Baby Shomair

A note for Solomon on his 3rd birthday

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 05:10:00 +0000

Happy 3^rd birthday sweet Solomon. Here’s an update of you at 3 years old.

Personality – Happy, Shy, Independent, Silly, Affectionate

We ALWAYS have people come up to us to share that you are the happiest little guy they have ever met. Your teachers gush that you are just the happiest and sweetest boy and make friends with everyone. You are always smiling and your eyes light up people’s days. As we tell people, you are a happy guy….until you are not (especially around your parents) and then you are a true 2 year old – yelling, biting, hitting, all the fun stuff).

I’ve noticed you can sometimes be shy. Emphasis on sometimes. When we walk into school and you know there is a line of people you have known since you are born there to say hello, you will shy away and stand behind my leg. However, you are also very quick to make friends. You just flash that bright smile and big eyes and you are quick to draw people towards you!

It is also very clear that when you are in your element, you want ultimate independence. Whenever someone new or someone other than your Mom or Nanny comes around and you want to play with them, you will ask that we not be around. You will yell at us to “go away and leave” – you want to be with this new person (yes, breaks my heart sometimes when you yell, “go away”). Or when we are in Izzy’s class a few times a week for morning meeting or Shabbat, you often just want to sit on your own with Izzy’s friends and fully participate in the class. It is very cute!

you sitting with Izzy's friends when Izzy was Shabbat Helper

at birthday party with izzy friends

You totally have your Grandpa’s humor. You are very silly and love to make people laugh. You have been quick to pick up several of you Grandpa’s tricks and jokes and often like to perform these over the Portal/Facetime or with your friends. This could be going down in the pretend elevator, making this disappear, zeberts and funny faces.

Affectionate – You are a very affectionate boy. You LOVE giving kisses, hugs and cuddling. You are always coming up to me and just saying you are going to give me a kiss or a big hug. Sometimes these turn into zerberts, but I love them so much and hope you never stop!

with Uncle Will

Your friend Julien

Such an athlete!

You have one mode…running. You never walk and are ALWAYS running. I’ll use your non-stop tendency as one of the excuses this blog took so long to write😊 You love sports and are always wanting to play baseball, soccer, basketball…anything with a ball. This winter you were on ski’s for the first time near the cottage in Canada. You had a private lesson and were already going up the lift and skiing down in the 30 minutes with the instructor. You had no fear and it was amazing to watch! You also continue to be a monster on your scooter. If you are not running, you are on racing on your scooter. You love to do jumps, ride it like a skateboard and are constantly on your scooter or kick bike.

at our first Greenmeadow 4th of July Parade

We were at a park and you watched a boy and his dad play baseball forever. Finally, they offered you to try it out. You were in heaven!

Your first time on skis - a pro after a few moments!

Watching your first professional soccer game. You love watching live sports.

Boo!

You get scared very easily, but (most of the time) you love it! There is a very scary witch in your Grandma and Grandpa’s basement that they use on Halloween. You always want to run downstairs and “touch the witch.” When we facetime with them, you still want to “see the witch.” On our annual trip to the Menlo Park Library Comicon, at first you always want us to pick you up around the dressed up characters but by the end you are giving them high fives! Another favorite was when we waited in line forever to meet Daniel the Tiger and then as we went up to see him, you freaked out and try to make a break for it, shortly after, you changed your mind

Likes

Babies – You LOVE little babies. It is amazing how much you like little kids and how good you are with them. Your baby cousin Maia is one of your favorite people and even though you’ve met her a few times is small increments, you talk about her all the time! You usually hang around and try to make babies laugh in all the right ways. It is very, very sweet. Just not sweet enough for you to have a younger sibling😊

Favorite things – anything your brother does (you have to do too or have), a bath before bed, a bottle of milk after your bath (that we need to stop asap), reading books (I’ll often just catch you flipping through books), firetrucks, trains, guitar, dressing up in Halloween costumes, playing construction worker. You also LOOOVE horses. You could be looking at any book and in the corner of the page there will be a horse and you will just scream and have to show me. For some reason you are really drawn to horses. When you got to pick a book to buy this year from the Library sale, you bought one all about horses.

you and your brother LOVE anything creepy and crawly!

One of my favorite pictures of you just a few minutes after being at your Grandparents house in Georgia. In your element with dirt and making a mess!

Dislikes

Loud noises. If you think there will be a loud noise, you will cover your ears (even if for a long time). When we took you on a train ride the other day you covered your ears forever thinking there’d be a loud noise. You LOVE watching any live sport – we took you to a soccer game and baseball game this year and you did not like the loud cheering or announcer.

Not getting your way. You are very quick to break down into a 5 alarm cry if you don’t get your way. Especially if it has to do with your brother not doing what you want. A true toddler!

More talkative

You really have come a long way and we can now understand the majority of what you say (at least your parents and nanny can understand). Of course there still a lot of “Poo Poo.” You are constantly asking Alexa to do things like “Play the Poop song” or your favorite “Old McDonald.” When asked your name you say it is Solomon Berel Shomair and tell people that you go by Solomon and not Solly. One of my favorite things you do is when you want to confirm something or instead of saying yes, you will give a thumbs up and make this crazy clicking sounds. I think you even throw in a wink. It is very cute!

Happy Birthday Solly Bear. Your smiles, hugs and fun personality light up our day.

We love you so much!
Mom, Dad & Izzy

First day of Preschool in Marva 3xweek

After getting 5 staples in your head. You were playing the Melissa & Doug worm tunnel and instead of crawling through it on the ground, you were walking around vertically like a monster and fell and hit the back of your head!

All the kids on Tioga Ct!

Stay tuned for more photos of Izzy + Solomon

Solomon recap 1.75-2.75

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:46:00 +0000

A formal update for Solomon's 3rd birthday is in the works. In the meantime, I realized that since this blog first started (and technology has changed), I've been capturing more memories of the boys on Instagram stories and not this blog. These 'Insta stories' are usually only available for 24 hours and for a few people. I finally figured out how to download all of these memories and threw them into an iMovie. Unfortunately, they did not save chronologically. Here's a recap of Solly at 1.75-2.75. More to come of this sweet and silly guy....

A note for Izzy on his 6th birthday

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 03:21:00 +0000

Izzy,

We love watching you grow and become such a special little man. You are truly a special person with so much love, compassion and more creativity than anyone we know. Here is a glimpse into Izzy as he turns six years old!!!

This year once again you grew so much. Both physically (you are now tall and skinny) and developmentally. You learned to swim and bike without training wheels. Your favorites from past years that have continued are your love of creating/making/crafting everything! Your love of Legos and gardening as well as snakes, lizards, worms, dinosaurs and volcanoes! Also, that you are the friendliest kid that I know and will spark up a conversation with a stranger to talk about all of the topics mentioned above. Here is a glimpse of Izzy at 6 years old!

Ooozing art

From the moment you wake up to when you shut your eyes to sleep you are making things. You are one of the most creative kids I know - and as you like to share, “The most creative kid in your class.” Nothing makes you happier than a pad of paper and a pen/pencil/crayon. This year you have taken sculpture, Summer ‘Maker’ Camp, Art & Soul at Hausner, Saturday clay class with your dad and best of all woodworking with Tom every Friday after school. You quickly made friends with our 80ish year old neighbor, Tom who also is a professional woodworker in his retirement (of course was one of the very early computer salesmen back in the days of Silicon Valley). Every week you show up to Tom’s garage with an idea and the two of you sketch it out and make it come to life out of wood (mainly with Tom’s help). You have made a table, stool, puzzle, dart, volcano, stand, snake, vase and many, many more crazy ideas. You also like to create different places to play in the backyard. Our side yard may look like we are crazy people to some, but to you it is full of boxes, string, sticks and wood to make something special. To see more Izzy Masterpieces, you can check out his Instagram account.

