Enjoying the Summer...

We are definitely trying to enjoy the summer around here. Even though I got a little bit excited Sunday morning at the back-to-school ads in the newspaper, it's still summertime and we're definitely embracing it. (Of course, my mom mentioning the upcoming High Holy Days didn't make me feel any better...but let's just keep thinking of summer, shall we?)

So, here are some of the summertime fun pictures I took this week!





See some more wonderful summertime pictures over at Tracy's...

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Go check out Haveil Havalim this week.

Camera-Lust, My Deer...

So my dad got a new camera.

I actually have a little taste now of how it must feel to use some of the really cool cameras that so many of you have. It's not an SLR but it is really really cool.

I got to play with it this weekend while we were there. Here are some of my favorite pics that I took using his really great new camera:




We spent a lot of nice time outside on Sunday, in my parents' backyard. Even though they live near a busy street and in a relatively noisy suburban area, there is a large deer population. Someone noticed a really cute little fawn curled up and resting in the "forest" area of the yard, which has been cut back recently. We all walked over to see him (her?) and quietly observe our own little Bambi.

When I brought Sam (age 2) over to see it, the conversation went like this:
Me: Sam, look at the deer.
Sam: Is not a deer, mom. Is a cow.
Me: No, honey, it's a deer.
Sam: No. Cow.
Me: Say "deer"
Sam: "Deer." But is a cow.
...walking away...
Me: I have to go get the camera, this is a blog!
Sam: No, Mommy, is a cow!

(My "Best Shot" for the week...)

See more Best Shots here.

Spring Came and Went?

What happened? We were so excited to end Passover on a spring-like note. Friday was a gloriously warm day, so wonderful that we spent a bit of time at the Botanic Gardens.

Good thing we did because then it all seemed to go downhill!

Saturday and Sunday were cold and blustery...we still managed to get outside a bit, but nothing like the glory of Friday.

Here are some of my favorites, I couldn't pick!

Yael with Auntie Liz
The Girl, discovering the bushes at the Gardens...this was before she tried to eat them, of course.

Sam loves water, and here he is heading off to his favorite fountains. Even after a winter away, he still remembers what he likes!
For a kid who loves water, the Chicago Botanic Gardens are a great place to be!
Look, Mom, more water!

It's very hard to keep him out of the water and still take pictures. After this shot, he basically tried to dive right in! But I love the splash effect here.

I tried to take some pictures of him visiting with the ducks, but I was so afraid that he would go for a swim in the lake that I had to keep one hand holding tightly to the back of his shirt as he reached for a gorgeous pair of mallard ducks that were swimming right by us. He did enjoy meeting those ducks! I think sometimes he wishes he were a duck...he does like water.

What did you do to celebrate the end of Passover over this weekend?
See more great pictures here...

More Israel Pictures...

Yes, I went back to Israel. It was fun to go back again so quickly after the first trip. I didn't take nearly as many photos because I was very busy leading this group of families! So...here are some of the best shots from my trip (although I didn't get permission for the people so a lot of the pics couldn't be put up here)...

This one that I love...it's even the background on my phone now:-) and I posted it the other day...

This is the wall of the Temple Mount, taken looking straight up. The wall is so high, the stones so large...it just boggles my mind how it was made.

Purim celebrations in the Old City of Jerusalem. This is part of the Cardo, an ancient corridor through the Old City. These ancient stones were really brought alive by all the kids running and screaming and playing....the loud music playing, the food, the games, all of it...having shaving cream fights...it was so fascinating to see this area which is usually empty save tourists filled with the residents of the Old City!

And here are some more ancient stones, the Kotel or Western Wall, juxtaposed against other Purim costumes.

Read more about my trip here and here and here and here.

See more pictures here!

Spirit of the Kotel

Visiting the Western Wall of the Temple Mount (Kotel in Hebrew) in Jerusalem is, for me, a most spirited and spiritual experience. It's spiritual because this place, while merely a wall of stone, is in truth the central focal point, the closest we can stand to the Holy of Holies, an connection to the past that cries out with a sacred intensity. It is spirited, because each moment there is fraught with political and social complexity...I do have to focus myself and breathe in the stones deeply in order to find the peace I desire in this place because I am so easily distracted by the (sometimes) technical aspects of the visit. Men and women are not allowed to pray together at the Kotel and this frustrates and annoys me...I must remind myself to be in my own moment, in my own circle, and find my own peace.

Many people wash their hands before approaching this holy site. This is not about cleanliness, but rather about ritual purity. I love the image of washing away the rest of the world to step into this place.
There are many old women who spend their days at the Kotel, giving blessings and collecting tzedakah, money for the poor. This woman blessed me and my children, asking about my husband, my life, and offering her prayers in exchange for my tzedakah money.

The stones of the wall are old and worn, from generations of caresses and kisses.
It is customary to place notes in the cracks of the Kotel, personal prayers that are too precious to be said aloud, too precious to let float away on the wind, but rather clutched tightly in the hand and then wedged tightly into the holy stones.

God is everywhere, but I am different wherever I go. At the Kotel, I feel a difference in me as I stand shoulder to shoulder with the past...and I find a different connection, a different spirit.

