Olive you glad I didn't say banana?

You know, like the joke, Orange you glad I didn't say banana? No, is that just me? Well, okay,  let's move on. Because this post is all about olives. It's hard core olive season around here. Trees are swelling with olives ready to be picked, from farms to random trees all over town. And in the shuk you can buy raw olives for pennies.

But why buy what you can pick yourself, right? Well, not us, but for Aviva and her friend Chaya, yes. They spent a couple days helping out a family with a number of olive trees preparing them for pressing to oil, and were rewarded with a whole bunch for them to take home and prepare themselves.

And home to our house they came. So the two sibling creative chefs formerly of pickle off fame did some research and learned how to cure and prepare raw olives.

But, before any preparation could be done, because these were grown in Israel we needed to take out tithes. Something I was (really) surprisingly excited about. We're in Israel! We get to do a weird cool new mitzvah (seriously, I said that, I don't know what I was on that day).  Anyways, here are all the laws that were followed. 

And onto preparation. They calculated the size of the pan in order to ascertain 10%. Little did Ami know, if he just asked, I could have told him the size, they're standard...but you know, why not break out my sewing kit for curing olives?

Once they were separated Ami and Aviva started the process. I think it involves putting them in jars and changing the water every day for a week. After that, I'm not sure, but will keep you updated!

And here they are jarred and curing. Hopefully. 

On a side note, last night I went out (one perk of Hurricane Sandy is our office being closed so I was able to leave the house past 5pm) and Ami getting Eitan ready for bed time kept the tabs off his diapers for some reason. I'm not sure why. But, the engineer in him found a way around it and came up with this solution. Yes, that's masking tape around my baby's diaper.



So that's what we're up to over here. 

Recent Rambles

Everything's going well in the Rozmaryn house. We're settling into a routine with Eitan in school three days a week, Ami at work 6 days a week and football practice two nights a week and my getting some actual free time during Eitan's school days. This week during my free mornings I had a pedicure, a shuk trip and time to catch up on TV shows. Which is a big deal considering in this last year I was with Eitan all days and working all evenings really cramping my free time situation.

So if you're wondering, that's why the blog has been a bit quieter lately- we're just all doing our thing. And waiting on the little bundle of excitement that will hopefully make it's debut sooner rather than later.

For now, here's a bit of fun daddy-toddler bonding from last week: Juggling Lessons take 1.



Jungle-ing from mimi rozmaryn on Vimeo.

Eitan might definitely be showing us that the terrible two's are our boss sometimes, but when he forgets about his recent birthday, he's pretty much adorable.

The Celebration Continues

Today's Hebrew date is 5 Cheshvan which means it's Eitan's hebrew birthday! At schools here in Israel they celebrate Hebrew birthdays not English so today at school it was party time.

It was both of our first experiences with Israeli birthday traditions, and Eitan pretty much had no clue what was going on. I mean, I didn't either, but he REALLY didn't. He also wasn't so into the crown that his teachers made him and told me I should wear it. I got it on for a few minutes when it was cake time. Nothing distracts like sugar.

They sang songs, did this thing where he puts flowers in a basket and gives it to his mom (that's me) to say thank you for taking care of me type thing, the teachers tried to pick him up in a chair but he wasn't having any of it, and then, there was cake. That part he understood crystal clear.

When I picked Eitan up at the end of the day the teachers gave me balloons and a book of pictures drawn by all of his little friends in school. They also told me he didn't take off the crown the whole day. Here are some shots of the loot once we got home.

First Day of (pre) School

As the end of the summer approached, we knew it was getting to be time to send Eitan to some kind of school situation for the year ahead.

We partied hard last year, but between  Eitan getting older and his needs changing and the new baby's imminent arrival,  the reality was that my life as a day time full time mom and night time professional (wow that sounds bad) wasn't going to work for the time ahead.

That being said, we took the lazy route to finding a daycare, telling friends we were looking for something and waiting to hear back from them. He's going only three mornings a week (the other two weekday mornings we have "programmed") so while of course I wanted something with lovely staff and safe, I wasn't so picky about curriculum (for a 2 year old!) and other details that might be more important if he were to be there all day, every day.

So a couple weeks ago a friend let me know that there WAS in fact a couple spots open in her son's school and that they were looking for kids closer to age 2 then 1 to balance out the overall ages. The school is great for us. It's about 10-15 kids (depending on the day, it seems part time is very common here) from 6 months to a little older then Eitan (so he'll learn to play nicely with babies? Maybe?). The teachers are really lovely, some speak English, some don't, and about half of them have American parents. They feed the kiddos breakfast and lunch, sing songs, have a lovely garden play space and do all kind of projects. The best part is, it's about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. Okay, so the care Eitan gets is really the best part, but you know, convenience helps.

We went to visit one day last week and it seemed great, and Eitan started this week. He was really excited about it, we psyched him up all weekend for him to go to school and play with all the toys and children (he was particularly excited by the Cozy Coupe car that he remembered from our visit). We were warned that the first few days/weeks might be hard, because he's never been in a day care setting (he's always just had nannies/babysitters) and have watched a lot of our friends go through the beginning of school year trauma.