I love that you still don’t know how to unlock or operate our iPad or tv. I am really hoping you continue to remain innocent from the claws of social media and TV binge watching like your parents can do sometimes😊 Every morning, Saturday nights and when we have to put your brother to sleep while we are solo parenting, you get to watch a show. Over the past six months you have been into any tv show that has something to do with Dinosaurs. You have watched every show on Paleontology on Amazon Prime and Netflix and quickly watched every episode called Dino Dan and Dino Dana. You tend to be drawn towards any documentary shows or ones where you can learn something like Planet Earth. You also like cooking competition shows – lately, your favorite is Zubo’s Just Desserts.

Food

You still tend to be open to try most foods and are a good eater (when you want to be). Lately your favorite foods have been Caesar salad and olives. At school for the first few months you told me that the main reason you liked school is because of the jelly sandwiches (that’s an expensive Jelly sandwich). Inspired by your cooking shows you also like to make sauces. I am constantly buying olive oil and spices because you are using them to make a special sauce for your salads or to dip bread. Whenever we eat at a bagel brunch you always have the most creative sandwiches with cream cheese, lots of lox’s and lately adding fruit on top….and eating every bite!

Books

Very similar to the TV you are into any books about dinosaurs or animals. Every Wednesday you get to visit the library at school and pick a book and every single week you come home with a book about dinosaurs. You also went through a phase over the past six months when you wanted me to read you cook books. We’d go through cookbooks and mark the foods that we’d want to make. One of the books was called Jerusalem and it actually had a lot of interesting stories about foods in Israel and Palestine.

Cool and casual

You are still a tshirt and shorts type of guy. You are very picky and I’m having a harder time to pick out clothes for you to wear as you have your own idea of which tshirt and which shorts you’d like to wear that day. Lately you have been dressing in the same color to mimic a type of dinosaur. You have noticed that when you dress up nicely (like in your white jacket) people will start to notice you and make comments on how good you look. Thank goodness California is casual because you do not own any nice pants! One funny thing is that you love to wear soccer socks really high like they are leggings. Of course, thanks to your Bubby, you have an amazing Canadian wardrobe that you still sport often.

Being Jewish

You continue to LOVE being Jewish and still don’t realize that only a very small percentage of the world is Jewish (unlike how your mom grew up in Griffin, GA!). Now that you are in a Jewish Day School you are just loving the Hebrew. You say, “Shalom” to everyone and started calling me Ima!

We get a chuckle that your favorite song right now is the Israel National Anthem, Hatikiva. You often ask Alexa to play the song for you (and your Dad request to play the Canadian National Anthem right after) and we will hear you singing this around the house.

Playing

Love to create booby traps. Create paper airplanes, tie everything together with string (which you call sew), LOVE sewing, playing in your fort (or tree) in the backyard. Creating forts with the couch pillows. And of course love to find, catch, hold, play with worms/lizards/frogs anything creepy and crawling.

We can’t wait to see what this next year brings!

Love

Mom & Dad & Solly

Izzy at 5 - 5.5

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 02:30:00 +0000

I was about to post Izzy's SIX-year-old update and when looking at the photos and my posts (or lack of), I realized that I never created an update about just Izzy since he was 5. Looking at photos of Izzy, I think Izzy from 5-5.5 looks so much younger than our wise old 6 year old Izzy. So here is a mirage of Izzy chronologically from November until June (right after Solly turned 2).

Izzy in his ongoing snake phase

Planting our first garden in our new home with Teacher Debbie!

Another big phase this year = volcanoes

One of my favorite photos of the year. I love Solly in the back and the fact that Izzy made this sign on his own - only asking how to spell the words!

Izzy in sculpture class

Paul and Dorothy attended Grandparents Day at Izzy's preschool

Izzy's first play - Piggie and Elephant. He kinda liked it. It was a little too loud for him.

Spring planting with Teacher Debbie!

Izzy and Aunt Deb

Izzy started Friday workshop with our neighbor Tom

I thought this was an onion in our garden....thankfully I did not yank!

Izzy drawing rosemary from our garden

Izzy and his superhero BFF, Gabe

shabbat helper in Zayit

Izzy and Avin met in Soccer Shots and became fast friends

meditating in the back yard

Izzy with Chason and Michael at Farm Camp

a shovel he created with Tom

The Shomairs Nov 2017-May 2018

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 21 Oct 2018 04:50:00 +0000

Here are some family photos from the Shomair crew from Thanksgiving 2017 in Florida (right after Izzys birthday) until around Solomon's birthday at the end of May. A LOT happened in that time.

Thanksgiving 2017 in Florida

First day in our new home on Tioga Court (Dec 2017)

Our first Shabbat at Tioga Ct.

NYE 2018 with the Azouts & Katzs

Visiting the Pollocks in LA on our way to Palm Springs for Passover

Passover 2018

Tioga Ct. Kids first lemonade stand

Solly's 2nd bday

Solly at 2 years old

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 01:30:00 +0000

I know this is months after Solomon's 2nd birthday on May 29, but I did write this draft before Solly Bear turned 2. Sorry for the tardiness and i'm already starting on his 2.5-year-old update. I will try to do better.....with that...here is an update of Solly from 18 months until 2 years old.

Over the past 6 months, we have bought and moved into our new house (that I hope we live in forever). We have traveled to Palm Springs for Passover and had both Grandma, Grandpa, Bubby and Zaydie visit us in Palo Alto!

For your second birthday, we were pretty low key once again (next year we'll have a big party...promise). It is interesting that your birthday will always fall around the Memorial holiday weekend. We ended up going on an adventure to a park with a choo-choo train (your favorite) and a carousel. Then, we had our original Palo Alto - NYC crew (Janzen & Azouts) over for cookie cake...your favorite.

You continue to have a contagious smile and fill our hearts.

Nicknames

I still call you a fratboy since you are so silly, love to fart and are such a flirt.

Aunt Nicole calls you Slum Dog Millionaire because she thinks if you were left in a train station in India by yourself, you would totally survive. When you fall it rarely phases you, you have the sweetest smile and have no problem going up to strangers to make friends and when you are hungry you will first smile and if that does not work, make enough noise and not stop until you get food. With skills like these, she thinks you’d totally survive.

We have a friends kid who calls you the Teddy Bear boy because of your big brown eyes.

People who know my family call you Little Michael since you look just like your grandpa (my dad).

Toys and Books

You love any type of ball. You were gifted several balls for your second birthday (Thanks to: Aunt Deb & Uncle Will for the baseball/football/basketball combo; Bubby and Zaydie for the hockey set; Basketball net from Nicole). So you are a VERY happy boy now.

On that note, you are really drawn to sports and really good at them! When we were looking for a TV you would just stay mesmerized in front of the sports channels.

You are also in a huge train phase right now. Your year was made when the Saal’s gave you their amazing train table with all of the trains. When your nanny, Sury, took you on Caltrain for one of your classes, for weeks you would go around saying, “Sury, Choo choo.”

