Sooo Big! (Raise your hands up in the air)

Hard to believe another season has passed, and it is almost winter!
Summer ended, and school began.  The girls are having a fantastic year so far!  TLM is loving Pre-K 4 and is budding as an "artist." Just ask her.  She'll tell you.  TLM is also learning both her ABCs and the Aleph-Bais letters.  SCM is loving 1st grade and even said, "As you go up in grades, it gets more fun!" We sincerely hope that continues.  She is reading in English and Hebrew, learning addition and subtraction, as well as adding gematria (Hebrew letter-number equivalents), learning world geography (the continents - she officially knows more about Africa now then we do.  She even learned some words in Swahili.) She is also planting and harvesting vegetables in the school garden, and learning Hebrew prefixes, suffixes, and root vocabulary words.
MNM has been graduating in the baby worlds of movement and speech.  She began crawling, cruising, and almost walking or walking holding our hands over the past few months.  Just this week, she took her first independent steps! Her babbling has slowly morphed into understandable sounds and certain words we can understand including "ah-doowe" (all done - while moving her hand in the baby sign language for all done), "dowgee" for dog, (her babysitter has 2 dogs that she has grown accustomed to seeing daily - she'll even imitate their barks!), "deh-dee" (for "tzetzie" - what we call her pacifier - coming from the Hebrew word "motzeitz"), "Abba", "Muma" (close enough to Ima - I'll take it), plus a bunch of other "words" in her own language.  She'll look us straight in the eye and babble off a sentence or two and expect us to understand what she is saying.  It is really adorable. She's also playing "peek-a-boo" and "Sooo big!" What a fun age!
In September, Shoshana and MNM took a trip to Charleston to see Uncle Scott, Aunt Tamar, H, D, and N for N's upsherin.  It was so wonderful to reconnect in person, even for a brief, brief visit.
We also had a chance to visit with cousins Ariel and Luke as they passed thru Seattle on their road trip.  It was so nice to see them, and wished them well as they traveled on through.
We had busy but wonderful Yomim Tovim. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur were meaningful and lovely, and Sukkos and Simchas Torah were beautiful.  We did not get a single drop of rain this year on Sukkos and the girls had a wonderful time dancing on Simchas Torah.
Shortly after Sukkos, MNM turned one!! We celebrated with a homemade pink-frosted cake. (No artificial colorings! Any guesses what made it pink?)
We made a trip to Chicago to visit family and had a great time.  In addition to enjoying the wonderful quality time with family, the girls also enjoyed a circus, a children's museum, and a bouncy place with merry go rounds and a balloon room.
Enjoy the pictures and videos - but reader beware: there are lots of them this time. :)

With friends at the park

Standing up

Blowing glass

1st day of school  - Pre-K 4 and 1st grade

More practice standing

Playing with cousin D in Charleston

Playing solitaire with D and H

MNN with Savta, D, and N

N's upsherin 1

N's upsherin 2

N's upsherin 3

MNM with Savta and H

Aunt-Niece/nephews bonding time

Family photo

MNM eating a cracker in the airport

TLM in a frame!

MNM dancing

TLM feeds MNM

TLM talks about her field trip

MNM balancing

Erev Rosh Hashana SCM and TLM

Erev Rosh Hashana SCM, TLM, and MNM

Visiting with Ariel and Luke 1

Visiting with Ariel and Luke2

Decorating the Sukkah

Dancing at the Simchas Bais HaShoeva

 

Dancing at the Simchas Bais HaShoeva

SCM and TLM perform

MNM pulled up on Abba

Happy 1st birthday MNM!

Erev Shabbos girlies

MNM with a little Torah

Artist Mima 1

Artist Mima 2

M&Ms by MNM

Sisters (at our friends' baby's vacht nacht before the baby's bris)

SCM in new Shabbos clothes

MNM on a merry go round

TLM on a different merry go round

SCM on a merry go round

Saba and TLM in the balloon room

SCM holding MNM on a merry go round

SCM and MNM in the balloon room

Sister love- TLM and MNM

Matching sisters

All 3 sisters

Older sisters in matching boots

2nd set of steps!! (1st steps were on Shabbos)