nick's american family at thanksgiving

the boys playing battlefield at thanksgiving :)

alexei's hat

6 months old!

hey everyone! hope this finds ya'll doing well! we made it back from west virginia and have been enjoying getting more settled in to our new home, preparing for Christmas and enjoying life with a six month old! alexei's current stats: 16 1/2 lbs. (40 %), 28 1/2" long (95%) and an average head ;) (although i think there is nothing average about his little head - proud mommy ;) two days after he turned six months old he started to sit on his own for 10 + minutes without falling over, and he got his cute little bootie up in the air when he was scootching around - another step closer to crawling ;) he has been enjoing playing with his first truck which i gave him on his 6 month birthday. he loves his little pyramid of rings - you know the fischer price toy that has been around for a few generations :) he absolutely loves to play peek-a-boo especially when daddy is holding him standing on the one of bottom stairs and mommy hides behind the wall and we both jump up at the same time and yell peek-a -boo!! and alexei laughs so hard that his little face turns all red and daddy and i can't stop laughing either! ah, the simple joys of children - our lives have lightened up so much since we have had alexei. i think i have smiled and laughed more in the last six months than i have in my entire life combined. God is so good to us. :)

we'll be home this christmas so i am excited about that.

here are some pics of the last couple of weeks.

this is alexei getting his first big teddy bear from far- far(sam) and far- mor (bobby) (grandpa and grandma in swedish) at our early christmas gift exchange while we were up there for thanksgiving.

the three grandkids - alexei, benjamin, and the newest one on the scene elsa with alexei's aunt monica.oooh it is so cooold here! sam's sister elizabeth made matching hats for the three grandkids - they were a big hit. the other pics that were posted individually on here were from our time in west virginia also, i got them off of bobby's website.all bundled up! alexei konked out at the airport after waking (us) up every hour on the hour and then needing to be up at 2:30 am austin time to make it to the airport. don't know if it was from teething or what b/c he had done great all week up there. but man were we pooped with a grand total of about 2.5 hrs of sleep in nap size bits throughout the night.
these are all of alexei's little tummy mates - the kids whose parents were in the same bradley (natural childbirth) class. we had a reunion last week. and guess what came in the next few seconds...he turned immediately to whitney and started to give her multiple wet alexei kisses on her little cheek! all of us parents died laughing, but i think whitney's daddy got a little worried. :)in continuation of our annual tradition (19 years running) we went with my mom's side of the family to a nearby little town called elgin which has a christmas tree farm. we always meet up, ride out there together, take a picture on a pile of hay in front of a bunch of farm animals, go on a hay ride, hunt for the best christmas tree, cut it down, bag it, load it on the car and go to elgin for some excellent BBQ. gotta love tradition! :) it's the kick off of christmas every year. so here we are introducing alexei to it.most of the gang. cousins, an aunt, great uncles and aunts, grandma (alexei's great grandma), my parents and some friends, all pile in for the traditional family picture.alexei's first hay ride. he sure loves anything that goes. all boy! the first vyssotski family christmas tree - we didn't have one last year since we were in WV."what was that?"on the way home from elgin we stopped by our old place (which we rented out finally, praise God!) to get a family picture together in front of it. good baby book picture. :) hopefully we'll get one together in front of the new house before long.and the grand finale - ya'll are awesome for hanging in there this long! lots to catch you up on. we gave alexei his first "solid food" this morning! this is the sequence of faces in reaction to the rice cereal. :)

"should i trust you?"

"i don't know about this...""hey, that's not so bad""what's next?!" he only took about three spoonfuls then started making more icky faces and turning away, so we figured we'll build up gradually as he gets used to it. :) thanks for caring and sharing in our lives! have a merry christmas and may God bless you and yours richly with a happy new year!

happy thanksgiving!

hello, all! ;)

we are up in west virginia visiting with nick's american family - 12 adults + 3 little ones makes for a full house and lots of fun conversations going on all at once.

alexei had his first plane rides on wednesday and did really well overall. he had a little fit before we took off on one flight, but soon fell asleep and all was well. we just had one delay and had to sit on the runway for an extra hour, but he took it well.

we moved into our new house on the 10th of novemeber and we are working on unpacking slowly but surely. i would guess we have about 85% unpacked. 16 people came to help us move which was awesome! we are excited about having more room to have people over.

alexei is 5 1/2 months old now and is so much fun! he is a really happy and outgoing baby - loves meeting new people and getting them to smile at him. we went through a few weeks of him waking up every few hours when he would roll over and scootch to the corner of his crib and gets stuck in the corner. he hasn't figured out reverse yet:) thankfully he has started to sleep better once he rolls over and is sleeping through the night again.

he loves being around activity and people - the saucer with the toys around it that he can stand up and bounce in is still his favorite.

