trick or treat

Here are my little trick or treaters. This photo captures the 15 seconds where Jena agreed to keep her ears on and Stef agreed to keep her hat and her horse. By time we left the house the costumes were a little less complete. At first Stefanie thought maybe she didn't want to go out, that she would rather stay home and give out candy. After about 5 houses she was good to go and insisted we keep going until we fill the bucket. This was made a little more difficult by the fact that we had to aviod any house that Stefanie felt was the slightest bit "creepy". My personal pet peeve-- if you aren't going to answer the door on halloween turn your porch light off!
Jena contines to do well at daycare. She has become attached to one of Stefanies old baby blankets we call 'silkey'. I am encourging this since she has to get used to sleeping here, there, and everywhere i like the idea of her having a security object. Remind me of that when she is 10 and I am trying to get her to give it up!
Last night was back to school night and Margurite came over to babysit. There was some crying after I left but Jena did manage to go to sleep without me which is good news since I go back to work next week.

bathing beauties

here is a picture of the girls enjoying their bath on a rainy friday night. Jena is doing much better at daycare although she has decided to survive on a diet of bananas and danimals (drinkable yogurt). I figure of all the things she could be eating that isn't too bad!

shots shots and more shots!

We have had a busy few days. On tues the early intervention people came over for Jena's evaluation. she will qualify for speech as well as fine and gross motor skills. They expect her to pick quickly as they think her deficits are just realated to lack of oppurtunity. it is amazing to watch her play, she is like a little spunge. She watches her sister and then trys to do everything that Stef is doing.
On weds morning we went the doctor where she got six (yes-6!!) shots. we have decided to catch her up but repeating shots and that means at least 2 shots a month fot thenext 3 months. She is really going to hate going to the doctor by the time we are done. We also have alot of blood work to get but I figured 6 sticks was enough for one week.
This moring we took her to my parents synagouge for her ritual bath, to complete her conversion. She was carried into the deep bathtub by her Zayde and didn't complain too badly when she was dunked under water. She is now offically named Yona Chava in hebrew. the Yona is in memory of my great Aunt Jeanette- no one knew her hebrew name and my sister came up with Yona - whcih means 'dove' since she flew across the ocean to find her home. The Chava is hebrew for Eve - in memory of my great aunt Eva. Big sister Stefanie watched the whole thing with great interest.

Big News--I am UNPACKED!

yep- after 3 weeks home I finally have everything unpacked and even have the suitcases back in the basement. I still don't have everything put away they way I would like but I am getting there. We went on a pumkin hayride on sunday with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave. We also met Stefanies friend maddie there. Jena really liked the 'petting zoo' area (no petting- just looking). Stefanie said that soem of the animals 'just freak me out!"After that we went ot visit Amah and Zayde and everyone had alot of fun playing in the leaves.

YEAH!! the babysitter is here!

When I work at night this wonderful woman takes care of everything. Stefanie loves her and it looks like Jena likes her too. I don't expect Jena to be as happy to see her once she realizes that when Margurite comes Mommy goes to work. This is the picture I am going to keep in my head the first night I have to go back to work.

And just a note about spelling and typos-- most of you already know I am a terrible speller, and even worse when I am typing so- no need to let me know about all my typos and spelling errors. If there weren't any spelling mistakes how would you know it was me?

fun at home

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dave came over the sunday after we got home. One of Stefanies favorite activities is to climb on Uncle Daves shoulders. You can see from these pictures Jean thinks it is fun too!

Fall fun

We had a great weekend with a visit from our friends Kathy and Eliza. Everyone is loving the fall weather. Jena loves to be outside. She will take me by the hand and pull me to the stroller by the front door. She can still throw quite an impressive temper tentrum if I hadn't planned on going outside at that time.
I've also posted some pictures of Stefanie at her pumpkin picking class trip today. She has happy to have Mommy all to herself while Lena was at school.

if you can't beat'em...join'em!

I've given in to the pressure and started this blog so I can share updates and pictures of my two girls. After all my china travel buddies had started to blog I felt like I had no choice! i hope you all enjoy the updates and photos.