Let the Fun Begin

Yesterday afternoon, after dropping Danya off at gymnastics, I went to Modiin to do a small grocery shop and stop at the pharmacy to get Jordy his asthma medicine. It was a little rainy when I left but on the ride back it was absolutely pouring. I didn't want to get out of the car to pick up Danya(I did anyway because I am a good mom). Then Danya and I went to Shilat to buy purim costumes. After our last attempt Danya changed her mind and decided she wanted to be Dora the Explorer and she convinced Jordy to be Boots the Monkey(Dora's side kick). We went to a store that a few people recommended and we found the Dora costume right away. The boots was a little harder, since they don't make one. We did find a monkey costume and we realized that Boots is just a monkey who wears red boots. Since we had a pair of red rain boots at home we got the monkey costume and headed home. Danya played for a little bit and then changed into her costume. We went to get Jordy and change him and then headed to a Purim party(purim is celebrated all week long here) at the youth center. The kids had a great time and got balloons and candy, so they were happy! We came home, had baths, dinner and bed for the kids. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the kids in costume yet, but there will be plenty more opportunities!

A New Friend

On Friday night we went to Chavi and Yisrael Feldmans for dinner. I had met Chavi a few times but Josh had no clue who they were and I had never met him. We ended up having a great time with them and better yet, Danya made a great friend with their daughter Eden. Eden ended up sleeping over at our house after dinner. The plan was that in the morning Eden would go home since her family was going to the Kaplanskys for lunch. At 7:45am Danya knocked on my door all dressed. She told me that Eden was going to go home to pick up some potato chips for the Shabbat party picnic they were having outside. We convinced them that they could have a Shabbat party picnic without waking Edens parents at 7:45. At around 9am the 3 kids reported that they were going to Eden's house to daven(apparently our house can't be davened in). At about 11 the 3 kids returned(Jordy had gone with them) and asked if Eden could stay for lunch. All Shabbat day Danya and Eden played together(Daniella Kaplansky joined in the fun too). Toward the end of Shabbat we walked over to the Kaplanskys for a while. On the way home Danya started to get crabby and she continued that way for the rest of the night. My guess is it had something to do with going to sleep late and waking up early. Today after gan Jordy returned with some face paint on(it is very faint, but you can see above his eyebrows in the picture). The kids sat down and played at the kitchen table for a long time after they got home. At 5 I took Danya out in the pouring rain to Karate. Then I went to the makolet and picked her up. The kids ate dinner and went to bed. Jordy woke up a little later crying that his ear hurt him, so we will see what that develops into.

Pictures

Here are 2 videos of Danya at her Misabah the other day and here is a picture of her with her 2 morah's, Chavivah and Oshrit.

Gan Misibah

Yesterday after Gan Rachael Neuman came over for a playdate with Danya and the 2 girls were so excited for their misabah at gan later. It was called for 5:15pm and everyone was supposed to bring a pan of food, something in particular that you child likes. I had a giant bag of fish sticks in my freezer so I made those(I know, i took the easy route there). We went to the party and of course 5:15 came and went and nothing happened. I think it was close to 5:45 when the program began. It was a cute sing along about family....problem was it went WAY to long. It wasn't until 7pm that the program ended and the kids could eat. Danya was starving and filled a plate of food in about 2 seconds and then in the next 5 seconds shoved in 2 fish sticks and a whole bunch of cut up fruit. Then she got another plate of food and sat down to eat. I will put up pictures and video from the party tomorrow as I am too lazy to get the camera that is downstairs. Today was uneventful for the most part. Danya was out all afternoon and Jordy had his Israeli friend Amiti over for a playdate. The 2 of them play so nicely together and it is so entertaining to see them communicate(ok, Amiti's parents are American but they speak mostly hebrew in the home so he does understand English but doesn't really speak it). After Amiti had to leave Jordy had his daily meltdown. He calmed down and then Josh gave the kids a bath and then they had dinner. After they ate Josh and I decided to get a pizza since the bakery here just started selling pizzas. It was pretty good and it is nice having that a little more locally. Now it is 1am and I am heading to bed(my guess is we will oversleep again tomorrow :)

