It's been a while...

Hello everyone in cyber land! I owe you an update as well as promised pics and videos which I haven't yet posted but I'm home all week so I should have no problem putting everything up. Meanwhile I'll let you know the girls are doing great, they're happier at their new gan each month and are starting to pick up on the language. They even play with each other in Hebrew sometimes. This shabbat Bracha led us all in Shalom Aleichem Friday night then Vishamru at lunch (both of which apparently include everyone linking arms and rocking side to side). Both girls can draw nicely and write their names in English and can both draw people, flowers, and suns. That's it for now, more to follow soon.

Ch ch ch ch changes

Well, it's been a while since my last update (but look, mom, no apologies!). A lot has happened. The girls finished their fabulous Gan Shelanu and went to a new kaytana (camp) for two and a half weeks in the summer before moving on to their new gan. It's a municipal public religious gan which sets them on track for an education in the public religious school system for the next fourteen years. It's a Hebrew speaking gan of 30+ kids, a huge change from their class of fourteen in an all-English gan the last two years. But the gannenot are all really nice and there are a bunch of other English speakers there (including another set of gg twins with a daughter names Eliana!) We told the kids they'd have the language figured out by Chanukka. I hope that happens. Meanwhile they no longer complain about not understanding (at least, they don't complain as much as they used to) and are happy there, so I'm glad. Oh. and the best part is it is just across the street! I have pictures and videos to upload which I will be doing today and tomorrow. I have a new phone, and thus a new camera, so I have to figure out how all this works. But I have some great footage from the last month or two that I really want to share. So keep your eyes peeled for more updates soon!

The many sleeping positions of E and B

Pictures, yay!

A few more videos

Happy face!

Everyone show me your excited faces at this awesome new video!

Gan yearbook video!

Videos!

Updates

Long time no update! A lot has been going on around here. The girls had their 4th birthday back in February but the day of their party also brought hardships to our family: Shawn was hospitalized later that evening. Things have yet to get back to normal as he continues to search for the best treatment program for his needs but the girls have been amazing troopers through it all. We see Abba every chance we get and fortunately lately that has been a more frequent occurrence. But the girls and I have been doing quite well (as you can tell from the pictures and videos from the last four months).

They had their second haircut a few weeks ago, Eliana ending up with an adorable bob that is slightly longer in the front than in the back and Bracha's hair is still as long as ever, just with a couple inches fewer of split ends. As you can probably tell from the pics, she gets two pigtails every morning. Keeps the lice away, tfu tfu tfu. Every Sunday lick clockwork we go to English story time after gan, hitting up the nearby library as well. I thought a little variety in bedtime stories would offer a nice changce from the same stories we read for years. Boy was I wrong. We must have checked out Camilla's New Hairdo, Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox, and The Gruffalo's Child more than all the other kids who have every checked out any of them, combined! Eliana even knows the first two by heart, which I must admit is kinda nice since the other day I fell asleep in the middle of 'reading them their bedtime story' which I fortunately didn't even have to read at all. But it's gotten to the point where it completely defeats the purpose or borrowing library books to discover new stories and I've had to implement a new rule: at least half of all books checked out must be new (to us). May this be our biggest problem in life!!!

The girls love cooking and baking with me which brings me back to my own childhood memories of baking with my father. Of course, the times have changed so my four-year-olds know how to roll sushi, a food I never ate before I was nearly 20. In fact, here is Eliana helping me bake the chewy chocolate chip peanut butter bars we made for Savta's surprise 70th birthday party:

And here they are, along with their cousin, Reuben (via Skype) at the party:

That's it for now. I will try to upload some videos in the next few days. Let me leave you with two final scrumptious pictures of my not-so babies...with ice-cream punims (strike a pose!) and pretzels:

Even more pictures

Shavuot's Har Sinai cake

One day watching tv...

Ima made us pretty earings!

On the way to/from gan