Russian/Русский

The other day I was looking through the photos on my computer and realized that I haven’t posted anything about our recent trip to Getty Center. We didn’t have any plans that weekend and coincidentally Uber was 50% off so we decided to take advantage of that and do something fun. We settled on going to the Getty Center and it was a great choice! The admission is free, we didn’t need parking because we took an Uber so here’s to another virtually free and fun thing to do in LA.

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Read More Free Things To Do in LA: Getty Center

All Things LA

Russian/Русский

Even living in LA which has so much to offer, it is really good sometimes to change the scenery and get out of town for a little bit. Few weeks ago we went to Palm Springs and it was so nice! It it so close to LA yet so different. I was super excited about the dry desert heat, warm nights and cocktails by the pool.

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I was a little nervous because this would be the first “road trip” for our little traveler but he did great! I think the key here is to plan around the nap time, if possible. Alaric pretty much slept the whole way there waking up right before we arrived all fresh and ready for adventure.

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We got a suite room again which I think is the best living arrangement for traveling with baby because you have a full kitchen and/or another room. There were no cribs available at the hotel (which I researched in advance) so we brought our play yard and it worked great.

After settling in we went straight to the pool and hung out there all the way through the golden hour, it was so relaxing! The best part of this short-vacation was the nights out on a patio. Baby’s asleep while we are outside in the air soft as a warm milk, surrounded by the darkness of the desert and bright stars above us, talking and dreaming, aaaah so so good.

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Read More Palm Springs

Travels

Russian/Русский

Every Spring California explodes with clouds of flowers. Fences, houses, sidewalks are taken over by the beautiful bougainvilleas, hydrangeas and other flowers. Right now it is a jacaranda time on our street and it’s gorgeous! I only found out the name of this tree from some person on the street passing by. We couldn’t miss such a great backdrop and did a quick shoot coincidentally on a Mother’s Day.

Alaric was too busy eating the flowers and didn’t want to cooperate at all, he also just learned a new trick of throwing his hands up and pretty much sliding out of the arms so it was pretty difficult to hold him. So today we mostly have some candid shots taken between the moments of baby juggling.

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Read More Jacaranda

Mine

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