Time With Friends

Much of the past several days was spent enjoying time with our friends, old and new.

On Friday, after Spanish class, friends Riley and Andrew (Ari's boyfriend!) came over to play before Andrew had to go pick up his big brother from school. Riley stuck around for a yummy pasta lunch before Alex and Ari went down for their nap. Here are all four kids enjoying the ball pit, and a picture of Ari getting a hug goodbye from boyfriend Andrew:

Friday evening we went to our new synagogue for a Tot Shabbat service. Alex and Ari sat with the other kids on the floor with the Rabbi, singing songs, dancing, saying the Shabbat prayers and listening to a story. The congregation at our new synagogue is made up of many families like ours with young kids, so we think that we are really going to like being members and getting involved.

Following the service, we participated in a Shabbat b'Yachad (welcoming Shabbat) program where we went to dinner at the house of another family in the congregation, along with a third family. All three families had kids around the same age- the two other families have 3-year old children and infants (8 and 15 months old), so Alex and Ari had plenty of playmates to have fun with after they ate their dinner while Mommy and Daddy got to know the other parents over their own dinner. Since all of the parents grew up in this area we had a lot to talk about and ended up staying way past Alex and Ari's bed time, but they were great and still full of energy even past 9:00 at night. It was a lot of fun to meet new friends and we're looking forward to seeing them again as we get more involved in our new congregation.

Speaking of our new synagogue, Saturday Alex and Ari received what we hope is the first of many acceptance letters in their lives- they have officially been accepted to the nursery school program at our new synagogue! So next year they will start a program for 2-year olds two days a week (unless we decide to switch them into a three day program at the school). We were all relieved to get the official word that they had been accepted into school, which in our area is no small feat!

Saturday afternoon Mommy and Arielle had a girls day out with three of Mommy's friends from her old job. We met up at a local cafe and Ari ate a cookie that was as big as her head while she read books and colored with the crayons Mommy brought along. Afterwards, Mommy and Ari did the grocery shopping before heading home to Daddy, Alex and Kira.

Today Miri, Nana and Poppy Jack came over to visit and play with the kids. Later in the afternoon we had our monthly neighborhood get-together (which we missed last month when Kira was in the hospital!) followed by an end-of-season pizza dinner with Daddy's soccer team.

Friend Riley is glad she's no longer the baby in the group

Ari and Mitchell play together

Mommy and her three kids at Daddy's team dinner

Alex and Ari stay busy coloring while we wait for pizza

So another weekend has gone by quickly and now it's back to our weekly routine. We have a big week ahead- Alex and Ari will turn 22 months on Tuesday and Kira is going to be 3 months old on Friday!