On very rare occasions i'll catch you just being still for a moment and looking at books. You REALLY like the Richard Scaary books, ones with animals and one about Bee Bim Bap.

Talking

You seem to be a boy of few words but we hear those few a lot. However, you are excellent at communicating through a crazy scream or temper tantrum or smile to get what you want.

You say the word "cookie" all the time. We think you do this just to make us smile. Most of the time you don’t want a cookie but you know it will get a rise out of everyone.

For your 2nd birthday, we got you an ice cream cookie cake. So now, instead of only saying "cookie" you now constantly say "cookie cake."

Brother

You are definitely a pesky younger brother. You want to do absolutely everything that Izzy does. If he eats something, you want that (even if you don’t like it). If he jumps, you jump.

I have witnessed you going over and headbutting or hitting Izzy for no reason at all.

Favs

Loves his Daddy!

You are still very friendly and love meeting new people. When we moved into our new house our neighbors would be surprised and ask if our kids are "always this friendly"(also a nice way to say overwhelming....ha).

You really enjoy reading books and playing in the garden.

Food

You are a really good eater and often eat more than your brother.

You tend not to like white foods for some reason. One example that happens often is when Izzy is eating yogurt and you always will scream for a bite, but as soon as we put it to your mouth, you will refuse it. Similarly with cream cheese or cheese sticks.

Of course, you love any type of fruit and can often be seen pulling an apple out of the fridge, taking a few bites and leaving it around the house.

Active

You have no fear of water (which scares us immensely). Now that we have the Greenmeadow pool, I just put you in with your floaty and you have a ball floating around on your own!

Most kids at your age are on small push toys. You, on the other hand, mastered the scooter at around 18 months. By 2 you became a speed daemon. I have to sprint to keep up with you.

You have some mean dance moves.

A note for Solomon at 18 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 06:07:00 +0000

Oh Solly, I feel like the worst mother ever for not keeping up with your monthly updates. But wow, 2 kids is a different story. Plus, we REALLY need to keep an eye on you at all times. I like to say, “Thank goodness you are so cute because you are always up to something.”

Silly humor – You love farting noises and will always give a good giggle with a fart or hiccup. It cracks. You. Up. You make this tsk tsk tsk noise and try to tickle us. If your brother is on the ground, you love to sit on him and hit him on the head like a drum. We can’t fold any sheet or blanket around you since you love to jump right in the middle. You have a very silly sense of humor and the best laugh to compliment.

Always pointing – You don’t have many words in your vocabulary just yet. You say dada, Izzy, grandpa, Alexa, Agua (wawa). You also are good at signing when you want more or to eat. Your best skill is pointing. With a yell and point, you get pretty much whatever you want. Your nanny, Sury speaks Spanish to you so you seem to understand everything in Spanish and English. I very much hope someday soon you’ll throw in a Mama! <update---at 19 months you finally started calling me Mama and you added NO to your repertoire. Use use both a lot!!!>

You have favorites – I know you love your mama, however your top pick is your Dada and Papa <my dad or Grandpa>. For the past several months when you have woken up in the middle of the night, the only person you want is your dad. I’ll go in your room to try and sooth you, but you will go nuts until your Dad comes in. I’m not complaining. Then you are Grandpa are always so silly together. When facetiming with Grandma, you always look past her on the screen to see if Grandpa is there.

You give us a heart attack – OMG, where do I begin. You have no fear. Jumping into the pool, going down stairs, jumping off the couch (just like your big brother) these things happen on a regular basis. Just this week when we were in Florida I caught you standing on the oven to get to the stove top controls. Then, when we were preparing dinner, you opened the front door and we caught you at the end of the driveway. Heart Attack! If there is a box around, you love to step on top of it. It is good timing for us to move, because you are that kid that will move a chair to the side of our 4^th floor balcony and look over!

Izzy’s copy cat – You want to do absolutely everything that your brother does. If Izzy grabs a toy, you want that toy. If Izzy sits on one couch, you want to be at that couch, If Izzy gets a bite of something, so do you. Get the point. You want to be just like your older brother. If Izzy builds something, you want to smash it. If Izzy is not paying attention to you, you will go over and sit on his head or push him. You are really the ultimate little brother. Thankfully, you have a very patient older brother (most of the time) and goes along with your antics.

Think you are a big kid - When you pick up Izzy at school everyday you waltz on in and then hang out with the big kids for a few hours after school. I don’t think you really know or play with many kids your own age. <update at 19 months> You are already drinking from a cup, eating on your own with a bowl and plate, riding a scooter and putting away your bottles and diapers (sometimes). Oh, and the worst is that you always want to hold the phone on your own during Facetime.

Favorite books –Love the Little Blue trucks books, pat the bunny, Peek a Who

Favorite toys – anything your brother has – especially his little legos. Pulling off books and pretending to read, a broom (of course not the kid size one but the one that I need to use), your blue car and now your scooter (at 19 months).

Oh, Solly, we love you so. We can’t take our eyes off you – hence, there is not a lot of time to write blogs anymore, but you are a true ray of sunshine! You are always smiling and have a laugh that brightens everyone’s day.

A note for Izzy on his 5th Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 05:04:00 +0000

Happy Birthday Izzy! You have really become a little man this past year. We can’t believe that you are 5 years old. This past year you learned your letters, number, improved your swimming, had your first cavity and first sleep over (with Gma and Gpa). Here is a recap of what 5 year Izzy is like:

You love nature

I’d say you love the great outdoors, but you actually do not like hiking and still prefer a city sidewalk to being in the woods. However, you love farming - this summer you told your counselors that you wanted to be an “organic farmer” when you grow up. You also like to save the seeds of all of your fruit to plant in the dirt. Through watching the cartoon Wild Kratts you have become a big creature fan as well. You have no fear of picking up worms, frogs or catching Lizards. At Aunt Deb’s wedding you went around and asked all of her girlfriends if they wanted to “Look for lizards” with you. It was very cute and often they agreed.

Stylin and Profiling

You have your own style. You prefer to wear ANYTHING Canadian and usually have some sort of Canada gear on daily (thanks to your Bubby). You got a Big Truck hat over 4^th of July at the Truckee Fire Department and you wear this hat all the time - day, night, inside and outside. It has become a signature Izzy uniform (with the Canada gear). You also like to wear black socks pulled up. You picked out a pack of black dress socks this year at the store and prefer to wear them daily with your shorts. It is often a fight in the morning to get you to wear anything long sleeve or pants as you really want to show off your Canada t-shirt and pulled up socks. It is like pulling teeth to get you to wear pants (especially non sweatpants), a button up shirt, or anything nice (even with heavy bribing)! The one outfit below is from picture day - my one trump card for the year. True Izzy style.

Patience older brother

You are a very sweet and patient older brother (most of the time). Solomon is the ultimate copy cat of you and you are very

The ultimate maker

You are always creating something day and night. From Legos, drawing, art projects, building forts or trying experiments, you are ALWAYS making something. This starts from around 6ish when you wake up you will hang in our bathroom or go downstairs to work on Legos or draw (since we try to keep you out of our room till 6:45). Over the past year your Lego creations and drawings have become more intricate. After school everyday you love to head to the family center and just make, make, make! I even caught you watching the makers channel on YouTube and you were in heaven. Your favorite activity at camp was sewing and you’d come home with a purse for me, a pillow and other cool items. I love your imagination at work and I hope you always continue to hold your creative spirit!

