November and December

Somehow 2009 is almost coming to a close...here's what we have been up to the past two months:

In November, right before Thanksgiving, Daddy came down with H1N1 ("swine flu"), leaving Mommy and the kids to fend for themselves for a few days while he was wiped off his feet. It was a little scary as Daddy never really gets sick; he even had a quick visit to the hospital after he had a "convulsive syncope" (basically a convulsion before he fainted) from dehydration. Luckily the rest of the family survived unscathed, and Mommy got the kids out for some fun adventures including a visit to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum and a show by the kids band Rocknocerous and entertainer the Great Zucchini at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue in DC. The kids especially enjoyed taking the Metro into DC for the show.

Alex and Ari pilot a Cessna at the Udvar-Hazy Center

In front of the Space Shuttle at Udvar-Hazy
Alex's favorite part of the museum- a giant Transformer!

Meeting the Great Zucchini after his show...this guy is a nut but the kids love him!

There were also a lot of birthday parties in November and December, including twin friends Luke and Charles' party at Romp 'n Roll, where Ari and Alex found their new best friend- mascot Rompy (Ari hugged him no less than a dozen times while we were there!) We also celebrated the birthdays of friend Henri, classmate Laylie, and neighborhood pal Riley.

The kids were delighted to have canine pal Billy back for a week while his family was on vacation. Billy told us he'd take our house and attention from three adoring fans over Turks and Caicos any day.

All of the kids stayed busy with their activities, including My Gym for Kira, gymnastics (with school friend Rian) for Ari and Alex, and ballet for Ari. Ari's ballet class had a special recital at the end of the last session. She can't wait to start again after winter break!

Ari and Darby at the barre

We had lots of playdates with friends, including Henri and Nina, Andrew, Mitchell and "neighborhood Ryan," (as opposed to "School Rian"). Ari and Alex are now getting to the age of "drop-off" playdates and we've been doing that a lot, especially with their neighborhood friends. It's fun for Mommy to watch them play so independently with their friends, and for them to head off to neighbors' houses for a little time away from Mommy!

And of course, Hanukkah was a big highlight of the past month. We celebrated in all sorts of ways, including a school sing-along, a visit from the much-anticipated Hanukkah firetruck, trips to Hanukkah Wonderland, lighting candles at Miri and Opas and Nana and Poppy's, having friends Netta and Eynav over to light the candles, and many community events. Alex's favorite, of course, was the Hanukkah fire truck that comes through our neighborhood every year.

The other big event this month was the huge blizzard we got last weekend- over 20 inches of snow fell in less than 24 hours! The kids had never seen so much snow in their lives but enjoyed shoveling, sledding and playing in the snow (once the snow and wind stopped, of course). School was cancelled the entire week before Christmas, making Winter Break an unexpected two weeks instead of just one!

And even though we do not celebrate Christmas, we have our own traditions around the holiday. This year we joined in our neighborhood friends' tradition of bowling on Christmas Eve morning. Last year the kids (Kira especially) were too young to join in the fun but this year they all jumped right in and had a blast bowling with the help of ramps and bumpers.

Today (Christmas day) we joined members of our synagogue in baking cookies, making platters and delivering them to First Responders (police, fire fighters, etc.) in our area. To Alex's delight, we got to deliver a platter to a local fire station. We had to wait for quite a while before the fire fighters returned from a call that came in right before we got to the station, but it was well worth the wait as the kids got to see all of the vehicles come back to the station, back into the garage (with their lights flashing), and meet the fire fighters. Mommy and Daddy also hoped they learned the value of giving back to the community, especially since they were giving the fire fighters cookies they very well would have liked to eat themselves!

Later this afternoon we continued our Christmas tradition of a family playdate with friends the Perskys and Sophirs, compete with Chinese (and Japanese) food, of course.

As 2009 comes to a close, we are so thankful for the health, happiness, family, friends, and good fortune we have had this year. We can only hope 2010 brings as much joy as we have had in the past year!

October (and the first part of November!)

Wow, has Mommy been bad about keeping up this blog. Somehow there just hasn't seemed to be enough time to sit down and record everything we've been up to over the past month and a half...so here is the quick version!

