Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Halloween

Nikolas wanted for one whole year to be a pirate for Halloween this year.  I was sure he would change his mind a million times since the last Halloween, but he stuck with it!
Of course, Michael wanted to be a pirate too, and Sonja chose sometime during the summer that she wanted to be a cat.  So here they are:


 
 
 





Nikolas likes Kate from his class. We had her over for a playdate a couple of times, and they had a blast together (she likes him too).  Now, I invited another mom with her two daughters to the second playdate, and one of them is in Nikolas's school, just a different classroom.  Well, it turns out Nikolas now likes her too (Yarden), and that's his latest 'secret':  "It's not just Kate, I also like Yarden.").  Too much....


Here are a couple of Nikolas's latest Tinkertoy projects, a massive airplane and a telescope:
 
Here are Sonja and Michael at their piano lesson with Ms. Nadia:


Friday, June 8, 2012

Mommy and daddy's trip to St. Thomas!

Our first vacation without kids since our honeymoon!
St. Thomas was beautiful--so much better than Hawaii or Mexico: the temperature was in the 80's, without the tropical humidity, just perfect for spending the whole day outside.  We didn't even bother with snorkeling or windsurfing activities and decided that the best enjoyment was in simply reading books in lounge chairs in the shade on the beach with the ocean in front of us, and swimming in the warm and calm water of the little cove where our hotel was located.  We were surrounded with iguanas, which were incredibly cute and interesting that we immediately considered getting one as a pet as soon as we returned home.  We even had company of a parrot that was sitting in a tree near our balcony one morning.















Thursday, June 7, 2012

Nikolas and mommy's visit to deko in CA

I took Nikolas for a special treat--to visit deko in Banning! The moment we left the house he turned into a 'big boy'. Without Sonja and Mikica around, he had no one to entertain with silliness and started asking a lot of questions about everything in sight. We talked about condensation of water in the clouds, how planes fly, why the flaps on the wings move upon take-off and landing), what planes are made of, he wanted me to sing every song I knew on the way to Tampa airport, etc.
He is such a great companion for travel! He chatted with his neighbors on the plane, showed them his binoculars and commented on everything he could see through the window (the best attraction, besides other planes, was snow!). We saw fresh snow fall in Denver while we were waiting for our connecting flight, and Nikolas decided he wanted to come back to Colorado for some skiing!
At deko's, he listened when he was told to eat, to change into pajamas, to wash his hands, without those long delays that normally follow each instruction in our house. I showed him how to play Othello, and we did a new floor puzzle. Every day he wrote a full sentence on paper, and he was so meticulous to do it correctly that he used his eraser a bit too much! His old patience that I remember from a year or two ago was back, and it was refreshing to see.

Nikolas was excited to see deko, and vice versa! Every day we were in Banning the three of us took a walk together to the playground in the area. Tunnels in the play structure were planes for Nikolas, and on the ground he was collecting whatever looked interesting, from buttons to marbles and beads. Little explorer and observer. He also loved spinning on the merry-go-round!

We took a couple of days to visit Santa Barbara. While we stayed at Lela's house, we got to see Marko briefly, and Mina with Kiki came up for a day too so Nikolas and Kiki got to play together. They got along wonderfully. We took them to a playground along the downtown beach that we haven't been to before and the boys had a blast. After Mina left that afternoon, Nikolas and I returned to State St. where I promised his some ice cream, so we had some lone time in perfect weather in beautiful downtown of SB (on the way there we first stopped at the beach to run around barefoot on the sand.)
We also met James Douma for lunch one day and walked around together. Nikolas found him cool. He also liked great-uncle Ivica and great-great-uncle Peter (whom he particularly liked and called funny after deda Pera pretended to mess up Nikolas's name a few times in a row).

My advice for anyone who wanted to do something quick to get on Nikolas's good side (if that wasn't easy enough to begin with) would be to take him to Starbucks and buy him a hot chocolate and a CAKE POP! Needless to say, I bought a cake pop pan for home since we came back from CA and tried it already. Sonja and Michael can kind of say cake pop too (pop cake, cake pop...)

State Street beach, downtown Santa Barbara:



 Banning:



Latest expressions and Nikolas's art

Mikica was singing Tarkan's song the other day, the one with kissing sounds.
His latest phrases are:
'Nikako, nikako.' (no way, no way)

'Ja sam ljut.' (I'm angry.)


Nikolas told Semina in response to her telling him to do something: 'Ne dolazim u obzir.'
His other favorite 'grown-up' expressions are:
'Ja sam u pravu.' (I'm right.)
'Ni slucajno.' (No way.)

Sonja also says, 'Ljut' (not ljuta.), meaning 'angry' in masculine gender.

Nikolas is finally interested in drawing.  Here is one of his sketches:

His real talent lies in photography, as we recently discovered. When I realized that the toy camera didn't do him justice, I let him borrow mine while we were at the botanical garden, and here is his collection:





 Some more photos around our clubhouse, with Semina, and Nikolas's established still, building with blocks!








Nikolas is an incredible builder.