Disney in May

I forgot to bring my computer to the carpool line today and I was forced to play games on my iPhone. The entire time I was playing mind numbing games I was thinking "Now I will have to blog tonight, I better not be too tired" and I am way to tired to be blogging. I am going to try not to forget the computer again so I won't have to play games. Somehow I can't seem to find a good book to read. I need a good romantic comedy so I am open to any and all suggestions.
I had a request for pictures so here you go Ann, pictures! These pictures are from our trip to Disney in May with Eric and Sue.
Here is our very happy Jordan who is almost three and half in this picture and smiling away on It's a Small World.
Here is our very very big boy at two years and one month old. He LOVES this ride and here he is singing and dancing along to the music. He is just delicious and very happy!

Here is little miss Lior, who also likes this ride but will not crack a smile for all the money in the world. It is hard to believe that she is four years and eight months old.

Sydney. There is nothing else I need to say because Sydney is always happy at Disney World and not afraid to show it! She loves this ride and unlike her twin is oozing excitement!

Jordan is very funny and very silly and a lot of other things too! Here we are trying on hats and trying to take pictures and I get this:

and this from little miss Jordan.
The next day we spent the entire day wearing Sue and Eric OUT. I think they needed a major vacation when they were done playing with us!


The kids loved spending time with them and fighting over who was going to sit next to Sue at every meal and on every ride. They LOVE Sue and Eric too.
Here is our beautiful little guy. He's hot and sweaty and adorable.


Here is a good picture of his baby blues. He looks so tired in this picture and so little. He still has the same face but he has matured in the last four months and doesn't look like that to me any more. I just realized why these pictures are so bad, I left my beautiful Nikon camera on the kitchen counter. By the time I realized that I left the camera at home it was too late to drive back to get it so we stopped at Target and bought the cheapest digital camera that had a rechargeable battery. I promise much better pictures from now on!
Face painting is always a favorite activity at Disney. They do an amazing job with the kids. Akiva always picks out what he wants and you can never change his mind so I do not even bother! This time he picked out a tiger and he could not get over himself he stared into the mirror for a long long time. I do not blame him.

ROAR!!!

Sydney.


Our very own Minnie Mouse, Jordan.

The group. Sorry Eric but it was the only picture I found that all the kids were looking at the camera. We know what you look like...

Ooops... Here is Lior and I believe she is closing her eyes so we can see that the makeup is on her eyelids.

Here she is on the carousel having a marvelous time. Ironically I am wearing the same shirt as we speak. What are the chances? (I guess pretty good since I only have about 10 t-shirts I wear regularly)
Here are my two little guys out cold on our way back to the car. Disney is such hard work.


We parked at the Polynesian (a hotel on the monorail at Disney) and we decided to explore the hotel before we headed back to our low rent hotel. We wondered by this beautiful pool and I told the girls to hike up their skirts and stick their feet in. They must have miss heard me because the next thing we knew their heads were under and their skirts were floating around their heads. What a great way to end a great vacation. Too bad the little ones were sleeping and Matt and I could not go in in our skivvies.

Akiva month ten in review

I seem to start all of my posts about Akiva the same way, "It is hard to believe..." but Akiva is growing and changing so quickly it seems like he is taking huge leaps everyday. In this past month he has sprouted another tooth bringing his grand total up to six. His teeth are still sharp as ever and he bites everything and everyone in his path. I think he is working on a few more because his finger is in his mouth constantly. When his fingers are not in his mouth we have to give him food quickly or he screams. He is still screaming those high pitched shrieks when he needs food. We are trying to teach him the sign for "more" but he has created his own sign which looks like he is revving a motorcycle when he wants more. Jordan is really trying to teach him to sign, which is funny because she is the only child who did not sign. She will stop eating when he starts screaming and show him the sign and say "more" very slowly and clearly to him.


Akiva started to walk last Saturday and he has not looked back. I think he prefers to be up on his feet rather than down on all fours. He stands up in the middle of the room and takes three to five steps without falling. He is so proud of himself, his face is beaming! The girls cheer and scream (think high pitched) "Akiva is walking, look at him!!" I think the screaming actually makes him realize he is walking and he falls down. Right now he will see one of the dogs and start babbling, stand up and charge toward it. I know that it will be a matter of minutes before his careful steps are replaced by running and bruised knees. My baby did not stay a baby long enough!


I wonder what steps he will be taking in the next month.

