New Year's Eve and a New Friend!

Anya went to her first New Year's Eve party last night and therefore we didn't have time to write in the blog. She didn't have a very good time. Maybe she's a little anti-social. After all, every time she tries to meet someone, they have her own name!

Also, she was a little grumpy since she wasn't able to eat the Mexican fajitas, the Chinese food, or the pizza that Uncle Mark and Aunt Loraine ordered for their traditional New Year's Eve family fest. As a result she didn't get to play with too many of her relatives and all of this resulted in an unhappy night last night. Her father ended up playing chess against the computer while bouncing "Unhappy Pants" in his arms 'til the wee hours of the night. He only won once, but that's not bad for 3 in the morning with a distraction sitting in his lap. Either way it was too late for her to be up and it showed this morning:


Anya set some new years resolutions to go to bed at 7pm every night and sleep for 12 hours. We will see how long she can keep that resolution...

Anya has another little friend, Victoria, who was born December 29th, to Tyler and Debi Owens. Victoria was drafted into the heavy division immediately as her birth weight topped 8 pounds! We want to congratulate them with there new little baby and look forward to seeing her (but more importantly the match-up between our daughters) soon!

Victoria Owens

Anya's a heavy weight!

The weigh in this morning at the doctor's office was successful. Anya's a heavy weight! Anya weighs a staggering 6 pounds 12 ounces - one ounce heavier than her birth weight. She was allowed to move up a division and Lindy was awarded abundantly (a milkshake) for providing Anya with legal body-enhancing liquids. We are relieved and hope the doctors and other individuals who have checked her in recent days will relax a little more. Sheesh!

This afternoon we went on our first walk together as a family. Anya did not like it. She prefers the boxing ring to a stroller but then she was a little hungry as we later realized. It was more for Lindy anyway who has been trying to catch up on sleep and thus hasn't had much time to enjoy the sun.

The doctor said that we should begin spending time with her on her stomach... We don't spend time on her stomach... she does on her own... ;) The doctor called it "Tummy Time." We thought that was ridiculous. Anya's coaches prefer to call it abdominal workout sessions. She is suppose to try and learn to hold her head up and body weight with her arms over time. She didn't do so well the first time (see picture) but you probably couldn't at her age either!

We forgot to mention that boys have already been eying beautiful little Anya. One even gave her flowers (Uncle Mark). We think Anya loves them - she didn't say much... but thank you!

Also, Anya made her first friend at the doctor's office today. This really isn't that significant except that her friend's name is Anya, too! That was weird. The first people we talk to in person after the delivery have a newborn named Anya born one day after... We thought the name Anya was relatively rare. Maybe everyone is calling their baby Anya these days! But a quick check confirmed that only 669 babies born in the U.S. were named Anya in 2005. After some simple number crunching, and assuming the same trend in 2006 (669 babies named Anya) the odds that the first baby Anya met was also named Anya is about 1 in 3000. The odds are even smaller if the baby has to be younger than Anya! (1 in 150,000)

I'm an Uncle!

Last night, my sister-in-law, Sue Ann Salmon with my brother, Scott David Salmon, gave birth to David Scott Salmon - my brand new little nephew. We're very excited for them! He is adorable! We wish them well and hope they will be going home shortly from the hospital. Lindy and I know all too well how that goes...

Anya was reigning champ as the youngest grandchild and youngest great-grandchild for only 5 days (on the Salmon side of the family). David will now carry both of those honors, but only for a few months...

(Anya is still our youngest child, however. She might hold that title for a while. Oh. She is also our oldest...)

Here are two pictures comparing David on the left and Anya on the right. They are very cute, eh? My personal opinion is that Sue Ann gave birth to a miniature Scott and Lindy gave birth to herself!

"I gave birth to myself!"

The daily quotable quote came from Lindy. She said "I gave birth to myself!"

This may be true.

We are quickly learning that Anya is more like Lindy than we even initially thought. The corollary to this statement is of course Anya is less like me than we thought. In the hospital we told ourselves that Anya looks just like her mother (except the hair) which is a good thing. (In fact, if you have ever seen Lindy, her looks explain why Anya is so beautiful.... okay, okay, okay.... enough of the "blog brag"...)

Anyway, we also said that perhaps Anya would receive some of my mannerisms (as some sort of consolation prize to me...) but we learned today that I hardly contributed (dominant trait-wise)! Technically, Anya should be half me, but physically, behaviorally and emotionally she is characteristically identical to Lindy.

Examples? Lindy likes to have lots of small meals throughout the day. Anya likes to breastfeed for 5 minutes every half hour. Lindy has a plethora of interesting facial expressions. Anya has quite a few as well and we don't think they can all be attributed to gas. Lindy is relatively intense and gets what she wants. Anya is very alert and awake and stares us down when time for bed. I usually lose the staring contest and I'm a sucker for holding her when she should be trying to sleep. Yes, she gets what she wants. In fact, this last similarity was confirmed by Lindy's mom, JoAnn, earlier today. She told us that when Lindy was first shown to her grandmother, her grandmother was almost scared by the intensity of Lindy's eyes. There are a lot more examples but simply put, the two little people I'm living with are identical. (And as if my loneliness couldn't get any worse, we think that her hair is starting to become lighter...like Lindy's...)


