Yesterday Ben had two friends over.  It’s the same rotating playgroup that he’s had since swim has been over but last time one of the kids was sick when it was my turn to host.  Last time was easy.  This time, it was the 3 of them and I was exhausted by the time they left.  They also ate me out of house and home.  All the fruit that I had bought for Shabbat was gone!

Anyway, in the evening we had a simchat bat for Ayelet Shitrit’s daughter.  I thought it was next Thursday so it was really good that she called me to remind me!!!  We would have shown up next week instead.  I quickly called Jere and she came over and we went.  After we got home, at 9, and I was zonked, friends who were there also came over and they stayed until about 11!!  Well, that pretty much killed me.  I was soo tired by the time they left that at one point I told them that I was just going to sleep.  Unfortunately, I didn’t in the end.

This morning I had my usual wake-up call at 5:30am (better than 5?  not sure) by Keren.  I ran down to get her just as she woke Ben up.  I sent him back to bed and I brought Keren up with me and she went back to sleep with me until 7-ish.

We had a pretty regular Friday over here.  In the afternoon, at 2, my grandparents came over and we went to the pool here with them.  Keren was in the pool with her arm bands and with a tube around her.  She then decided that she would take all floatation devices off and jump right into the pool.  I was right there so I just scooped her out just as she was about to go under.  It wasn’t scary since I saw it happening.  I just couldn’t believe she did that.  She has no fear when it comes to the pool.  I would like to give her swimming lessons ASAP.

Now it is a few minutes until Shabbat and I have to do the last minute things.

Shabbat Shalom!

Eric is home now, and not a day too soon b/c on Monday evening the kids and I were home and heard water running and ran into the kitchen and, sure enough, another hose under the sink burst and there was hot water pouring out!  Because we are so experianced with this, I knew where the main water shut off valve was and I ran and turned it off before too much damage was done.  It was a pain to clean up but at least we were awake this time and didn’t have 2 inches of water in the house!!  Because Eric was coming home the next morning I just left the hot water off downstairs and took the kids out to dinner.   I figured he would fix it when he came home and he did!

Today in the morning I had a doctor’s appointment in Yerushalayim.  All is well, thank G-d.  Then we went to finish paying for the land in Even Shmuel.  That is finally finished.  Yay.

When we came home I was zonked and I decided to take a nap with Keren in my bed.  Eric went out to return a hose he bought for the sink and to pay them for the hose he bought yesterday (they gave it to him and told him to just pay the next day when his card didn’t work!).  Unfortunately, Keren didn’t nap but I did!  When I woke up Eric told me that she broke the keys off his laptop which was on his night table next to the bed.  She permanently broke his period key and now he has to buy another laptop keyboard!!!  She is such a devil.  The day before when she napped in my bed, before she came down after she woke up I heard a lot of noise, a lot of banging. I thought it was the neighbors, who were putting something up outside.  After she came down I went up to turn off the air conditioning and I saw that a bunch of shoes of mine were out.  She opened my closet and took out my shoes and was clopping around in them upstairs before she decided to come down.  Funny kid!

Anyway, in the afternoon my grandmother came over and we all went to the beach together.  It was a lot of fun.  The weather was perfect for the beach (hot!) and the kids had a blast.  My grandmother was, of course, able to get Keren into the water, something that Eric and I have been unsuccessful doing.  In about 3 minutes she had her in the water and LOVING IT!!  She did the same thing with Ben when he was 2 and we came to Israel for the summer.  She got him right in the water when he was afraid.

We came home and the kids had a ton of sand in their hair after dumping water from the beach on their heads.  Keren was especially bad after Talia dumped water and sand on her head for some reason.  It took me a long time to clean her head out in the bath and I’m still not sure it’s all out.  At least she has thin hair and it will all fall out itself while she sleeps, probably.

Oh, the best news is that Eric brought home my Mother’s Day present when he came back this time and it is a Sony Reader!!  It’s like the Kindle but you can take books out from the library on it!!  I started reading a book on it last night and it was great. I love it!!

That’s the news from here.  The countdown to America has officially begun.  We are leaving in 12 days!!!