Akiva at eight months (almost)

It is completely blowing my mind. Akiva will be eight months in the matter of days. How can he be doing even more wonderful things? He held a bottle on his own the very first time I gave him one and likes sliding down the slide with his more than eager sisters. Everyone wanted to hold him going down the slide, they take turns. Now they like going down in a line. It is amazing he did not even cry when he landed in the grass. I am going to have very tough kids because of my need to take photos of every little thing!
Akiva is pretty much refusing to take food from the spoon preferring to shovel in as much food as humanly possible on his own. He has eaten macaroni and cheese, canned pears, rice, cream cheese sandwiches (without the cranberries!), boiled carrots, matzoh balls, hummus sandwiches, and of course our favorite Cheerios! He has decided that even though grass looks good it is not a great snack! He has also started drinking from a sippy cup, by himself! I went and got him one with handles so he can maneuver it better but he knows he wants to drink out of that cup! I am going to skip the bottle all together and just put him right on a sippy cup.
Akiva decided that he liked standing in his crib so he decided to do it himself. Matt needs to lower the crib in our bedroom because he is no longer safe. He has started to pull himself up on toys around the house. As you can imagine when he pulls himself up on a doll stroller the results are not what he expects.
Akiva loves clapping hands and will even do it on command, most of the time. His favorite pastime seems to be playing with his sisters or watching them play. He laughs and laughs when they talk to him or tickle him. I am sure that because of their interest in him, he will be up and chasing them around in no time.

Our boy

Our boy is getting very big very quickly. Just the other day I found him laying on the floor trying to drink one of the girls sippy cups. This prompted me to give him a water bottle, just to see what he would do. He picked up that bottle and held it, like he has been drinking a bottle his entire life. I should have reminded him that he has never had one before so I could have pretended that he needed my help!
I put him in the crib in our room on Thanksgiving and decided to see if he would stand, he could. He drooped to the side a little bit but he stood there and thought he was so funny. Both Matt and I were snapping pictures of our big boy. I know it is just a matter of time before he is standing without any help.
Do you know what else he is doing? Refusing to eat off the spoon.He has that "I can do it myself" attitude and does not want food that he has not shoved into his mouth himself. I manage to get a spoon full or two in as he is cramming in Cheerios. I need to start making more finger food for him because right now he is eating way too many bananas. He is just growing up so fast!

Another milestone

The other night while we were out celebrating Jordan's birthday Akiva made an important discovery. If his sister ran interference, he could steal his bowl of food, skip the middleman and dive right in. So while Jordan was being adorable, Akiva was chowing down on his bowl of "mush".

Who me?
I did not steal anything!
His days of mush might be coming to a close because our boy has finally cut two teeth. He has been teething for about four months and today I finally felt the teeth right there on the bottom. Now I know why he has been stuffing everything under the sun in his mouth. Today mush, tomorrow chicken nuggets!

Akiva at seven months

Akiva is seven months old today and started to crawl with gusto today. It is still in the army crawl stage but he is getting around. He has discovered the joys of eating paper and choking on it. Matt had to give him several healthy slaps on the back after he ingested a granola bar wrapper. I guess the infant CPR class we took after the twins were born has come in handy.
Our new favorite pass time is following him around to ensure that he does not eat any book left laying on the floor. It is amazing, Akiva can find the smallest morsel of dirt, shred of paper, piece of mulch and stick it in his mouth and make a meal of it. Needless to say I picked the dog food bowl up after I found him having a nice healthy snack.
I wonder if this is any indication of what I can expect when he gets older?

Potty update

Sydney is now sleeping without a diaper. This is big news in our house. She has been dry for about two months but we have been keeping her in diapers because, truth be told, we did not want to change wet sheets in the middle of the night. Sydney is really ready to sleep without a diaper and very pleased with herself when she wakes up dry every morning.
We have also been waiting for Lior to be ready but she is not. Lior wakes up dry a lot but not often enough. Matt and I would rather spend a quarter on a diaper (and throw it away) than change wet sheets in the middle of the night so it looks like she will stay in a diaper for now. I imagine that when she is ready she will do it and not a minute before.
Jordan is another story. I expected her to be toilet trained by now. A few months ago she was sitting on the potty and peeing but now she looks at it and runs the other way. She laughs at the idea of peeing and pooping on the potty. She knows that she is supposed to use the toilet, she tells us to change her diaper after she is poopy but REFUSES to use the toilet. I have not really been pushing the toileting issue with her and I do not plan too. I ask her to sit every once and awhile but do not expect her to comply with my wishes. I know that when she is ready she will use the toilet and not a minute before.
I can not imagine life with just one child in diapers! Imagine all the extra money we will have.

