big shoes

Saro's latest thing is to walk around in big person shoes. He identifies whose shoes they are (he seems to know who each pair of shoes belongs to) and then puts them on and walks around. it's adorable. Ari tries to copy Saro too but he's not convinced it is that much fun so he doesn't last long.

here are a few pics

where oh where have my curly locks gone?

Yesterday, someone AGAIN mistook Saro for a girl so I vowed that i would take him for a haircut today. And so i did. And now i regret it :( They cut it so short... he looks like a baby again, before his hair had gotten curly. i miss my curly locks!!

here is a before pic from yesterday and an after pic from today.

return from hiatus - a long post!

hi everyone!

After a nice long hiatus, i finally decided to get back on here and give a little update on what's new in Saro & Ari's (and Mom & Dad's) life. Given that it's been about 6 months, the boys have grown up a lot! They are running around everywhere and are such a joy to be around. We had such a wonderful summer together, enjoying the neighborhood parks (slides and swings! yai!), the backyard (it's small but so are they!), the front yard... pretty much anywhere they can run around. I'm so glad I took the extra 6 months off work - it was great advice from my sister. I truly enjoyed these last few months as they've grown to be more independent and easier to care for.

Having said that, I am scheduled to go back to work in just 1.5 weeks. Times sure does fly by! I'm sure everyone else is thinking - get off your lazy butt and go to work already!! but to me, it seems like just yesterday when i casually left the office for a regular doctor checkup and was told to check myself into the hospital for early labour... never to return again! Sapient has been wonderful and I'm lucky that they are allowing me to go back to work part-time. I will be working 30 hours/week, which works out to about 3 days in the office and 6 hours from home in the evenings or during my "off" days. I figure that will help me transition into what will become our new life...

Figuring out what the boys will be doing when i go back to work has really been weighing on my mind. We love Lenny (our nanny) who has been with us since last November. She really helped save my sanity when i was struggling with finding the time and energy to feed both these demanding boys. The boys trust and adore her, as do Serdal and I. However, we also want Saro & Ari to experience daycare and the strengths that brings... mostly the socialization and social eating aspects. They are both very shy and we think that daycare will help them become a little more independent. They may also eat more! from what i hear, that's been the case with many kids who don't eat well at home... So we came up with a wonderful compromise that works for our family. Saro and Ari will be going to daycare 3 days a week and staying home with Lenny 2 days a week. Lenny will also stay with us for a 3rd day while the boys are in school so that she can help out around the house. (It will be harder for her to do any chores when I'm no longer at home.) For the other 2 days, we're looking to find another family to share her with.

Today was Saro & Ari's first day at daycare. I dropped them off at garderie and they pretty much started crying immediately. I could hear them from the hallway. I went outside to wait for Aline because i couldn't stand to hear it anymore. (She would be dropping Sasha off to the same classroom.) By the time we left, the boys had been crying for about 30 minutes on and off. Poor Sasha had a rough start too... She threw up shortly after arriving - we figure it is a little bit of separation anxiety. But, I am told that things quickly improved. Saro & Ari started to play when they went outside (mostly with each other). Then when they came inside, they started causing some trouble throwing cars behind a shelf... something they thought was hilarious so the teachers let them. They were having so much fun that Sasha dropped her bunny and joined them and the three of them played together. How comforting it is to know that they have each other.

enough talk... here are some recent pictures. I will try to post on a more regular basis again.

July 6 - On our way to Michael & Matthew's house


July 6 - At the park near Michael & Matthew's house


July 15 - Playing in our backyard. Ari loves to throw his hat off! Saro loves to spot the planes flying by and scream "nana! bye bye!" (nana is for otanav which means plane in armenian)


July 16 - Saro & Ari loves to "cheers"!


July 21 (Ari) & August 2 (Saro) - messy messy eaters!


August 21 - Ari pushing the wagon around


August 27 - Helping Baba out with the interlocking!


September 2 - Playing in the backyard

Club Med Ixtapa, Mexico

In the early morning hours of February 21st, we woke the boys and headed off to the airport. Our flight was at 8am but we had to be there early (~5am) to try to get some seats together. In the end, we really lucked out. The plane was setup with 3 seats, then the aisle, then 3 seats. We were so lucky that on the way there, we had a whole row to ourselves. 3 seats for Saro and I; 3 seats for Ari and Serdal. We were pretty lucky on the way back too... We had 3 seats for the 4 of us together. Overall, flying with the boys was really not that bad!! they behaved VERY well and everyone around us told us so! I'm sure they were panicked when they saw us come sit right in front of them so they were relieved when Saro and Ari were the best behaved little guys on the plane!!

