Swimming

So, I signed Jonathan up for swim class on Saturdays so that he could have good bonding time with Mike, but little did I know that I signed him up for a real swim class with a real instructor! So much for bonding time...we'll have to find a different activity for the two of them. Jonathan loves his classes...this week there was only one other boy (last week there were four with two instructors) so he got lots of attention. He loves his swim classes and is getting really comfortable in the water. Here's a video from his class:



And here's proof that he's having fun...blowing bubbles:



We took our yearly family portrait pictures at Kmart this past weekend and it went better than expected, though Sylvie didn't want to smile much. While we were waiting, we picked up a couple of new slippers for the kiddos:



I started "going green" and actually brought my own cloth bags to the grocery store with me...I feel oh so good :)

Funny Vids

Ok..so it's a well known fact that we are raising two little monkeys. They have a special affinity for our sweeper vac (that we cannot live without, by the way...I recommend it to everyone!) and I've been trying to capture their reaction to me using it for weeks now...here's the best video I've been able to capture thus far...they are two funny kids!



And I don't know about you, but I never get this kind of welcome when I come home. (The stickers on their back are of their names from a library playgroup that we went to).



And here's a recent trip to the bouncy house...Sylvie's starting to get into it more and more.



And here are a few more pics from the last few days.

In other news...we have adjusted to life with me at home fairly easily, I would say! Sylvie and I love our alone time on M/W/F and Jonathan spices things up for us on Tues/Thurs. We always do something in the mornings and they are both strong nappers...Sylvie used to only sleep for an hour or so, but both kids go down right after lunch, around noon and will sleep till almost 3. I sometimes even have to wake them up so that they don't sleep too much! Bed time has become more flexible now that it's taking longer to bathe both of them, brush their teeth, etc.
Mike usually finishes cleaning up after dinner and joins us when I finish with their baths and he'll take Jonathan and get him dressed, and I'll dress Sylvie in her PJs. We'll meet in our bedroom and play for a little bit before we send the kids off to bed...usually by 7:30. When I place Sylvie in her crib, she picks which of her 3 blankets she wishes to be covered with and hands it to me and says "this!" and then lies down on the other one or two and I cover her. I sing to her the "Good Night Sylvie song" and leave her lying down and close the door.
We don't hear a peep from either of them once they're in bed, but they wake up around 6 am, at which point Jonathan will come to our room and announce that "I'm done sleeping", and Sylvie will start to call for us from her room. Mike will bring them both into our bed (after taking Yoni to the potty) and turn the TV on for some Jo-Jo or other morning show while I continue to sleep until approx 7. By then, he's showered and ready to go to work, so I get up too....I so love to sleep! And another day's begun...

Fun Weekend

We had a fun weekend, with amazingingly beautiful autumn-like weather...sunny and cool. Happy fall everyone!!!

All the pics are here.

We went to an apple orchard to pick apples after which Yoni and Mike baked two delicious apple pies. Yoni kept picking the apples, taking a bite, and throwing them on the ground, saying "we'll leave this for the animals".

I got to go out all by myself on Sunday to a Pampered Chef party during which we made and ate the most delicious brownies! And I finally got back into scrapbooking yesterday.

This morning, Sylvie and I went to a storytime playgroup at the library and she found a toy that she loved dragging around.

"Sylvie make me laugh!"

Yoni went to preschool a little late today and had fun with Sylvie in the morning:



Sylvie and I went to a new library playgroup (3 libraries in three days this week!) today which was jam packed with kids, but she had a great time anyways. She showed everyone her bracelet and when we sang about what the kids were each wearing, everyone sang about Sylvie's bracelet, and she held her hand up high so everyone could see it.

Another cute story from yesterday...when Yoni woke up from his nap, he said "I'm upset, Mommy." So, I asked him why, and he said "because I want daddy." Seems like he's having a tough time with his daddy working, even though it's nothing new...maybe some more quality time between them is what he needs...they're starting swimming classes together this Saturday...should be fun!

"Dis-Paheered!"

We're having ice-cream for dessert tonight and as Yoni takes a bite and swallows, he opens his mouth to show us that it's empty and he says, "The ice cream dispaheered!!! I'm making a baby in my belly like mommy....see, I ate the cookie-dough!" We taught him that you say 'disappeared', but he doesn't quite get it.


Sylvie's shoe obsession continues...she constantly tries to put on any shoe she can get a hold of...here she is trying to put on Yoni's crocs.



Today, we went to story time at the library- neither Jonathan nor Sylvie really paid any attention to the book readings, but they both enjoyed making rocket ships afterwards.

Good Night!

The scene- 7:20pm: I'm tucking Yoni in bed tonight-

me: I want you to go to sleep so that you will have lots of energy to play with me tomorrow. I'm going to play with you ALL day.

Yoni: I don't want to play with you!

me: You don't want to play with me tomorrow? Who do you want to play with?

Yoni: I want to play with daddy.

me: Maybe you can play with daddy tomorrow when he returns home from work.

