Trick or treat!

Princess Jasmine returns! To celebrate Halloween, I of course brought out my Jasmine costume once again.

This time, my sister was there too, to play the monkey Abu to my princess.

Then we went trick or treating. I had been practicing for days - knocking, saying trick or treat, and showing off my costume.

We went to lots of houses, and even though there weren't many people home (trick or treating seems to be a dying tradition, how sad!), I managed to get some candy.

We even went to a few houses that were all decorated. The big spider web on this one kind of freaked me out!

It was, all in all, a fun afternoon of new exciting adventures. I hope all you blog fans had as great a Halloween as I did!

A bithday message for my sister

Dear Lela-
I can't believe you're already turning one whole year old! Have a wonderful birthday!

Love,
Resli

Introduction to autumn

Mi querida Reslita-
You have the joy of growing up (so far) in an almost-tropical climate where the leaves are green for pretty much 10 months of the year. (There's that one day in late January when they all turn brown and then fall off the next day, but other than that, we get green most of the time.) Anyway, when I was your age (oh gosh when did I become someone who starts sentences with 'when I was your age...'????), I lived in a different place where we had these things called SEASONS. (:->) Right about now is the season called autumn and in many climates the leaves turn all kinds of beautiful colors in autumn, like red and orange and yellow.
Here in Quebec, it's autumn, and all the leaves are lovely colors (although some are already falling off). I took this picture for you so you can see what autumn looks like in other parts of the world.

I miss you, cariño, muchísimo. Here's a picture of me waving to you and Lela.

Besos, amor, te veo muy pronto.

~Mami

A message for Resli, from Mami

Resli, honey, here's a video for you. Sorry about the ghoulish lighting, apparently natural light is NOT the best (I'm facing a window). Lo importante, amor, es que te quiero mucho y te echo mucho de menos, y que te veo el domingo. Besos.

Fun in the back yard

We took advantage of the lovely fall weather this weekend to play in the backyard for what seemed to Mami and Daddy like for ever. I went on my swing and discovered that I love to go really fast and high!

Lela was there too, on her own swing. We were next to each other!

I went down the slide a lot, I seemed to have endless energy to run up and slide down and run up and slide down...

Then Daddy showed me this thing called jumping jacks, which I tried to do but couldn't quite get the hang of.

Just the same, it was a fun morning!

Sukkahs and Sukkot

There's another Jewish holiday this week, Sukkot. We've been learning about it in school, and on Monday we even built a "Sukkah City" on the playground.
Ms. Jenifer helped everyone in our class build it, from hammering

to sawing (or just watching, as I seem to be doing).

The rabbi came and explained all about sukkahs to us.

We listened carefully,

and then had a great snack inside.

Today, since school is closed and my friend David is at my house to play, we decided to build our own sukkah too. We ate lunch there.

(Please, nobody be offended, Mami doesn't know too much about how these things work, she was just doing her best.)
Of course, David and I did other stuff today too, like run around outside, dig in the dirt, push each other on the swings, and play on the slide.

Mostly, climbing up rather than sliding down,

but there was some "down" too!

(No worries, no one was hurt, we had a blast!)

A tea party fit for a princess

My friend Raquel had some of us over for a "Princess Tea Party" playdate last weekend. (What a great idea, I know!) We got to dress up in princess outfits, so of course I wore my Jasmine costume.
We pretended to have tea, before having our real snack.

And then we got to do some neat arts and crafts with princes stickers, glue, paint and all kinds of fun stuff.

After that we went outside to play with bubbles. These are my friends Raquel and Jennie (both dressed as Snow White).


My friend Amelia just wanted to play with the inner tube!

Then I played with Raquel's toys. She has this neat princess house that I just loved.

Mimi joined me in there, and it got a little cozy!

Overall, it was a great way to spend a few hours Sunday afternoon. Thank you, Raquel!

Getting ready for Halloween

We got my Halloween costume yesterday. (Yea yea, it's early, but the sale ends tomorrow!)
Can you guess who I'm going to be?

(If you need a hint, click here.)
Don't I look great? I can't wait until I get to wear it!

Judaism 101

I broke into song at dinner tonight, and I claim, at least, that this is the "rabbi's song". (As a linguist, Mami just loves my very guttural sounds.)

Does anyone know what this song is??
We then move on to a discussion of all things Jewish. Mami learns something new every day!

L'shanah tovah!

Happy (Jewish) New Year! To celebrate we were out of school for two days this week. Mami and the parents of my friend David worked out a deal where David and I get to play together and they still get to teach their courses. So on Tuesday I played at David's house, and on Wednesday he came to mine.
I started the day off twirling around on my bed in my pretty Ariel nightgown. David wasn't very interested in that...

Then Mami noticed that it had gotten very quiet in my room, so she came to see what was going on. It turns out I was dressing David up like Princess Jasmine.

He didn't seem to mind it...

But he was relieved when it was snack time. We sat at my Dora table and ate grapes, apples and oatbran "O"s. Yum!

But Mami had more plans for us and told us to get in the car. (Can you understand why she didn't want to stay home all day with us? I can't!)
While she was getting David buckled in I opened the passenger side front door and climbed across to the driver's side. I just wanted to help out.

But she made me get in my seat. It was fun to have someone big to talk to next to me back there, Lela's great but she's not too conversational.

Then we went to the playground! David and I both enjoyed climbing.

And David really liked the slide down!

We pretended to be different animals and crawled around these stepping stone things.

And then somehow, we're not sure who started it, but we decided to "make cakes" with the bark chips.


What a mess, but it was so much fun. See, there were all these other kids there that wanted to make cakes with us too!
After that, boy were we tired out! We went back home and had lunch together.

And then Mami started what she called a "mandatory rest time", whatever that is. We sat quietly on couches for about 45 minutes, and she kept telling us we should nap, but we thought that was just silly. No napping for us!
We had a great time playing together. Which is good, since there are three more Jewish holidays coming up in the next three weeks, so we'll be seeing a lot of each other in the near future.