Camping on the shore of the Galilee...

Early this summer (June) we went camping at the Lake of Galilee.. we had such a fantastic time!

We went for 2 nights and 3 beautiful (but HOT) days! Our friends Matt and Courtney and their baby boy Graham joined us for the experience, thanks guys for such a neat time.

You'll never believe it but it was a scorching 41 degrees the 3 days we were there... but amazingly enough we all survived and even found it quite pleasant under the shade of our massive tree.

Shalev napping during a 40 degree day.


As you can see...Shavi's favourite fruit is Watermelon!
Sunset over the Galilee

Our gorgeous 23 week-old baby...

Here is our gorgeous baby boy...

he seems to be a little camera-shy! But ever-so cute!!

Summer!

Here's just a wee glimpse of our summer fun over this way! We're actually heading away to the Galilee for some camping this weekend, so we'll post some better pics once we return. But for now.. here is Dave and Shalev having some fun in our wee kiddies pool.

And as you can see, we were pretty excited about Shalevs upgrade to a front facing car seat! ... and so was he!!

Now he can see everything! Yippie!

Crafts for the little guys!

Just thought I'd share this fun little activity with all of you mums out there with little guys at home (like my little guy). If your child is at the same stage as mine, he'll not quite be able to draw with crayons without chewing half of the crayon first nor will he be able to paint a painting without sucking on the 'yummy' end of the paintbrush!.. well if this is your child too, but you'd still like your wee one to have some fun playing around with different objects and materials to be able to make a picture.. then this is for you and him!

I am always keen to hear of new and fun ways to entertain (and stimulate) my little guys mind, so if any of you mum's have some great mind stimulating or great learning crafts or games for kiddies under 18months, I'd love to know about them!

So this one is REAL easy, its fun, and they learn a whole bunch of things too!

First of all the best part is getting out and about with your little guy to find the bits and pieces needed for this art.. ie.. leaves, petals, small stones, branches, sand... etc. (actually anything that will stick to the 'sticky paper'.)(even food items, if the weathers not so good outside).

Then the 2nd part to this is getting yourself some 'sticky paper', i am actually right now having a mind blank as to what this stuff is really called, but hopefully by the photo you'll be able to know what im talking about.

So... cut a good length of this sticky paper, and remove the backing (this will reveal the sticky side), now cellotape it to the floor. (or if you are in NZ and have carpeted floors, either do this in the kitchen on the lino, or on a table top).

Now the fun begins... get your little guy to first put his hands on the paper (and he will soon realise what 'sticky' means.) and even his feet just to be able to feel what its like. And then begin creating your art poster with him. Get him to place all of his findings on the paper, sticking them on real well!

I also like to let him add glitter and sand and anything else with that sort of texture! It sticks real well, and wif your going to be displaying his finished piece of art work on the window (which works great for this particular art) then glitter is a must!
And thats it really! SO enjoy this simple wee craft with your little one! and have showing it off to all your visitors too! (im sorry I dont have a photo to show of the finished result, but thats due to my terrible camera! (most things will stick to the paper, even if you hang it on the wall, or against the window, but obviously the stones and other heavy objects may not last.)

Blessings... Amy

Its been ages...

Dont panic! we're still here.. I know its hard to believe; as we have been SO slack in keeping this blog updated lately! But.. nevertheless, we're here and we're now ready for some summer action!

We've been SUPER busy lately with all sorts going on... but i wont bore you with all of that and i certainly wont go dating the photos back to where we last ended.

SO.. now that we're in Summer i can begin posting all our fun summer activities as they occur. To begin with, i'll post a few pics of our picnic that we enjoyed this last Saturday up in Zikron Yaakov. We had a yummy picnic-styled lunch to begin with, and then headed into the beautiful botanic/rose gardens. We had two other couples join us for the afternoon, which meant 3 gorgeous little baby boys too!

Its good to be back on here~ sorry to all you granparents and friends out there who havent 'seen' Shalev in ages (because of our slackness). There will be plenty from now on.

Hugs...Amy

Children's Camp

Dave was asked to teach at one of the Childrens camp's this Passover, so we packed up and went south for a few days to join in the fun with the kiddies at Camp! It was held at the 'Baptist Village', a beautiful location near Tel Aviv, with its hills of green grass and lovely wee orange tree orchards and palm trees to be seen all over... we honestly felt at though we'd landed in a different country! It was A LOT of fun, But i must tell you, it was HOT!!! A Heat wave hit Israel, so the indoors was certainly a refuge to ALL of us!

Anyhow.. Shalev had a fantastic time with all the kids and just loved his first experience in the swimming pool. He sure is a social wee fella!

This is the house we stayed in during our time at camp, it was a lovely home situated on the camp site, and a true refuge during midday heat!

Oh how Shavi LOVED that ice-cream! and boy did he deserve it! It was almost 40 degree's at that point of the day... we were SO thankful for the kiosk!

Passover

Wow, it's certainly been a while since we last posted, we've been SUPER busy with Passover, Childrens Camp and of course not to mention all the busy day to day stuff involved in being parents, so we've been a little out of touch for the last few weeks, however here we are, and even with a few photos to share.

So here we are at our family Passover meal.

It was a very special meal, which we were able to celebrate with family and friends (including our wonderful friends whom we met at our pre-birth classes), and also May's family and her Grandma from South Africa. However we were VERY sorry to not have the 'Upstairs Salingers' celebrate with us this year, as they were fighting a few nasty sicknessess. Praise the Lord they have all recovered well!

Dave led the Seder, which was very special.

and.. Roast Beef & Roast Lamb were on the menu for the evening!

Mmmm-mmm!