Eric came home on Friday. My cousin’s husband picked him up and brought him home for us since he had a necklace for my cousin that Eric had picked up in America for him and he wanted to give it to her ASAP. So that was a huge help and I was able to let Keren nap instead of schlepping her with us to the airport.

Friday, when I woke up at the crack of dawn with Keren, I saw that Eric’s flight was going to be delayed which meant he wouldn’t have time to make the BBQed chicken and I was going to have to learn how to! I made an awesome rub and I BBQed the chicken and it was great. Eric said that I am going to take away the only thing that he does! I think I am going to BBQ every Shabbat. It’s so easy and so good and the kids will eat the chicken that way and not complain!!

Our guest came about 2 hours before Shabbat and the kids played together while we finished up around the house. They also have 3 kids. The little one is a little girl who is 1 and she and Keren were so cute crawling around the house together!! They had a great time playing with eachother!!

Friday night we went to Channah’s house and it was hard, as was expected. Ben was complaining he was tired before we even got there but then played nicely once we were there. I walked Keren around in her stroller and she fell alseep and stayed asleep for a little while but then she woke up and she was kvetchy during the rest of the meal.

We got home and put the kids to sleep and they woke up this morning around 7:30-ish. Not too bad. The rest of the day was a little difficult b/c Ben napped for half and was fine but Talia was a disaster the whole day. It was a quiet day, at least, and we stayed in the whole day after shul and played and hung out. Our guests ate out at the Shabbaton that they were here for and came back around 4 ready to just chill. So we all ate seudat shlishit and the kids played and we had our kids in bed at 7 on the dot.

Below I am going to post all those videos that I took of Talia at her last swim class:

Tonight we change the clocks.  I made sure to have everyone in bed a little earlier than usual for that reason and because we are going out to eat tomorrow night!!  I know this is going to be a huge mistake but we and our guests are eating by Channah for dinner tomorrow night.  When I said yes I had no idea we were changing the clocks and Shabbat was going to be starting so much later.  I tried to get out of it tonight and I told Channah that I would bring food over to her house for them to eat and then just take off some food for us but she said if we didn’t come she would just cook her own food and I felt terrible so I said we would go.  The kids are going to be such disasters! 

So today after we got the kids to school Keren and I ran to get some money so I could pay my cleaning man today when he came and then came home and ate breakfast and I did a little cooking and she napped.  In the later morning we went for a walk and then hung out outside the rest of the morning/early afternoon until it was time to let the cleaning man in and eat some lunch.  It was another beautiful day. 

We picked Ben up from school and ate lunch (leftovers for Ben from the restaurant last night) and then went back outside to enjoy the weather.  We played there until my friend or “Israel Bubby” came and then we went inside and I got the kids settled and I went to go watch Talia’s swim show.  Today was her last day of swim and they put on a little recital for us moms.  It was very cute.    She is a great swimmer now.

Here is some of the video that I took of her swim recital.  I have more but I will upload the rest tomorrow morning when the line is a little faster and then put it up on my next post.  The reason there are a bunch of short videos rather than one long video is because YouTube won’t let me put on longer videos.  So I started and stopped a bunch of times.

 

When we came home it was time for Rinat to come and to have a bite to eat, play, take Rinat home, Take the cleaning man to the bus station, take showers and get into bed!

I cleaned up and now I am going to try to go to sleep a little earlier as well!

This is going to have to be a short one b/c I cut my finger today (what else is new?) and it is hard for me to type.

Today was a nice day.  The weather dried up and it got warmer.  One day we need jackets and the next day we don’t.  I dropped the kids off at school and Keren and I went straight to the supermarket.  It’s the only time of day that I like to shop at the supermarket that’s close to the house.  We were home by 8:30 am!! 