So day 1 was for two hours, the first of which the teachers reported he spent crying (poor guy!) but yesterday, day 2, they said he cried for a couple minutes when I left, but had a great time after that, playing with the other kids, eating the food they made him (unlike day 1, and you know it's bad if Eitan's turning down food!), and generally having a ball. Even though they said day 2 should be 3 hours,when I called to check in they said he was doing so well I should just stay home and get him at normal pick up at 1pm. YESSSS! Happy boy, happy mommy! He's home together today and tomorrow, and my hope is that Thursday picks up where we left off instead of a whole new transition. We'll see.

One funny anecdote is that the teacher said that Eitan has already claimed the cozy coupe as his own. Even when he's not in it, he doesn't let the other kids go in it. What chutzpa! He's so funny. And I told them to make sure everyone gets their turn in it.

Next up in school adventures: Parent's night and Eitan's school birthday (they celebrate Hebrew birthdays here, so it's next Sunday).

Eitan's 2nd Birthday!

Eitan is 2.We can't believe it. At all.

His birthday fell out on Shabbat, and for documentation purposes, extended through this morning. We had a lot of surprises up our sleeve for him.

First we had a big Happy Birthday banner up which he immediately noticed and was all about touching. It lasted about 5 minutes before he pulled it apart.

 

We also had a special birthday mini cake for him, in trying to keep as much as possible with the Rozmaryn tradition of a birthday ring ding. He loved it. The candle, the cake for breakfast, what's not to?


Here's a video:


And also some photos of the cake-loving:

  

 

Dance Party

Lots of fun is going on here in the Rozmaryn house nowadays! Since Aviva's arrival daily dance parties have ensued. Eitan even talked about dancing in shul on Simchat Torah as a dance party.

One song is particular is Eitan's dance song of choice, Haley's Comet - the Phish version. He asks for "more Haley's comin". My mom originally played it for him during one of her visits to DC and Aviva jumped all over it.

So I caught the dynamic duo, dancing with the stars here they come:




And, if you like the song, and want more, here it is:

The Great Pickle Off of 2012

Now that Aviva's here, the competitive spirit of the Rozmaryn family has arrived. It's all about who's better at whatever, which parent loves who more, who has more of what and who can get to whatever or wherever more quickly. It's fun. 

So naturally, there was a special Sukkot competition this week. Ami likes to make homemade pickles. He used to make them at home from our cucumber plant, and now that we're here, he still makes them, but with purchased cucumbers albeit. 

Aviva has never made pickles before, but being that it's something that Ami was doing, she wanted to best him. Also, it has to do with cooking so her creative juices were flowing. So the great pickle off of 2012 was upon us. They went to the Shuk to secure ingredients and on Erev Sukkot the pickles were sealed in their jars. The plan was to have a panel of judges evaluate the two batches on Chol Hamoed at the Maller home- a home full of foodies and children, people that are known for their honesty.

Here the pickles are, one plate of each "brand". The fork differentiated between the two. 

All ready to have the tasters!

I got only a partial vote because I knew whose was whose based on the jars, and that Ami prefers his pickles heavy on the horseradish.

In the end, Aviva's won by a lot. But, Ami did have a few votes from the horseradish lover components. And  comments included that Ami's were the better choice to be eaten on their own- as a set snack, but Aviva's better in a sandwich or other pickle application. At the end of the day, all of the pickles were eaten but Aviva reigns as the pickle champion of the house. They're not done with their pickle making adventures- they both plan to continue their picking careers.

By the way, Eitan loved the pickles!

Sukkot in Jerusalem

Last year around this time, we were celebrating Eitan's first birthday which fell out on the second day of Sukkot and planning for our year here in Jerusalem. It feels like both forever ago and yesterday. Eitan's birthday is still a couple weeks away, so no planning for a Sukkah party.

Birthday Sukkah 2011 (got rained out)

One thing that has been in common  between our Sukkots last and this year, which really should not be is RAIN! It poured rain on the first night of Sukkot here, which is very very unusual (like everything else relating to our time in this desert which last winter had record amounts of rain, and this year seems to have record early rain). Being rained out of the Sukkah is a very usual occurrence for us, and grabbing your plate, silverware and glass old hat. Just not expected for this year and as it seems, quite newsworthy.

There is a ton of stuff going on here in Jerusalem for Sukkot- and all the children are off school (again, not the parents off work necessarily, I don't understand how people do it) filling the streets and playgrounds. Some highlights include a open street festival on Derech Bet Lechem Street tonight, an open house at the central fire station with demonstrations and everything, an all day festival at the Carlbach Moshav and tomorrow an all day festival in Gan Sacher. There's of course also nightly impromptu Sukkah parties, concerts, etc. But you know, around these parts we focus on the kid friendly activities. Because we're really cool like that.

(Almost) All of the restaurants have Sukkahs jammed in corners, on the sidewalks, in alleys and even around street benches, and every nook of the city that has an open space seems to be populated by them.

One thing that I haven't been keeping up with this holiday season is the bus signs. You might remember that I loved that last year around Chanuka and Purim time the fact that the buses featured "Chag Sameach" signs with the route number. Around this time of year, these signs are constantly changing. Around Rosh Hashana they read "Shana Tova", a few days later in time for Yom Kippur "Chatima Tova" (may you be inscribed well) and now it's "Moadim L'Simcha" (festivals of joy- Sukkot is called the time of our happiness). So in capturing these changing messages, I'm 1 for 3. Not great. The Redskins even have a better record then that right now (2-2).

More to come as we enjoy Sukkot here!