Yoni: Can I go to work with daddy tomorrow?

me: No...but you can play with him when he gets back.

Mellow Weekend

We had a great weekend - full of really good food! Mike made restaurant quality food for us this weekend, including stuffed artichoke, chicken kiev, and mashi crum (stuffed cabbage)...yummy yummy! Besides eating all weekend and watching football, we had a lot of good quality time with the kids. This month, Mike is in a challenging rotation during which he is constantly busy and often stays late, so it was really nice to spend some family time together. I also spent the weekend creating an album (on-line) of Sylvie's birth (a year later!), which I can't wait to get in the mail.

Play-doh fun:

This morning, Sylvie and I are hanging out, cleaning, and will go to the library play group like I used to do with Jonathan. Jonathan, by the way, is such a little boy now...has new expressions every day. To him, everything that occurred at some point in the past is "yesterday". If he just washed his hands, he'll say "I already washed my hands, yesterday!". It took us a while to figure this out :) Besides shoes, brushing teeth, and her bracelet (see above pic...thanks Jen!), Sylvie's developed quite a love of books and brings me books to read with her all the time. It's so nostalgic to read to her the same books I used to read with Jonathan.

It's a girl!!!

I'm so excited to announce that Yoni will be a big brother to two little sisters and that Sylvie is going to have a sister with whom to share all of life's dramas! Yesterday's ultrasound was really long and detailed (I don't remember it being so with the other two) and fabulous...everything looked great. Mike and I started feeling her move around last week and she's pretty active.
Here are some of the more memorable pics from yesterday's visit.

When I told Yoni that he's going to have another little sister, his reply was something like "Oh good, another sister to play in the bounce house with me!" It was sweet.

In other news...fall is on the way. I would normally be excited - if I wasn't still traumatized by last winter. The trees are already starting to turn and it's getting chilly outside. We turned the heat on this week at night, much to Yoni's dismay. It makes a clicking sound as it enters the baseboards which has been waking him up at night and scaring him "I don't want the heat! The heat is on! Move my bed!" Lots of drama throughout the night. Hopefully, we'll sleep through this night. The good news about the change in the seasons is that it's our last winter up here in the arctic tundra, so we'll try to savor it. Hopefully it won't snow as much. Our OB recommended stashing away towels and a shoelace in the car just in case, as she's due in Feb and we barely made it on time with Sylvie...I hope it won't be necessary!

We've also signed Yoni up for swim class in preparation for the move down south. He'll be taking a class on Saturdays with daddy to give them some alone time, which will be nice for them both.

We had a fun day today...in the morning, we played with play-doh - Yoni made a pizza:

and in the afternoon, we went to the playground and the Farmer's Market in Lebanon -

Yoni's become quite a good climber as of late and this video shows him climbing at the playground today and Sylvie's quite good at saying "Up, Up!".

Weekend in Maine

We had a great weekend with Idan, Amy, and Hudson in Ogunquit this past weekend. We went shopping on Saturday and bought the kids Halloween costumes already, but more importantly - we bought Yoni a booster seat. Trying to fit three car seats in the back seat has revealed that it's time for Yoni to sit in a booster as there's no space for three big car seats. On Sunday, Amy and Idan had a barbeque for which we inflated the bounce house and Yoni had a great time playing with new friends.
Here's a video of the bounce house inflation "process".



And here are the rest of the pics.

Long time no blog

Where to begin? So much has happened since my last posting and that's why I just haven't gotten around to updating...

My job is all done - all wrapped up. I've returned my Thinkpad and am now thankfully using a borrowed laptop. Jonathan is still in preschool three days/week - on M, W, F and I'm really enjoying my alone time with Sylvie on those days. The three of us hit the bounce house scene yesterday for the first time in about a year! Even Sylvie went in a jumped for a little bit. It was suprisingly packed for such a beautiful day outside.

The weather has been so warm and sunny that I've been taking the kids to the lake, and mostly the outdoor area of the science museum almost every day. Here are a couple of vids from the museum:





I was planning on taking Sylvie's pacifier away this week, but over Labor Day weekend, she fell asleep while her pacy was on the floor, so I just grabbed it and threw it out. She was a little cranky for the next few days without it, but she understood that "pacy is all gone" and "no more pacy" and she doesn't even look for it anymore! It was actually relatively easy compared to how it went with Jonathan.

Another big event in Sylvie's life happened this week...she got her first haircut! Her hair was getting into her eyes constantly, especially because she pulls out all of her barrettes. She did not like it at all...she had to sit on my lap and I held her chin while they took a couple of snips off of her bangs as she cried and screamed the whole time. Classic Sylvie.

Over Labor Day weekend, Mike and Matt came up from NY and spent lots of time with the kids. I worked all weekend, so it was nice to have some distraction for them and they had a blast with all of the attention. Here they are playing with the bounce house that they bought the kids:



Here's a cute video of Mike and Matt with the kids:



Here all of the pics from these last few weeks.