We are having guests sleep here this Shabbat for the shabbaton that they are having here for Camp Moshavah.  People here were asked to host people and eat with them on Friday night.  Channah called and asked us to have a friend of Eric’s and his family.   Today she called and invited us to eat with her Friday night.  So we are going to eat there and I am cooking half the food.  Since I already did my shopping by the time she called me I am actually doing a little more than half, actually.  I am glad to help though since we’ve been to Channah’s house countless times.  I know that I am going to regret going there b/c the kids and Eric are going to be exhausted but I didn’t really feel like saying no was that much of an option.

Anyway, I made my challot and one kugel this morning while Keren slept and then we went to get Ben from school and Savta and Saba were waiting for us when we got home.  here is a link to a cute video that I took of Savta playing with Keren:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07GhVp_UwT4

Tonight we went out to eat to the usual restaurant that they take us to when they come.  It was nice and the kids ate really well.

My thumb is throbbing so I am going to end here.

Haven’t had a chance to write since Thursday. 

We had a relaxing Shabbat here.  We had no company and it was kind of a nasty afternoon so we stayed in.  Talia went over to Robin’s house in the afternoon to ask Sammy if he wanted to play.  They are so cute.  We were joking that it would be considered their first date.  Ben hung out with us.  I woke up with a really stiff neck thinking it would go away but it’s taking its time.  I think it’s more of a pinched nerve in my back, which I do get from time to time, rather than a stiff neck.  All I know is that it is Monday and I will be playing tennis or not tonight whether I am in pain or not!!

After Shabbat Talia had a birthday party at 7pm!  I guess it wouldn’t be so crazy if there was no school on Sunday but since she goes to school and has to be up early on Sunday morning I was kind of annoyed about this party.  In the end she went and was home and in bed by 9 and she got up with no trouble the next morning.  So what did they do at the party?  They watched episodes of The Brady Bunch!!  So now Talia has a new favorite television show and Eric is downloading season 1 for her!!  She was impressed that we knew what it was and that we could sing the theme song to the show.

On Friday (just going back now for a second) I took Talia and Ben and Keren to the park and they each took a friend with them (well, not Keren, she just came alone) and Talia’s friend only spoke Hebrew.  I must have said something and Talia said to me that I was mispronouncing the word לא and that there is no W in that word!!  I have to say, it is quite hysterical when she corrects me like this.

So yesterday Eric got the kids to school and I slept in for a change.  It was rainy and cold here (middle of March!?!) and we stayed in the whole morning.  Actually, Eric had a meeting with the lawyers and with our landlord and we officially have a signed lease now!!  He even said we can go buy a faucet and have it put in and he’ll pay for it.  So we will have two working kitchen sinks!!  Of course that means that first we have to buy the thing and Eric want to buy it online.  Then we have to get the contractor to come and install it and we can’t even get him here to fix a leak in our ceiling.  So I am cautiously optimistic that we will have a kitchen sink the works sometime between this Pesach and next Pesach and I can’t really hope for more. 

In the afternoon when it cleared up we all went to the supermarket together.  My  neck was feeling a bit better and I needed to get out.  Family outing to Mega!!  We had a 50 shekel coupon that everyone was mailed last week that expired on Sunday so we had to get there.    When we came home Talia did some homework and then I had asked Eric to see if he could get the movie The Prince of Egypt for Ben and Talia because it is almost Pesach and it is Disney’s take on the story of Pesach.  So I watched the movie with the kids while Keren slept and Eric made his home made pesto sauce… yummmmm….. and then in the middle of the movie Talia went across the street to her friend’s house for another birthday party.

Eric took a course in the evening on starting your own business in Israel.  I think it was given through NBN and he thought it wouldn’t hurt to take it.  There are a few more sessions all on Sunday evenings.  So he left and I fed Ben and Keren and then had to go get Talia from the party because she never came home!!  It was 6:45 and it didn’t look like she was coming home any time soon even though the party was oficially over at 6!!  So I dragged her out of there and told her next time she should call me and tell me what’s going on.  That was a pain.

