Passover in Tahoe

Sam, Elias, and I were lucky enough to spend last weekend in Tahoe with Morgan, Rachel, Milo, Rachel's mom Judy, and various other members of Rachel's extended family. A couple of Rachel's cousins live in Tahoe, so her family congregated there to celebrate Passover together. We were so happy to be included in the festivities. It was great to meet some of Rachel's family and hang out in beautiful Tahoe for a few days. The highlight, though, was definitely seeing the cousins together for the first time. Sam, Patch, and Milo will make a formidable team some day! While I haven't lost hope that we will have a baby girl in our midst someday (Mo and Rachel, I'm thinking of you guys here), it is pretty darn cute to see those boys together. Milo is just the sweetest, happiest little guy that I've met in a long time, and just so adorable with his strawberry blond hair and big brown eyes. My two boys were both gentle and loving with their baby cousin- giving him hugs and kisses, and sharing toys. Hopefully the trio will be able to spend lots more time together in the future!

Kazoo-ing cousins!

Reading with "CocoMo."

Cooking cousins- another favorite activity of the two youngest members of our party!


Milo- so sweet.

Crawling cousins. And, yes, I did dress Elias occasionally over the course of the weekend!

Do these boys look related or what??

Silly Daddy!

Yes! There is Ben and Jerry's in Tahoe!!


On our way to the Seder. Not a very good shot, I know...maybe someone else has a better one??Big standing Milo.

Sam was the co leader of our Seder, along with Rachel's fabulous cousin Rebecca. Here he is peeking out from behind an enourmous piece of matzoh.

Elias looks pretty good in a yarmulke.


Happy Passover everyone!!

chefs in the house

We have recently offed our old plastic play kitchen and replaced it with a used, but lovely wooden version. We are slowly trying to rid ourselves (mostly anyway) of all the brightly colored and soul damaging plastic toys that have become a fixture in our lives since Sam was born. I am trying to simplify our lives and our home- the general toy clutter has recently reached some sort of zenith and it's either it or me!! I am also trying to "naturalize" our lives a bit- reduce the amount of toys, up the amount of imagination. Get the kids in contact with more natural fibers and materials and less plastic and batteries. We have always tried to be very conscious of what we brought into the house and their lives, but the situation seems to have run away from us somehow...

So anyway, we are actively trying to pare down and simplify. Sometimes that means just getting rid of stuff, and sometimes that means paying more for a quality item, instead of choosing the cheaper, more readily available China-made item. Either way, it is a process and we are working on it.

We do now have a charming little wooden kitchen that I love, probably more than anyone else in the family. I don't have a very good shot of the kitchen itself, but I have a few cute ones of the boys playing with it. One of my new favorite activities is setting it back up at night after the boys have gone to bed. If only I liked cleaning up the "real" kitchen as much...

Two years ago...

my boys looked like this...

and this,
and this,
and this!

And now they look like this- still cute, but what a difference a couple of years makes!!

Gardening, California style

Patch speak

For a two year old, Elias has a pretty impressive command of the English language. He speaks in compete sentences a lot and even uses the "I" pronoun. However, he does employ a few words of his own design, which we have all taken over and use casually and automatically in our everyday speech. I thought I would share some of my favorites with you all!

uh-oh = pacifier
This was the first word that Elias made up. I love it! It's the best variation of pacifier I've heard yet.

tiempo = ice cream

pupa = skateboard

bafio = basketball

pappiya = spatula

poondie = smoothie

tracia = tractor

milkea = milk

fric-fic = forklift

coosdriver = screwdriver

The view

from our back yard this morning...

Happy April!

Sam loves this tree. He spends a lot of time in it. On this particular evening he was camped out in it, utilizing it as a watch tower. He was hoping to catch the very first glimpse of his dad, getting home from work.






I'm thinking that I have got to get his modeling career started!!