More pics from the Levine Whirlwind baby tour

This post is an addendum to Mrs. Carlye Levine's, previous post on her blog. Since I don't know how to upload pics to Snapfish or some other venue this is just a snippet of the 24 pics I got developed this afternoon.

Aunt Carlye and Uncle Sam holding Yael in her oversized blanket.
Eventually she'll grow into the adorable monkey suit outfit you got for her and we'll post pics of that when she wears it.



Aunt Carlye holding my loveable little camera hog Jonathan.


Barb can handle and hold even the smallest of babies and here's the proof - We're so proud that you could hold Yael at a few days and Jonathan at a few months old. Thanks for being part of our celebrations.

And also thanks for getting the TMX Elmo. Hope you all enjoyed seeing him and his antics when you were here.

Horsie, Horsie!

We start them off early in the South.

My 2-1/2 year old son thouroughly enjoyed his Thanksgiving trip to Louisiana (Huge thanks to Perry and Marla for putting up with ALL of us for so long), including a trip to the horse races. Good thing they skipped the Casino.
I had to put my foot down and insist that we had to wait to take Yael there until she was at least 2 months old.

It was a first for Saba and Safta too. See the look of awe on their faces

Big horses running at breakneck speed topped with colorful jockeys - leads to an interesting action shot.
Go Horsie #3!

Abba helps Jonathan cheer them on - Go Horsie #3.


I don't think Horsie #3 was the big winner - or I'm sure I would've heard all about it by now.
Oh well, you win some, you lose some. But is sure looks like they had fun.

Hot dogs and peanuts and popcorn - oh my!

Our first real outing

Yael, Saba and Safta and I all went out for a few hours to my downtown office today. For me it was mostly to check on the status of things at the office and to pack up my stuff so that no other poor schlub had to do it for me, since we are moving to the taller building next door.



It was the first time Yosefa and Avi have seen skyscrapers up close and in person and I made sure they got a really good look. We drove around a bit near my building so they could get a sense of the concrete jungle where we live and work. I then took them to my building. I took them first to the 44th floor where they got a good look out of the "executive" conference room window. They were impressed (among other things) that they could see the Aquarium where they had gone over the weekend with Eran and Yoni. (see pic)


Then we went up to the 52nd floor so we could pack up my desk and work area, where we were summarily accosted by all the ladies - in order to see the newest Namer.

We came during lunchtime, on a short week when most of [the engineers in] my dept were out (except of course for those most diligent worker bees - including most of the friends I wanted to see anyway, and my immediate supervisor - good business sense for him to see both me and the babe at the office! I was hoping that we wouldn't cause too much commotion, but who was I kidding, boy was I wrong about that - almost everyone wanted to see us both and stopped by to give the proper praise to the Princess.





This sculpture in front of my building reminded Avi and Yosefa of another sculpture in front of one of our miserable old houses in Jersalem, "The Mifletzet" in Kiryat Yovel. Now that you mention it, I wonder if they had the same weird artistic influence. You be the judge

My prodigy

So here's the latest yummy Yael news.
Yael is officially her own person. Her last link to me (the remnants of the umbilical cord) fell off yesterday morning at the first diaper change.
She is making all the proper baby movements that "the books" tell you about - rooting, sticking out her tounge, mouthing "ohs" and getting wide-eyed at all the appropriate things.
She is also already lifting her heavy head some and making what could be construed as distinctive sounds other than cries - my little prodigy.
I can tell when she is focusing on things like the difference between our navy blue couch and the stark white wall behind it, or when she is studying my face and the silly expressions I am showing her in the middle of the night when no one else is awake.
Her fingers are still long and the nailbeds are even longer, but she has only managed to inflict minor injury on herself - is it too early to order her custom-made Raabs (that was for you Daddy)?
We have to protect her from her over-loving big brother who wants to hold her hand (better than her soft head) while she eats or sleeps or gets any attention whatsoever. He has only actually climbed into the bassinet once - while it was on the floor and she wasn't in it, but he tries to hold her hand in the mornings before I am totally awake and I am afraid she will be squished or something wihle my back is turned.

We have misplaced our digital camera at the moment and don't have the proper software loaded on the home computer to download the pictures anyway - so pictures will be forthcoming eventually.

Introducing...

Yael Netanella Namer

being held by her big brother Jonathan

New Arrival

We're so excited to welcome our new addition to the family on November 7, 2006.

You can see the first family photos on my sister-in-law Carlye's website here: http://gracefullysocial.blogspot.com/ and I'll find some others and post them later on this site

Here is the link to our daughter's very own webpage:
http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage.asp?URLID=1S5J3V1R0I
password: Namer

She was ready to enter the world quite quickly when she finally decided to join us and we're happy she waited for the doctor to show up. She was a healthy 6 lbs 13.7 oz and 19 inches.
And NO we don't have an official name for her yet - but we will very soon - I hope!!!

The Namer in-laws from Israel have landed in New York and are currently on their way to Houston for the next few weeks - It's gonna be a full house around here!!!