Anyway, today, Monday, it is nice and sunny outside.  I am happy because that means I’ll be able to play tennis tonight.  I was up this morning with Keren from 5-7.  I don’t know why she didn’t want to go back to sleep but I was afraid she was going to wake everyone up at 5 and since when I went down to get her I saw Ben was sleeping with his big light on, I really thought if he heard her he would just pop up and see his room all illuminated and that would be it for the day.  So I grabbed her and brought her into bed with me and we dozed for a bit.  Then at 7 when she woke up again I brought her down to Eric, who was busy with the kids and I went back to sleep until 10:30!!!!  So my neck is feeling a bit better now but I think that I am coming down with the cold that Eric has and I just want to make it through the day so I can play tennis tonight and then I can get sick.

I am going to start my day now and I’ll blog about today when I get home tonight if I am not too tired!

Shabbat was really nice.  On Friday Ben had pretty bad allergies, it seemed.  He was sneezing and his eyes were tearing and it was the first time that he was really having a reaction like this.  By the evening his left eye was all blown up and all red.  I gave him some Benadryl just before Eric came home from shul and he didn’t even make it to the main course, he was out like a light.  I also had him put a wet washcloth on it to get the swelling down.  Anyway, we went to sleep by 9 and of course I was up at 1 in the morning for a little while.   While I was up I was thinking of his eye and it suddenly dawned on me that they were dismantling the flower arrangement from last week just before Shabbat because Talia saw these sparkly things in the flowers that she didn’t want thrown out.  Ben had his hands full of flowers and pollen and then he must have rubbed his already itchy eyes and then put that stuff right on his eye and that’s why it blew up.  So in the morning I had him wash his hands with soap and water right away just in case some of that pollen was still on his hands.  His eye is all better now.

It was about a million degrees here and we all got dressed in our summer Shabbat clothes.  We went to a friend’s house for lunch and stayed until around 3:30.  Keren was miserable b/c she only took a 30 minute nap in the morning and she wanted to go to sleep but cannot fall asleep if she isn’t in her crib.  So we ran home and put her to sleep and Eric took his nap and Talia went next door to a friend’s house while I took Ben to the park.  Talia and her friend came along to the park a little while later and then Eric and Keren joined us when they woke up.  We all spent the rest of the day at the park and walked home when Shabbat was over.  It reminded me of when we lived in Riverdale and went to the Shabbat park every Shabbat.

Saturday night there was a dance-a-thon thing here and I wanted to go but I was too lazy.  In hindsight I am sorry that I didn’t go but I really just wanted to stay home and watch a movie and make popcorn.  We watched Slumdog Millionaire and it was great!!  I knew nothing about the movie before it started so it was fun to watch it.

Yesterday, Sunday, the kids went to school and Keren slept in BIG TIME!  She didn’t wake up until 9:45.  I was so nervous that she was sick or that something was wrong that I kept checking on her as she slept.  Anyway, when she finally graced her with her presence, I fed her and we threw her in the car and went to visit my cousin Avivit and the new baby.  We brought her her gift, a Hooter Hider, and she use it and loved it!!  This is her second child but the first time that she is nursing and she is very new at it and very nervous about it and this made her feel much more comfortable.  Unfortunately, we have COMPLETELY different taste (to say the least!) and she HATES the pattern I bought for her!!  It was rated the best seller and yet she still hates it.  Oh well!  We knew that was going to happen.  In fact, she told me before I bought it that I should buy what I like the least.  But I like them all.  Oh well.

On our way home from her house Talia called us and asked us where we were.  We were like, Um, where are YOU??  She said that school got out early (of course!) and that she was at a friend’s house and we should pick her up when we got home.  She was supposed to bring home a note with all the info for this week but her friend ripped it up for some reason. So we didn’t know but she had handled it well and wasn’t upset or anything.  So we came home and got her and then went to get Ben, whose face was painted with red paint for Purim, and then we all went out for pizza and to get Eric a haircut.   At some point I got something in my eye and this morning my eye was still bothering me!  I looked at my eye in the mirror and I could see the thing that was in it!!  It was so gross.  I was able to get it out and now my eye feels much better but it’s all red.  Maybe I can dress up as a zombie tonight….

