Happy Passover, 2009 everyone! One Seder down (at Aunt Judy & Uncle Lloyd’s) and one more to go (here at our house). First Seder was a big (28), fun (entering the Seder through the “Red Sea” door), night. And, of course, Uncle Lloyd shared his rendition of the Four Questions in Yiddish (Margo handled the Hebrew, Mikaela did the English). It was great Corey, Mo, Annie, Steph and Jeff could all make it in from out of town this year, though we missed having Steve, Sali, Gabe and Eli with us too.

In this picture, Mikaela, Samantha and Margo perform the annual Ten Plagues puppet play.

Tonight will be a much smaller crowd. But it’ll still be a Seder with all the fixins. Cooking is already underway. We’re going to wait on the charoset until Mikaela gets home from school today, so she can help make it. Now I’m off to get furniture put back where it belongs, after yesterday’s carpet cleaning.

The JCC Members Appreciation Party was our first opportunity this summer to get Jonathan out into the pool. He pretty much picked up right where he left off last year. He has a blast splashing around the Froggy Pool. He’s at least as big a fan of the little froggy water slide as Mikaela was, walking up the stairs and sliding down until he was ready to drop from exhaustion. He was so wiped out, Miriam and Jonathan left a bit early and left Aaron and Mikaela to keep playing at the pool.

Meanwhile, Mikaela was indulging her own waterslide obsession. After several tries, she finally convinced the lifeguards that she was big enough for the regular water slides. She didn’t complain even once about the long, steep, stairs she had to climb or the sometimes-long line for her turn — she was in heaven going down both the straight fast and slow curvy slides over and over and over again. She also splashed around a bit in the froggy pool, playing with cousin Samantha and Grandma Marcia. And she found a friend from camp to play with in the shallow part of the big pool. But those were always just brief diversions before she headed back to the water slides.

And who can blame her? Those slides are FUN. She went down them with Cousin Margo at first, and eventually even Uncle Matt joined in the slide brigade. When we finally headed home, Mikaela was tired and thirsty. Luckily, we’d made a Fourth of July weekend treat the day before, and we had homemade fresh strawberry ice cream waiting for us when we got home.

We celebrated Grandma Marcia’s birthday a couple of days late, after she returned home from a wedding in California. Mikaela helped Miriam make the birthday cake, and then did the decorating herself. Matt, Sarah and Samantha joined us for Grandma’s birthday dinner. “The girls” all blew out Grandma’s birthday candles together.

Sorry I’ve been so remiss about text updates to the blog lately. I have added lots of pictures – check out the January album in the Photo Gallery. There’s not a lot of big news to report. Jonathan is doing great. He’s still on the “small” end of the growth chart, but he’s healthy and putting on weight as expected. He’s started to try and mimick us when we make faces at him – he sticks his tongue out when Miriam blows raspberries at him (though he doesn’t quite get the “blow” part yet) and will purse his lips like an exaggerated kiss for me.

Mikaela is also doing well. She’s been disappointed by all of the Monday holidays lately, as that means she misses both swimming and dance class at school – her two favorite things. She works really hard at being a good big sister to Jonathan. The other day she insisted on helping to change his diaper.  She got frustrated when his squirming legs made getting the diaper on more difficult than it is to put a diaper on her baby dolls. She said, “Hey, baby, quit movin’ around like that!” She also likes to help give Jonathan his bath – she’s an expert at rubbing the shampoo in his hair without getting any in the baby’s eyes.

It seems Miriam and I are perpetually tired, but that’s to be expected at this point. Miriam is starting to s-l-o-w-l-y transition back to work.  She’s taking care of a few things that can be handled by phone and Email. But it will still be a while before she’s back in the office. I enjoyed getting to spend extra time with the kids, thanks to all of the Federal holidays at the end of December/beginning of January (including the Presidential funeral day). I’m getting back into the regular swing at work myself, though luckily it doesn’t look like I’ve got any travel coming up soon.