You LOVE doing experiments and it actually drives me CRAZY. You always want to go through our kitchen closet to pull out anything you can get your hands on – especially all of our spices to make “experiments”. I’m constantly washing out our Tupperware outside of random concoctions you have made. You love it when you are at Grandma or Bubby’s house since they let you go to town with their cabinets. Most of the time your special experiments smell horrible….but you are in heaven.

Ultimate Poser

You can’t take a normal photo. You’ve never been great at taking photographs, hence some epic family photos. But this year you’ve taken it to the next level with some fabulous poses.

Insanely sweet

I am bias, since I’m your mom, but geez, you really are the sweetest boy I’ve ever met. You continue to have extremely strong people intelligence. I’ve heard you compliment people like you are a grown up saying things like, “Mommy you are doing a great job” “Mommy you look so pretty” he’s complimented his babysitters and strangers. You continue to not know a stranger (which can be scary sometimes) and will talk to random people.

This was during the solar eclipse. When all your friends were outside playing, you were inside watching NASA and eating salad....very happily!

At Aunt Deb's wedding hitting on guests and soap opera star - (you def used the Lizard pick up line on her)

We love you so much and are so proud of the little boy you have become! You continue to wow us all the time and can't wait to see what this next year brings for you.

Love,

Mom & Dad

Summer Vacation 2017 - Toronto, Muskoka, NYC

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 06:08:00 +0000

Surprise....a new blog. I found this in my drafts from this summer. Here is an update from July & August!

It is amazing after a 2 week vacation with help the entire time, we are both EXHAUSTED!!! I had high hopes to read at least some of a book and maybe write a blog....nope. The good news, is we had a wonderful time with family and the boys had a blast.

This summer we spent Wed-Sat in Toronto Sat-Thursday at the Cottage in Muskoka and Friday (or wait, our flight was cancelled) Saturday-Wed in NYC for Sharon Fishers wedding!

One thing to know is that Izzy is fully obsessed with Toronto. He and his Bubby hung out non stop and had a million adventures. They spent their days doing experiments in the kitchen, playing Legos, feeding the squirrels and birds out the back door and LOTs of eating.

This was our first time staying at the cottage and not the condo at Deerhurst. It was great to be able to spread out. One of the funny or not so funny realizations of the trip is that even though we had 7 adults (Benji + Me, Ari + Erin, Helene + Garry, and a full time helper that stayed at the house = Elvie) and only 4 kids (one that was only 5 months). We could not get anything done. We hoped to work out every day and swim across the lake but NO TIME.

Izzy and Milo were very sweet and had a good time. Izzy LOVED fishing and being in the water. He caught a ton of fish off the dock and also tried stand up paddle boarding. Solly loved the shallow water and playing in the sand. He kept wanting to go to the boat and play around.

In NYC, Benji and I felt that we were whole again visiting NYC. It is a place that we moved at the same time, fell in love, got engaged, met lifelong friends, had our first kid and changed our careers. The city is a huge part of who we are today and even though we are extremely happy in Palo Alto, we sure do miss the essence of the city. We were fortunate to stay at the most amazing apartment in NYC with plenty of room for the boys to roam and in the heart of Tribeca. This made a huge difference in our stay. We would not of had such an incredible trip if we had to cram into a hotel room.

We went for my cousin Sharon's wedding. It was such a special occasion, not just because Sharon is one of my favorite people in the world and very dear friends, but it was wonderful to have my family there as well!

It just so happens there was a national training class on Monday and Tuesday after the wedding for the Giving Circle that I am co-chairing at the OFJCC. My Co-Chair also was on the East coast so we met up and attend 1.5 days of training around ethical philanthropy and group giving. It was AWESOME and refreshing to step out of my daily technology role to hang out philanthropic professional and lay leaders to talk about giving and making the world a better place!

Plus, an added bonus of being able to see more cousins and special friends!

It was a prefect East coast visit!

May & June 2017 - Solly is 1, Grandma and Grandpa visit, beaches, baseball

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 03:50:00 +0000

Photos & update from May & June!! Reading back now, this seems like so long ago!

Solly has a strange obsession with socks and markers. He will spot both from far away and make noises until he grabs them. He will then carry them around wherever he goes. It is very cute and very random!
For his birthday, Sury got him a packet of balloons. These balloons have resulted in hours of fun! He loves to carry them and bounce them around!
He has started to really fatten up! Not sure if it is the whole milk or the large quantities of food that he can eat, but Solly has finally started to beef up.
He has the BEST hair. So much hair and sweet curls at the end.
He's started swim class and does not seem to get bothered when going under water.
He still has a perma grin and the sweetest laugh in the world.
One of my favorite things is in the morning when Solly wakes up and we get to snuggle while he drinks his bottle. He is a big cuddler!
When meeting kids his age, he will give them a hug and put his head down on them....it is insanely cute.
His walking has improved. He can now go several steps before falling!

One ongoing fact is that Solly wants to be just like his big brother! He now often finds a chair to sit with all the big kids at the table and tries to join in on the big kid activities

Izzy has a new favorite super hero - BATMAN!
He is in a really cool summer camp called Steve and Kates where he can choose his own adventure every day and explore things from bread making, sewing/crocheting, recording studio, game room, coding studio, video lab, sports, etc. It is pretty awesome. Usually Izzy is fearless, but we could tell he had some anxiety about this new place and big change. However, after a few minutes of me hanging around, he was ready to be on his own. The second day at camp, Benji said that everyone knew his name when he came in the door. Of course!
He finished another year of school. I wish I had the cute first day, last day photos. However, the last day of school was also PJ day, so you can see he went all out with his second favorite super hero...superman
Izzy attended his first Comic-Con at the Menlo Park library!

The past couple months have been a blasts and a month of firsts. We were lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa come visit. Grandma came for an entire week to help out while Sury was on vacation. Grandpa then joined her. Izzy had his first sleep over at their hotel. It was an incredible feeling of just having 1 kid!!! Izzy had so much fun that we did it for a second night. We are ALL very excited for them to visit again.

Another first was visiting the California beaches for the day. We've done short trips, but geared up to really spend a few hour and really had a great time (even though we were wearing multiple layers).

We also attended our first San Jose Giants minor league baseball game. We went with another family. Between us we had 4 adults, 3 kids and 2 babies. We got some of the best seats for $15/each for adults (kids were free) and sat in this incredible VIP section where the kids could run around and we sat on couches. The kids even caught 2 foul balls. It was a beautiful day and actually a great way to celebrate Solomon's 1st birthday and we can't wait to go again.

I also held a fundraiser for Izzy's preschool, OFJCC. The theme was NYC Brunch. You can see all the photos from the event here. And a couple below.

A few more fun photos to add:

Solomon Berel Shomair is ONE!

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:39:00 +0000

How are you already a year old? It feels like you have been part of our family forever.
Solly Bear, you are the happiest, smiliest, and sweetest baby boy ever.
Your enormous big brown eyes light up the room and are full of wonder.
If I had to sum up your personality at 1 year old I would describe you as VERY social and mischievous.