I finally deliver the promised goods

So maybe it took awhile, but here are the promised pictures from the Fall Festival.
And again - comments on our cuteness are always appreciated!

Unfortunately, I only had a few pics left on my Fun Saver camera or I surely would have snapped some of him at the petting zoo and with the pregnant goat too...Oh well.

Childhood memories -

No one would know from this picture that a cute, blonde pre-teen girl helped Mr. Independent get up to the top

but he didn't need any help coming down - Cowabunga Dude!

Aunt Carol - Thanks for spotting so we didn't roll off the side! And for holding the cherry red snowcone which of course we ended up spilling all over your shirt later anyway

So, what do you call those bouncy things - a moon walk? ....
We were not so big on the bouncy thing as our plain jumping up and down on the ground still leaves a lot to be desired - coordination is just not quite there for those muscle groups yet, I guess, since running in circles can sometimes still prove to be a challenge.

How apropo though - this moon walker, bouncy thing was an orange striped tiger - our Namer family mascot :)


Here's Bubbe in the front by the eye of the tiger


And a very pregnant Mommy at the back by the tail - And how do you like our orange balloon sword to match?




And what would a day at the park be without a trip or two down the slide?

This one made Mommy cringe when we got to the bottom and the gap between the slide and the ground was way too big for Mr. J to navigate - and so he landed with a pretty hard thud on his diapered butt - great padding - not even a bump in the road for this rambuncious kid

Good thing Aunt Carol was there to dust Jonathan off though, since Mommy just couldn't get there fast enough or bend down to pick him up.

It sure didn't bother him much though, he was off to do it again and again and again and even knocked some bigger kid out of the way on the way down.

Kids
You just gotta love 'em and the crazy things they will do to make your heart leap out of your chest!

I'm so special!

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

HowManyOfMe.com

There is: 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Tzniut (modesty) - Take 2

There's no way I can recreate exactly what was eaten yesterday by the Halloween blogger monster, but here is a second attempt, somewhere along the same lines

So there are many side effects of being pregnant, some of which are less pleasant than others, but I'll leave that to your imagination...

One unexpected side effect for me has been the fact that I am just much more comfortable in skirts than pants. In fact the last few times I wore pants just made me realize just how much I like wearing skirts - despite the fact that my legs are not so pretty since they are constantly covered in some sort of bug bites and/or scratches that are at various stages of healing.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned the fat lady, front pleated jeans - and about how those were the most recent pants I wore - leaving a bad taste in my "mouth" about the way I looked. Also recently I wore my most favorite pair of pre-pregnancy work-trousers to work and just did the rubber-band waistband trick to accommodate my pregnant tummy. I forgot about the zipper part and totally busted it open. It didn't phase me one bit and I just threw out the pants without much ado or hullabaloo about it - my favorite pair mind you, and that's a big deal for someone who doesn't like shopping for clothes for myself too much.

In addition to the airy comfort of long modest skirts, I also like the shorter knee-length flirty ones. .{Somewhere in here would be where the part about my son playing peek-a-boo under my skirt should fit in, but because of that other side effect known as "pregnancy brain", I don't remember how the story fits in now a whole day later} I wore a flouncy knee-length skirt yesterday and it just made me happy to have a feminine ruffle right at my knee. Because I have never been comfortable with my legs, a mini-skirt is pretty much out of the question, but it was really fun to wear a short(er) skirt and feel good about it during the last part of this pregnancy.

Now I have to mention my disgust with my pregnancy hair. Some people love the fact that they have glowing and shiny hair during their pregnancy, but not me. It is not only a mousy shade of brown, but it is both stringy and frizzy at the same time and the population of stray greys is ever-growing, much to my dismay. A few months ago I went and chopped about 4 inches off hoping that it would improve the situation - it didn't, although I don't have split or dead ends to report. And I have changed both shampoo and condition at least 3 time snow, all to no avail. This pregnancy hair (and skin) almost makes me consider wearing a hat or maybe a wig just so I could remember what a good hair day feels like.

Now I am contemplating the customary or not so customary ritual dipping in the mikve before giving birth. Haven't done enough research, can't remember if I was for it or against it myself, and time is quickly running out.

My doctor's visit this afternoon went something like this --- "Where do you live? Meyerland? Good! That's pretty close to the hospital. If you lived any further away, I'd be sending you there right now. Friday I am in Clear Lake so if you don't have any contractions that are 10 minutes apart before then, give us a call on Monday and we'll go ahead and get this party started"
And that's because I told her I had Pitocin with my last delivery and ended up having to have an epidural and at this point I am walking around already further along than I ever was with him (they really, really had to induce me with him - I mean from nothing), so I'd kinda like nature to take it's course as much as possible at this point.
Now I'm going to get off this computer and call our family friend the OB/GYN who has been displaced from New Orleans and see how irrational I am being about waiting this out and what I should really expect at this point. She was surprised at how long they let me keep walking around with my high-risk pregnancy in Israel, let's see how she feels about the most lackadaisical pregnancy I ever heard of in comparison.
Goodnight!