My favorite time of the year is here. Or at least I always think it is my favorite time of the year, until it comes. I think the first flurry's of the season will always be special and magical and I want my children to experience that feeling. But in reality, when the snow comes and I have to bundle the kids up and push that stroller through the streets of Brooklyn where no one bothers to shovel, my heart fills with dread. Right now, my oldest is only two years old and can't really play with the snow, I do think that when the kids get older and they can make a snowman in the backyard and sled down the porch steps on a garbage can cover (we used to do that), the old joy will come back to me as I hear my children shriek in delight.

Pictures of the streets of Brooklyn, outside my house. This was the first real snow of the season.

Pictures of my brother's street in Texas, they had an ice storm and the streets turned to a complete ice sheet. The kids don't get to see snow that often and were very excited for a chance to go sledding. They had to get pretty creative since they don't have sleds. 

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS

So there is this saying that goes "When it rains it pours". I definitely had an experience that epitomizes this saying. 
(All of this happened in the span of 1.5 weeks)
Tuesday: I go to my friends house for a play date, I'm walking down the steps holding my four month old and I miss the last step and my foot bends side ways and buckles under me. My baby is fine Thank G-d, but now I am sitting on the bottom step and I can't get up. It turns out I sprained my ankle and was not able to walk at all for the next 5 days and minimally for the next 5 after that. 
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: My husband is off to a full day of work and school and I can't walk, my mom comes to help me over so I can hang at her house, where my brothers family is visiting from Texas, so there are plenty of hands to help me out with the kids. 
Saturday: My two year old son catches a bad cold and cough. 
Sunday: My two year old, who has had way too many experiences with bronchiolitis and pneumonia (he was in the hospital with pneumonia as a baby, and since then every time he gets sick, it usually goes to his lungs), is having trouble breathing. My husband has off from work so he is able to bring him in to the doctor: And he has bronchiolitis! Now here is the story with my son and oral medicine. He throws up. Period, end of story. It is absolutely impossible to get medicine down in any form (somehow I forgot to remind my husband about that and we get the oral antibiotics and steroids). 
Monday: Back to the doctor for two injections on his butt (poor baby:()
Tuesday: Back to the doctor for another two injections. (walking is limited at this point, taking taxi's back and forth). 
Wednesday: Back to the doctor to see how he is doing and his lungs are clear and no more fever. Thank G-d, we can breath a sigh of relief. Baby girl is coughing and has a cold so she is checked out and her lungs are clear!
To backtrack a bit, we lost our insurance a couple weeks before that and did not have a chance to get insurance back, my husband had and the baby had, me and my son, no insurance so doctor bills for these experiences are a total of $650! 
Anyway, back to our timeline, 
Thursday, Friday: Baby's coughing getting worse and she is more irritable. 
Saturday: She is miserable, crying a lot, not nursing, wheezing. 
Sunday: Back to the doctor (she does have insurance!), she has bronchiolitis and a full blown ear infection (poor baby). 
Antibiotics time for baby! 
What a week+
Here is a video of my son on the nebulizer, feeling mostly back to himself and in good spirits.

Happy Chanukka and Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is a really cute song I saw online:

Thanksgivukkah, Thanksgivukkah,

Come light the menurkey

Let's have a party

With latkes and turkey
.
Maccabbees and Pilgrims

Americans and Jews

Thankfulness and freedom

The lessons we choose

So come spin the dreidel,

And lighting the candles we gloat.

Hearts skip a beat

For we know soon we'll eat

Pumpkin pie and some sufganiot!

Hearts skip a beat

For we know soon we'll eat

Pumpkin pie and some sufganiot!

Thanksgivukkah, Thanksgivukkah,

A joyous occasion

Everyone join in

This rare celebration

Lift up high your voices

With songs and with cheers.

The next one won't come for

79 thousand years.