Video of Solly being Solly

You have never met a stranger! When we go out to dinner you ALWAYS look around and find one person that you connect with and will continue to grab their attention all dinner long. It is usually just one person and you will do anything to get them to smile at you by pointing, yelling, clapping, etc. Of course, they are a always a little weirded out that a baby will not stop staring, but in the end they can't resist a cute baby flirting with them!

You are also insanely mischievous. You know what you should and should not be doing and when you know you are doing something mischievous, you often let out a kackle. This noise has helped me run into the room on several occasions to stop you from climbing on the table, up the stairs, off a chair, up on the couch, etc. Your favorite is to pull yourself up on ANYTHING and then stand. For example, here is a photo of a box that was on the ground. I also caught you the other day pulling yourself up on the couch and falling...on purpose. You thought it was funny that I caught you each time...we are in trouble!

It is clear that you think you are one of the big kids. You are so lucky that you've been exposed to so much since you were born. Starting at 3-4 months you started hanging with your brother and friends after school every weekday. Now, you own the playground as much as your brother. It is great to see you try to play around with the big kids and tackle the play equipment. Thankfully, you have an amazing older brother that (most of the time) does not mind you tagging along.

You love to wrestle and roughhouse. Oftentimes you'll go up to your brother and egg him on to get rough with you. Your favorite is to tap him on the face, head butt any part of his body or give him a zerbert. We always have to tell/remind Izzy to play gentle with you, but YOU have a different idea in mind.

You went from being colicky, to a decent eater, to a garbage disposal. Over the past few months you have really started love food and now often eat more than Izzy (however, most of it is on the ground).

Your favorite book is Pat the Bunny and Goodnight Gorilla. You love to clap hands and shake your booty to the music.

You has not yet mastered walking but this past month you have started to stand on your own and have taken up to 4 steps! However, you can crawl up all of our stairs very fast and have learned to climb down backwards.

Sadly, i've not really heard you say Mama yet but you love to say "Hi" "Dada" and "Izzy". I know I'll have my time. For now, I just love how you love to cuddle and you will put your head on us to nuzzle up when you need/want some love.

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet Solly Bear! We love you so much.

Video: Singing Solly Happy Birthday

Things Izzy says

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Tue, 09 May 2017 05:20:00 +0000

Izzy really is the funniest kid ever. Beyond loving to pee outside (facing Izzy's back is the Golden Gate Bridge and the park ranger office is right to his left). He also says the darndest things. Here are just a few examples of #ThingsIzzySays over the past few weeks:

I: I'm planting a "teenager plant" since it is medium height and teenagers are medium size

I: Come outside to look at the constellations....pointing to the one he noticed...that one is called "Old man's foot"

Benji: Asking Izzy looking off the balcony with binoculars, "What are you doing?"
I: I'm looking for signs of life across the dangerous landscape of the volcano

His preschool teacher sneezes
I: Maybe your are allergic to kids

Why do you need oil, salt and water?
I: I making an antidote to cure sick people

Benji to Alexa: Alexa, add cheese to the shopping list
I: Mom, ask me a question.
Me: Are you going to eat your dinner?
I: Sorry, I cannot add that to your shopping list (pretending to be Alexa...you know you are in a different century when your kid starts making Alexa/AI jokes)!

Izzy and Solly (11 months) update

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 07 May 2017 05:11:00 +0000

Here are updates for Solly at 11 months and Izzy at almost 4.5 years old.

At the end of the 11 months, the world started looking brighter since Solly started sleeping through the night again. However, you can see from his update, he is as mischievous as ever. So it is good that we are getting more sleep since he is NON STOP! Thank goodness he is so, so, so cute!

He somehow escaped the belt on his high chair and was climbing on the table. I was able to run in just in time since I could hear a unique laugh like he was up to no good! This happened a few times so we had to switch him to a proper high chair with several straps.
I caught him pull himself up on a chair, stand on the chair and then look over the ledge of our 5 story balcony....it reminded me that we probably need to move before he is 'too' mobile!
He made his first visit to emergency care. When playing in a very safe kid play space he just lost his balance and fell back on a very thick mat. Somehow he bit into his tongue to the point I had to pull it off his teeth. He was more scared than hurt. It was me that was the most worried because it was so much blood! Thankfully the tongue heals fast and he got to breastfeed all day to help it stop bleeding.
He is the most smiley kid ever which is made even cuter with the gap between his teeth.
He is not yet walking but is cruising holding things and loves his walker.
Started clapping.
If he's doing something he's not supposed to, he'll always look at you and cackle.
He likes to blow raspberries (also could be mistaken for farting sounds).
You can get a glimpse of his sweet laugh in this video.

Izzy at almost 6.5 months

Izzy has been saying the darndest things lately...enough so, it deserves its own blog (more to come)
Izzy still does not like to be by himself and sometimes at night he will come and sleep next to our bed. This month he started to bring in his huge fan - lug it across the upstairs and plug it into
His response to most things lately is, "Oh sure"
He is really into volcanoes and legos
He said he'd like to live in Miami because of the good food (because of the Club Med sand piper) and in Toronto because he gets legos and gets to watch a lot of shows.
I love this video of Izzy & Solly dancing

Passover 2017 - ClubMed Sandpiper and Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 23 Apr 2017 05:16:00 +0000

After two long years, I am FINALLY tan. If you remember, we joined the Shomair crew at ClubMed Sandpiper for Passover in 2015. I could not go last year since it was in my 'No FLY' zone when pregnant with Solomon. This year we were excited to join almost everyone at the all inclusive resort once again. Ari, Erin, Milo and Zoe were not able to attend since Miss Zoe is just 6 weeks old!

Speaking of tan, Izzy definitely got my skin tone. After spending every day from breakfast to dinner by the beach and pool - he is darker than anyone! He would head to the beach after breakfast with his Bubby and Zaydie and we would be nonstop all day long. I wish I kept a list of things that he said with his Bubby - there were many hilarious anecdotes such as telling her when he was doing a "Mitzvah." Next time I'll make sure to write them down after they happen.

Solly enjoyed the water and beach. I was pleasantly surprised that he did not eat too much sand and could hang with his brother as he searched for minnows and sea shells. He also LOVED the all you can eat buffet. He tried everything! However, even though it all went into his mouth, he would spit 80% out. The floor around his seat was always a huge mess, but another bonus of the resort is that we did not have to clean it up!!

My 37th birthday fell on the first night of Passover. We celebrated the night before at the upscale restaurant at ClubMed. The day of my birthday, I was able to escape to the 'Adult Pool' and hang out with Nicole sipping on Rose wine. Then the first night of Passover (or my Birthday) we had a dreamy table overlooking the water and away from everyone....it was really picturesque. We also celebrated the next day with a pinata from Nicole and Michael.

Here are our photos from Spring Break 2017!

After a week of trying our best to relax (Solly still woke almost every night), playing tennis, and just enjoying the sun and family, we flew to Toronto to start the 2nd part of our trip. Since we were on the East coast, we decided to head up to meet the newest family addition - Zoe! We had a great time visiting everyone and meeting 3 new family members born just weeks of each other. Ely (Daniel & Sara), Danielle (Moshe & Elisheva) and Zoe (Ari & Erin)!

One of the highlights (other than seeing the newest additions) was Solomon having his hair cut!! He did okay. He lasted about 3 minutes in the cute kids chair and then we had to hold him and try several distraction techniques. However, the end result is ridiculously cute and he is no longer mistaken for a little boy!