We came home and Talia went to English and we hung out for a bit and then Ben and I went to pick her up with his scooter and then we came home and picked up their bikes and I took them to the BBall courts to ride their bikes while Keren slept.

We stayed there until dinner time and met Eric walking towards us with Keren.  We fed the kids and then I went to a surprise party at Robin’s house, for Robin, and Eric stayed home and put the kids to bed.   I stayed until 8 and then switched places with Eric and came home and put Keren to sleep and cleaned up the kitchen and then Eric came home a little while later.

I have to say, Purim is dragging on and on and on here and I am really looking forward to it being OVER!!  In America it kind of comes all of a sudden and then it’s gone.  Here, I feel like we’ve been celebrating it since Rosh Chodesh Adar!  I am going to make another batch of hamentashen today with the kids while Eric rests (he’s the one fasting today, while I take advantage of the fact that I am still nursing) and then we are going to assemble our Shalach Manot.  I also hoped to get to Ikea at some point but I don’t know when that’s going to happen.

So today the kids got dressed up in their costumes without a hitch.  Luckily we did that dry run last night and it all went very smoothly this morning and they were all excited.   When I went to Talia’s costume parade she came running over to me to tell me that her microphone broke!  She was very upset but I told her that it would be no problem to fix it at all and she shouldn’t be upset.  I kind of think that that’s what pulls the entire outfit together because otherwise she just looks like she’s wearing a big purple hat and some necklaces and a black outfit but she thinks just looks just like a rock star and that’s what’s important.  I would never tell her otherwise.

Here are the pictures that I took this morning and some of the ones we took making the hamentaschen:

I also took video of the parade but it’s kind of hard to see her. They were busy picking up candy that the parents were throwing (myself included).

Of course while I was throwing taffies, other parents were throwing lollipops?!?!  Talk about poking some one’s eye out. 

I followed the parade down the block for a bit and then Keren and I came home and I put her in for her morning nap and folded some laundry and relaxed  I figured that I only had one thing to make for tonight since we are invited out for lunch tomorrow and so I would relax while no one was home and it was nice and quiet and then just make the chicken later and Ben could help me if he wants.

Since both kids got out of school at the same time today, I told Talia to meet me at the corner of her school so she could jump right in the car after I picked up Ben and we could pick Eric up at the airport.  So we picked Eric up right on time just as he was coming out. 

The rest of the day kind of flew by.  We came home and Eric changed and the kids changed out of their costumes and we went for a walk and Ben stayed at Robin’s house, which was one of the houses that we stopped at to pick up my cookies that we made together the other day.  Talia stayed at the playground of her school when we went to pick up the mail and came home after a little while. 

When we got home I nursed Keren and then I put her to sleep and started to cook the chicken I was making for Shabbat. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I discovered that the chicken soup that I made and that I had for dinner last night was made in my dairy pot!!!  ARGH!!!  So I washed it all out and put it on top of the fridge for kashering and made a new soup.  I was especially upset b/c I had bought a turkey leg for that soup and put it in for Keren so she could have the turkey from the soup.  They push it here like crazy, saying it’s high in iron.

Anyway, it is now almost Shabbat and I have to clean up the kitchen and get things in order. 

Shabbat Shalom!

I knew it!!  I said that when Eric’s mom gets here it was going to be rainy and cold and it is!!  My parents came and that was the one week that it was cold and rainy and after that it was unseasonably warm and sunny with no rain almost all of January.  Last week we had one day that we had to put on short sleeves, it was so warm.  My mother-in-law comes yesterday and, to quote a professor I used to have in college, “bam, just like that”, it is cold and rainy!!  Totally stinks.

So today we went to a cafe for breakfast with Keren while Talia and Ben were in school.  Then we came home and put Keren in for a nap and we watched the latest two episodes of Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters.  Keren woke up after that and we went to some stores that I wanted to show Eric’s mom.  One of them being a spice store that sells a ton of baking goods that I knew she would enjoy.  She totally enjoyed! 