Overall, we loved the resort. The food was amazing. Our room was amazing. We would definitely go back and recommend it to others, especially others with babies. We could have brought absolutely no food with us had i known what to expect... but i hadn't trusted what they would have so we had ~3 days worth of food packed... You can check out general pics of the resort at Club Med Ixtapa . We stayed in a family suite which meant the boys had their own bedroom so that Serdal and i didn't have to sit quietly in the dark while they slept. It gave us a small amount of freedom that we enjoyed.

Here are some pics of our vacation.

Playing in the sand


Chillin' by the pool in the wonderful lounge beds


Playing in the pool


Serdal was so excited when Saro went for the tennis racket!


One of our only family shots


More hanging out by the pool



Hanging out in the high chairs in our room


Saro & Ari entertaining themselves while we eat some lunch


Ari, deep in thought

back again

i always surprise myself when i realize how long it's been since my last post. It honestly feels like i update this thing a lot more often than i really do... You must all be wondering what the heck can she be doing that keeps her so busy? uh... hello?? this blog is about TWO BABY BOYS. They are, and will continue to be, my best excuse ever. :)

well, since my last post, we had another doctor's appointment and the weight gain wasn't great but I have been told (again) by the doctor to stop worrying about it and that they are doing just fine. so i'm trying. We're trying very hard to get the boys to start eating real foods (i.e. stop our dependence on those baby purees). So far, we are making a little bit of progress with Ari... a little bit less with Saro... They both have made no progress with the stupid sippy cup for ages. I shiver at the thought of the stupid cup. Really, how hard is it to drink from the darned things!? argh! hehe

Speaking of progress... Saro is WALKING!! He probably took his first steps about a month ago and now walks across the room in his adorable way. He still prefers to crawl but is walking more and more often. Ari is just too fast at crawling; he doesn't see the point in making so much effort to go so slow! How would he ever run after the ball if he has to think about every step? He will walk soon enough, i'm sure.

We just got back from a family vacation in Ixtapa, Mexico. It was beautiful and relaxing and a wonderful change of scenery for us all. We especially LOVED having baba around all the time for a full week! Posting pictures always takes a long time so i will create a new post for that... otherwise, this message will never see the light of day.

one week left until we can officially say we made it through their first year! wow, pretty amazing to think how quickly it flew by!

doctor checkup

it has been a long time since i have written a post that isn't centered around some pictures... but i just got back from seeing our pediatrician and the boys are asleep in the car (with Serdal - i didn't just leave them there!) so i thought i would share my excitement.

obviously, excitement means the appointment went well. We thought we would be getting some bad news today (about Ari's progress) since, over the last month, we had a case of stomach flu and changed the boys' schedule around quite a bit which impacted Ari's feeding. Well, i was dumbfounded to get the following results:

In the last 4 weeks, Ari has gained 450 grams (almost 1 pound!!). (Comparitively, at our last checkup, he had gained 110 grams (~4oz) in 3 weeks. So we went from 5 grams a day to 16 grams a day!) He now weighs 7.89kg (17lbs 6oz).

Saro continues to do well. He gained 400 grams and weighs 8.45kg (18 lbs 10 oz).

Though we still have frustrating feeding sessions that seem to go on forever, no actual drinking from sippy cups, and no ability to chew anything quite yet... both we and the doctor are ecstatic about their weight gain in the last month. I hope he keeps this up and we see great results again next month.

signing off with a sigh of relief...

Saro and Ari play together

check out this video of Saro pushing Ari on their new Diego car! Saro LOVES to walk now, cracks up while doing it. (He pushes the diego car or the other walker we have.) Ari LOVES sitting on either the Diego car or the other walker thingy and getting pushed. If you stop, he gets mad and starts bouncing up and down and whining! haha.

December 2007 Update

December was full of more crawling, standing, and cruising. Ari LOVES to kick a ball around and chase after it (he's very fast now!). Saro just loves to pull up on anything and everything. Unfortunately, we ended the year off with our worst sickness yet. While in Montreal, we caught a stomach virus. First Saro was really sick, then Ari (and mommy). It was NOT fun but we're all better now.

(p.s. don't forget to scroll down to see the Nov 2007 update too)

Dec 2 @ Matthew's birthday party.


December 5 - cute smiles


Dec 13 - cracking up with baba


Dec 22 - JoJo and Ti Genny came over for some fun! They brought the best toy ever - we love it!!


Dec 23 - Lots of babies at Ara & Maral's house


Dec 25 - Christmas Day: getting ready to meet Santa!


Dec 25 - Santa arrived, scared everyone, gave TONS and TONS of gifts, and left. :) Some great family shots (Alepian side of the family).


Dec 26 - Ari still feeling invincible with Raffi dai-dai (he doesn't know he's about to get sick in 6 hours). Poor sick Saro with mommy. Another nice family shot (Derkevorkian side of the family).


Dec 31 - More gifts on New Year's Eve! Saro wearing one of his gifts from Bahamas while Ari unwraps the toys!