Photos from Toronto

Izzy and Solly (10 month) updates

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 16:27:00 +0000

It is a good thing that Solly is so insanely cute and the sweetest thing ever, because he is a handful. Here are some funny stories from this smiling and mischievous guy:

He is well aware when he is doing something that he should not. He will look back to see if anyone is watching him, smile and then dart ahead fast as he can....most of the time it is to a bathroom or to pick up something to put in his mouth.
He went through a phase where he liked to head butt everyone and everything.
For some reason, he LOVES bathrooms. He is constantly trying to see if the door to our downstairs bathroom is open. He loves going in there and banging on the toilet or pulling the paper off the roll.
If he is really upset he will throw his entire body backwards. Thankfully 90% of our apartment is carpet. He has also started to do this move where he gets on his knees and pushes his body forward.
He loves opening any cabinet he can get his hands on and pulling everything out.
He is still totally obsessed with his big brother to the point that his first word was "Izzy" - yep.
His favorite book is the first 100 words. We keep it in our bathroom and he is always pulling it down to read. He also loves Pat the Bunny. His favorite toy is a play table that plays music - he will shake his booty to the songs.
He is very social - he LOVES people and will give the biggest grin and wave hello or point.
He LOVES to eat. He will try any food and put it into his mouth. You can tell what he does not like by what he spits out.

Sollys first playdate. These guys are around 2 months younger. Solly was climbing over everyone.

I can't get over what a little man Izzy has become. Here are some updates on Izzy:

He is now really into volcano's. He talks about them all the time and with anyone (even strangers). He got a group of kids together at school the other day and put seats in a circle so they could all talk about volcanos.
He keeps telling me that he wants to "bake books." I have no idea where he got this concept. His directions are to get flour and bake it and cut it.....thank goodness Grandma came to town so they could 'bake books'
He is obsessed with YouTube! Lately he wants to watch videos of volcanos (surprise), legos being assembled and magic tricks.
He is also an avid Sesame Street fan and he's been watching Bill Nye the Science Guy.
He now can put his clothes in the hamper, his plate in the sink and cut his own food (most of the time).
I could not figure out forever why he only wanted to wear certain pants (he's pretty much a sweat pant kid). He finally explained, "Super heros don't have pockets" OMG! Thankfully, the Rebels in StarWars have lots of pockets. So he would finally start wearing other clothes (that fit).
For picture day I was able to get him into jeans, wear a collared shirt and do his hair. This was 1 day only and WOW - when Izzysho gets done up - he is a looker! I don't usually fight him on his clothes - he can wear them backwards, with stains, etc and his hair sticking up - it is not worth the argument. However, don't mess with picture day! I can't wait to see the proofs!
He had 2 cavities filled this month. I think he got his Dad's teeth:-)
His Lego obsession continues to grow. He spends hours making his own "Lego kits" everyday.

Teacher Debbie Shabbat!

BROTHERS

FAMILY

Real life on the weekends - we sleep when and where we can!

We were very grateful for Grandma to visit and help out when Benji had a week long work trip!

Solly at 9 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 04:23:00 +0000

9 months in, 9 months out. Here is what life with Solly is all about:

He now shakes his head no
He can hold his own bottle and eats all by himself - often more than his brother. You will only hear him when all the food is gone. He also likes to pick out all the food he likes best (and the rest will be on the ground).
He can climb a flight of steps and up on the couch!!
He has the best laugh.
He's still totally still obsessed with his brother. The best is when they just giggle in the back of the car. This is usually started when Izzy makes a farting sound.
He is so curious and such a handful! You cannot take your eyes off of him....Just a few examples:
Historically when I put him in his highchair with food, he will just sit and eat, eat, eat. I was in the kitchen with Izzy and we hear this funny laugh coming from Solomon. He had crawled out of his highchair on top the kitchen table and was going for Izzy's legos. Photo below. I caught him right as he was about to fall off the table.
When preparing Shabbat dinner, Izzy wanted to run into the hallway to play with something. He ran back in and shut the door, but not all the way. The next thing we knew, Solomon was crawling in the hallway.
We had a side table between the crib and the bed in Solomon's room. One night Izzy left some homemade playdough on the side table. I just pushed it far to the side away from the crib. The next morning I was wondering why Solomon was so quiet in his room and not making noise for us to get him. Come to find out, he had stuck his hands outside his crib and somehow grabbed the playdough and was eating it. When I walked in, he had the biggest grin on his face. This resulted in my first call ever to poison control. Thankfully, I knew all the ingredients of the playdough since we made it the day before!
At the 9 months Solomon's measurements are: Head 46 cm (78%); Height 28 in (34 percentile); Weight 17lbs 8oz (14th percentile)

Izzy & Solly love - I got some good ones of the brothers this month. They both loooove a good fart sound. It will make both of them laugh out loud.

Izzy started piano lessons and loves them
He is into legos, volcanos and making forts
He came home one day and had created a computer at school. he'll tell me that he looks stuff up on his paper computer
We started making podcasts

Solly at 8 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 05:39:00 +0000

How is it mid-February already? This year has been quite the whirl-wind. With all the uncertainty and negativity going on in the political world, I am thankful everyday to have such adorable kids (and a great hubby). I just hope the people in charge now do not mess up the world too much for Izzy and Solly to enjoy.

Here is an update of all things Solly at 8 Months and Izzy at 4

You can see from the photos below, Solly really does just smile all the time. He started off the month having a permanent puppy dog face where his tongue would just hang out. Then he changed to giving a HUGE mouth open grin...all the time. There is NOTHING better than coming home and seeing Solomon's HUGE smile.
He is now a master crawler and any chance he can will stand up. This could be a flat wall, the oven, fridge, the gate on the stairs, pillows, couch, etc. He LOVES to stand. This boy will be an early walker. He needs to keep up with his brother.
He has started to babble. A lot of babababababab. We are working hard on mama.
We started Music Together - we did this same program with Izzy. They have 12 semesters of lessons that they rotate. So it has worked out that the same songs/lessons for Solly are the same I had for Izzy 4 years ago! Solly loves the class. He is the youngest, but is mesmerized by the teacher and seems to really enjoy music.
He is mastering eating on his own. I'd say the one time we hear him fuss and yell at us is when he's trying to say FEED ME NOW. If we don't clean up under his seat, he is sure to be down there soon to eat his scraps.
We've had to lower his crib x2 because he continues to stand and we are afraid he's going to fall over.
He does not like to be in the baby jumper or confined in any way. We just let him roam and block him off with 2 big beanbag chairs.

Izzy & Solly

Izzy continues to be a LEGO master. His creations are really incredible. He loves to say, "I'm following the instructions in my head."
While Benji and i get ready in the morning Izzy now gets to watch Sesame Street. He has become a HUGE fan of the letter and the number of the day. It is 25 min of a little break so we only have 1 kid to watch and get ready.
Izzy started Piano lessons! I was actually trying to push him to take Taekwondo and was bugging him to check out a trial lesson and he would always come up with an excuse of why he did not want to leave the house and do a trial. I finally dragged him to just watch kids in class and he would not even walk in the building. After dragging him through the studio like a good mother and to the car, he finally exclaimed, "Mommy, I don't want to do taekwando, I want to take piano." Oh. I wish he said that in the first place.
He continues to love space, superheroes and Starwars. He has added a lot of talk about Volcanos to his favorites.