We ran an errand to the change store so she could change money and we got some gas and then we came home and gave Keren her lunch and hung out for a bit until Talia came home.  After that I took her over to her English chug while Lois watched Keren again.  Then we waited for Ben to come home at 4.  They all played together while I relaxed and then i totally forgot that my friend was coming over with her two boys while her daughter was at swimming lessons here.  It was nice to see her b/c although she used to come over all the time, she hasn’t been over in a while. 

The left and Talia came home and we fed the kids and put them to sleep.  Keren was soooo tired tonight.  She slept through the night again, this time only waking up once and crying.  Ben was also dry after only taking him to the bathroom around 10.  I am going to try it again tonight and pray that he stays dry.  It’s already close to 10 so I can make it up.  I am hoping that Keren will sleep through tonight without crying at all.  We’ll see.  That would be incredible.  I am just happy that I didn’t have to get out of bed once last night!  Amazing.  Oh, the little things we take for granted.

After all the kids were in bed we ate dinner and then went online and looked at some cake websites.  We are stranded here with no TV because the cable box in America that the slingbox is hooked up to is broken and no one is home there to call Cablevision to fix it!!  Totally stinks.  I want Eric to move it to my parents house since theirs seems to be more relilable.  So cake websites was the next best thing, I guess.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little

I think that I blogged on Friday, for a change, so I only have Shabbat to catch up on. 

Friday night it was just the 5 of us.  It was nice and quiet.  We ate pretty quickly and we had the kids in bed by 7:30 and we were asleep by 9:15!! 

Eric had read before Shabbat on one of the Modiin lists that the first Saturday in February was national eat ice cream for breakfast day.  So he gave the kids ice cream for breakfast.   They were very excited!  He gave them ice cream with sprinkles and whipped cream, the works!

After I got everyone out to shul I attempted to put Keren in to take a nap but she only woke up at 8, after going back to sleep in the morning and she refused to go back to sleep again.  So we got dressed and went to shul and surprised everyone.  They gave each kid a package of dried fruit for Tu B’Shvat, which is this Monday.  After shul we went straight to our hosts’ house.  We had a great time.  They are people I can see being friendly with.  It was one of those meals where the kids were all different ages but they all played really well together in a group. 

After the meal we benched and we hung out there for a while.  The other couple that was there had a girl in 2nd grade that Talia has played with before and after lunch they went back to the girl’s house together.  We didn’t ‘leave until close to 5.  We walked home with the other couple and then he left to go to his chavruta and she came over with her little girl.  Ben and Odelia are in school together.  Let me paint the picture for you, she is half his size, about 8 months younger than him and she has white hair, blue eyes and little round glasses.  She is the cutest thing.  They used to play together a lot at the beginning of gan.  In fact, I think her house is the first play date that he ever went to.  Anyway, they came here and I gave them dinner.

Talia came home crying a little while later.  She fell off the little blue car while zooming down the hills of Chash and she ripped her tights, scraped up her shoes and cut her knee up.  Of course from the way that she carried on the rest of the night it was as though someone were cutting off her leg!   She was ridiculous.  Cleaning it with peroxide was loads of fun!!

Anyway, the kids were in bed by 6:40!!  We had another early night last night as well.  I caught up on American Idols that I’ve been missing lately and then was asleep by 10.

I forgot to write that one night last week when I woke Ben up to pee he started talking to me in his sleep.  He started speaking to me in HEBREW!  It was so funny.  I asked him what he was talking about and then he didn’t answer me.  Yesterday at the Shabbat table one of the people there said that she was in their gan and she heard him speaking Hebrew really really well.  I can’t get over it!!

Keren has started clapping her hands.  She started on Shabbat.  It’s so cute.

Talia came home on Friday with 2 or 3 sentences that she had to memorize for her Siddur play that she is going to be having at the kotel this month.  She had them memorized by last night.  I thought it was going to take a lot longer since it’s all in Hebrew.

This morning we got an early start and after I took the kids to school Eric, Keren and I went out for breakfast.  The place we went to was really cute.  They bake everything on the premises and the kitchen was bigger than the seating area!  I thought of Eric’s mom, she would probably love a place like that and I plan to take her there when she comes next week.

