Russian/Русский

This Mother’s Day I would like to share my thoughts, memories and stories about my first year of motherhood. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible to fit it all into one post but I thought it would be fun to do it in the format of the alphabet, so here we go.

A – Alaric Alexander. The process of picking the name for our son was challenging. We had so many conditions: it had to be international, sound good in both English and Russian, ideally with some cultural heritage, either Scandinavian or Russian; unique, have a good meaning, yada yada yada, you can pretty much tell it was not an easy task. I heard the name Alaric (pronounced as “ah-LAR-ik”) on the TV show and thought it sounded interesting. The more I researched and played with the idea, the more I liked the name, I think it’s beautiful and unique just like our boy. Since the name Alaric is not a very common, a lot of people seem to get puzzled by it but it’s actually really easy to pronounce once you’ve said it couple of times. At home we call Alaric Rishka.

B – Breastfeeding. I knew from the beginning that this is something I really wanted to commit to. Difficult and painful at first, it was totally worth the trouble, luckily these days there are many helpful tools to aid in breastfeeding, I shared my favorite ones in this post. I really started to enjoy it over time, it was so special, sweet and cozy. I successfully nursed Alaric for a year and we finished shortly after his first birthday, weaning off was totally smooth and stressless for both of us.

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C – Cuteness. There is just an impossible cuteness overload that comes with the new baby. Everything from smiles and giggles to messy cheeks covered in some type of food is just so unbearably cute.

Read More ABC’s of the First Year of Motherhood

Mine

Russian/Русский

We had so much fun celebrating Alaric’s first birthday! I wasn’t planning to do anything big since he is too little to care so I decided to organize everything myself.

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The original plan was to have the birthday party at the park. I wanted an outdoorsy environment, daylight for the photos and an opportunity to throw the blankie on the grass and let him move around. Well, guess what? Few days before the event I saw the weather forecast and it said it was supposed to rain the day of the party! That’s something you never have to worry about in LA, what are the odds… We had to urgently move the party somewhere else and I had a brief moment of panic but then I found the cafe that could accomodate and everything worked out in the end.

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Read More Alaric’s First Birthday

Mine

Russian/Русский

My sweet boy just turned one!  Looking back at this year there have definitely been many awesome moments but it is still hard to believe the whole year has passed by.

It is usually not that easy to notice the time but in case with an infant you can practically watch the clock tick.  From a tiny fragile creature it timelapses into an active little person that can move around, smile, talk, express emotions and  show their personality. It is so fascinating! Not to mention that this creature tripled in weight and grew by 8 inches:)

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Read More Alaric Turns One

Mine

Winter ocean has a special place in my heart (as long as it’s not bringing freezing cold air haha). It is so beautiful, powerful, even more so in gloomy weather. I loved being there and watching grey waves crash, it was so soothing and calming, moments like this are everything especially if they are shared with great people. We had friends visiting from Vegas and it was really fun to meet up and show them around the day LA is so different from its usual self.

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Read More Winter Ocean

All Things LA Mine

Russian/Русский

I know, I know, holiday season is already over but I was just looking through the photos on my laptop and realized I haven’t posted any pics from our holiday trip to the Grove.

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Read More The Grove

All Things LA Mine

Happy one year birthday to my blog! It’s hard to believe the whole year has passed since I launched it. It’s still a work in progress but I am so happy that I did it. It has become an important part of my life and a great tool to let out my creative energy. I loved sharing some of my photography and thoughts, some recipes and useful products, I learnt some things about myself and for that alone it was worth it so far.

This blog is definitely a journey and not a destination. I understand there are many things I need to work on such as to figure out what value I can bring to people, what direction I want to go with it and what the main focus should be, and I am so excited to make it all happen. It’s been difficult at times to believe in myself and believe that the content I post here is good enough, but I keep reminding myself not to compare my chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 10. I follow many  successful bloggers, Youtubers, Instagrammers and I know what I like and what I want my blog to be like, but it doesn’t always turn out to be quite as I imagined and that’s when it is important to remember that those people have been consistently working on their projects for multiple years to make them what they are now. It’s great to be inspired but it’s important to not get discouraged because you can’t keep up. It takes time, practice, a lot of hard work and passion to build something great and as long as you are enjoying what you are doing and willing to put the effort in, the results will come.

 A lot has changed in the past year and this holiday season is extra special as we’ve got our Santa’s little helper with us. It was so much fun to watch him crawl under the tree, climb on the gifts and pose for the family Christmas photos! I wish you to spend the holidays together with your loved ones, Merry Christmas!

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Read More Blog Anniversary & Christmas 2015

Mine

Russian/Русский

The other day we were going on our usual sunset walk around the neighborhood when we realized that now that Thanksgiving is over, the holiday season is here which means that Christmas tree markets are open! I remember seeing in the movies how the family goes to one of those markets with many fluffy Christmas trees to pick the best one.

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**This is how normal people take their tree home**

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Read More Christmas Tree

Mine

Russian/Русский

Thanksgiving Day is one of those holidays that I didn’t have growing up but was more than happy to welcome. I actually started writing this post about a year ago when I was in the process of setting up this blog and this was my draft/practice post that never got published because by the time I finished the site set up the timing wasn’t right anymore, although is there really such thing as a bad timing to feel grateful?

It’s funny that for the last few years expressing gratitude has become something very essential to me, the draft from last year’s post said: “I personally don’t need one specific day to feel grateful as I do thank Universe pretty much everyday for all the great things and people that I have in my life but it’s always good to remember to do that and if having designated day for that helps us make conscious effort to be thankful, why not?”. It’s so true yet I never thought of consciously expressing gratitude before. I would be happy when good stuff happened and I always was appreciative of all the simple little things but I never thought about consciously acknowledging the things I am grateful for.

The first time I practiced expressing gratitude was about 3,5 years ago when I took my first ever yoga class. One of the suggestions made by the teacher was to think of something you are incredibly grateful for. During that moment few different things went through my head, I picked one and thought of how amazing it was that it happened. In that moment I felt everything from butterflies in my stomach to goose bumps on my skin to tears filling my eyes. From then on thinking of things I am grateful for kind of became a part of my night routine. Once I tuck myself in and before I fall asleep, I would thank the Universe for all these amazing things, people, moments that I have and experience. Sometimes I fall asleep half way through because I am so tired or even before I get to think about it but it’s okay cause the next morning I’d be grateful for the good night’s sleep:)

Read More Giving Thanks

Mine