Solly at 7 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 05:46:00 +0000

When did Solomon become such a big boy? He's like a little person now with the sweetest and silliest personality. Here are some big updates on Solly at 7 months old

We are thrilled that he's finally sleeping through the night. Benji and I hit a breaking point this past month and through our exhaustion hired a sleeping coach. After a couple calls and a few tweaks to Solly's schedule and routine, he is FINALLY sleeping through the night. Hallelujah!!!!!
The other highlight of the month is that he's now starting to crawl....videos below. Now that we've tackled sleeping, we are now on to baby proofing our apartment...it never ends.
We can now read to him since he does not try to eat the book the entire time (just some of the time).
Solly enjoyed his first Hanukkah. His eyes got even bigger when lighting the candles and he tries to join in on the song. It was so much fun having ALL of his grandparents in town over the winter holidays and overlapping on the 2nd night.
He got some new toys for Hanukkah and we have brought out some more of Izzy's old toys. It is fascinating watching him explore and play with the toys instead of just trying to eat them.
He's still obsessed with his brother! Izzy always knows how to make him laugh.

I am also going to start including some Izzy updates in my blogs.

Izzy's obsession with Lego's has grown to a new level. He works for hours on his creations...mainly helicopters and spaceships. He got several new sets for his birthday and Hanukkah. We have to really force him to follow the directions the first time through, as he really likes to make his own creations.
We discovered the Cantor Arts Center and Anderson Collection at Stanford this past month. I think we've been 3 times. Izzy has enjoyed grabbing an art pack and being able to color around the museum. He also likes to pose like the statues.
We tried to take him hiking, but he was not having it and made us hold his hands the entire time. I think it is more of a phase than a city kid thing. Solly on the other hand was in heaven in the hiking pack (see photo below).
He's also going through a phase that he does not want to be in a room by himself. If we have to run upstairs, he will come along.

You'll notice that our photo taking has improved in a few of these photos. Benji got the new iphone 7 and it takes incredible photos. So we've upped our game a little.

Solly scooting: https://youtu.be/Apg1UpPA5Mw
Solly moving 7 months: https://youtu.be/fy0R4nKi52U
Solly splashing: https://youtu.be/WC_sXPbN1ak

Izzy this past month

Grandma, Grandpa, Bubby and Zaydie visiting over Hanukkah

Interview with Izzy at 4 years old

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 16:40:00 +0000

I had a chance to sit down with Izzy right after this 4th birthday to interview him about a few of his favorite things. The following are his answers word-for-word.

When is your birthday? November 9th (me: WRONG)

Who are your favorite friends? Gabe, Yoni, Jack, Phoebe, Gabe (x2 Gabe!!)

Favorite thing to do with your friends? Jump and throw leaves everywhere

Favorite toy? Dinosaurs and Starwars under Jabba the Hutts Palace

Favorite food? Strawberry

Favorite Holiday? Shabbat, because I get to eat challah

Favorite thing to do at school? Build with blocks. Building houses and caves

What do you want to do when you grow up? Be a dinosaur and eat mean. Or fly planes

Favorite show? Dinosaur Train, Blues Clues, Spiderman

Favorite place to visit? Canada, because it's fun

Favorite thing to do with Solly? Make him laugh because he's so funny

Favorit park? Mitchell Park

What will you be like when you are 36? I'll have lots of trees in my new garden. I'll have 5 kids and Phoebe will make a good wife and Talia will be my husband.

Anything else? I love to climb mountains and see Grandpa climb trees

Izzy's 4th Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 16:38:00 +0000

The one thing we LOVE about Palo Alto is that the weather is perfect 99% of the time. When it's cold, it is usually sunny and when it rains, I usually see rainbows (not kidding, see double rainbow photo below from this past weekend). This is great, except when you are planning a birthday. The date for Izzy's birthday called 90% chance of cold and rainy. This was a flashback of last year when it rained on his birthday.

Last minute we moved his Super Hero party from the park to the OFJCC. This worked out even better than the park since it was a confined space! We had a TON of folks and it was a perfect rainy day activity. The party was 3-5pm and Spiderman theme with healthy snacks, cake and games.

The big surprise was that Spiderman surprised all of our guests and entertained the kids for an hour with magic, balloons and super hero training. It was a blast. A little loud, but very fun. Here are some photos from Izzy's super hero 4th birthday.

The morning after his birthday, Izzy got into all the tattoos and gave himself a tattoo sleeve before we woke up!

Celebrating at Izzy's school. I got to read a book to the class, bring animal crackers for snack and they lifted him up in the chair!

Solly at 6 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 05:00:00 +0000

This was a busy month for us with Halloween then spending a week in Georgia with my parents followed by a weekend in Miami for Levi Gans Bar Mitzvah.
For a while now its been hard to read him a book because he keeps wanting to eat it!
His sleep skills really need to be improved very soon - we are on the verge of loosing it! We are hoping to work on this over the next month and looking into getting help because we are TIRED!
He's still not a total fan of the car, but we've figured out he usually chills out and falls asleep to Jazz Essentials on Pandora.
He's finally joined us at the table in Izzy's old high chair. He's really liking eating like the rest of the family, however, tends to like the sweeter foods of apples, bananas and sweet potato. He's not so much into peas or avocado.
He is on the move....he really wants to crawl, but is not ready just yet. Instead, he rolls all over the place. I'll put him on his play mat and the next thing I know, he's rolled across the room and trying to pull something down. This is troublesome since all of Izzy's toys have small pieces!
He loves tags on toys just like Izzy did at the same age.
His personality is coming across as insanely sweet, easy going and silly. He loves to laugh and smile and we just can't get enough of him (except between the hours of 10pm-7am).

Here are some photos of sweet, smiley and sleepless Solomon at six months.....

Plus, some photos of our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's in Georgia and visiting the Goldstein Family, Aunt Nicole and Uncle Michael in Miami.

Don't miss the videos of Solly's first time on the swing and eating.

Thanksgiving 2016 at the Wachter House

Izzy's Learning Story - Sukkot, drawing and attention to detail

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 05:24:00 +0000

We love Izzy's teachers. Every month they plan to send a "Learning Letter" to Izzy. This is on top of their daily journal update on the class. They are some busy women. Here is a link to the full letter with pictures sent on November 10th. I've also pasted the sweet letter below.

Dear Izzy, You are very productive when it comes to being at school. Whether it’s making chain decorations for our sukkah during Sukkot, mixing fall colors to paint or drawing detailed pictures for the books you make, you are one very busy kid which is why I call you “Busy Izzy”. There was one day where you ended up drawing so many pictures you had a piles worth. Whether it was at the art table, the writing station or even on the floor, you make it work. You drew square apples, a snail and you even had time to make a self portrait.

I love how creative your drawings are and how you inspire your friends to be creative as well. We talk often about authors, the people who write books, but you have inspired us to talk about illustrators, the people who draw and color the pictures in books. Did you know that you are already an illustrator yourself? You make detailed pictures in your book, so that makes you an illustrator. I love hearing you say, "I want to make a book." because then I get to see more of your creativity. I love when you ask me to help you write the words in your book, and when ever you want help with writing letters, you let me know, because I would be glad to help. We have been working on numbers and counting and you were a great help that day we were making predictions on which has more seeds, the pumpkin or the gourd? You helped to carve out the seeds and put them into piles of 10. It was a lot of work and it took a lot of focus but you did it. Do you remember if the pumpkin had more seeds, or if the gourd had more seeds?

