Pesach, Pesach iz Shein

One good thing about being such a *procrastinator* is that I still haven't put up many photos from the past half year (like beautiful fall foliage, Adi's birthday party, Sukkos, Chanuka, Purim...) so they didn't disappear with my deleted account.
So with that encouragement, I will begin posting photos again. :D Starting with the most recent and moving on backwards.

Pesach is going pretty well! I had actually gotten a normal amount of sleep on bedikas chometz night. I woke up to a clean and fresh house that smelled like the air after a spring rain. :) It was a perfect moment, with newly shorn boys and freshly bathed children.

The boys went out to the yard to burn chometz and a picture of their yetzer hora that they drew just for this occasion. And in that spirit, they helped me a lot on erev yontif! They brought me things from boxes, put away groceries, peeled vegetables and "chazer'd" the Ma Nishtana so beautifully.


Gedalya nicked a finger while peeling veggies. He's usually the type that freaks at any sight of blood, but this time he was very calm. He said, "It's okay, because Hashem will heal it very fast. The Yidden in Mitzrayim were always being hurt and Hashem helped them and took them out. So any time you get hurt preparing for Pesach, Hashem will heal it right away."

He has all these adorable divrei Torah that he says. On Yom Tov when he wanted milk but was still fleishik, he said, "It's good that Hashem made the halacha not to eat meat and milk together."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because," he replied, "*everything* Hashem does is good." 
(He didn't actually say, "Duh," but I heard it in his tone.)

On the first day of Chol Hamoed, we took a trip to Prospect Park and got together with a bunch of friends. I wasn't going to take Adi. Every time I take her somewhere, I end up vowing never to do anything so crazy again. To add to that, I was sick. On the second day of Pesach I was so sick, I couldn't get out of bed. I was feeling much better in the morning, but still didn't want to deal with Adi. In the end I took her because my husband wasn't able to stay with her at the last minute.

And I was so amazed! She tolerated a half-hour bus ride, 2 hours in one park where she played nicely with other kids and let me socialize, 20 minutes in another park, let me take her out of the swing the first time I asked her, over an hour at the Audubon center where her brothers were creating nature journals (she napped for part of it), a walk by the lake, half an hour wait for the bus, another half hour bus ride, grocery shopping and a 20 minute walk home. ALL OF IT WITHOUT ONE TANTRUM! What did she eat or inhale? Because I'm stocking up on it.

And if anyone out there read any of this, you deserve some photos. :)

First part of the day, Imagination Playground.

Then we went to a playground with swings. After behaving for two hours and letting Mama play with her friends, Adi deserved swinging time. :) She's signing "help" for me to push her.

Our next stop was the Audubon Center. It was totally unplanned, and since I hadn't packed much food, we weren't planning on staying long. But we ended up staying for over an hour!

Digital magnifier.

Bird migration paths.

The reason we stayed soooo long was that the boys wanted to make nature journals. There were four stations to go to, and each one took a long time.
At this station, you have to find and sketch an animal. (Some of the other stations were learning to use a field guide to identify plants they laid out on the table and finding birds using binoculars and identifying them.)

Some of the stations were upstairs, and I didn't want to let Adi loose. So I let the boys go up by themselves. Sometimes Id go up to check on them, staying on the part of the stairs where I could still see Adi.

 My phone took this photo by itself. Pretty cool, huh?

Looking through their nature journals.

A pocket full of posies! The white flowers smelled like heaven.

 Back in our neighborhood. Gedalya was marveling at that tree behind him, and then noticed some blooms had fallen off. He gathered them, and did what he saw some of my friends do that morning... put them behind their ears. :)

 The quality of some of these pics isn't the best because they are cell phone photos. Here I was using the front-facing camera of my phone so Gedalya can see himself while I photograph. That made him smile!

A happy rest of yom tov to everyone... hope to post more very soon!

Play Date

Adi had many Mondays off from school in January. Every legal holiday seems to be on a Monday, and they come in packs.
So on one of those vacation days we decided to do more that stay at home or walk the same streets and visit the same stores. We went to visit friends!



I wasn't sure how Adi would behave, but I decided to take a chance anyway. Besides, I needed a mommy play date, too!

Surprisingly, the trip there and the time we spent visiting was tantrum-free.
We all had a wonderful time!

It seems Adi saved her "best" behavior for the trip back home. Oh, the shrieking. The poor passengers of the 3 and N trains. This is a public apology. Not that they will ever see this, but I just must apologize for possible hearing loss.
Even though I arrived back home all wrung out and twitching, on the edge of a nervous breakdown, I'm glad we went. :)

January 2012 Photos

This is the cat-less edition. Half of January's photos have kitties in them, but that'll be a different post!

I finally found a hat that goes on easily, stays on, looks cute, covers the ears and is easy to stash in a pocket.  For all my searching and buying brands like Children's Place and Gap, this brandless hat was $3 at Amazing Savings! Got one for Gedalya in black and grey, too.

Hugging? Playing jail. Gedalya is the policeman, coming to lock Zusha up. Awww.

Zusha fights back. He demands a trial.

One morning I learned the following lesson: If your three year old comes out of bed and says, "Cake," and you say, "We don't eat cake for breakfast, baby. How about you go get cheese, or yogurt, or a tangerine?" and your three year old walks off without another word, you should not smile at how compliant your child is. Because a minute later, she may be walking out of the kitchen with an entire creamy $7 cake you bought for the family for shabbos, eating it like a squirrel would eat an acorn.

It "snowed." In quotation marks, because it was pathetic and lasted less than 24 hours.

Adi catching the drips of melting snow. It was so warm the day after it snowed that I didn't mind her getting wet.

A boy in Gedalya's class made him a present. It's a watch. It came in a home made envelope with Gedalya's first and last name written all over it in Hebrew and English. Aw. :)

In the Park... with Friends

Living around the corner from a park has its benefits... especially when the park is also half a block away from your sons' school. Pretty often the kids' friends go there after school, so it's that much more fun.

The first stop is ALWAYS the swing. For half an hour at least.

This little girl was walking since she was 9 months old! She's about 10 months in this photo. Two of her brothers are in my boys' classes. 

This brother is in Zusha's class. He loves to make Adi laugh.

It's a win-win situation. Adi gets entertained and Zusha's friend feels important.

This brother is in Gedalya's class.

And another friend from Gedalya's class.

Another boy from Zusha's class. Adi is pretty popular with these seven-year-olds because she loves to say hi to everyone, which makes the boys laugh. They all clamor to say hi to her so she could say hi back. :)

Between moving closer to cheider and the park, and the social butterfly Gedalya starting cheider this year, everyone is making many more friends and having much more fun!