Lior at thirty eight months

Lior is thirty eight months old today. It is hard to believe that she is three. It is hard to believe that she is three years and two months. The time has flown by.
Lior was not an easy baby. She was tough. I think I have said it before and I will say it again, I was afraid she was going to be as difficult throughout her entire childhood. I am extremely thankful that she is not as tough now as she was as an infant. She is tough and strong willed. She likes to test her limits to see how far she can push you and often does not like the consequences when she has overstepped her boundaries. Thank goodness for time out and 1-2-3 Magic because those behavioral techniques really work for her.
I do not want you to think that Lior is constantly throwing fits or tantruming not stop. She simply knows what she wants and is often unwilling to accept the alternative. She needs to know her limits and what the consequence will be if she does not follow directions. Once she realizes that there will be a consequence and that we are not going to change our minds she tows the line and is very pleasant.
Lior is silly. She is very very silly. Right now she is making up words for words that she knows the name of. Chicken legs are now called "chicken wacks (walks)" Uncle Jake is Uncle Eric and
ruggy means rough. Her grasp of language and the size of her vocabulary is absolutely amazing. She can talk your ear off and will if you appear to be unwilling to listen to her. If she realizes that you want to hear about what she is talking about, she stops talking and makes you really work for the information. She loves telling me about things that happened "yesterday" or "last night". I can always find out what happened at school because Lior can corroborate and expand on the stories that Sydney tells me.
Lior is funny. She also thinks she is funny. Today we we got into the car I heard her tell Sydney "It was so funny, I peed myself... isn't that funny Syd?" Of course Sydney thought it was funny. Those two often stay up for hours giggling and laughing.
Lior loves to cuddle. She falls asleep every afternoon with her head on some part of my body and at night she is cuddled into Sydney. I think she would be a couch potato if I let her. She would rather sit on my lap and read a book than play. She likes to play but if I am sitting in the room, she is sitting on the arm of my chair or in my lap. When she does play she plays beautifully one on one with Sydney and Jordan. Jordan loves Lior and Lior loves her, they are good friends and Jordan can often be found sitting in Lior's lap reading books or watching television. Lior is also good friends with Sydney. When ever I ask the girls who they played with at school I hear "I played with my sister, Syd." or "I played with my Sydney, she's my friend."
Lior loves to read books and can often be found thumbing through books or retelling the story to anyone who will listen. Her obsession lately has been looking for hidden pictures in her High Five magazine. She is so observant that she often sees things before I do.
Lior has started to write her name and creating drawings that look like actual objects. She can look at objects grouped together and tell you how many objects there are if there are fewer than four items. Her abilities change every day and she is learning new things all the time. Sometimes I find myself asking her "where did you learn that?" and she usually laughs and walks away or shows me the book where it came from.
Lior loves to get dirty. She likes to dig in the dirt and make mud. She does not shy away from activities that are hands on and require using your imagination to create.
I can not wait to see what she is going to do next!