Another week gone by and I haven’t posted much.  Don’t know if I’ve blogged about it but Keren has been waking up at 5:00 am every morning and the kids have been taking her out and taking her downstairs to watch tv.  I didn’t realize just how early she was waking up until I heard them either Thursday or Friday morning.  I came down and asked them what time they had been up from and they didn’t know.  I asked them if it was still dark out and they said yes!!  So we have a new rule now that the kids have to come get me if they hear her first and I’ll take her into my bed with me and they have to go back to sleep.  I kind of told them that if it’s still dark it’s still the middle of the night and they must go back to sleep!!  On top of that she’s been napping for a whole wopping 40 minutes a day. I don’t know why she hasn’t been a complete disaster.  She should be but she’s still delicious!

So let me go on to Shabbat b/c I have no idea what we did last week.  Who can remember that far back.  I know Eric left and then it was just us but I can’t remember what happened.  I guess nothing of interest.  Usual day-to-day stuff.

Friday morning, after a sleepless morning, I was dead and Keren was pretty tired too.  We fell asleep on the couch together watching The Wiggles.  I woke up and quickly fed her and put her into her crib and watched the season finale of American Idol. 

The kids came home and they were in great moods b/c we were going to my grandparents’ house for Shabbat.  I was a nervous wreck thinking that Keren was going to be up at 5 and who knew if she was going to sleep at all, etc.  So the kids were really happy to be going and just in great moods. We packed up and they took baths and we left a little before 4.  Usually, Friday is a really long day if we don’t go to the pool or anything but the kids were so happy to be going that they were happy to just hang out and get ready.  Keren, from 8 am on told me “I’m Ready!”  I asked her what she was ready for and she told me “to go to Savta’s house!”  I had to hold her off all day long.  So cute.

Anyway, we got there and the kids watched tv and then ate dinner and then watched more tv.  We lit candles and they walked my grandfather downstairs to shul with my grandmother and then I put them all to sleep.  It took some time to settle Talia and Ben in.  There was some fighting and just the usual coming out of bed to get a book stuff, etc.  My grandmother pushed 2 beds together and put huge pillows that she has for her couch between the 2 beds to kind of make it like a little crib kind of effect. Keren loved it and she got into bed and went to sleep without coming out once!!  I was in shock.  Now, more than ever, I really think that she is ready to go into a bed.  She won’t do it at home.  I think we might just do it this summer when we are away.  We’ll see.

Oh, this is a good one, as I was getting into bed and about to close the door a huge juke ran behind the bed!!  My grandmother came in to tell me something and I told her so she ran and got the spray and it came out of it’s hiding place but then ran into a closet and then just when I thought I would forget about it, my grandmother came in and told me that she had one in her room running to her closet and she killed it.  She was convinced it was the same one. I was not so sure.  I didn’t see it again, though.

The rest of Shabbat was great.  In the morning the kids ran up and down to and from the little shul that’s across the street from my grandparents’ house.  Keren stayed with me until I let Talia take her down just before shul was over.  We played a bit and then ate lunch and then Keren and I took a nap while Ben and Talia played at my Aunt Suzie’s house.

In the evening we gave them dinner and then met my cousins at the park.  We didn’t come home until Shabbat was close to over.  The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home after about 10 minutes.  They were so exhausted. 

This morning Keren was up at 4:55 but I grabbed her before anyone else could be woken up.   I brought her into my bed and, as I expected, she went right back to sleep.  Of course it wasn’t the most comfortable 2 hours for me b/c she insists on sleeping on me or at least touching me in some way.  Then, of course, she winds up sideways and I am smushed into the crack of the bed.  It is no use going into Eric’s bed b/c she would follow me.  It happens to be delicious but at the same time I just want to sleep without my arm or leg going numb.

I wasn’t feeling so great today.  I little dizzy and kind of sluggish.  In the morning Keren and I hung out at home for a while and then I took her to the park in the hopes of meeting up with her little friends that we’ve been seeing there lately.  It turned out that they weren’t there but there was another playgroup there with 4 other kids.  So she was happy enough to join in while I schmoozed with the mom of one of the kids.

Keren surprised me and took a 1.5 hour nap today!!!  I have a theory.  I think it’s because she slept better in the morning that she slept better in the afternoon.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

When the kids came home from school today I let them relax and watch some tv while I finished the 1000 piece puzzle that Lois bought us for Chanukah.  We went to the park a little later on after it cooled off a bit.  I took them to a smaller park where I wouldn’t have to run around.  It was great!!  They had friends there to play with (by chance) and everyone was happy!!

