Reading the torah

On the way home from synagogue Tovina read to us from her personal Torah.
You can see her in action here.

Mazel tots and other synagogue events

I just discovered that the Sunday event we have been attending at our synagogue has pictures. Wanna see more? Check out this.
 

Swaddled no more

I laid Ari down on his bed while I was getting his actual bed ready for him. He noticed his stuffed animal a foot out so away, scootched himself over to it, started sucking on it, and promptly fell asleep.
I think I could get use to this bed time routine.

Cousins playing together

sort of

Mommy can't count

Being an engineer I thought I had some mad crazy good math skills (which are still left reeling in the dust by actuaries, but that's a different story) so I was a little surprised yesterday to learn that I can't count to 2.

Cause that's how many teeth Ari now has while I thought we were still at 1.

Plague house

I'm a little surprised that the government hasn't shown up to impose a quarantine already. Here you can see plague vector 1 passed out on the couch. See that bucket next to her? She's been using it a lot. Way more than I thought someone her size could use such a thing.

We are making sure Tovina is staying hydrated and she is enjoying the extra TV time when she is not sleeping.

I'm just looking forward to her eventually, someday, if we're lucky, getting better.

Ari and the tooth

Ari has been gnawing on things quite a bit for the last 2 weeks. There has also been an impressive amount of drool.
Though, as you might have noticed, he is a baby and a certain amount of drool and gnawing are to be expected.
Then we noticed that he was getting kind of fussy and difficult. Not difficult compared to many other babies, but for Ari Patrick he was being down right ornery. Of course he also has a really impressive cold, so maybe that is affecting him....

Today we felt his tooth. Bottom, front, left incisor. And at only 5 months. I just checked and T's started coming in at 7 months.
We're planning on starting him on steak dinners next week.

December?

How on earth did we get to December already?
Quick update:
We are all doing well. Ari Patrick is now able to roll from his back to front and front to back though rarely one right after the other. He is also great at jamming things into his mouth. Oh, and drooling - very, very good at drooling.
Tovina is still the outgoing joy she has always been. There are a few more twirls and discussions around bed time but otherwise happy and friendly.

Food Coma

In honor of Thanksgiving, here are some shots of food coma hitting the family.

Going to the park

Zaida is in town which means that Tovina gets to go to the park. It seemed cold out so I made sure Tovina was wearing her jacket, gloves, and hat. Tovina choice the scarf and mask herself. The scarf I understood. The mask confused me some but apparently it was a critical part of a well dressed outing.

Taking in a little culture

Since the entire house has been given over to Thanksgiving day preparation we had to find something else to do for dinner. Can you guess what kind of restaurant we went to?

Ferris wheel

When choosing a ride at the pumpkin fair last month Tovina wanted the one that would go up the highest.
Good kid!

We then decided to get some photos. As you can see, she started with some very Calvinesque expressions.

This was the view from the top.

Talking Ari

He's found his voice!

Lost Cat, Found Cat, Stupid Cat

By Thursday evening I thought we might be missing something. Friday morning I was pretty sure when I noticed that only Roxanne (the female cat in our pair) came running for food. Friday afternoon Michael confirmed that Cyrano (our male cat) was definitely not in the house, not anywhere. Saturday I called the animal shelters, kennels, and other such agencies.Then I planned a route, printed flyers, and printed pictures.

LOST CAT

Cream color with dark brown nose, ears, feet, and tail

Blue eyes

Large (18 lb)

Long-haired Male

Very cuddly

As I went out on the back porch to get the duct tape, I noticed something whitish dashing under the deck. This despite the fact that Michael had been out on the porch for the last hour moving leaves and we'd both spent time calling for him. We rallied cat food, a flashlight, and Roxanne and attempted to coax Cyrano from under the porch. It took more effort (see: crumpling and pouring of cat food) than we anticipated but he eventually came out and we took him back inside, apparently the no worse for wear.

Also completely unrepentant regarding our worry and general tenseness of the last few days. Apparently we were  not very careful about how we were rreferring to this dear household animal because Tovina has learned a new phrase.
"Stupid cat."

Self Portrait?

As you can tell if you look closely, Ari Patrick took this picture of himself and his big sister.

Trying ballet

Tovina strokes a pose

Rolling over

Ari Patrick made his grand front-to-back roll over debut today. I was right there with him both the first and second time, which is why we have all of these great before and after shots. I also have about 20 minutes of video which takes place entirely *between* these two events without capturing either one.
He is a very sneaky child.

Lunch call

How Ari Patrick lets me know he's hungry when I am working from home.

Lovely walk picture

This was intended to  attach to the previous post

Going for a walk

A beautiful fall day with 2 children big enough to sit up in a stroller

Big Sister update

Tovina is doing pretty well with Ari Patrick. She generally doesn't mind him unless he starts crying during her much coveted TV time. And she very much enjoys the positive attention she gets when holding him with other people around. Tonight when getting ready for bed she told me that after her story she wanted to spend some time 'focusing on Ari'.

The other side of this is that she also asks us to 'focus on me' or, if she is feeling particularly neglected, 'I'd like you to pay attention to me now'.

We appreciate that she can so clearly tell us what she needs.

Pictures from this week

Here is Ari at his doctor appointment and Tovina with Kayla from tonight's Sukkot dinner

More pics from August

I still have lots of left over photos from visits this summer, so I decided to share a few more. One stop was with Chip and Sarah and Quinn and Will. Quinn had a few features on the blog back when we lived in China. This makes sense as that is where we met this family. But now, just to shake things up, we spent time together here in the states. 

This involved a lot of baby holding sometimes while doing other things

and sometimes as the sole activity.

Dad spent some time holding Ari Patrick too (of course)

Even the kids got in on the deal

Thought they also had a grand time while not holding the baby (which is very logical given his expression in the above photo.)

Quinn himself managed to resist most of my attempts at photographing him but I was able to capture him when he was otherwise distracted by crafts!

3 month check up

Ari saw the doctor today. He

• is still at 80%+ for weight
• didn't cry when he got his shot
• has started to giggle
• loves standing

and best of all...

• slept 8 hours straight last night!

Ben, Joann, and Aiden

We had some friends in from the east coast on Sunday. Given the momentous nature of such an event photos were in order. At first I thought it would just be the boys but then we were reminded that someone else needed to be in the scene.

Then we switched phtotographers and she took the shots rthat were important to her.

a

Who was this mysterious person?...

Visit with Sheila and Kim

Some more pictures from August - visiting with Kim and Sheila.
Here we are checking out Wolf's Neck State Park.
 

Then did some wave watching, which other people might refer to as whale watching.

 

Tovina liked how much the boat felt like a roller coaster.

 

Here is some of Ari's favorite quality time with our hosts.