Sydney at thirty eight months

Sydney is thirty eight months old today. I figure it is time for an update on all the wonderful things she can do.
When Sydney was an infant I called her my "easy button", I could put her down on the floor with a toy and she would play for hours and then she learned to walk and the easy days were over. Right now Sydney has the capability of being my "easy button"because she lives to please. Sydney loves being a good listener and she loves playing by the rules. Sydney is only difficult when she is wronged by one of her sisters or a friend and when she does not get her way, after all she is three.
Sydney and Lior play beautifully with each other when I am not in the room they always have. The second that they know I can see them the fighting starts. The fighting also starts when Jordan enters the picture. Jordan and Sydney do not play as well together because Jordan wants whatever Sydney has and grabs it right out of her hands and runs away. That really pisses Sydney off and it really pisses Jordan off when Sydney takes the item back, forcefully.
Sydney loves to play with her babies, she can play with them all day. She feeds them, changes them , dresses them and holds them while she reads them books. Sydney loves babies. She is fantastic with "Keev", as she has renamed her little brother. Sydney is always talking to him and engaging him, she finds toys that she thinks he will like and brings them to him if he is crying and she loves to hold him.
Sydney is always looking to draw pictures and write "letters" for us. She is demonstrating age appropriate pre-writing skills and I think it is going to be a matter of time before she is writing her own name. Sydney can identify and name between five and ten letters of the alphabet. She knows the letter "s" because that's her letter. She also know "L" for her sister Lior. The other letters she is aware of all corelate to members of our family (A, E, D, M and W). She counts from one to ten and is grasping the concept of one- to- one correlation. Her language skills are excellent and she is getting better everyday. Her articulation is her biggest obstacle at this time. Sometimes she is hard to understand but after careful prodding I have discovered that she is stimulable for all the sounds she is omitting. What does that mean? Well it means that she is capable of making the sounds now, when she is given a model so I suspect that she will be using them all soon.
Sydney is such a good natured and sensitive child. Her feeling get hurt so easily. It breaks my heart when Lior does not want to play with Sydney just because she knows that it bothers her. I guess that is what kids do to each other but it still bugs me.
Sydney loves life. She loves having fun and taking risks. I have always said that Sydney has an incredible zest for life and that has not changed one bit. You can tell that she is soaking up every little thing. There is a zip to her step and a wiggle in her walk. Some would take one look at her and say she is up to no good but that is not true of Sydney. She is simply interested in having a good time and following the rules. Now lets just hope that her desire to follow the rules continues on through her teen years.

This and that

I went to the doctors office twice today. Can you believe I planned it that way? Akiva went in the morning for a nurse visit. He needed to get some shots, which I hate! They weighed him and he weighs eleven pounds and fourteen ounces. I could have sworn he weighed more than that. He has grown so much, I cannot believe it! He is smiling and laughing all of the time. I can really get caught up staring at him and talking with him. He sleeps like a champ. With all the chaos, he still wants to eat his final meal for the day at nine and sleeps through the night. He typically wakes up between seven and eight in the morning. You can not beat that.

The big girls were my second trip to the doctor today. I kept them home from camp today to spend time with their Uncle Eric and we started the day at Lion Country Safari and ended at the doctors office. They had a blast feeding the giraffes and the goats. The cousins were not as brave as our fearless Sydney who did not want to stop feeding the giraffes. I think Liel will eventually warm up to the purple tongued giraffe but in the mean time we will just laugh at her. Uncle Danny fed the giraffe although he was a little squeamish at first. Eric fed the giraffes and loved every minute of it. We made a stop to feed the Lorries where they landed on several heads, I was very proud of Tanya when the bird landed on her head because she did not pass out. Adina was very brave and fed the birds without screaming or freaking out. Sydney asked me if she could touch the bird and when I told her she could her eyes lit up and she did it. Eitan even held a bird. Lior and Jordan enjoyed getting close up to the birds.


Sydney's bravery continued at the doctors office where she was thrilled to pee in a cup, stand on the scale and have her temperature taken orally. At two years eleven months Sydney weighs twenty seven pounds and is thirty four and a half inches tall and she will be the first to tell you that she did not cry at all. She will also tell you that when they pricked her finger it "hurt terribly."
Lior, at two years eleven months weighs twenty eight pounds and is exactly three feet. She continues to be one pound and at least an inch taller than Sydney. She helped Sydney by going first to show her that it was not scary and when she flat out refused Sydney stepped up to the plate to help her. She was not as happy when they pricked her finger and was mad at the "Doctor nurse" who gave her a boo-boo. They got a clean bill of health and are ready to start school in the fall.
That is right, Debbie the procrastinator brought her children to the doctor before she absolutely had to! Are you impressed? Well you should not be, we are getting ready to change health insurance and I am just being cheap. Maybe I can get Jordan in before we switch...
Jordan was ready to get examined today along with the big girls. She took off her dress and climbed up on to the table to be checked out along with her sisters. I wonder if she will be as eager when it is her turn? She is really ready to be a big kid, on Saturday she peed on the potty for Matt. He was changing her diaper and she kept pointing to her bottom saying "pee potty" so Matt took her and after a long wait she actually peed on the potty! She went again today when Liel was baby sitting her. Maybe she will be fully trained by her second birthday. A girl can dream!
Liel came with me to the big girls appointment today and she earned her money! Jordan was all over the place. That child is wild! If Liel was not with us she would have been strapped into the stroller the entire time screaming her little head off.