Most notably, Kira turned TWO! It is so hard to believe that our "baby" is now a big two-year old. She had a lot of milestones this month, the biggest being her transition to a big kid bed before she even turned two. We suppose seeing her big brother and sister sleep in beds had something to do with it, but early in the month she started refusing to nap in her crib and instead insisted on napping in Alex’s bed. Since Alex no longer naps, his bed was free during nap time so Mommy allowed it and it wasn’t long before she was also insisting on sleeping in his bed at night. Since Alex has always slept with Ari in her bed as long as they have been out of cribs, this wasn’t a problem either. But when our friends and neighbors asked if we could use a twin bed, we figured we might as well make the official transition. So here is Kira’s new big girl room with her big girl bed:
At first she still wanted to sleep in Alex’s bed but before long she was sleeping in her own bed for naps and at night time and is great about staying in her bed all night.

We had two birthday parties for Kira: the first was an early celebration mainly with family and family friends. Mommy scheduled the party a few weekends before Kira's actual birthday so we could take advantage of the train at the local park but as it turned out the weekend was a wash-out and although it wasn’t actually raining during Kira’s party, the train wasn’t running because of wet tracks so we didn’t even get to ride it anyway. That’s ok- we still had a great time and a special celebration. The second party was the day after Kira’s actual birthday and was a special birthday edition of our weekly Monday playdate, hosted at our house. We had about 13 of Kira’s friends at our house and everyone enjoyed playing in the basement (well, except for Kira, who preferred to sit and eat snacks the whole time while her friends played!)

October also brought our favorite holiday, Halloween! This year Alex and Ari picked their own costumes- Alex chose to be a UPS delivery man and Ari chose to be a penguin. Kira got a hand-me-down lion costume that she seemed to like, most of the time at least. We got a TON of mileage out of the costumes as we went to numerous Mommy and Me Halloween celebrations, Halloween parties, the neighborhood Halloween parade and, finally, actual trick-or-treating. We were a little nervous this year when Alex came down with a slight fever a few days before Halloween, but it turned out to be just a cold and all three kids were fine for trick-or-treating.
Speaking of illness, this fall has brought the onslaught of the H1N1 virus and the ensuing rush for vaccines. Since our county and pediatrician did not have the vaccine, Mommy ended up taking all three kids for a trip into DC to get the first of two injections. It was a long outing but the kids were great in line and Mommy treated everyone to a pizza dinner afterwards, so it was actually a fun afternoon of bonding. We’re all crossing our fingers for a relatively healthy winter- our neighbors and friends have been absolutely ravaged by sickness already and it’s not even December yet!

Other highlights of October and the first part of November were:
Celebrating all of the birthdays that fall in October: Darby, Andrew, Gregory and Lilli, Jeremy, Naomi
Discovering Truck Touch day at a local preschool
Ari and Alex’s school class trip to the pumpkin patch
Mommy and Kira visiting as Shabbat family in Ari and Alex’s class
Ari, Alex and Kira participating in the Halloween Fun Run (in the cold drizzle!)Playdates at lots of new parks, including two new favorites: Fallsgrove and the Green Park
Indoor play time at the Soccer Plex returns
Daddy running the Army 10-miler
Mommy getting her running coach certification

And these are just the highlights! It's been a great month and we're looking forward to a wonderful (and hopefully healthy!) holiday season!

September

Another month flies by without the promised updates...but better late than never- it's been an exciting month around here!

Right before Labor Day and before school started, we took the kids to Dutch Wonderland, an amusement park for little ones, with our good friends Jody, Gary and their twin boys Miles and Travis. We had planned to have Kira spend the day with Miri and Opa since she needs to nap and we thought she might not be able to make it the entire day, but at the last minute Miri got very sick (turns out it was likely swine flu!) and Kira ended up coming with us. We're glad she did- she had a great time and took a good cat nap in the stroller towards the end of the day. All the kids loved going on the rides and Alex even made the height requirement (barely- by a hair!) for the "big kid" rides like the big roller coaster and he LOVED each and every one. Our formely tentative boy has certainly gotten much braver!

Leading up to Labor Day we had lots of playdates with classmates and other friends before school started, including one with best pals Rian and his brother Shane. We also had a family playdate with the Sophir and Persky families, a tradition that we've come to look forward to!

