Welcome Henry!

On July 13th, 2014 I woke up upset.  No baby yet! No signs of baby yet! I was staring down a possible induction and I was not very happy about it.  We carried on with our usual Sunday routine: Skype with the family in Ukraine, eat breakfast, get ready for church. After breakfast, I felt nauseous and decided to send the family to church without me. I asked Sasha to call me after the first hour and see how I was doing. They left at 8:45 am....

A little after 9 am I sent a text to Sasha to come home quick. I was contracting hard and fast!   Mid-sacrament he got the text, stood up found someone to take Hannah and Kamryn (my niece visiting with us) and headed for home. We checked in to the hospital at 10:02 am and Henry joined us at 10:47 am, healthy, active, and hungry. He ate right away... and he hasn't stopped :)

7# 14 oz and 21 inches long!

Welcome to the Kudin Family Henry!

Adjusting to life at home has been a process. We have had alot of help and support to make it easier and Hannah is a great big sister and a good kid. That helps tremendously too. We love our sweet little boy are excited for this new phase of life as a family of four!

Hannah loves her baby brother (she decorated the shirt for him)

Every morning she wants to hold her Henry.

Mommy is figuring things out with two kiddos!

Isn't he sweet?!

...and isn't she a riot!? (this is how we leave the house)

Catching Up

We meet again... its been a long time and we have lived some great moments in the Kudin Family over the past few months (ummm yeah,  so much for goal to write once a week... ). Let me explain... no there is too much, let me sum up.  Here are the highlights:

Trip to Idaho
In April we took a quick trip to Idaho to see the family before Mama's belly got too big to share a plane seat with Hannah.... we almost made it.  The flight there went beautifully, the flight home was another story. All of us were pretty uncomfortable, and that would have to include the lady in front of us getting a "chair massage" as Hannah kicked/ bumped her seat constantly and the kind couple sitting next to us in our row.  They were sweet enough to pick up Hannah's toys and cups when the darling dropped them and it was a good thing cuz this mama wasn't about to try!  I even picked up on some potential sibling rivalry as baby boy try to "kick" Hannah off my lap every time she settled against "his space". A sign of things to come?  I hope not!

The visit itself was lovely!  I had the chance to spend time with my Dad and catch up with many of my siblings, friends, and their families. We got to see most of Hannah's 27 cousins and in general had a great time.  At the end of the day, the trip was worth the travel and I am so glad we were able to squeeze it in!

Proud to Be An American!
With his citizenship ceremony approaching, Sasha and I decided to take a weekend and see some of the fun US historical sites in our general area. We ended up at Williamsburg, VA and loved it!  We learned a lot about the beginnings of the country we love and enjoyed making some great family memories.
It was a great preparation for the best event we have visited all year... The Mount Olive Pickle Festival!

Why the Pickle Festival you ask? Well its not because we got a free "pickle plant", from which we harvested exactly one cucumber, or because the fried pickles were fabulous, or because there was an entire section of the festival dedicated to religious bands (they called it the "Praise Stage" - I love the south).

Nope. While all of that was lovely, we loved the pickle festival because (of all the random places) that is where Oleksandr Mikhailovich Kudin (aka Sasha), along with about 30 others from all over the world, became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.  It was every bit as emotional and exciting as I thought it might be. I love my country and my family and it is such a relief that we are united now in our citizenship!

Most importantly, this is one more door of opportunity for my Sasha - another key to helping him live his dream of practicing medicine here in the U.S.A.  Its been a long journey, with so many set-backs and he has never lost hope. I am sincerely amazed by his determination, humility, and work ethic. America - you are lucky to have him.  Ukraine - you will always be a part of our family culture. Mount Olive - thanks for the Pickle Festival!

The Oooocean!
We took a weekend trip to Wilmington, NC and came back with a toddler in love with the ocean (though to say it correctly, you MUST draw out the ooooo part of that word. Did I mention that this age is awesome? If not, let me state for the record that I LOVE this age, Hannah is an absolute riot! But, I digress. Back to the ocean...).

For those of you who haven't been to Wilmington, NC let me take a moment to highly recommend it. It has lovely beaches, a beautiful downtown area with a river walk shops, restaurants etc, cobblestone streets, a great Aquarium, and for the history buff - the USS Carolina is docked there. You can take a tour of the ship if you wish. It was a cool experience, if not a bit to hot and tight for my liking in that ship, especially at 7 months pregnant.
I must admit, I am pretty proud of myself for climbing up and down all those ladders and squeezing through tight spaces.
I think the other tourists may have believed me to be a bit crazy, and maybe I am, but simply could not drag Sasha away from it. He really enjoyed it!  In short, we had a lovely trip.  However, there were two major consequences to our trip:

1. Hannah connected going to the ocean with wearing flip flops.  She officially wants to wear them everyday, everywhere. When I tried to get her to put on "pretty Sunday shoes" for church she held up the flip flops and stated "these pretty Sunday shoes." When I take them off of her for nap time, she cries. If I leave them on until she falls asleep, she wakes up as I take them off - no matter how deeply she is sleeping.  If we get her to bed without the flip flops - its the first thing she asks for in the morning.  No good morning Mama, no hello or I love you. Just "where's sandals?".  Its our first official toddler phase... and its pretty cute, though the stinky sandal feet are not :)

How to properly pronounce "Ooooocean!"