After we came home Eric and I did some cleaning up, folded some laundry and Eric decided it would be a good time to clean the windows!!  He is so funny.  It’s his thing.  Kerenwas assisting by crawling around outside and eating the rocks.  She LOVES to be outside (she IS my mother-in-law!).  Here are some pictures of the two of them:

Oh, the title of this blog is “Eric, the jogger!”  the reason for this is that Eric told me today that he wants to jog.  Let me give some history on Eric jogging.  In the 10 years that we’ve been married Eric has gone jogging maybe twice.  One of those times was with his friend Jeremy when we lived in Riverdale.  Let’s jut say I think they jogged a block and then walked the rest of the way.  It wasn’t very successful (to say the least).  I don’t remember what happened the second time.  So I told him that he should go jogging this morning.  He told me he couldn’t b/c the coffee he just drank during our breakfast would “slosh around too much.”  I suggested that maybe we start walking together once the kids are off to school in the mornings since I won’t have ulpan after tomorrow.  So we are going to try that instead.  I think it’s more likely to happen than this jogging idea of his.  (he is going to kill me for this post)

Check out this video on you tube. It’s too cute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMppUgSQNPU&eurl=http://tripnup.blogspot.com/&feature=player_embedded

We kind of ran out of things to do at home and we decided that it was a nice day outside so we went for that walk!  We walked around the yishuv around one and a half times.  When Keren started getting cranky we took her to the playground and she sat on the swing with me for a while.  Unfortunately we didn’t bring a camera.  She LOVES to sit on my lap on the swings and cracks up for the first couple of minutes usually.

We picked the kids up from school and picked my friend Jere up and we all went to the mall for lunch.  The kids ate Chinese food, I got a schwarma in laffa bread and Eric got chicken in lafa and I think Jere got falafel.  The funny thing is that we all ordered our food from different places.  Then we got the kids slushies for dessert.  It is 7:30 and I am still full right now from that laffa!

Talia had English at 3:15 so we dropped her off at English and hung out at home until 4.  I put Keren to sleep and played with Ben and then I took the kids to Talia’s school to ride their bikes and play in the playground.  Here is video of Ben on his bike without training wheels:

 

We came home and the kids were exhausted!!  We still wanted to go look at a house.  We have officially started house hunting.  We think the guy whose house we are renting now is going to ask a lot for it and we can’t afford to buy it and we don’t think our house is worth the price that we think he’s going to be asking.  There are other houses out there for the same price with basements and our house doesn’t have one.  Anyway, I told the kids that we could bike there and then they could hang out at the bball courts near the house while we looked at it quickly.  In the end, Talia wound up taking a bad spill on her bike and hurting her thumb and Ben was in a horrible mood after a long day and we wound up walking home and taking the car. 

So the house was very nice.  It is probably around the same size as our house but it also has a basement.  The kitchen was really pretty and HUGE.  It is also decorated very nicely and they have a lot of buit-in closets that she said will be staying in the house.  The master bedroom has an actual closet, almost unheard of in this country!  She is also leaving her double American ovens and range.  WOW!  For now the price is a little above what we can pay…

Anyway, we came home and fed the kids and put them to sleep.  Eric just found out that he has his rent-a-cop class tonight – he is going to kill me for calling it that but it is essentially what it is!!!  So he is leaving in half an hour and then I’ll put in the bath and then to sleep.

I think that yesterday was uneventful so I decided to skip the blog and write today instead.  One thing that did happen was the shomer in Ben’s school came up to me after school and said how cute Ben is.  He said that he hangs out with him all the time during playtime in the yard.  I think Ben has a lot of questions that he likes to ask him.  He has a huge rifle so I am sure that has something to do with Ben’s obsession with him.  He talks about him all the time. 

