Fourth of July weekend celebrations started early, with the Kramers getting in town from Dallas the week before the Fourth. It was great to see them – we got to eat a few meals together and the kids got to enjoy time together – like in this picture from our outing to Deanna Rose Farmstead. It was good to see Martie and Bob and Rylei again, and I’m really glad that my leg didn’t keep me from dinner at Jack Stack while Greg was in town too. (I managed to get a pretty nasty scrape on my leg when I fell – twice – in the garage, courtesy of a big oil slick next to my car. Thankfully, the oil was from a couple of bottles of oil I’d managed to run over, and not from the car itself).

The 4th of July itself meant pool party at the Rooks’. As usual, the kids had a blast in the pool and playing in the basement with friends that they don’t get to see all that often. And the adults even got to have some normal adult conversation. The food and drink was also excellent, as usual. Though next time Miriam makes a Pina Colada, I suspect she’ll do a more thorough job of checking the provenance of the maraschino cherries.

We closed out the holiday weekend by taking advantage of Sunday’s beautiful weather and gathering the cousins together in the park for a little photo shoot. I think we got some nice shots of Rylei, Mikaela, Samantha and Jonathan together, as well as a few of just the girls, and even some of Samantha solo. After we finished taking pictures, the kids took a little walk in the park with Miriam, Grandma Marcia and Aunt Martie – and found a treasure trove of seashells on the ground. They had a ball collecting, and then later sorting and cleaning their new “collections”

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.

Happy 2008 everyone!! Sorry for the lateness of this post. I actually wrote another version earlier, but apparently never got around to posting it. Ringing in the New Year was a kid-family affair this year. Mikaela was excited to play hostess to her cousins Margo, Rylei and Samantha (and she reluctantly allowed Jonathan and us big people to come too ).

The original plan was to make it a fairly early night – we ordered pizza and started up Pocahontas on the big screen in the Media Room. After the movie, we figured we’d celebrate the New Year with some folks somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean (i.e. a few hours early). The girls (and Jonathan) loved blowing noisemakers and shouting Happy New Year! Even Jonathan got in on the action. The kids showed remarkable stamina – the adults (Marcia & Larry and Martie & Bob) packed the kids up to head home right around midnight, with most of the kids still wanting to keep playing. Margo stayed the night. All in all, it was a fun way to ring in the New Year.

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.

Rylei Kramer is in town visiting over the holiday, with her grandma and grandpa Martie and Bob. The girls were talking about how they don’t get to go to each other’s birthday parties, so the grandparents (Martie, Bob, Marcia and Larry) decided that they should have an unbirthday party together. The girls had a great time at Chuck E. Cheese, playing games together, eating pizza and cupcakes, and opening and playing with their unbirthday presents (My Little Pony figures). Even Jonathan had fun, chewing on a plastic cup and watching the lights Rylei made the birthday crowns that they’re all wearing in the picture.

Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend were busy. The kids and I spent Sunday afternoon meeting cousin Amanda Firestone. We got to hang out with a whole group of cousins that we don’t see nearly often enough. Mikaela had a great time playing with Ed’s twins and Ashley’s daughter (and her usual cousin-buddy Samantha). Mikaela had the gang playing hide-and-seek all around the house. Jonathan showed off his smile and his rolling over. Miriam missed the fun – she ended up spending both Sunday and Monday working on getting moved into her new office space.

Monday was even busier. First was the annual Memorial Day lunch at Aunt Judy & Uncle Lloyd’s for the kids and I, while Miriam was back at work on the office move. After lunch, Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry took the kids for the afternoon, while I went to help with the office move. Most of the “stuff” got moved. But my job as office tech geek went uncompleted. I got the server set back up, but the network connection that was supposed to be all ready to go just wasn’t. I’ll go back and get it set up in the evening as soon as the landlord takes care of it. I just feel bad because it’ll slow down the transition for Miriam. It’s a really nice new office – this is going to be a good move for her. We met back up with Grandma Marcia & Zaydie Larry for dinner at Sweet Tomatoes.

The picture is from our return home. Jonathan spent entirely too much time in his car seat today, so he especially enjoyed the nekkid time between being in his clothes for the day and his jammies.

Zaydie Larry and Grandma Marcia took Mikaela and Samantha to see a Sesame Street Live! show at Kemper Arena. The show was called “Elmo Makes Music,” and featured classic Sesame Street songs like “C is for Cookie,” “Fuzzy and Blue,” “The People in your Neighborhood,” and “Sing.” And right there, as big (or bigger) than life, were Bert, Big Bird, Ernie, Elmo (Samantha’s favorite), Oscar, Grover, Cookie Monster, Zoe, Rosita, Count Von Count, Jenny (Mikaela’s favorite), Telly, Baby Bear, Prairie Dawn, Phoebe, Googel, and Honker. Both girls had a great time, and Grandma Marcia reported that they were also on their best behavior the whole afternoon.

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.

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.