2. My little lady can not stop talking about the ocean. She is fascinated. So much so that we have made it a point to get to the beach a couple more times since our first trip.  If you want to be entertained come to our house (or Skype, we love to Skype!) and ask her about the ocean.  Watch her little face light up as she launches into her stories about splashing in the water, the birds, the fishes, the turtles, the sand and seashells.  She will probably tell you all about sandals as well.. as they are key to the oooocean experience. 


 Watching her develop likes and dislikes, seeing her personality take shape in an almost tangible way is probably my favorite part of motherhood right now. I am seeing my daughter develop into a little girl and I sincerely enjoy who she is becoming!  Its been a fun few months of development for all of us and we are excited for the new developments that will (hopefully) be coming our way this week as we await the arrival of baby boy Kudin.  Stay tuned...

Magic Letters

So Hannah discovered the magic of letters. She LOVES the ABC's and tries to "sing" them. She gets "ABC" and "now I know" - the rest is rhythmic mumbling... which I adore!  A few days ago we were reading books and she pointed to the title and excitedly told me "ABCs!".  Now we are always on the look out for those sneaky letters. They are everywhere and she just loves to find them :)

Sasha has been looking for his own "magic letter" this past few weeks and yesterday it finally arrived!  So if anyone wants to visit in May, come on down. We would love to have you at the United States Citizenship Oath Ceremony in Raleigh, where Sasha will officially become a citizen of the U.S.! He'll always be Ukrainian, and so will our little ones, but now he's also an American and all of us are so very proud and excited.

Yeah for magic letters!

February is Fabulous!

Winter in North Carolina is usually quite pleasant and moderate. But this year its been cold, snowy, rainy, and windy. It has made this month seem longer than usual and so I thought I would reflect on the fun February things we have done in the past.

The fence was mostly buried!

Our first winter together was winter wonderland, with snow, snow, and more snow. After one big storm in February, 2011 we decided to walk to the park where we were married. Of course, on our wedding day you could actually see the fence!

This is the place!  We were married right here -only it was a beautiful Fall day :)

Aww, aren't we cute?

In 2012, we took a weekend trip to Bryce Canyon in Southern Utah. It was beautiful! The original intent was to cross country ski to the rim of the canyon, but the weather didn't play very nice with us. It was warm when we got there and most of the snow melted. Our second day there, it snowed and the wind blew the snow around so much that we couldn't get a good glimpse of the canyon. But our third day, we skied a bit and saw alot of amazing vistas. It was a great trip!

When we showed up it was sunny and warm..ish.

Sasha and his camera.

2013 brought us an entirely different kind of February, with a lovely moderate winter and our beautiful little one! We were blessed to be able to visit our good friends in Washington DC. It was Sasha's first trip and my second so we were classic, wide-eyed tourists and our friends humored us by carting us around and showing us all the best. Thanks to the Green family we made some great memories. We are lucky to have such good friends (and we miss you here on the east coast)!

The White House

Old Town Alexandria

Oh... and we also discovered that Hannah appreciates important literature ;)

A Few of Our Favorite Things!

Ok, so this is really a post about Hannah's favorite things, but since her smile makes us smile, we have begun to like all of these things too!

 

MUSIC

Hannah loves to hear it, dance to it, sing to it, and pretend to play it (but she looks good up there doesn't she?)  

   OUTSIDE
She loves to be outside walking, playing at the park, watching the birds (she can spot them from a mile away I swear and she has a great impression of the bird "squawk"), and most of all finding long pointy objects to play with. 
 

           DRESS UP  
Hannah has become a little girl in her play lately. She will bring me a hat or shoes and say "On!" We change shoes regularly, but her favorites are definitely the boots... oh those cowboy boots.  She can't walk straight in them and can't stand up if she falls down.  But you should see the tears when its time to take them off (or worse when Jack tries to put them on. Yes folks we have officially reached the "mine"stage....)