Play Ball

Before I give you our daily news I would like to share some exciting news...Danny informed us this morning that he made the Israel Baseball League and will be a player/coach(not sure what that part mean...Danny, some clarification would be good)! So Danny is going to be a professional baseball player!!! We think that was really cool and it will be great having him here. We are now just hoping he is on the Modiin Miracles so he will be nearby, but regardless of what team he is on I am sure we will be attending quite a few baseball games this summer and I am sure Danya and Jordy's popularity will go up as they will have an Uncle who is a professional baseball player! I will post more about this as we get more information but Danny said I can share, so I am! Mazel Tov Danny!
Now back to our regularly scheduled program...This morning we slept late again(Libbie pointed out to me that almost every morning starts with this statement so I think from now on I should refer to late as our usual and if we get up on time I should refer to it as early...what do you think Lib?). This time we had an excuse...Danya went to bed late and Jordy woke up in the middle of the night 4-5 times due to a bad stomach, so he and I were out cold and Josh wasn't feeling well. So at 9am Danya waltzed into our room asking to use our bathroom since Jordy was in theirs and I jumped out of bed when I realized it was so late(OK, I didn't jump, it was more like dragging myself out). In record time I got the kids dressed, fed them breakfast, made Jordys lunch and got them to school(it was just before 9:30 when I dropped them off). Then I went back home and back to sleep. I figured I hadn't had a decent night sleep in a few nights due to Jordys constant waking up and Josh was sleeping since he didn't feel good, so I did too. I woke up just after noon(I know, everyone is jealous) and then picked up Danya, dropped her at gymnastics and headed to Modiin to Holy Bagel to pick up some Bagels. I am not sure if I am saying this because they have really good bagels or just because it has been so long since I have had a bagel, but their bagels are SO GOOD! I came back and picked up Danya and we came home and ate bagels. I did some cleaning around the house and then took her to English. Around 6pm Mike and Atara Serlin came over and once the babysitter arrived at 6:15 we headed out to Alberto's steak house in Modiin for dinner. We had a great time with them and it was nice getting to know Atara better. We really enjoy when people come to visit! After we got back I called to wish Lanie a happy birthday and I got to talk to Maayan on the phone. It is so much fun talking to her because she laughs and yells back....too cute! Every time Lanie tried to take the phone from her she flipped out so I actually didn't talk to Lanie that much and I think that Lanie may think twice before handing Maayan the phone, but it was fun anyhow! Now I am going to bed!

Shabbat Shalom!

Yesterday Jordy stayed home from gan since he was still sick. Thankfully he was still excited about playing pool balls and that keep him slightly occupied. I went to pick Danya up from gan but she ended up going to Tamars to play. The rest of the day was usual. Danya couldn't fall asleep last night as she was coughing constantly. She ended up going to bed around 11:30. She stayed home from gan today since she slept very late and Jordys stomach was still not great so he also stayed home. I spent most of the day cooking and cleaning while Josh did a lot of cleaning and he did the bakery run. I also sent him to take a picture of my parents house since I noticed yesterday that they were putting the roof up. Now we are getting ready for Shabbat. We are home for dinner but will be going to neighbors for lunch.

8 Ball Corner Pocket

Today, after going to Gan to pick up the kids it was determined that Danya would go to Daniella's until art. Jordy decided to invite his little girlfriend Ariella over for a playdate. She was able to come(which was the first time she could) and I walked the two of them home. They walked together holding hands the whole time, it was so cute! They happily played and ate. Jordy was such a gentleman offering to put ketchup on her noodles and then offering to mix them for her. After Danya came home from art and Ariella went home, I was on the phone helping Lisa with something when Josh came to tell me that the guys had arrived with the pool table. The deal was they were going to come to attempt to bring it to our attic even though some of them thought it wouldn't work. I guess it was worth it for them to try rather than lose the sale. So even though they were supposed to call to let us know when they were coming, they showed up without notice. Josh quickly cleared the area and went to monitor their plans. There were 4 large Israelis. They unwrapped the table and it looked like they were going to tr carrying it upstairs. Apparently they changed their minds because next thing I know Josh and one of the guys were out on the marpecet holding the table that the other 3 guys were lifting outside. Then slowly one guy at a time came from downstairs to the marpecet to pull the table up. Unfortunately nobody told me of this plan or I would have video tapped the whole thing from outside but I did get one shot of them pulling the table up and over the marpecet. Believe it or not this worked and nobody was killed in the process! They got the table in and up and we now have a pool table! I think Danya and Jordy are more excited than Josh and we had to explain to them that unlike the table at Bubs and Pops house, they can't sit on this one to play. They still were happily rolling the pool balls into the pockets. Then the kids had baths and dinner and went to bed. After I came home from aerobics I heard Jordy crying. He told us he had a dream that Bob the Builders arm was broken on his Bob the Builder nightlight. We reassured him that it was not broken but he was going nuts. He was burning up and I took his temperature. He of course had fever and I think he was delirious because he kept telling these ridiculous stories. He agreed to take his medicine but he also didn't sit up so it all spilled all over him. He wasn't happy about that. We finally calmed him down and got him back to bed but I fear that we will be hearing from him yet again before the night is over!