At 5:30 we came home and ate  a quick dinner and then I took the kids over to the doctor to look at a funny thing that Ben has had under his eye for quite some time now.  We thought it was a sty but it’s not going away.  So next we go to an eye doctor to look at it since the doctor didn’t know what it was.

When we came home the kids had a second dinner since their first one was kind of rushed and then they took showers and went to sleep.

SO, it isn’t quite the holiday weekend that Eric is having in Florida but we are having some fun here too!

Let me backtrack to Shabbat (it’s already Tuesday morning).  We had a nice Shabbat.  It was hard having the 2 boys here for lunch b/c no one really wanted to speak Hebrew at the table and I felt bad.  So the conversation wasn’t great.  I don’t know what the kids’ problems were, why they didn’t want to speak Hebrew!  It annoyed me.  Their Hebrew is ten times better than ours and we were making the effort.  Anyway, what was cute was when Talia came home from shul and she sat down with them to play a card game.  That was nice.

Anyway, Shabbat was the usual.  I fell asleep on the couch for 2 hours.  I was in a really deep sleep too!  Of course I couldn’t sleep well Sat. night after that nap!  We took Keren to the park around 5.  Talia had her junior Benei Akiva meeting and Ben went off to find friends.  At 7 I went to find Ben.  I had a good idea of where he was but I had to go and drag him home.  He was having an amazing time playing with friends of his who he doesn’t usually play with.  He told me that he went to the parent-child learning at 5 with 2 of the kids’ fathers!!  He had a really nice day!

Sunday, when the kids came home from school, we decided to take them out to eat in Jerusalem.   I’ve been craving sushi tempura and we were happy b/c we had just learned that Eric thought he was supposed to leave Sunday night but it was a mistake and he was leaving Monday night instead.  So we thought we would make the most of it.  Dinner was OK.  I ordered the wrong roll of sushi so by the time mine came everyone else was already finished with theirs.  Keren didn’t want sushi at all (it turns out she doesn’t like sushi!!?!?) so Eric took her out for french fries while I ate and Talia and Ben watched me/played under the table on the filthy floor since they were already finished.  Keren considers french fries a meal when she goes out to eat.  Eric said he took her into 3 different places and she kept screaming “french fries!” 

Sunday night I got an interesting call from one of the parents in Talia’s class.  Talia had apparently treated this girl to candy from Cabessa, the store across the street from school.  She was seen buying 20 Shekels woth of candy before school started and then ran in late to school!!  Where did she get the money?  We still don’t know.  She claims that it was left over from last year when I used to give her an allowance.  We sat her down and questioned her about it when she came home from school yesterday and she lied the entire time!!  We asked her if she went before school, she said no, after.  We asked her if she bought some candy for her friends, she said no.  We asked her if she spent 20 Shekels, she said no, 1 Shekel.  She finally broke and admitted a little bit piece by piece until we got it all out of her.  At one point she stopped crying for a second and said, “how do you guys know all this??”  It was hysterical.  She was totally freaked out.  So we basically told her she can’t lie to us and she’ll have to earn our trust back.  She was very shaken by the whole thing and I really hope that she stops all the lying now!

Yesterday Eric took the car early in the morning to finish taking care of paying the government for the land and signing the contract, etc.  He was gone all morning.  Keren and I walked to get my toes and eyebrows done.  It took us about 30 minutes to walk into Ganei with Keren.  She had a nice time.  She put her toes into the water too and I put cream on her feet and massaged them and I polished her toe nails too.  She also played with the toys that belong to the woman’s daughter who is Keren’s age.  We had a really nice time.  It took us forever to walk home.  Keren kept stopping along the way to pick something up or play with dirt or something.  We didn’t get home until 11.

We found out yesterday and we could finish up all the paperwork in Jerusalem if we went in the afternoon and signed the contract.  So we had to schlep the kids back in!  We took Keren and Ben but left Talia at a friend’s house.  We bribed Keren and Ben with lollipops and chips.  They didn’t even mind.  It all went very smoothly and we signed what we needed to and we are pretty much almost done.  I did say almost.