We went to the annual Labor Day parade with twin friends Sammy and Izzy and Brenden and Neve and their parents. Ari, Alex and Kira loved watching the parade- a huge difference from the first time we went three years ago when a 6-month old Alex cried because of the noise of the drums:

After Labor Day it was back to school with new teachers, Morah Lisa (the kids think it's funny that their teacher has the same name as Mommy!) and Morah Marsha. Like last year, Ari and Alex will be going to school three mornings a week again. Most of the kids in their class (the "Dubim" or "Bears") are from last year's class but they do have some new faces, including some friends from the other 2's class and one new addition to the school, our new friend Jack. Kira is very eager to join in the fun, but she'll have to wait another year as her birthday falls after the cutoff of September 1.

The extra-curricular activity circus is already starting. Ari and Alex started soccer this month with their neighborhood friends- they both love going and are really good...looks like they may have inherited their Daddy's soccer genes!

Ari is taking ballet with friends Darby and Sammy at Mommy and Daddy's gym with Miss Dodie. She loves getting dressed up and going to class; immediately after the first class, she eagerly asked Mommy "can I come back next week!?!"

The most exciting adventure this month was a trip to visit GG in Florida! Daddy had a business trip so Mommy and Nana flew with all three kids. This was GG's first time meeting Kira and her first time seeing Ari and Alex since they were 15 months old, so it was an extra special trip. Aunt Candy came down from Orlando to visit so the kids enjoyed lots of doting attention! We visited a great children's museum and an fun indoor play area, and went to GG's and Great Aunt Rita's pools. The kids behaved incredibly well both on the plane (which they loved!) and in Florida, making the trip enjoyable and, dare we say it, even easy!

We celebrated lots of birthdays this month, including Poppy Jack's, Daddy's, Cousin Jonathan's, Aunt Lori's, and friends Reid and Danielle. Kira now automatically sings "Happy Birthday" as soon as she sees a cake or cupcake!

In other big news, we are now officially a crib-free home. This past week Kira started insisting on napping and sleeping in Alex's bed. Because Alex no longer naps and sleeps in Ari's room with her, his bed was actually unused so it worked out for Kira. In a lucky coincidence, friend Charlotte was getting a new bed and her parents offered us the old twin sized bed, which was perfect since we have an extra twin mattress from when we bought Alex's mattress. So this afternoon we disassembled Kira's crib and put up her new bed...only to find out that while she loves her new bed, she'd still prefer to sleep in Alex's bed! So now we have Alex and Ari sleeping in Ari's bed and Kira sleeping in Alex's bed. No cribs, though...and we also took down the gates on the stairs today as all three kids now know how to open them and they were posing more of a danger than a safety measure. So it looks like we're moving towards a very grown-up kid house- the only thing left is for Kira to get out of diapers now!!

October is now here and we are looking forward to what is always a busy month- tons of birthday parties (all of our friends seem to have birthdays in October!) and, of course, Halloween celebrations! Costumes were ordered this week...stay tuned for a sneak peek!

Summer

We've been so busy this summer that Mommy hasn't had any time to update our blog! We did so many fun things in July and August...here are a few highlights:

We went to a petting zoo with the Feinstein and Usatine families, where we all rode a camel

We enjoyed the summer concerts/shows- especially the one with the clowns

We went to the zoo with buddy Chase

We took gymnastics classes and before class went to watch the airplanes take off and land

We hosted the neighborhood family dinner attended by all 7 families!

Ari and Alex went to a half day kiddie camp for two weeks

Daddy coached a gold-medal winning Maccabi soccer team and we went to greet him at the airport with the Hausman family

We went to a kids concert in Downtown Silver Spring where we went in the fountains with our friends

We visited Nanny and Poppy's boat and swam in their pool

We went to the county fair where we saw tractors, animals, rode on the rides and had fun with friends Sammy and Izzy

Ari did a half-day ballet camp with Sammy, Izzy, Nadine, Ella and their big sister Colette

We played at PlayWiseVillage with our MCPOM friends

We had friends over for playdates

We also celebrated July 4 at the annual parade at Miri and Opa's street, finished swim lessons (Ari and Alex), saw free kids movies in the big theater (Curious George and Charlotte's Web), went to lots of Mommy and Me events, celebrated many birthdays at fun parties, went to Cabin John park with friends, spent time at our pool and visited different neighborhood pools with our friends, went to the local Splash Park with friends Rian and Shane, hosted a playdate for Ari and Alex's new preschool class (most of the kids are the same from last year, there are a few new additions from the other class and one new friend who wasn't at the school last year), explored new playgrounds, and did many other fun activities. We have some final summer fun planned over the next two weeks before Ari and Alex are back in school- hopefully Mommy will have time to post pictures and stories soon after!!