Our Marvelous Morning Routine

Remember when we were little, and we used to recite entire story tapes by heart? Well my cuties have already started doing it! This morning after pouring Yisrael and Bruria a bowl of cornflakes and milk, they began to recite the cornflakes episode from "The Marvelous Middos Machine!" (They've done this several times already, but this was the first time I was able to record it!)

Click here to hear them!

(You can even hear Bruria chomping on her cereal as she speaks!)

Babies in the Bathtub

I was bathing the (older 3) kids yesterday- and of course, Naftali decided to wake up from his nap and start screaming his head off JUST THEN. I brought him into the bathroom, and since he needed a bath anyway, I figured I might as well throw him in as well. So I told everyone else all to make room for Naftali.

"Mommy, you are being silly" says Bruria, "Naftali has a little bath, not a big bath!"

I told her that usually I use the little bath for him, but this time I was going to put him in with them.

She then turned to Yisrael and said, "Mommy is just saying things. She's not really going to put him in the bath with us!"

Boy was she suprised when she realized that I meant what I said!

Yunger Airways - Flight 1549

I was reading an article on Aish.com about the U.S. Airway Flight 1549's miraculous landing. For those of you who don't know, Yisrael has an airplane obsession- so when he saw the picture of the airplane in the water, he wanted to know all the details- how it got there, why, and how it was going to get out of the water .

Since then, he has been renacting Flight 1549- he built an airplane, he made a ים (I didn't bother explaining the difference between an river and a sea) for the airplane to fly into, he made a "henty truck" (crane) to pull the aiplane out of the water, and he's been spending the last two days fixing the airplane so that it can fly again. He pulled out all his toy tools- hammer, drill, screwdriver, and he's been banging away at his little "toolbench". He says soon the airplane will be ready to fly again!

Here's a little video clip I took of him while doing repairs to his airplane.

A Guessing Game

Yisrael has become extremely creative. He can sit with the Clics for hours, making all sorts of things. And he lets his imagination run wild when he plays with Play Dough too. Its amazing to watch him work- he gets completely absorbed in what he's doing (sound familiar?!)

Here's a few of his creations - he always asks me to take a picture when he finishes making something (its a chaval we can't take pictures on Shabbos or I'd have MUCH more!) - Lets see if you can guess what they are (and yes, for all you skeptics out there, he DID make these all by himself- I didn't even give him the idea!):

Creation #1

(we'll start with an easy one)

Creation #2

(Yisrael made this on Shabbos Parshas Vayigash- it has to do with the Parsha)

Creation #3

Creation #4

(TIP- its not a creature with eyes- Yisrael just used an eye piece)

Give up? You can find the answers at the end of another blog entry that features a Yisrael creation. (Too lazy to look through the whole blog? Then click here )

Surrogate Mother

I was getting the kids ready for bed tonight, and (as usual!) Naftali was crying. I left him on Yisrael's bed for a minute (don't worry, he's not rolling over yet, and anyways, I put him all the way near the wall!) so I could get Azriel Shraga into PJ's. Bruria and Yisrael were very upset by Naftali's crying (you'd think by now they'd get used to it) - so they were trying to get him to stop- they were cooing at him, stroking him, etc. - but nothing seemed to work (he wanted me, of course!)

So finally, Bruria took matters into her own hands- she pulled Naftali onto her lap, lifted up her shirt, and proceeded to "nurse" him. The funniest part of the whole thing is that I think she was completely serious!

An Apology

Here's an apology to all my readers - and myself. I have been meaning to sit down and blog for weeks, but B"H my hands are full lately- between the kids and everything else, the blog has just fallen to the wayside. I'll try to do better :)