Moved

So, last time I wrote a blog post, I made a list of the things I wanted to remember to tell you next time I wrote a post (i.e. now).  But then we moved and I don't know where the list is.  So someday I will find it and have fodder for writing more.

Instead, this time I can tell you that we moved.  Just a couple of miles down the road, but now we're renting from someone other than my employer, which is good, and the goats have way better pastures to eat.  The house is probably a better fit for us too.  But boy, moving is a pain.  Still digging out.

In other news, my semester is over, and so, between all the stuff that gets pushed back to summer and the whole moving/unpacking thing, I can't say I have lots more time, but still... I was, nicely, able to go spend half a day with Eytan in his class and then a couple of weeks later with Li'el in her class.  So that was nice... and we've really ended up with a very nice school for them, everyone's favorite so far for sure.  Makes it hard to think about leaving (i.e. up comes kindergarten for E next year -- although our district only does half day (i.e. 2 1/2 hours) kindergarten so you need half day daycare anyway, so we're just going to minimize the changes and have him stay where he is now for kindergarten and postpone any decision-making needs for another year).

Meanwhile a few pictures below from Eytan's class, and then also from a Safta visit and from friends who were helping occupy kiddos while we were moving boxes.  Note haircut for Li'el from earlier to later pictures... because Eytan and Li'el conspired to have him cut her hair -- so we figured we should even it out.  But actually came out quite nicely I thought in the end.  No pictures of Oren here but he is very walkingly mobile and mimicking and saying lots of words and making himself very much part of the action.

PIctures pictures

Some tail-end-of-snow pictures (Feb)...

A first birthday (Feb).

Cruising...

And here I was trying to get dancing... you've got it for the first milli-millisecond:

A visit from Grandma (Feb).

A work trip to D.C. for me and Oren (March) (doesn't it look like work?)

A yard sale (presumably?)



Bananas.



Beginnings of spring (March).



Doctor's office visit (can you tell Li'eli was the one who was sick here?)

Next time maybe there will be more text too...

Year-end wrap-up

Time for pictures from the past couple of months!

Thanksgiving (photos courtesy of Saba, Safta, and Great-George)

Then Mike turned 36 on the last night of Chanukah this year -- and so 4 Chanukiot (menorahs) with 9 candles each made 36 candles for cake.

Meanwhile, efforts to improve the work-life balance have been moderately successful.  It's not perfect, but there has been more sleep and more un-overshadowed kid time.

And the big kids have taken to building forts (Mike and I have been too a little)...

 

We also sold baby goats Shana and Tova (both boys).  I never like selling our goats (how do you figure out in 5 minutes if the people you're selling to are going to be good homes for them?), but have to forestall too much goat accumulation...

The fall was on the whole quite warm...

But by now we're on to snow and sledding.  We even had sledding company over today (including two who are spending their first winters outside the tropics, so first times with snow... I think they liked it).

In other novelty news, back in December one of the kids from Eytan's class had a birthday party at this indoor bike-riding track, where there are bike obstacles and areas for grownups and kids alike.  It was actually pretty neat.

And over New Year's we drove to Chicago for a few days to see old friends, who we hadn't seen in a long long time... and somehow I didn't take any pictures :( but it was fun.

Meanwhile,  other pictures of kids, one from home and one from school.

And videos of Oren crawling and giggling.  But I'm behind the times, I'll have to get you standing/cruising videos next time.

Fall in pictures

August brought a fourth birthday for Eytan (although he didn't seem to want to be the center of birthday attention so, at his request, we pretended it was Li'el's birthday),

an opportunity for duckie to sunbathe,

a visit from Saba and Safta,

nectarines,

and new student orientation for my program, which has come to involve cleaning out the goat pen.

In September, Malki and Frosty had babies -- all four born on Rosh Hashanah, and appropriately named Shana, Tova, Dvash, and Pooh.

Dairy class field trips began...

Butter being wrapped

and the kids all settled into new daycares, where, look!, they go outside even in the rain!  (Li'el and Eytan's new school is really great, lots of outdoor time, and Oren's is okay too (he's too young for the other place, til next year, but is right near Mike's work)).

One day, when we were cleaning up the dining room, Eytan found an egg on the floor.  Weird, I thought, did one of the kids take an egg out of the fridge and put it on the floor?  And then I remembered that our screen door doesn't always close all the way.

Turned out one of the chickens had started coming in the house to make deliveries.  Which is actually pretty awesome, and she even pecked up the little pieces of dirt too while she was around.  Would have been a great deal, actually, if she were potty trained.

In October, we built a Sukkah (Sukkot started in September this year, but we were late :)),

and I went to D.C. with my policy class and saw some old grad school friends (note, despite the size difference, Oren is 5 months younger than the other baby in the picture).

And then the semester got really busy and I ran out of time (but I think I'm back to a little better again now).  Mike ran out of time too, so Eytan and Li'el and I have taken to having little weekend outings while Oren naps so that Mike can get his teaching prep done.  These pictures of them and outings sort of track the progression of fall.

Kids in portable goat shelter

 

Kids on riding lawnmowers outside of Lowe's

Kids on swing near my office

Kids at birthday party of a school friend

Kids in leaves near playground

Eytan and Li'el these days, go back and forth between playing really nicely together, and playing not so nicely together.  Eytan goads or micromanages, and Li'el goes with it until she gets fed up, and then Eytan feels hurt, but hasn't really figured out yet that he's provoking this reaction.  Some of it is age too, like Eytan suggests hide and seek, and when it's Li'el's turn to hide she tells us all exactly where she is, to Eytan's frustration.  

Oren has remained pretty independent, i.e. as the only one of our kids who, even as a baby,  seems fairly happy playing on his own for short spurts of time -- the other kids do it sometimes, but they rarely did as babies.  He has also become really mobile (I'll try to get pictures of crawling for next time), and quite talkative (his first word seems to be "hi").

And now, somehow, we're past Thanksgiving and heading into winter.  So I'll try to have less of a gap from now til next time.