One of my favorite moments was that day when I put out the woven placemats and a bowl stones. You were the only one that noticed that some of the stones had a flower inside. You and your friends Jack and Chason began to sort the stones by color and after you did, you realized that only the stones that had orange had the flowers in them. I remember how proud you were to have been the one to discover this, and I remember telling you how observant you were because no one else noticed that detail, not even me. That discovery was amazing!

Love,
Teacher Cheralen

A note for Izzy on his 4th Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 06:07:00 +0000

Happy 4th Birthday Izzy. Wow, what a year. Comparing photos of you from your birthday last year, you have grown from a toddler to a little boy, and we could not be more proud of you! You are such a sweet, funny, creative, kind and loving person and you make our hearts smile <almost> ALL of the time;-)

With the addition of your brother this year, I have not written a proper Izzy update since you were 3 ¼, so I’ve compiled this note to share some updates from this past year.

We love you to the moon and back.
Mom & Dad

You are always so creative. Whenever there are instructions for Legos, a new toy, building game, you always push them aside and like to create your own thing. Your cousins Rose and Jessica got you a very cool toy with a motor called Constructables – they can make a plane, train or race car that moves. The instructions show exactly how to lie out the pieces and make each one – you could not wait to make your own creation. You also got your first regular Lego set this summer. Bubby and Zaydie got you 1000 pieces and a Spiderman set. You are interested in following directions for about 5 minutes and then you make your own amazing creations – mainly something that flies. Sometime over this past year, you started to make everything symmetrical. You amaze us every day with the creations you bring home. We also love that you will sit for 20+ minutes working on your creations.

You also spend 2-3 hours every day in the family center doing arts and crafts. You have a fondness of masking tape and post-it notes. I asked the teacher about putting you in an art class, and she suggested NOT to since you like making your creations every day. For the past year, I have had to go through a huge box every six months to go through everything and either throwaway or take apart your creations so you can continue to make something new (and often I find lots of toys and socks taped up in boxes). But don’t worry; I took photos along the way.

For your birthday this year instead of presents, we have asked your friends to bring art supplies for the Family Center at the JCC since you use so much of their arts and craft supplies!

You have the sweetest temperament (most of the time). I love how whenever you realize you make a mistake you say “Oopsie.” If you say something and realize that is not the right thing, you’ll say oopsie. If you do something wrong (on good days), you’ll say oopsie and fix it. It shows that (most of the time) you have a very flexible and understanding personality that I hope stays with you as you grow.

Over this past year, you have improved your manners. Having a Southern Mama, you don't have a choice. One of my favorites was when you learned about chewing with your mouth closed from your friend Farrah. For several months you would remind all of us to "chew with our mouths closed."

You are such a good friend. You make friends wherever you go! Your big thing this year was asking kids (and their Mom’s) to come over for a sleep over or Shabbat. It is very cute! You tend to pick friends who like to talk a lot. You made one good friend last school year/summer at the JCC after school that is 5 – Ari. The two of you would just roam around and talk for hours.

There were a couple of times this year when you came home and exclaimed that you made a new friend and were very excited about this new person. Sury, your nanny, would then inform me that the kid you met did not speak English. This did not seem a problem to you!

You are a wonderful brother. Everyone asks me if you are jealous of your little brother, and I am so proud to share that you have never expressed anything but love for your little brother. Solomon is so lucky to you have you as an older brother. Both Solly and I can’t wait for you to run into our bedroom in the morning to say ‘hi’ and spend some time hanging out. Solly is fully obsessed with you and watches every move in awe of you.

You have become such a big boy this year. You gave up your pacifier (December), moved into a big boy bed (May), potty trained (June) and you are now learning your letters! Your Dad and I are going to be in trouble when we can no longer spell everything that we don’t want you to know. You also started to pick out your clothes dress yourself starting around June. Your favorite thing is camouflage…I’ve had to talk you out of wearing camo pants and top on a couple of occasions. You still like to wear Spiderman socks on your hands and prefer not to wear a hoodie or jacket to cover your superhero shirts.

You love Jewish holidays more than anyone. For Rosh Hashanah this year you carried around apples and honey for a week and would talk non-stop about your excitement for the New Year. Once it was here, you wished everyone a Lshanah Tova Umetukah. You also get mad at us if we don’t have someone over for Shabbat. You often go to your friend's parents to invite their family to Shabbat. It is very cute! You also LOVE to listen to Shabbat music on Friday and Jewish/holiday music around Hanukkah and Passover. I think you were Shabbat helper 3-4 times in your Shamir classroom. Most kids only are the helper once! I have a feeling you think everyone in the world is Jewish and celebrates Jewish holidays.

You have an incredible imagination. There was a time this year that every morning you would run into our room around 6-7am and say the most random things that you had dreamed or thought about. A few examples are: “Do you want to touch a rolly poly?” “I’ve got my Spiderman gloves to touch spiders” “can I make rockets” “do you know what shape this is? (holding up the post-it notes that you slept with).

You also are sharing your creative thoughts such as asking us to call the Pteranodon Family from Dinosaur Train and inviting them over for Shabbat. From your imaginative art creations to your fun make believe games, you always have us smiling.

You are a true superhero. Your super power is making people smile. There was a span of about six months where you wore your cape everywhere. Thankfully you have a Grandma that made you several beautiful capes! You also always wanted to wear socks on your hands because you thought they were spiderman gloves. You also always wanted to share your gloves with your friends, so you’d always make a plastic bag of gloves. Many times I would have to go through all of your projects before I threw them away to look for all of your socks!

Overall you are a Marvel fan. We redid your room this year from a baby/toddler room to a big boy room with a Spiderman theme. Every night we pick a different superhero story to read.

Happy 4th birthday to our creative, sweet, friendly, caring, imaginative, superhero!!!

Rosh Hashanah 5777

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 02:32:00 +0000

Every year I try to send out an e-card to our family and friends to wish them a Happy New Year. This year before services I tried to grab ONE photo of the boys. ONE photo where they were both looking at the camera and smiling. That did not happen. Here is a compilation at my attempt to capture a photo of the boys. Our session lasted a total of 45 seconds:-) If you thought the photo shoots with Izzy where hilarious/stressful/impossible, I can only imagine what we have in store with 2!

Solomon at 5 months

noreply@blogger.com (beccaNY) — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 01:27:00 +0000

Solomon is seriously the sweetest, smiliest, loving baby ever. We just cannot get enough of him. Here's an update of all things Solly at 5 months old.

He no longer sucks on his entire hand but sometimes just a finger
He uses the sound B a lot and has been making a fart sound a lot (from his mouth) - I think his brother taught him that one!
Things that make Solly laugh = scaring him, biting the inside of his thighs and making a pig sound.
He likes to jump or shake like his brother
He rolls front to back and back to front. I've found him many times off his mat from rolling all around.
He is sitting with little support.
He is so so so ready to eat - sadly we have not had time to tackle food but will take care of this in the next week!
Most of all, he is totally obsessed with his older brother. The love he has with Izzy is profound. If Izzy is in the room, all eyes are on him. Any chance he gets, he will try to touch him or touch anything that he has. Thankfully, Izzy is an incredible older brother and is just as enamored with Solomon. You can see by the photos.
He still does not like the car, pacifiers or sleeping.

Photos with friends and family

Izzy + Solly