As mentioned previously, Anya is trying to gain a little weight to move up to the heavy weight division. She is shown here juicing up on some milk formula supplement. She doesn't want to lose any more weight. And yes, her eyes are very intense...




Lastly, she likes using our Christmas stockings we have as gloves. You will notice the same stocking from an earlier picture. We have to protect her "claws" from gashing everything that comes in contact with them. Wolverine might even cower away in fear...

Happy Boxing Day!

In Canada (and in many other British Commonwealth countries), December 26th is Boxing Day. I've heard a number of different reasons why we have this holiday but it doesn't really matter if you are off school or work! So, to celebrate Boxing Day Anya had a little boxing match with her father.

As you can see in this picture, her countless hours in the womb gave her a pretty good boxing stance, protecting her face with her left hand and ready to jab with her right. But luckily, I had some scouts take some pictures of her using the latest technology in ultrasound and so I knew a long time ago that she can keep her hands up and has a pretty good defensive strategy. I was ready for, at least, this part...




In this one she is throwing her right hook at me. Ouch, that hurts! It was a pretty powerful hit, especially with those "claws" that have never been cut or filed! She will have to get them cut in about two weeks if she wants to stay in the league... The ultrasound scouts never saw this kind of attack in the womb! They thought she didn't have enough space in her training facilities to practice this move. (They did see a lot of kicking, but that was training for a different sport...)




In this one, I was fooled by her "I'm a little tea pot" dance and then she got me good with an upper cut to the chin. You can actually see the left hand at the bottom starting to move up for the hit.




This one is her game face. Pretty intense. I'm still shaking...




The loser of the match had to hold and rock to sleep the winner... This picture reveals the victor:




Anya also got to meet our pediatrician for the first time today. The pediatrician is originally from Canada and has a 3 month old herself. Anya, of course, had to weigh in for the boxing match later this evening by the doctor and she currently sits at 6 pounds 2 ounces. So, she lost a little weight but is doing well since she left the hospital. She's definitely a feather weight but she's planning on moving up to the heavy weights later next year. For now, though, she's going to kick back and drink lots of milk until her next match...

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone enjoyed the festivities, the food, the gifts and most important the Spirit today. We have been thinking of many of you this season as we are so grateful for the family and friends who love and support us. Thank you very much!

It was an unusual Christmas this year for a number of reasons: 1) there was no cold weather (I have lived through 25 straight Christmases, which were all freezing, but this year I have enjoyed wearing shorts and sandals even in December), 2) our Christmas tree was a small poinsettia, 3) I did not have time to watch "A Christmas Story," even though is was playing around the clock for 24 hours straight on one station, and lastly, 4) I had my own new little baby to look after for most of the night and thus Santa had a hard time filling our stockings with goodies.

The last reason has made it one of the best Christmases ever! (Although reason number 1 deserves special mentioning as well...)

Anya's first night at home was Christmas Eve. She slept in a huge crib...relatively speaking... She's so tiny and cute she doesn't even need to sleep parallel to the length of the crib! My bed might be 5 times larger with respect to the top surface area but I still have a hard time staying on. (Hmmmm... I might be in my bed less during the nights anyway...)

Anya's name had to be sent to Santa via express mail (thanks to connections Matt Calloway has with UPS) in order to be placed on Santa's "good" list. Her name must have made it since Santa left some pretty good evidence he was here last night... In fact, he left one gift just inches from her face! We were surprised as much as Anya was!


We also had some stockings that we placed under our "Christmas Tree." They were smaller than previous years' but lots of good things come in small packages!

Lindy got a small book in her stocking, Anya got the matching sock in hers and I got some peanuts that we left out for Santa... Obviously, I didn't make the "good" list or else Santa thought I had enough birthday presents. It's interesting to notice that Santa didn't take the price tag off Lindy's gift, but he did mine :) .




With all the Christmas surprises, Little Anya was speechless. She has been ever since!

So on behalf of Anya, we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We love you all! Thank you for all the gifts and love!

A Christmas Blessing

Merry Christmas! This evening John, Lindy and Anya started their very own blog. Here it is!

We've had a wonderful and exciting weekend as our family grew by 50%! Any sales company would be exceedingly glad with growth at that level, but our joy goes far beyond that!

At 5:05 am on December 22, 2006, little Anya Jozette Salmon entered the world as a healthy 6 pound 11 ounce baby girl. It was a special little Christmas blessing from our Heavenly Father... and thus the title of our blog is Blogaslovenia, which means "blessing" in Russian, for that's what our family received, just in time for Christmas. (Yes... The Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet and therefore Blogaslovenia is a phonetic transcription.)

Just a few hours ago we brought Anya home and showed her her new home. She said she loves it! ;)

More pictures will follow as we celebrate Christmas with Anya tomorrow, but for now here are some of the early pictures taken at the hospital. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you have reflected on the "blessings" of the birth and life of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.