The Princess Bloggeries

Sofia at 3 months

2 evenings ago ( on Dec. 22 to be exact), Sofia smiled at me intentionally and Petar saw it too. Ever since, we’ve behaved like monkeys around her to win another smile but no results so far … Nevertheless, it made our hearts melt and we’re looking forward for more of these to come.

our beautiful and healthy baby girl
the entire family being healthy
Princess surviving her mysterious illness and still being with us
still having our jobs
all our friends

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are proud to announce that on November 5th, 2009 at 9:40pm in Mountain View, CA, Svetla and I were blessed with a beautiful daughter. Sofia Petrova Karafezova (in Cyrillic - София Петрова Карафезова) was born like a model - weight: 7 lbs 13 oz., height: 21 inch. We have posted pictures from the hospital on our Picasa Galleries.

Sofia is now 8 days old and is doing quite well. Even though she initially lost some weight, we are on our way to regain it all back. She sleeps and eats and cries and pees - all this fun stuff. We can just hold her in our arms, take care of this little angel and do nothing else. It’s amazing how the time flies when we just bathe her and play and hold her in our arms !

Our girl is surprisingly strong I know all parents (wow - we are parents now!) brag about their kids, but listen to this - Sofia was only 8 days old when we was able to flip herself laying on her tummy to her back!! Have you ever heard about this ?! I mean, how amazing is this!

This is just the beginning of a new chapter of our lives and yes, we were so ready for it!

You can see some pictures of her first days in this Picasa album.

Last, but not least - Svetla is the most beautiful wife and mom - ever! I am so in love with both of them !

Things are going well as we are settling down in expectation of the baby’s arrival. I was not going to work last week and spent the time painting one of the bedrooms upstairs, now known as the “kids room”. I have also been reading a lot of book about baby care, including “The Happiest Baby on the Block”, by Dr. Harvey Karp. It’s been very informative and to some degree helped with my anxiety.

Svetla is doing great! We will be full term on Thursday next week ! We also just finished a breastfeeding and baby birth classes and found both to be super informative.

It seems like the upcoming expansion of our family has triggered an increasing interest in genealogy research. In my “spare” time I put together an online genealogy site with the combined family history of our combined four families - two from my side and two from Svetla’s. Up until now I had been collecting ancestry information using a desktop version of a genealogy software, but it’s impossible to take this a step further without collaborating with others. I hope that by putting the information online I would be able to distribute the work to other members of the families.

Finally, I have officially given up on the maintenance of the picture gallery hosted under karafezov.net. Svetla and I have moved our pictures on Google’s Picasa - please check there for the latest updates.

Petar is running the Rock’n’ Roll San Jose half-marathon today! 2 months ago, he decided that he’ll do it and he’s been training ever since. That is when his knees are not hurting. I’ve never seen so many people in downtown San Jose … it almost felt like a regular weekday morning in New York. Or this is how I imagine a regular weekday in Tokyo. I am here just for the moral support and for taking some pictures this year but maybe next year I’ll be one of the walkers. I don’t enjoy running but I saw a lot of people walking and that may be something for me (if I am in shape by then - although it’s a good challenge to get in shape so I’ll seriously consider it!).
My only complaint is that their live tracking system is not working - I can’t see if P. (or anyone at all) has passed the 5 or 10 km mark but in 30 mins I am heading to the Finish line. Maybe he’ll make it in under 2 hours. Go, Petar!

We are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary today while packing our bags to leave for Bulgaria tomorrow for a week! Somehow, we’ve always managed to schedule a trip around this time … I’m suspecting this is Petar’s way of getting free drinks on the plane). No drinks for me this year - we’re adding a new member to the family in November - a baby girl (if the technician has guessed correctly). Cheers!

I completed a personality test a few minutes ago and I ended up being a judgmental introvert aka free thinker or INTJ …

what are you?:)

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

1. sleep more
2. get less neurotic
3. advance in cat pilates
4. find new places to sleep
5. find new ways to entertain myself
6. bond with the humans
7. sleep more
8. catch a mouse
9. demolish the house
10. find new places to hide

It snowed on January 1st in Sofia, and the city looked amazing for a night
Sia and Nedi finally visited us in March
We had a blast in New York
We became fans of Virgin America
We had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend in Seattle
Petar lost 25 pounds and managed to gain 10 of them back
We bought a new hometown
We became 1 year older and we’re enjoying the new 20ies
Svetla got a promotion
We became landlords
The summer was unusually cold
Petar became very affectionate about golf
We forgot where the gym is located …
We went to a White Party and hosted a Halloween party
We both walk or take public transportation to our work places
We are crazy in love with our WII
We lost 50% of our retirement funds
We celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of my grandparents
We hiked for 7 hours, reached 2400 meters and saw six of the Seven Rila Lakes
We lost Petar’s grandpa – may he rest in peace
We gained new friends
We visited Malaysia
Petar didn’t get laid off from Adobe - he got an award
2 girls and 2 boys were born to close friends
We’re celebrating Christmas Eve in Portland, OR
We started cutting expenses
We’re sick for New Year’s Eve