Eric left last night on the last trip for the year.  It’s going to be a long one b/c his Uncle Robbie is getting married and he’ll be in Florida for Shabbat and Sunday but it is the last one!!

Really quickly, because it is almost Shabbat, we had a nice day today.  The kids went to school and I colored with Ben a little bit and played games with him in school before leaving him.  I was soooo nervous about this Parsha thing that he had to do!  I must have made him nuts about it.  In the end, when I picked him up, his teacher said he was amazing!!  She said he did an awesome job!!  So exciting!  I was so proud of him.  She also liked the props that we made. YAY BEN!  First project and he did a great job.

Eric was gone the whole morning.  After a long night volunteering for Mishmar Ezrachi and doing multiple drug busts (!!) he came home at 4 AM and then woke up early to take care of mortgage/paying for our land stuff.  He left around 9 and didn’t come home until 1 and he wasn’t finished with everything he had to do. Luckily for us, he is able to do some of the things on Sunday, and we were able to find time to go to the pool.

So the afternoon was spent at the pool from about 2:30-5.  We had a nice time there and the kids, once again, had pleanty of friends to play with so they were happy.

We came home and got ready for Shabbat and the kids are currently watching a movie with this kid and his madrich that came to spend Shabbat here for a Shabbaton.  We are hosting them and they are eating with us tomorrow for lunch.  The boy is 11 years old and in a wheelchair and the madrich seems like a nice guy.  They only speak Hebrew so tomorrow should be an interesting day!

Fifteen minutes left until Shabbat so I’ll end this now.

The kids have been off now for 3 days, counting today.  They were off the day before the Chag and now they are off the day after as well for Isru Chag.  The nice thing, though, is that they are very busy! 

Tuesday was spent mostly cooking and watching movies.  Eric and I did the cooking while the kids watched the movies.  Too bad it couldn’t have been the other way around.  At one point I actually sent Ben to Eitan (by himself) to play for an hour b/c he had had enough home time and needed to see other people, I felt.  We also spent much of the day trying to locate Ben’s Crocs!  It was the strangest thing.  He came home from English on Monday and had them on his feet.  After English he ran inside while I was chatting outside with Robin and when he came back outside he was barefoot.  About 40 minutes later we went to the mall and he couldn’t find his Crocs.  We were in a bit of a rush b/c Eric had a meeting at the bank right outside the mall for our mortgage so he put on a pair of boots (!!) and ran out the door.  I turned the house upside down and could not find those shoes.  The problem is that he has his Crocs and he has his sandals that he only likes to wear on Shabbat and that’s pretty much all he has to wear.  When we go to America next month I’ll buy him sneakers but I see that he doesn’t even want to wear sneakers most of the time when he does have sneakers that fit him.  Anyway, about 20 minutes before I lit candles I found them!  The were on the window sill behind the leather couch that we have in the living room.  He likes to climb behind the couch and stand on the sill.  It finally occurred to me to look there and, sure enough, there they were.  AHHHHHH!!!

Ben has to go to school tomorrow prepared to tell a story about the Parsha.  We worked on making him a Har Sinai as well as the Luchot.  Talia and Ben scavenged for cardboard boxes and I cut out the mountain for them and they painted it.  Talia made the Luchot and I cut them out and then I was the one that wound up painting that one.  Ben doesn’t have much patience to sit down for long periods of time and work on something.  I hope he’ll manage next year in first grade!  I’ve been going over the story with him about matan torah in the hopes that it will sink in and he’ll be able to tell his gan tomorrow.  He won’t practice with me.  At first I thought it would be a good idea to tell it to him in Hebrew so that he could retell it in Hebrew.  The problem was that I was making so many mistakes that he wound up correcting me and we were laughing so much.  So I told it to him in English and he’ll translate it when the time comes.  That is, if he does it at all.  I am a bit skeptical.  But at least his teachers will see that he did work on the props and he did prepare.   I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Shavuot, the one day, was nice.  It flies by here like it’s nothing.  We ate at home at night after Eric came home from shul.  Talia made a big stink that she wanted to stay up to learn.  Eric told her that if she wakes up and wants to go to shul with him to learn that she should wake him up (he had no plans to learn) and he would take her.  She woke him up and told him her throat was hurting her.  She asked him to make her a hot water bottle.  While he was making her the hot water bottle she went to the toilet and started spitting and gagging.  Then she told Eric she was too sick to go and she should just go back to sleep.  Eric said she put on quite the show for him!!  She is a good little actress that one.  So, they both happily went back to sleep