The Weekend Roundup

Friday morning we woke up pretty early in order to get to the bus at 7:20. We were going to the Hermon and then to Malaot for Shabbat. In order to have a few hours at the Hermon we needed to leave early. We joined 12 other families from the Yishuv and headed out. The kids were pretty well behaved on the bus ride considering how long it was. We were about 15 minutes away from the Hermon(you can see it in the picture) at 11:30 but then the hard part came...Apparently there had been so much snow there in the past few days that it had been closed for a few days and the entire country was trying to get there on the single lane road. We sat in traffic for about another hour before it was determined that we weren't going to make it with enough time to get back for Shabbat, so we had to turn around. While this was disappointing to us, especially since the point of our going on this trip was to go to the Hermon, this was horrible to tell the kids. They were so sad and disappointed. We did stop on the side of the road where there was a tiny patch of snow and we proceeded to have a snow ball fight with that snow. It was pretty lame but the kids seemed to like it. Then we headed out and our guide scrambled to find something for us to do. We ended up seeing a movie about a battle in one of the wars(see how I remember details?). Then we ate lunch while Danya had a MASSIVE tantrum. We got back on the bus(yes...basically we spent an entire day on the bus) and headed to Malaot. We arrived at 4 and Shabbat was at 10 to 5 so we all went to our rooms and got ready for Shabbat. The rooms we definitely not a 5 star hotel but for some reason Danya and Jordy were very impressed with them. We went to davening and dinner. After dinner they had an activity for the kids and the adults were invited to a separate activity. This activity reminded me of Bnei Akiva/Camp as it was a series of ice breakers. I kept waiting for the real discussion or whatever but that was it, just a series of ice breakers....it was funny. We picked up the kids from their activity and headed to bed. Shabbat day was fine, after lunch we went on a very long walk through Malaot including a stop at a zoo/park. The kids had a great time there and enjoyed walking with the tour guides daughter and her fiancee who were in charge of the kids "program". The kids played the rest of the afternoon and then we went to mincha/seudat shlishit where Josh gave a dvar torah in Hebrew(go ulpan!). After Shabbat we packed up and headed out. Jordy feel asleep about 20 minutes into the ride and slept the remainder of the ride. We stopped at a rest stop and after Danya went to the washroom I brought her back to the bus where Josh was and went back out. Apparently Josh got off the bus for as Danya calls it "no reason" and was standing right outside when Danya started crying hysterically because she thought we left her. She didn't really calm down the rest of the ride but we were all happy to be back when we finally pulled into the Yishuv at 10pm. Yesterday and today were pretty typical days - Gan, Chuggim, Daycare, playdates....etc etc. Hopefully I am back on track and will report in tomorrow!

An Artist

This morning I ditched Ulpan again(I bet you didn't notice but I haven't been to Ulpan in a few weeks) and hung out at home. Danya came home from gan and did her English homework. Then we played memory while watching Oprah. Danya kept getting distracted by Oprah because it was the episode where Dr. Oz is there and he shows you all the body parts. Danya was very interested in the skeletal system and she especially liked where he showed the stomach lining of a healthy person vs. he stomach lining of a non-healthy person. I asked her if she liked watching this and she gave a very enthusiastic "YES" and then I asked her if she wanted to be a doctor when she grows up(she also had pointed out to me the picture in the doctors office last week that shows a persons insides, you know the one with the layers, bone, muscle, veins, skin etc.) and she said "No Mommy, I am going to be an artist". So there you have it. I picked up Jordy while English took place at our house. We then went to the makolet to pick up some snacks for tomorrow(more on that in a minute) and then we headed home. Josh was happy to see I bought him a can of Mountain Dew, we haven't seen it in a while and Holy Bagel had it on it's menu but they didn't have any in stock, so he was a little disappointed yesterday, so I figured I would splurge and spend the 6 shekel and he enjoyed it. The kids had baths and dinner and then went to bed and I folded laundry and packed since we are going up north for Shabbat. We are leaving very early so we can spend a few hours at the Hermon playing in the snow and then Shabbat in the Golan. We are going with a group of 13 families from the Yishuv, so it should be fun. More on Sunday!