BABY and DOGGIE (but mostly Doggie)
If you aren't familiar with the East coast/ Southern tradition of consignment sales,  you are missing out on one of motherhood's greatest finds. Its like an upscale DI or Goodwill, with low prices on great secondhand items. I LOVE these sales and they happen a few times each year. I mark it on my calendar and wait anxiously with my list of necessities. Best part? Being pregnant gets me in a day before the public... BONUS!  A few weeks ago the blessed day arrived and we headed in looking for maternity pants for me,  shoes for Hannah, and something cute and boyish for Bebo (our little guy's name for now). That was it... I was determined to stick to this list. But somewhere in our hunting, she picked up this dog and hasn't put it down since.  I could hardly wrangle it from her little hands to pay for it. I am oh-so-glad it was only a buck! It has taken the top spot away from blankie (gasp) in terms of endearment and its so cute how she cares for this dog! She hugs him, feeds him, and puts him to bed at night with his blankie.  She hardly puts him down  So sweet. Did I mention that I love this phase, because I love it. So many fun developments and this is one of my favorite!
(PS look close - there are those boots again..still?)

  

FRIENDS

We are blessed to be in a good community and have an especially great ward family here.  Last week we went to our first Valentine's party with some of Hannah's friends. It was a riot and we had a great time watching them interact and play.  We snapped this shot at the end, when everyone was ready for naps. Kids are awesome and I especially love mine :)

Table for Four

Life in the Kudin Family is good. Here's the latest:

I am teaching an online nutrition class for a nursing school and enjoy being back at work, but doing it from home. We also watch a little guy from our ward twice a week and Hannah loves him..... maybe a little too much.

Going in for the kill... we are in trouble!

Sasha is really enjoying his residency program. He is learning, making good friends and associations, and succeeding. Should I brag... yeah, I will. A doctor mentioned the other day how smart he is. "Sasha remembers everything I taught him in his last rotation!" he told me. I just smiled. I'm not surprised, but I am always pleased to hear someone praise my husband. I sure think he's great and so does Hannah. She is a Daddy's girl all the way!

Hannah is growing up so fast. She loves to color and dress up and sing (all at the same time sometimes).She is using full sentences, much to my delight and dismay. Last week at church she went to the door and said loudly "Open da door, Go outside!". She can also clearly say helpful things like "I don't know" and "I don't want it!" (usually this is in response to any kinds of clothing, which she currently hates).

La la la!!!

She thinks her belly button is so funny!

But my favorite phrase is, "Where is Daddy?" and she says it a lot. In the morning when I come to get her out of bed, in the afternoon when she doesn't want a nap, an pretty much anytime I say "no", she wants her Dad.  She waits at the glass storm door while I make dinner waiting, watching, and asking for Dad. Then when he gets home she runs away from him, wanting to play chase and earn herself a tickle. Its really the sweetest thing and I am so grateful for the two loves of my life.

Waiting for Daddy

Make that three loves of my life.  Hannah is going to be a big sister and we couldn't be happier! I am finally feeling human again (ie not puking multiple times daily), a full 6 weeks before I did with Hannah which, "they" say, can only mean one thing -  Its a BOY!  And for once "they" were right. Little Kudin wasn't shy at all during the ultrasound and we are quite sure that this little one is all boy!  We are very excited and can't wait to meet him in the first part of July.

So excited!

SNOW!

Growing up in Idaho we had snow. Lots of snow. And wind. And cold. Its how winter behaves there and I didn't know anything different until after college when I lived in Uruguay.  It doesn't snow in Uruguay, but its colder than I could have imagined. No central heating, cinder block homes with cement and or tile floors and a lot of humidity, makes even 45 or 50 degrees can feel really miserable. Add in some drizzling rain and the need to hang dry all of your laundry inside the house for weeks, and you have perfect conditions for a damp, cool experience. At least we had hot water. And a tiny space heater, just enough to huddle around as we studied in our coats and hats every morning. Good times, great memories, and I sure appreciate central heat a lot more now.

And this week we needed it! Winter found the sunny south and it actually snowed here!  Now we have seen snow two other times here. Each time it was an inch and melted within a day. But they still cancelled school for it. Seems they are not prepared for any amount of snow and prefer to be cautious when the white stuff starts flying.

So this week, when the "Snowpocalypse" was predicted, we watched in secret delight as people rushed the stores. Walmart had no milk or eggs. Gloves and boots and shovels were out of stock everywhere. School was cancelled before a flake even fell and all in all, people panicked. And it turns out they were right, it did snow. A whole 3-4 inches.

Back home we would have shoveled the walks, bundled up and gone on with our lives. Here, literally every store, school, office building, even the medical offices were closed.  Everything but the hospital was locked tight for two days!  And lucky for us, Sasha is working a clinical based rotation. So guess what? Two extra days off this week!! We had a blast on our Impromptu Winter Vacation!