The next day we had our friends Shlomit and Shmuel and their kids.  It was very nice.  The kids all played really nicely together and when they left to take a nap, the 3 kids stayed to play.  They played until 5:30 and then came in for dinner and some calm playing with us before bed.  I started a 1000 piece puzzle with Talia that Eric’s mom had given us for Chanukah.   We did the border and a little more before it was time for bed and before she gave up. It’s going to be a while until that puzzle is finished!

This morning Eric got up early to pick up Foster and to go to Yerushalayim to take care of more stuff for the future house.  He then did the grocery shopping.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we played and then went to the park to get out of Foster’s way so he could clean.  Eric met us there and Talia went off to a friend’s house while Eric, Ben, Keren and I went out for falafel, which I had been craving.

Right now Eric is at a carnival with Ben here on the Yishuv.  I assume that Talia is still at her friend’s house… either that or they decided to go to the carnival as well.   Keren is napping now.  It took me 20 minutes to find her doll so that she would finally go to sleep.   I have 2 of them but she prefers one over the other and now I see she won’t accept the other one at all.  I’ll have to buy another one this summer so that I have a backup doll.  I don’t have a backup doll for Ben and it’s a problem!  I have to tell my friend Stephanie that from now on when she buys my babies dolls she should just buy 2 of the same one!!  Later on today there is a show for the kids being put on at the moadon noar.  I’m going to send Ben and Talia and hopefully get some cooking done if Keren lets me. 

Back to school tomorrow for a short Friday.  At least it’s something!  Eric leaves on Sunday for a lonnnng time but it’s his last trip for the year!

I can’t believe it, I just got stood up by my dressmaker!!  I showed up and she wasn’t home?!  I don’t know where she could be.  She has little kids and it’s 8:30.  Then again, Israelis don’t put their kids to sleep until after 9 so maybe she is out partying with them.  I am aggravated.  This is like dealing with Mary “the dressmaker from hell” who I used twice in New York.   The only difference was that you knew she was going to pull crap but she was cheap.  Okay, I am finished venting now.

This morning Eric took Keren to the supermarket and I stayed home and baked challah.  Then he ran out to do some other errands and I put Keren to sleep and sat outside and got some color.  I want to be tan for the wedding b/c I have to wear a light yellow that looks terrible on my skin.  I figure that if I am tan it will look good.  I sat out for only 45 minutes and got nice color.  So, if I do it 3x a week, I figure in a month I will be nice and dark.

When the kids came home we went to my grandparents.  My grandmother and I took the kids to the park after they watched some tv.  They were covered in sand (ewwww) from the park and we decided to give them baths before going out to dinner.  I didn’t even care that they were putting on their dirty clothes, they were so sandy and dirty that it didn’t matter, I just wanted the sand washed off of their bodies.

We went out to eat and my grandfather came too, which was nice.  Eric held down the apartment and worked from their place while I ordered food to go for him.

Oh, just got a call from my dressmaker…  She thought our meeting was for tomorrow and I thought it was for today.  There is no way in the world that I was wrong!!  She was using her fancy shmancy IPhone and messed it up, I am sure. I used my handy dandy piece of paper and pen and there is no mistaking that!  We made appointments for last Wed., this Wed., and 2 weeks from now on Wed.  PLEASE!!  Well, at least she apologised!

Getting back to our day:  The rest of the day went quickly.  We picked Eric up and headed home and threw the kids into bed.  Oh, on the way home Ben dozed and Keren was quietly listening to music and Eric was working and Talia was talking to me the whole time.  She wouldn’t shut up.  On and on and on and on.  Questions about things and just telling me things.  Oh. My. G-d!  I wanted to glue her lips closed.  Good luck to my brother who just had twin girls!

So now I am tired and I have to pick up the cleaning man tomorrow so I am going to call it a night.

Happy Yom Yerushalayim!!

I don’t know why it’s been so difficult to keep the blog up.  After another break, a short one this time, I am back and ready to go.

