
privacy - check

We had so much fun all day in the pool. And believe it or not, we even used the jacuzzi with the heat set at 98 degrees. It was a nice vacay.

We kept Isabella up for the fireworks, which we were able to see from the deck of the house. Isabella was too scared to come outside to watch, but she cheered on.

We just started feeding Ethan Cheerios and Isabella loves being the helpful big sis by feeding Ethan. Of course, Ethan never rejects her many, many offerings.

Kitchen Before and After

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Well the kitchen is finally clean enough for pictures. The kitchen was sort of completed before the holidays '08. I say sort of because the kitchen folks have recently come by to replace a door and reinforce the drawers with better hinges. When we thought we were rid of them they yet again made a mistake on the measurements...so we're still waiting for fix a few doors. Geesh.

Anyway, here are the before, during and after pictures of our kitchen remodel. We are so very happy with the way it turned out. It all came together. I saw the marble slab in a showroom and instantly knew it was the one. I would never have thought of selecting green marble, but I fell in love with it at first sight.

I forgot how awful the kitchen was before. The cabinets were the worst kind of wood (style and treatment) ever!!! The floors were impossible to keep clean. The kitchen had a drop ceiling for no reason at all. And everything was dark, depressing and small.

We blew open every wall in the kitchen and dining room. It now is an open floor plan. We added tons of windows and made the existing ones larger. We opened up the ceiling to reveal the vaulted ceiling. We added beams. We ripped up the floor in both the kitchen and dining room to match the hardwood everywhere else. All plumbing and gas lines were moved to new locations. Nothing in the entire kitchen is original. I found this beautiful limestone range hood made by Francois and Co. The store didn't have the exact model I was looking for but they were remodeling their showroom and needed to get rid of their floor models. We purchased this one from them at a much lower cost. I love it. While in Vegas looking at prospective commercial real estate locations, Ed found the pendants at a Baccarat store. He did good. He was also in charge of pretty much the entire remodel...from construction to picking out appliances and fixtures. We both worked on the design and layout. I love my kitchen. It inspires me to cook it in almost everyday. If only I could keep it clean. Surprisingly, the kitchen storage is not as big as I'd like. I'm still missing a box of kitchen tools and I've already run out of space. Not a lot of cabinet storage with the open design and all the darn appliances.

Granted, I love it today, but I don't recommend trying to design a kitchen and then live in a remodel while pregnant. There were many times I wanted to check into a hotel...without Ed.

Ethan's Stats

Yesterday was Ethan's nine month appointment (even though he's 10 months old now). Here are his stats:

Weight: 20 lbs (30th percentile)
Height: 27.8 inches (20th percentile)

He's short and round. Poor guy. Thank god he's got a great personality already budding.

Other developments:

• Claps his hands
• Picks up objects
• Pinches really, really hard
• Grabs everything in reach
• Eats really well (we've moved on to homemade pureed chicken; doc says he's ready for small finger foods)
• Says "da-da", but mostly speaks jibberish
• Loves, loves, loves to talk to Isabella. She can get him going. It's the best!
  

He's not quite crawling yet. Mostly scoots backwards or does the swimming in the air thing. His teeth haven't come in yet either. He's taking his time. In the meantime, he's just playing it up with his open mouth smiles.

Drinks at the Roosevelt

I took some random pictures at the Roosevelt from our date night two weeks ago.




We literally just met this woman minutes before the picture was taken.




This picture reminds me of Ethan.

Happy Father's Day

On Sunday I got Izzy up and immediately she asked to see daddy. (With a little coaching) she went downstairs and said "Happy Daddy's Day!"

We all got ready and went out for brunch at the Little Next Door on 3rd Street in West Hollywood. I had a very yummy and sinful Croque Madame. It was so good.




We took a drive and wound up at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. Ed's been telling me about the beautiful gardens. There's quite an interesting story behind it. What I found interesting was the cost to build this estate. Would you believe it cost $3 million back in the 20s! Yes, it is about 46,000 square feet on 12 acres of land. Ha!







When we got home Ed had to go on a scavenger hunt to find his father's day gift. I left little notes with "cryptic" messages to find the present...okay, so they were pretty easy to figure out, but it was fun for us all. "We" surprised Ed with a new computer bag. A nice, stylish leather computer bag. Ed decided to exchange it for another style...which is great as long as he's happy...but does the bag have to look like it came out of the Indiana Jones set?




Again, as long as he's happy that's all that matters.
Happy Father's Day!

Date Night

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Ed and I went out to dinner on a Friday night without the kids...the first in a very long time. It would have been a perfect date night if Ed's boss weren't also with us. Although, it wouldn't have been as good without his boss picking up the bill! Nice! We had a delicious dinner at Il Ristorante di Giorgio Baldi - a real Italian restaurant with real Italian waiters. The food was mouthwatering, the wine was smooth (and a nice pretty penny) and the sightseeing pretty spectacular. I can still taste the butternut squash ravioli. Hmm...and I ordered the lemon butter Dover sole. It was so good I had to make it this week! The restaurant is quaint and a small space so the tables are nestled close together. We sat next to some random celebrities...Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Larry David and Chris Robinson (from the Black Crowes). After dinner we did the Hollywood thing and had drinks at the Roosevelt. It was a fun, fun night.

So who looked after the kids? Auntie Ann to the rescue. My sister Ann has been a 3rd grade teacher for about 10 years. So she's got energy to make it through the day...after day...after day. When I came to pick up the kids, she looked relieved. I forget how much work it is when you don't have them with you everyday.

This is one of their conversations:


Ann: Izzy
Isabella: My name not Izzy, it Bella
Ann: Bella, what do you want for lunch?
Isabella: Cupcakes

~ ~ ~ ~

Ann: Bella, what do you want for dinner?
Isabella: Cupcakes


Too funny. No, I don't feed her cupcakes for breakfast, lunch or dinner. She does refer to herself as "Bella" or "Isbella", but she's never corrected us when we call her other nicknames (Izzy, Bella, Isbobella, Isbolicious).

Thanks Ann for babysitting!

"What is your specialty in life?"

Friday, June 12, 2009

Since moving to LA we've been moving a mile a minute. I've been more and more disconnected from the things that make me feel good (other than my hubby and kids). We've been working on a project at work and have been designing questions to profile people. One question read, "What's your specialty in life?" Odd question, I thought. I interpreted it to mean "what am I good at?" I immediately thought of crafty things and things that require working with my hands. It had been a long time since I've carved out time to do these things. And this is when I began to question what makes me happy.

I love building things. I get great satisfaction and serenity with transforming things into something new. Be it cooking, baking, e-scrapbooking (which I hardly do), working on puzzles, decorating, or trying to design and redesign my blog. This is not to say that I'm great at anyone of these things, but that I enjoy doing it.

As I was redesigning my blog, I stumbled onto a few sites that have brought me inspiration and have become my muse to get me back on track.

Some sites to visit:

• Decor8
• Pretty Good
• Desire to Inspire

And my secret pleasure is reading NieNie Dialogues. Stories from the uplifting and crafty mother of four.