Today Eric and I went to Yerushalayim for the morning.  It was really nice.  We took Keren, of course, who behaved like a little angel.  She slept in the car on the way there and then sat so nicely in her stroller the whole time we were walking around.  She even fell asleep on the way back to the car and then transferred to her car seat.  The only time she got upset was when we were 5 minutes from home.  What a pleasure.  It was really nice walking around with Eric and Keren and not having Talia and Ben.  No one was kvetching that they were bored or they didn’t want to walk anymore.  I think we are going to go every Wednesday from now on.  We parked in the lot of a new outdoor mall that they have there.  It was a beautiful mall with a lot of fancy and overpriced stores.  We walked to the Old City and went to Hodaya, the jewelry store that Eric bought me a necklace from that has the kids’ names engraved in it and a pasuk with my name on it.  We had him add Keren’s name to it.  Then we walked to Ben Yehudah Street and got some coffee and a pastry.  Then we went to this place that does paper cut outs and ordered a sign for my cousin Avi and Miriam’s door to their home.  They just moved into a new apartment so I thought it would be a nice gift.  We did a little more walking around and then we came home.

Robin’s daughter had an interview at some school in Yerushalayim so she asked me to take Eitan home with Ben.  Eric went to get them and when they came home Eitan said his ear hurt him.  He was really sad and just wanted to go home.  I called Robin and she said she would make an appointment with the doctor and that I should just give him some medicine in the mean time.  Until the medicine kicked in he was pretty miserable.  I felt so bad for him.  They wound up just watching Finding Nemo for a while and then we made some popcorn when Eitan got sad again and hung out.  Talia came home with a friend whose mom had to go to the doctor with one of her kids and since the doctor is across the street, she figured it would be easier to pick her up from here afterwards, rather than her daughter walk home and have to wait there in case she was a few minutes late.  So there were a bunch of kids in my house and it was a pretty crazy afternoon!

Talia had a ton of homework last night and we didn’t finish it and then her teacher just gave her more homework tonight.  She basically did homework from the time her friend left, through dinner and then after her shower and we didn’t finish until close to 8.  It was practically 2.5 hours of homework!  It was crazy.  Her reading is really coming along and I get the feeling that she is understanding most of what she reads.  So it is paying off.  Tomorrow she has a crazy day with swim right after school and then instead of Rinat coming to help with Hebrew, she has a birthday party.  So she’ll have very little time to do homework tomorrow but she usually only has about 5 minutes of math on Thursdays and it’s easy for her.

So that’s what’s going on here.  The weather has been stunning.  I think Eric said that tomorrow is going to be as warm or warmer than today and then on Friday the temp. is finallygoing to fall a bit again.  So it might be a chilly Shabbat.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, it’s been like spring here.  Have yet to put on a winter coat which is good since I am not sure where mine is!

This morning was verrrry relaxing.  Keren and I went to the supermarket and, although it was a zoo there, we only needed 5 things and we were in and out in under 15 minutes.  Then we went to Ace Hardware and bought a pretty dish to put the cookies in that I’ll be bringing to my neighbors’ house for Shabbat.

When we came home I fed Keren her breakfast and dumped her into bed where she slept for 2 hours!!  I had to wake her up so we could go to the airport to pick Eric up.

Everyone is home now and I would really like to take Ben bike riding b/c he is ready to ride on a two-wheeler, but he is afraid and won’t try.  I can see from the way that he is riding that he is practically riding on two wheels anyway.  I will have to talk him into it.  For now the kids are playing nicely.  I am pretty much ready for Shabbat.  Just a few small things to do.

Eric brought me whipped cream, 3 of them from Costco!!!  He also brought me more hot chocolate.  He came home with a HUGE roll of aluminum foil, the big one from Costco.  I don’t know what he was thinking.  I have nowhere in my kitchen to put it.  As it is I have no room for my things in there.  So I am making him  bring it back and get me some normal sized aluminum foil.  He also brought me a beautiful jacket/poncho thing that my parents sent for me.  It is beautiful and solves my problem of what to wear on Shabbat if it is a chilly here.  Yay.

Oh, here comes Keren, ready to type on my keyboard.  I better end it here if I don’t want her deleting this entire post.