Mucho Visitors!

This past week was filled with visitors. It started Thursday night when Jason Webster came very late on the bus from NYC. Jason was the oldest when we started the Shuvah Youth Group in the summer of 2003. He is now entering his last semester at Gordon college and its just so cool to see how he has matured and grown in the Lord these past 6! years.
Jason left on Saturday evening at the very same time that I picked up 3 girls that were formally in the Shuvah Youth Group. I say formally because Brianne Geller is heading to college in 1 1/2 weeks! She and her twin, Brittney, were the youngest (entering 7th grade) when in the summer of 2003, so they are the end of the "original crew." On the bus with Brianne were Rachel Webster (Jason's sister), and Leah Charles. Then, on Monday night, Natalia, her fiance, Josh, and Brittney Geller arrived! We had a pretty full house that one night, but we had so much fun! At synagogue on Saturday Emma kept announcing that her friends were coming! These kids really were her first friends in the whole world!
On Sunday we spent the day at the Gaithersburg Water Park. It's small, with 2 slides, a large pool and a great kiddy pool, but its only $5! And Monday we drove down to Tyson's Corner Mall (the 5th largest in the U.S.) and when everyone was here for the evening we went to the County Fair! I had been looking forward to this for sooooo long. I grew up going to the county fair, and this was much larger than mine in Minnesota. Emma got to ride a pony and go on the ferris wheel - both for the first time! It was so great! She was fearless on the ferris wheel, though I was a little nervous, and she held her pee in very well (she had been complaining while we were in line!)
Well, everyone left yesterday and while its nice to have an empty house again, it meant so much that all 7 of them came to visit! We love those kids sooo much, and they aren't kids anymore! They've grown into such great people, and I'm so blessed to call them my friends!!!

Old Friends, Crazy Kids

Last week we went to Pittsburgh to stay with our friends, Eric and Erin, while Matt and Eric attended a conference together. For dinner one night the Elsers with their 3 kids and the O'Connells with their 4! kids joined us, too. Its always so funny to see our spawn running around playing with each other. I hope and pray that they stay buddies through the years and odds are that some of them will end up at Nyack! :)

Girls Evening Out

Tonight I went out with just Emma. I was planning to go to the library by myself, but at the last minute Matt and I decided to divide the kids up. I do want to try to do something separately with each kid each week; we'll see how it goes, but its a good goal. I know that everyone with multiple children can attest to the fact that any time that one parent has less than the total amount of kids makes for a much easier outing.

I knew that Emma would be great at the library by herself because she is mostly good at following instructions at her age, and she loves reading books. When we first climbed into the car she said to me, "Siri is a freak, right?" This was so funny, and I didn't realize until later that she meant to say that Siri was freaking out. (Siri did start crying when Matt first left the apartment wi

th her.) We started out in the kids' section. She found a couple books and immediately sat down to read them. I then went through a cou

ple of isles picking out books that fit my criteria: they must have good illustrations and they cannot be too long; if there is too much to read on each page Emma gets bored. We collected a large stack and headed up the elevator to get "mom's books." Emma again sat very well and read more of her books while I scoured the shelves. She also moved with me about 4 times as I went up and down the isles. We finally left the library with about 20 books. I seriously could barely carry them out!

I promised Emma a treat if she followed directions in the library, so we then headed over

to Starbucks. She picked out her chocolate chip cookie and declined the offer to have it warmed up, and as we waited for my drink she looked at

my bisco

tti, "Is that yo

ur treat, mom?" she said.

I realized, as we were sitting there, that my kids will have grown up with Starbucks their whole lives. I did was not introduced to the coffee-shop

world until college. Before that we had to go to Perkins!

My last fav quote from Emma for the evening was when she was looking through the pictures

on my phone on the way home. She saw the pictures that have posted here and said, "I have a

cookie face, mom!"

Splash Park

We took the girls to a splash park last Monday, on Matt's day off. I highly recommend a place like this because Siri could run around in the water without having to be constantly supervised as in a pool. Siri was very brave, running through the very tall fountains and falls, while Emma enjoyed climbing on a whale and stepping on the small fountains. It was great for our family day and having McDonalds for lunch topped it off!

First Rainbow

We were driving home from the mall the other evening and casually noticed a rainbow in the sky, so we were pointing it out to Emma. Then we wanted her to have a good look at it so Matt swung the car around to find a parking lot when we noticed that it was a completely full double rainbow! I was so excited and got a little "Kate Gosselin" on my family, but it was just so neat for Emma to see her first rainbow for real, in the sky. It was very clear and kept getting brighter, and Siri saw it, too and waving, "Hi, Reebow." It was so cute!

Book Release Party

We were invited to a book release party, and we had to arrive late, but we were really glad that we went because the kids had so much fun. There were others from synagogue there and Emma got her face painted for the first time. She sat so well! Siri loved the outside of the bouncy castle because it had princesses on it, and she got a balloon (that girl loves her "bms")! They also got to eat lots of cake! It started raining towards the end and all the parents rushed to get the kids under the tent; after wandering around under it for a few minutes Emma went to stand out in the rain by herself. It was pretty funny, and soon Siri and the other kids followed. Us adults are so worried all the time!