ok, here are some pics of alexei, the new house and some from thanksgiving dinner last night.

i'll post more pictures of the house once we have the boxes out of the way.

lots of running room for alexei in the backyard!5 months old!sam, eric (sam's dad) and tony (sam's brother-in-law) enjoying the changing leaves and windy evening.anticipating thanksgiving dinner!alexei was in his little saucer toy thing just out of the picture and nick was taking the picture. but they were there. ;)alexei loves watching his cousin benjamin play. benjamin is three yrs old and elsa is his 2 week old little sister who is gracing our presence :)this is alexei enjoying eric, his great-grandpa who shared his testimony of God's faithfulness to him as he immigrated with his young family of wife and 4 kits to california from sweden in 1953. what a blessing to get to meet and spend time with him!we hope you had a great thanksgiving! and merry christmas not too far from now!
-morgan

long time no see ;)

sorry guys! it's been like three weeks! my bad! :)
so, on to the story of alexei's doings:
we went to the beach with grandma and grandpa and uncle john, aunt kristin and the three of us and had such a fun time. we went to north padre and stayed at the island house condominiums - the only bummer was it was too short. just one full day down there, but it was worth it. we'll definantly have to make it a family tradition. so here are some pics of alexei at the big water and with la familia.
notice the matching swimsuits. that was one of nick's father's day gifts. they were so cute. ;)

we were so proud of ourselves. no one got sunburned. yey us! we ohlson ladies have some pale genes. :) enjoying lunch at a seafood place nick scoped out for us. we enjoyed the shrimp alot.

we love uncle john;)
it was so fun getting to visit with kristin and john - they came down from dallas for the long weekend. looking forward to having christmas with them here in austin!
alexei has gotten into his johnny jump up - he has finally started to jump and swing and all sorts of fun stuff. before he was just into the toy that was attached to it. ;)

he is starting to reach for toys that aren't within arms reach now.
and he loves mirrors... and kissing that cute baby that is looking back at him;)
many happy moments spent in this stand up saucer whatever you call it. thanks to cousin tricia for lending it to us! it frees mommy up to get dinner ready occasionally. :)
i love this outfit on him. all boy! daddy and alexei at the park for a family gathering - unfortunately i didn't get any really good pics of alexei with the rest of the family - we'll work on that at greatgrandma's birthday party in a couple of weeks. she is turning 85 yrs old!
well i need to go and change ANOTHER poopy diaper. today has got to be a close to record day. not really. it just feels like it at times. but at least it's a cute little booty.

love you guys. thanks for your patience with me getting this out there.

oh, and thanks for praying! we are closing on our new house in milwood on thursday and moving in on nov. 10th. we have a potential tenant coming to look at our current house on wednesday so be praying that works out if she is the right one and also for patience, energy and time to pack everything up with a teething but very cute 4 1/2 month old! :)
take care! - morgan (for the rest of us)

4 months old! can you believe it?

hello, everyone! sorry it's taken me so long to post again! we have had a whirlwind couple of weeks!

alexei had his 4 month check up and shots yesterday. sad. :( he is looking good, the dr. said. he is 15lbs 11oz. and is 27 " long( his height is 95%! ) he is hard at teething, so between that and shots yesterday he isn't feeling super swift right now. lots of mommy cuddle time. so this might be brief. feel free to askme to fill in the details in person.

update on the house i mentioned in the last blog entry: God answered some very specific prayers as we were considering it and He paved the way for us to buy it - closing date is november 1st! we are super excited - it's over in milwood, about a mile from my parents, so it will literally be over the river and through the woods to grandma's house we go - at least over a creek and through the greenbelt, but from a kid's perspective it might as well be a river and woods. :) ask us more details later, no time now. :)

alexei, grandpa matt, grandma katy, and i (morgan) got to go down to san antonio and visit with alexei's great grandpa gus and his wife gardis and great aunt ann and her husband martin. it was a good trip and fun to catch up with everyone.
here are some more of bobby's pics i promised from their visit here last month.

getting so big! he will hang out in his bumpo seat for all of 2 minutes before he gets fussy. i really wish he would like it more. maybe once he can sit up a little sturdier on his own he'll like it more.
this is at our new house - we were getting it inspected (it passed the test;) we'll take more pics when we move in.
daddy sharing his devotional time with alexei. he likes to listen to us read and is only slightly damaging the pages when he grabs at them;)
some more of bobby's pics from our time together at mozart's. this is the steering wheel from his jogging stroller. such a guy. he already grabs the wheel like he is going to drive off.

the johnny jumper is a fun toy for him right now. he mostly likes the lights, sounds and buttons on the toy, not quite into the jumping part yet, but he'll probably figure that out soon.
hanging with grandpa matt
cuddling with grandma katy
totally conked out! :) so cute.
ok, that's all for now folks! off to entertain my four month old.