 
Tonight is the first night of Hanukka. And of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving. As a Jew, I celebrate Hanukka every year of course, I just find it amusing that everyone is crazy over the overlap of the two holidays. I guess something that happens this rarely should be made a big deal of. It certainly is nice not to be competing with Christmas, which it usually falls out on. And it is also nice to have the double message of Thanks. Well tomorrow evening, of course we will be having our joint Hanukka and Thanksgiving party, Thanksgivukka as everyone is calling it. 

 I made these doughnuts, a traditional Chanukka food that we all love to eat. They came out AMAZING!  But it was really hard work, I need a good break until next year.

                                     The Menorah lit on the eighth night of Channuka!

My little boy ready to light the Menorah with his daddy. 

We include everyone in this celebration. 

 Last week we took fall pictures with our family. I am in love with how they came out, so I made a little collage with some of my favorite photos. I am obsessing a little over how to print them, which to enlarge, where to hang them in our home. My last pictures I hung up were the ones we took when my two year old son was 7 months old. It's time for an update:) 

Click to see it in larger:)

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The actual photo shoot was really fun, we had a great photographer who was so good with our son. We had some special daddy/son, daddy/daughter, mother/daughter, mother/son moments that were beautiful and I was glad to catch them on camera. 

I hope to take many pictures of my kids as they grow up so they can see the story of their life. I personally enjoy looking at pictures of my childhood, I cherish the photos as they help me hold on to so many memories. 

Many times I have wished a book had a different cover. At first glance, the book will look like an OK book to me, then I read it and it becomes one of my favorite books. My brother in law actually had to recreate a book cover for a class and he chose this novel, Crime and Punishment. I was so excited because it is one of my favorite psychological novels, yet I never loved the cover. When I saw this recreation, I was excited because I felt that it brought out the essence of the book. This novel tells the tale of the student Raskolnikov and his guilt over his crime of murdering an unscrupulous pawnbroker with an ax. The main theme of book is his mental anguish over his crime. I think the book cover both express the crime, which was done with an ax, and the punishment which was his intense guilt and anguish. The image of a man in a corner looks depressed, and the picture of an ax is beside him. I liked the colors used because the red seems to represents the blood spilled as well as the anguish, and the white on the right side represents the redemption at the end of the book.
Just wanted to share something that excited me:)

I am a religious Jew and we just finished almost a full month of Jewish Holidays. Since that is what I have been busy with the past few weeks, I wanted to share some of the excitement. I don't want to tell you about the Holidays, I really want to describe some of the crazy scenes that happen in our neighborhood- the Hassidic community of Crown Heights. Before the Holiday of Rosh Hashana, people come from all over the world to Crown Heights for the High Holidays. Thousands of people are put up by different organizations or community homes. And as crazy as it may sound, many other hundreds come without a clue as to where they will stay.The streets are literally packed with people and their suitcases. This year we had 3 Israeli girls ring our bell and ask to take showers in our house!
 

Probably the weirdest custom one will observe is the ritual called kaparot. Before the day of Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, we take a chicken and say a prayer that we should be sealed for a sweet year. These chickens are then slaughtered and given to the poor to eat. 
Here are some pictures of our my 2 year old son doing kaporot and enjoying the chicken!


The last of the High Holidays is called Sukkot, we build little huts that we eat in and them for the week. We also shake a lulav and etrog every day of this Holiday. Every night, there is dancing and music in the streets the whole night. There are many police over the whole neighborhood making sure everything is safe. They must think we are more crazy every day of that month. 

                       

This is my beautiful family! My husband's name is Shmuel, he is the greatest husband a woman could wish for:) And an awesome dad! Our 2 Year old boy Mendel is the sweetest, he is a real character and says the funniest things. 6 weeks ago, Mendel lost his place as the only child and was joined by his darling beautiful sister Ruthie! We were nervous about Mendel being jealous and hurting Ruthie but he loves his little sister and is really gentle with her. I am blessed to have such a beautiful family, I love them so much! I am hoping that these two siblings will grow up to be the best of friends. It's interesting how having children makes you think about your own childhood and your relationships with your parents and siblings. I hope to emulate many of the things from my childhood, as it was a special one.