Let me see…  Today Talia had a really cool school trip.  They took the kids to the airport where they taught them about planes and things like that.   I didn’t get a whole lot of info from Talia on the airport trip.   Then they took the train to Tel Aviv where they went on a boat.  She had a blast on the train but got seasick on the boat!  Poor kid.  Must have inherited her motion sickness from me.  Then they went to a park where she said the boys threw pine cones at the girls and got into trouble, and then back home.  It was a long trip, from early in the morning until 3.  It was brutal outside today, weather wise, but she had a blast and was in a great mood when she came home.

The day started pretty early for all of us.  Keren woke the kids up at 5:45 am and they brought her up to us.  Eric told them to go back to bed, which they did, but I doubt they actually fell back to sleep.  Meanwhile, Keren was up for the day and rolling around in our bed.  I went back to sleep until 8:30 but Eric didn’t have as much luck as he had to deal with getting the kids out.  Of course Talia told him that she had to be at school at 7:40 instead of the usual 8.  She told him as they were getting ready for school!!  She is lucky it was Eric and not me b/c I would have told her to get herself to school!!

It was brutally hot outside again today.  It’s been like this for the past 2 days.  It’s supposed to break but I don’ t think it has yet.  We tried to take Keren out to the park today but we lasted 15 minutes and then she said she wanted to go home and so did I!  So we spent the whole day inside.

I’ve been asking Eric for a while to find pajamas for Keren in one of the boxes that we had stored away from Talia b/c she had outgrown all of her pajamas and I knew that we had some somewhere.  Eric took down all the boxes and it turned into a whole production.  It turns out that Keren has tons of clothes that I didn’t know about and now she is set for the summer.  Until now she had been wearing the same 4 pairs of shorts every day.  She has sooooo much now.  Eric said that we must have stuff that I forgot about but I thought I went through it all.  So I’ve been busy packing small things away and unpacking big things.  It is so time consuming and I don’t have much patience to do much of it at a time.  So slowly but surely things will get put away.  I actually have to move on it b/c the cleaning man comes on Thurs. and I need it all put away by then!

That’s pretty much the news from here.  I have to go clean up the kitchen and get into bed now.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve blogged.  Once I stopped I couldn’t get back into it.  I had some exciting news, though, to write about and that’s why I’ve decided to start again.  Do, for the news, on Friday night my brother and sister-in-law had their baby girls!!  Mazal Tov to Barry and Sara on the birth of their girls Adelyn and Emily!!

Otherwise, it’s been business here as usual.  The kids are doing well in school.  Ben still isn’t thrilled about being there but he’s dealing for now.  They only have 6 weeks left until we head to the States for Ayelet and Jordan’s wedding and the rest of the summer.  I went to parent teacher’s conferences last night for Talia and her teacher said that she is doing very well.  She said that she’s a smart girl and her Hebrew is amazing.  She can’t believe that she’s only been here 2 years.  The only problem is that she is a bit disorganized and she often can’t find her books during class.  That was no surprise.  Her bag is often a complete mess and her dairy where she is supposed to write down her homework is a mess.  SO we’ll have to do something about her organization skills. 

After the conferences I went to my dressmaker.  She seems to be doing a nice job on the dress.    I am happy with her and very confident that the dress will be very pretty.  So I am excited about that.

Today Ben mentioned something about “yom shishi” and Keren announced, “Keren color Ben gan yom shishi”.  Translation in case you couldn’t figure it out:  Keren is going to color in Ben’s gan on yom shishi.”  So cute!!

So that’s pretty much everything that’s going on here.  I know I haven’t mentioned how Pesach was or Yom Ha’azmaut or Lag B’aomer but they were all fine and, once again, the year is almost over and it’s flying!!

I can’t remember where I was up to.  In the past few days we’ve taken a nice hike with the kids, had a sleepover, gone to the beach, visited the matzah factory and, the best part of the whole thing, yesterday my parents came, yipee!!

So now it’s Friday and we are about 2 days away from having to pack us all up and head to the hotel (which Eric and I are dreading).  Today it rained!!  It’s cold and rainy!!  It is good we got in that hike and the trip to the beach this week because the weather is gloomy.  I feel bad for my parents but I told them before they came that it got cool and they should bring warm clothing, especially for Yerushalayim.

So that’s news from here.  So far all 3 kids are still alive and no one has murdered the other one.