HOLY BAGEL!!!

This morning, after rushing the kids off to school, Josh and I went to Modiin. We went out to brunch at Holy Bagel, a new bagel place that recently opened in Modiin. Then we changed money and deposited it and then headed to the grocery store. We were just going in to grab a few things and didn't take a cart...bad move. We were close to overflowing our arms when we hit the last aisle, the cereal one. Cereal was on sale and we needed to buy a bunch. We made it through the grocery store and headed home. I picked the kids up and did the usual afternoon of taking kids back and fourth. We had English at our house today since all the kids were sick on Monday. Then Jordy had a meltdown. Once he calmed down everyone was happy. Over dinner we all told about our days and Jordy was telling us he was the chazzan in gan today. Then he went on to sing the songs and brachot he said during tefillah. It was really cute! Then the kids headed to bed and I went to aerobics. Then, instead of going to bed Josh and I watched City Slickers since it was on TV....and now I am going to bed!

Table Pads

This morning I took Danya to the doctor. The doctor said IF she has an infection it is probably minor, but she thinks she just has a virus. We will know in a couple days. It was a gross, rainy day so we hung out at home not doing too much. This afternoon Ivonne Geldman came to deliver our table pads which was very exciting(can you tell we had a dull day?). Then the guys from the sporting good store came to see if they think they can get a pool table into our house. We had purchased one and they were supposed to deliver it but after talking and measuring they didn't think they could get it in the house(and to our attic). The end result was that they are going to discuss it amongst themselves and let us know. Everyone ate dinner and went to bed.

The Weekend Roundup

Friday was pretty typical. Kids went to school. I cooked. Got ready for Shabbat. On Friday night we went to the Aboudie's for dinner and on the way to their house Danya started singing a song she picked up at the JCC(hopefully not from the teachers) that goes "Booty, Booty, Booty" while shaking her butt. I then had to warn her if she sang it at their house they wouldn't give her any dinner. We had a really nice time at dinner and the kids had fun playing. On Shabbat morning Danya woke up not feeling good. She had a fever and went back to sleep. We all kind of lazied around waiting for Josh to return from shul. After we ate lunch Danya and I took naps on the couch while Josh took Jordy to the Siltons to play. It started pouring after he left and he didn't return until a half hour after Shabbat as he was waiting for the rain to let up. Sunday Jordy went to Gan and Danya stayed home. The fever was gone but her stomach was not doing well. She played and watched movies most the day. Jordy came home and he and Danya played together. Sunday night Josh went to sleep around 10:30 and set his alarm to go off at 1:30am when he left to go to the Kaplanskys to watch the Super Bowl. Apparently he would have been better off sleeping since the Bears did not win :(
This morning Danya's tummy was still in a state of distress so she stayed home one more day and did more of the same. It was a lazy day again and for the most part the kids behaved. I am going to take Danya to the doctor tomorrow as many kids in her class are out sick and I just got a phone call from the teacher that the kid whose birthday party Danya went to on Thursday has dysentery...gross! When I was here for the year a friend of mine had dysentery(I wont name him but I am sure he isn't reading this now) and he was so sick. Plus we continued to call him dysentery from then on. But I digress...hopefully she just has a fluke virus but better safe than sorry!

Feeling Sparkly

This morning I was woken to Jordy crying at 3am. I went to his room and asked him what was wrong. He was crying and saying that his arm hurt him. I asked what was wrong with his arm and he said "My arm is sparkly". I think he was trying to say his arm fell asleep, but I thought that sparkly was such a good adjective to describe the feeling when you hand falls asleep! He fell back to sleep and so did I. We all got up at 7:30ish and impressively we all got out of the house at 8. At 9:30 Nocky and Ruanne came over and we all went out to breakfast in Kfar Ruth. After breakfast my Dad brought us to his construction site and we all took a tour of the house. It is ridiciously huge, but very nice. You can really get a feel for what the rooms are since they are laid out. After that I went to get Danya from gan. My Dad said his goodbyes and then Danya and I headed to buy a birthday present for a kid in her gan and then we went to the grocery store. After the store I did a little cooking and then Danya's English chug took place at our house. While it was happening I went to get Jordy from tzaharon. Then Danya went to the birthday party and Jordy had a meltdown. You could tell he was so tired but he just lost it. Once Danya came home and Jordy calmed down they had dinner and thankfully went to bed!