my birthday party

ema found these pictures from my birthday party, which now seems like soooo long ago!

here's kiran, becca, hannah, tara and i enjoying our lunch, with daddy, sam & lauri in the background:


and this is kiran, becca, hannah and i chowing down on my birthday cake:


this is becca, hannah and i sitting in the "thinking chair" when we played blue's clues to figure out what we would do next:


and this is lauri and sam, enjoying the party:

long overdue birthday pictures

when ema was looking for halloween pictures to post, she also found a bunch of photos daddy took of me opening my birthday presents from saba, savta, doda tali, lee, kiva and dodo karen. i thought you'd like to see how much loot i got and how much fun i had opening all those presents.

one of the many books savta and saba gave me was one that came with scissors! i think they got me this book because when i first started school, every time daddy asked me what we did at school that day, i said, "i didn't cut with scissors." but you can plainly see in the photos below that i can cut with scissors:


dodo karen thought that i needed a library full of books that would keep me acculturated with the bay area. my favorite is the true story about tango the penguin who was raised by two daddy penguins, roy and silo, at manhattan's central park zoo. here's a picture of me opening one of the other many books she sent:


and doda tali, lee and kiva sent me some great wooden toys, including this anatomy puzzle, which i love playing with:

happy halloween!

giddy up!

the baby in ema's belly also wanted a costume, so daddy and i decorated it:


is it just me, or does ema's belly resemble our jack-o-lantern?

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

yipee! i'm three! ema and daddy say i need to go to bed now, but i want to share some of the highlights of my day with you:

carriage ride in colonial williamsburg:



cupcakes!

potato bug

a few weeks ago, daddy and i were hanging out on grandmom and grandpa's patio. i pointed to a potato bug lying on its back with its feet in the air and asked daddy why it was doing that, and was it because it was hurt. daddy thought about it for a bit and said, "yeah, it's probably because it's hurt." i asked daddy why it was hurt, and was it because i'd stepped on it. daddy said, "yeah, it's probably hurt because you stepped on it." so i asked daddy, "is it because i stepped on it so many times?"

busy busy

as you might imagine, we've been pretty busy lately. ema and daddy have both been working very hard, and i've started school! i really like it, but sometimes i don't want to go in the morning. then again, i also usually don't want to leave at the end of the day. most days grandmom picks me up and we go do something fun.

ema promised me that in a few weeks, she'll be less busy and have time to sort through all the great pictures from our fun summer. in the meantime, here's one of ema's favorites -- it was taken at melissa's birthday party at the end of august. as you can probably guess, i had just finished enjoying one of lauri's fabulous cupcakes!

pictures from boulder

hi everybody!

ema has finally decided to help me post some pictures from our trip to boulder. here are some pictures of me hanging out with seth and jaron:


we had so much fun playing with all of the trains, and the boys really liked the dr. seuss books i picked for them. but the absolute best was jumping on the trampoline with them. they bounced me all around, but they were also very gentle and took good care of me. i even decided that i loved hanging out in my undies as much as they did!

back at the hotel, i had lots of fun playing in the bed. ema set up a couple of chairs for me to climb so i could get onto the bed myself, and so i wouldn't roll out of bed by accident while i was asleep. but i also loved to hide in the bed.

i asked ema to take these last two pictures here so i could see what i look like when i'm hiding in the bed.

lil' stinker

lately, ema's been telling me i'm a little stinker. or, more accurately, that i'm acting like a little stinker. i know just what she's talking about, but i just can't help myself. if i want her attention when she's doing something else, or if i'm mad at her for being gone most of the day, or if i'm feeling playful but i don't know what to do with my energy, or if she says she's going to walk away after singing me the 7th lullaby in a row, or if i just feel like being a little stinker, i'll hit her. whenever we talk about it, i tell ema and daddy that i'm not going to do it anymore, and that i'll use my words instead. but for some reason, i keep forgetting...

good lookin'

i wish i had a picture to show you, but you're just gonna have to take my word for it... i had my first professional haircut this weekend, and i think i look terrific! maybe ema will bring her camera with us when we go to colorado tomorrow so i can have some photos to share.

also, i wanted to tell you about my conversation with ema this morning. ema thought it was pretty funny, so i thought i'd share it with you...

e: "good morning sunshine!"
d: "good looking. what's cooking? ... wait no, i made a mistake. ... how does it go? ... what's cooking, good looking?"