In extended family news, things have been pretty busy over the past month or so. Corey & Mo went on their cruise – I hear they had a great time, and I’m sure they’ll have pictures to share soon. Matt, Sarah, and Samantha moved into their new place in Raymore. Larry had surgery that ended up being more complicated than expected, but he’s home and recovering well. Ben & Shirley moved to the Atriums and sold their house – I helped them with the mezuzah hanging at their very nice new apartment. Steve & Sali will be moving soon as well – the destination depends on where Steve’s new job takes them. Gabe continues to travel around the country performing, and Eli is awaiting news on research funding for a graduate school project.

How thoughtful of my sisters-in-law to coordinate their birthdays so that I only have to remember one date

Sarah and Monique share their birthday with:

• Italian painter Caravaggio
• Broadcast industry legend William S. Paley
• Actress Brigitte Bardot
• Comedian Phil Hartman
• and Musician Moon Unit Zappa

Historical events on this date in history include:

• 1066 William the Conqueror invades England
• 1920 The Chicago “Black Sox” indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series
• 1944 “The Boys from Boise”, the first televised musical comedy, airs
• 1968 The Beatles “Hey Jude” hits #1 on the Billboard chart

Aunt Martie, Uncle Bob, and Cousin Rylei arrived in KC yesterday for a week’s vacation. Cousin Greg will be joining them today. We all got together at Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry’s for dinner last night to welcome them. Mikaela and Sam were so excited for Rylei’s arrival that they were darn near vibrating. Uncle Matt even had Aunt Sarah cut his hair in anticipation of their arrival.

Mikaela was very excited for the first night of Chanukah.  We explained to her that we would be going to a party tonight (Tuesday night) at Grandma Ted and Zaydie Larry’s house and that there would be candles to light and presents to open.  We forgot to take into account a two-year-old’s limited concept of time.  As soon as Mikaela figured out that Miriam was driving her to daycare instead of to Grandma & Zaydie’s house, she started shouting, "No Mina’s, go party!!"  She calmed down once she saw that her buddy Vaughn and Baby Jack were there at Mina’s to play with.

continue reading "First Night of Chanukah"

I added some Halloween pictures to the September-October 04 Photo Album. There are pictures of Mikaela, Samantha, Sarah and Margo in their costumes. Thanks to Grandma Ted, Aunt Judy, and Big Sarah for the pictures (I REALLY can’t wait for my camera to come back from the repair shop)!

Sorry for the delay in getting this update posted. Sarah actually sent it to me a couple of weeks ago.

Samantha is growing very quickly. In the last few weeks she has found her thumb and sucks it when ever she is sleepy. She has begun sleeping in her own bed at night from 9pm until 6:30 or 7:00 am. She has also started turning onto her side and has this silly habit of ending up with her head at the other end of her bed in the morning. She recognizes both Mommy and Daddy and laughs when she sees her dogs. She loves going to “school” and when we talk about her teachers Ms Inez and Ms Jammie she laughs and smiles. She is VERY gassy and farts like an old man. She loves going to Grandma Ted’s on Fridays and had a fun afternoon with Grandma Ball Yesterday. She really likes her new house and is still adjusting after Uncle Scott (Baumgarten) came to visit last week. She liked when he would try to calm her down. She loves splish splashing in the bath and playing with her rubber ducks. Her new favorite thing is her Baby Einstein, Baby Davinci Body Parts video. It teaches her body part names in english, spanish, and french. OOOH LA LA. She really likes when mommy points to her hands and feet and face when they show them on the screen. She has started sitting at the table with Mommy and Daddy at dinner and has very good table manners. She is working on cooing and watching Mommy and Daddy sign simple words to her. Coming Soon FIRST WORDS AND SIGNS!! As well as rolling over, crawling and the dreaded four month shots.

Okay – I’m trying to do a better job of keeping up. There’s now a July 2004 Photo Album available in the right-hand column. It includes pictures from Samantha Davie Rittmaster’s baby naming that was a Lloyd & Judy Hellman’s house on July 11.