Too much translation?

Yisrael came home from Cheder today with a nice project about Selichos. He showed it to me, and I asked him, "Yisrael, the Tatty's have to wake up very early to say ____", to which he answered "I'm sorries!"

I guess he thinks that he can speak ONLY English to me- and that he has to translate every last word!

Yungers in Action: Singing "Chodesh Elul" song

As many of you know, Bruria started Gan this year- in Hebrew! She is having a bit of a hard adjustment, but B"H she's starting to like it (she just doesn't like to leave her Mommy!)

This afternoon, she and Yisrael were singing one of the Hebrew songs they both learned in gan (Yisrael sings the words much clearer than Bruria does- that's because he actually understands what he's saying!)

Enjoy!

Taking Azriel Shraga for a ride

Yisrael and Bruria LOVE to pretend that they are driving on a bus/train- I'm sure you remember this game from when you were little- they take all the chairs in the house, and line them up. We have a steering wheel, and they take turns being the bus driver and "punching" each other's כרטיסיה.

Today, they invited Azriel Shraga to join them- "Come, Shaga!" they said, "we are going on a bus!" You should have seen the look of excitement on Azriel Shraga's face- right away, he started zooming for the front door, screaming, "Bu! Bu! Bu!"

When he realized that he wasn't REALLY going on a busride, I had to comfort a very dissappointed little boy!

Yisrael is learning Aleph-Bais in Cheder!

Yisrael only started Cheder last week, and already on the second day of school, he started learning Aleph-Bais with Rebbi Yochanan (he has a Morah for most of the morning but Rebbi Yochanan comes in to teach Aleph-Bais and then takes boys out to learn with them individually)

Today, he was all excited because he learned the letter ב - he told us how since he didn't listen, he didn't get a "candy" like the בּ. I gave him a paper and marker, and asked him to draw the letters he learned. He did a really good job- he wasn't looking at anything while he did this! At first, he forgot the "regel" on his בּ, but then he remembered on his own. His first ב attempt came out a little funny (more like script, which was NOT intentional), so he made a second one, further down on the page.

After that, I gave him a little recognition exercise- I wrote a whole row of letters on the side, and had him circle all the א in red, all the בּ in yellow (which didn't show up so well when I scanned the page), and to make a green line under all the ב (he made a few circles too).


We are VERY proud of our little boy- may he be zoche to keep "shteiging" in his learning, and may he go מחיל אל חיל!

Bruria's newest hairstyling technique

(Don't worry, all you faint-hearted readers out there- this one isn't as gross as the last technique she came up with!)

I was getting the kids ready for bed, and ran downstairs to get Bruria's blanket (she is very attached to it, and is always shlepping it around the house- any advice how to wean her??)

I came back up and heard Bruria and Azriel Shraga laughing their heads off- which is a sure sign that they were up to no good. I came into the room and found Bruria with the hair gel- she had TONS of it on her hands, and was smearing it into Azriel Shraga's hair- he loved it! The two of them were having a great time and were pretty upset that I broke up the party!

Pizza Party!

On one of our "down" days, we stayed home, went swimming in the backyard, and then made homemade pizza! Yisrael and Bruria were so excited that I let them make their pizza by themselves- they got to roll out the dough, spread the sauce, and helped me sprinkle the spices and cheese- they were a little dissappointed that I wouldn't let them put it in the oven by themselves!

All Aboard!

One day we decided that it might be fun for the kids to go on a train ride. There's a train from Yerushalayim, that passes through Beit Shemesh, ultimately arriving in Tel Aviv. There are buses from here that go to the train station in both places, so we figured it might work out well.

Until we checked the schedules- we saw that the trains only come every two hours, and the Beitar bus gets to the train station about 5 minutes AFTER the train we would have taken. So Bentzi and I started thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. But when Yisrael overheard our conversation, he got all tzebruchen- "We're not going to go on a train?"- we just couldn't break his little heart, so we decided that we'll just have to work it out!

So, to make a very long story a little shorter, we ended up taking a bus to Beit Shemesh, and taking a train from there to Lod. We then got off the train in Lod, turned around, and took the train in the other direction, to Yerushalyim. After getting off the train, we walked around the mall nearby, and got drinks, before getting back on a bus to come home! (talk about a lot of travelling!)

The kids LOVED it. I wish you could've seen the look on Yisrael's face when the train pulled into the station. He was THRILLED! The first train ride was very pleasant- about 30 minutes- and the kids were very happy to look out the window at all the scenery passing by.

But by the time we boarded the second train (it came late, so we were waiting outside in the heat for a while) they were a little worn out. We ate lunch on the train, and then they wanted to run all over the place- up and down the aisles, through the entire length of the train. They had a great time, but us poor parents were wiped after the whole day!