The theme for Emma this christmas seemed to be ballet. Besides the hours she spent dancing around the tree to christmas music, she got a little ballet bar and mat and instructional video from her Grandma Charlotte and ballet slippers and a crown and a ballet outfit from Auntie Amy and even ballet stickers from her cousins. She just may be a famous Siberian Ballerina when she grows up:) 

This was pretty much the common view of Josiah during the holidays. Exploring the mysterious packages under the tree. And Eating all the pine needles that fall off the tree, they don't seem to be too bad for his digestive track.  

Here is little ? We still need a name for him. Nothing is good enough yet... I don't know if you can tell what this pic is, some people go "Wow, chubby cheeks, cute" others look at it and say "What is that?" It is just his face angled to the right. The two smaller black things are his eyes to the left of those his nose then his mouth and his little hand is wiping his nose or something:) He is chubby that's for sure. He is already 6lbs 8oz they think and I still have till Jan.15th! Don't they double their weight in the last month!!! Yikes. Anyway. We are both doing great, he was so active during the ultrasound the technician was laughing and the computer couldn't keep up with his changing heart rate. It kept crashing. When she finally got one it was 170 something which is very high for a boy, he is usually around 135... I am going to miss ultrasounds, they sure are fun. 

Our little genious. Emma was just sitting here pretending to be in school so I thought I'd take a pic of her. Pretty funny looking... Emma is recovering from a bad night with the stomach flu, now maybe it will be Josiah's turn. I'm thinking the kids are getting all the sickness over for the year, hopefully for a year not just this year:) so that when the baby comes (3-4 weeks) we will have a nice calm healthy household. hmmm.....  

Look at me I'm standing! Hard to tell cause my bib is in the way.... Josiah took a few steps towards me after the pic was taken. He is getting pretty good on his two little feet. He is a little sick, cold and yucky stuff for the diaper but is still pretty content.  

Josiah's favorite activity lately is to jump on the couch. he will stand up and fall backwards with his hands up in the air. Very brave and very funny. He doesn't fall off too often. He climbs up on it himself so there isn't much chance of preventing it. He is getting pretty good at standing alone now. I need to try to get a picture of his 6 teeth. The pictures only ever show the bottom two. 

Josiah at 11months and oh so finnish looking. I think he'll need a haircut soon before people say what a pretty little girl we have:) 

Emma Joy For some reason this pic of her reminds me of a guy in a rock band, no one in particular, she just has a rocker look or something:) And is she ever! 

A Baaabushka (stress the first a) wearing a babushka. The russians call both an older lady like this one a babushka and also the hat or scarf on her is called a babushka. And... the russian version of santa is a lady who's name is Babushka.  

The Russian Ice Festival 2004 

Our tree! it is getting funnier everyday...it started out all perfectly decorated, well... what I see as perfect, the ornaments and lights spaced out evenly, a wooden ornament, then a bow, then a light etc... but I guess that was life before kids. Emma is sure that the little wooden snowmen and nutcracker guys need to be together because they are "friends" so they end up in clusters of 3 or 4 by the end of each day and Josiah just likes to take all the decorations off the bottom half of the tree and see what they taste like. Josiah also likes to pull and chew on the bottom branches so the bottom looks rather messy. I can see that many of the bows are upside-down now and the lights are falling off the branches. But you know, I think i am beginning to appreciate the beauty of freedom?, creativity? and children. I often have the martha stewart mindset of exact order and cannot concentrate on anything else unless everything is just so. I also awoke from a not intended nap on the couch to find Josiah eating one of the candy canes off the tree. No wonder the house was so peaceful.  

Josiah is now 11 months. He is really getting into everything today. That's why he has so many red marks all over his face today. He was just trying to climb up the bookcase as if it was a ladder. He got another tooth today which makes 6 but the bottom two are all that you can see really. I love his little dimple on the right side, he makes me cry sometimes the way he looks up at me and smiles... course it could be the pregnancy hormones getting me:) 

Josiah stood (without holding on to something) for the first time yesterday so today is a whole new world now that he is good at balancing. He is now 10 months old. He has had numerous illnesses lately but is still pretty cheery:)