fun with letters

one of my favorite games lately is to guess what letter different words start with. it usually starts when we're talking about or playing with something, like a ball. i will suddenly ask ema or daddy, "what does ball (s)tart with?" and then they help me figure it out. first, we make the first sound a bunch of times, like this: "buh buh buh buh." and then they ask me what letter makes that sound. sometimes i just look at them and smile and say "what?" but other times, i remember right away. i'm particularly good with the letters B, P, D, M, N, F and S. when i don't know it right away, we sometimes will think about other words that start with that sound, and after a while, i'll remember what the letter is called.

another related game that i like is to ask ema or daddy to name all the words that start with a certain letter. sometimes it is fun, but other times, it is a little boring, like when i asked them what starts with the letter K. they just spend a bunch of time going, "uhhh..."

scrambled signals

this morning, ema and i had a funny misunderstanding when she asked me what i had for breakfast. she looked at me in shock after i answered her and asked, "creme brulee? where did you get creme brulee?" i asked her "what's that?" so she asked me again what i had. so i repeated myself as patiently as i could: "i had crembuleg!" finally, she understood me. have you?

new subscription service!

you might have noticed that there's a snazzy new box on the side of my blog. if you put your e-mail address in it, you can get an e-mail letting you know every time i post a new entry! make sure you follow all their instructions, including clicking the link on the follow-up subscription e-mail you will get. lots of you have asked me to add this, so i finally got ema to do it for me. happy reading!

big boy bed!

ever since my travel bed arrived, i haven't wanted to sleep in my crib. so ema and daddy got me a big boy bed, and ema took me shopping to pick out my very own sheets. i love it!

4th of july

we had a great bbq with all our friends on the 4th of july. ema forgot her camera, but here are a few shots that our friends shared with us:

here, there, everywhere

it's a good thing ema and daddy bought me a travel bed, because i've slept in it all over the globe! here's a couple of pictures of kiva and i cuddling in it in israel:

kiva and i had a great time hanging out and had loads of great conversations, though we never did come to agreement on the touchy subject on how, exactly, the gate in the garage closes (or even whether or not it does!) eventually, we figured out that kiva likes to wind me up, so if i say "yes!" he'll say, "no!" i took great offense when he claimed that i don't love olives until i figured out he was just teasing, then we both laughed.

we also had lots of fun with our other cousins, dor and the latest edition to the family, baby ariel. when ariel came to spend time with us at the beach, i helped entertain him by singing "twinkle twinkle little (s)tar" to him. here's a picture of all of us in our new generation on the first night we met ariel:


after a great week in israel, ema, daddy and i went to london. i really liked all the double-decker buses and had a great time watching buskers at covent gardens. but i think the highlight for me was the phone booths. it seemed to ema like every time we passed one, i insisted that we make a phone call. sometimes i called kiva and asked him what he was doing, but mostly i called grandmom:


after one night in london, we went down to dover to visit baby lara. unfortunately, ema forgot to take any pictures while we were there, but she has some video that she promised me she'll upload soon. we had two really nice days visiting lara and her parents, fran & montu, even though it rained the entire time. then we went back to london and stayed with john and ana, who i REALLY liked! here's a picture of me wearing john's hat:


from there, we went to visit sally, jason and baby rhino (ryan) in the hague. i had so much fun playing with rhino -- he has the biggest collection of toys i've ever seen (even bigger than hanna's!), we danced all the time, AND we visited a different playground every day! again, ema forgot to take any pictures, but she has some great footage of daddy and jason giving rhino and me a bath that she'll post soon.

after all that fun, we had to fly home. luckily, i found a plane that i could use to fly daddy and me home in:

beach week!

i don't have much time to write because we're heading off to israel today! but i wanted to post a few pictures from our beach week with grandmom, grandpa, michele, steve (grandpa's brother) and lois (steve's wife):

waaaaa-eeeee?

ema told me today that i've entered a new phase. i wasn't sure what she meant by that, but, as usual, i responded by asking "why?" it's my new favorite word. so far, ema and daddy seem to be doing pretty well answering my questions all the time, but every now and then, one of them just looks at me, smiles and mimics the sing-song way i ask: waaaaa-eeeee?

right now we're up in falls church. waaaa-eeee? because, ema tells me, we are celebrating the fact that daddy just sent off an article he's been working on for a long time. daddy tells me we've come here because they have a really cool memorial day parade, complete with shriners driving little cars. waaaaa-eeeee? who knows!