See what others find spirited this week...

Getting Myself in the Pictures...

I have made a personal goal to get myself into more of my pictures.

I've started to accomplish this in two ways...neither of which yield particularly spectacular pictures, but manage to get me in the picture without handing the camera to my husband and saying "Take my picture!" *Examples are from my recent trip to Israel.

One: I hold the camera at arm's length and take my own picture.

Me, with a cute little snowman in Jerusalem!

This is me, on top of Masada.

(See another example here.)

Two: I take pictures of my feet, my shadow, or my reflection...personal documentation!

Me, in the individual screen on the airplane...

My feet (and my brother's) in Jerusalem.


In the Valley of the Communities at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum.

My feet on the Golan Heights

A meeting of Quilters (including me) in Tel Aviv!

How do you get yourself in the pictures?
This is what works for me!
See what works for other people here.

Israel Pictures...Just a Few...

How to choose, how to choose! 967 pictures are still in my computer after an initial quick-delete...I'm sure there are a few more to be deleted but how do I choose!? Either way, here are a quick rundown of my favorites (with captions of course) with what I consider to be my "Best Shot" of the trip at the end...

I have been to Israel before and taken lots of pictures, but this was my first time with my own digital camera and my first time with a blog that must be filled with photos! Oh how I wish I could have accompanied all my daily updates with pictures...but alas, it was not to be. So anyway, I focused on taking as many cool pictures as I could...so here are some...

This is me and my brother. Why is this picture here? First off, I think I look good, which is frankly exciting to me! Second, I made a personal resolution to get myself into more of the pictures. Third, my brother complains that I don't blog about him enough. We got to see him in Israel! Hooray! Finally, this picture was taken by me, holding the camera out at arm's length. Not bad, eh? Oh, and the Israel connection -- we are standing in the excavation tunnels beneath the Western Wall in Jerusalem!
Four beautiful pictures of the Old City in Jerusalem, one of my favorite places in Israel.


This is my brother again...standing at the end of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum. The new museum is quite incredible, and perhaps one of the most amazing parts is the end, when you come out into this gorgeous healing view...
My mom, at the Ein Gedi Nature Preserve. Look at that blue sky!
Taken in the old part of Tsfat, an incredible city in the north. Notice that this young man is sitting with his laptop (and he was online too...wireless). An awesome reminder of the blend of modern and ancient in this land...
And this one...my favorite. It definitely falls into the category of "don't delete on the camera" because in my camera screen, I didn't get the rainbow. But when I looked in my computer screen there it was...wow. It is a rainbow over Jericho. We were leaving Jerusalem in terrible weather and as it started to clear - breathtaking! We stopped the bus and I never imagined the picture would come out!

See more Best Shots here...

creating memories

I love to look at the inspiring, creative and beautiful photography that I've found in the bloggyworld. Some of us are much more amateur (me!) but still want to document our family's life in beautiful pictures.

I know that I look for opportunities to take pictures for my albums and of course, for my blog.

But what if you're documenting life for mom or dad who are not there to see each day's activities? I'm thinking of our troops who are serving abroad, some for very long stretches of time without their families close by. One of my friends from high school, Kristie, has two small (beautiful) children and a husband serving overseas in Iraq. She handles each difficulty that life keeps throwing at her with a great deal of strength and humor and I'm amazed and impressed.

Kristie sent me an email this weekend offering a chance to help out our troops and I thought I'd pass it on here to all of you. She is trying to get together some small durable photo/scrapbook albums to send overseas, and she writes...

Operation Minutes from Home
For a donation of $10, (retail is over $20), you can purchase a photo album to be sent to the unit. I am working with the unit commander's wife to have an event at Ft Lewis, so the families here can fill the albums before we send them.

I needs 50 albums to hold the event (for all the families).

You can contact her directly if you're interested. Please let her know it came from me...

Here's my favorite shots from the snow day we had last week...




What did you want to remember?

Theme Thursday...Books

Ah....we haven't met a book yet that we didn't like in our house....



See more booky pics here...

My Little Beauty...

Yael is 10 months old...this is her 10 month "photo shoot". The light didn't exactly work out the way I imagined but the pictures came out, I think, great. I couldn't get any great ones with the "10 month" sign but I think that's okay:-)







She is just one of the keys to my heart...but today she is the key to my Best Shot Monday! What's yours?

Happy New Year to all....

Learning to Edit? - Best Shot Monday

So...how many of you out there have tried Picnik? I've been playing with it for a while and it's about to come out of beta testing, which means that all the fun parts will become a fee-service. There is still a bunch of free stuff, and it all links directly into flickr, which I use somewhat...

Okay, so here is two versions of a picture that I edited using Picnik. What do you think? Which do you like? (if any)

So many of us try to document our children...with my second and now my third I'm working on monthly photos. This is part of the 8 month pics that I took of my girl. I love looking at her growth each month...as I love looking at the growth of all my children and my friends' children...

Finally...just one more because it's adorable. This is what you get when you say "Smile, Sammy!" Hmm...guess we'll have to work on this one!

See more Best Shot Monday here at Picture This. This is definitely one of my favorite days of the week. Have I mentioned that I love to blog?

Picking Through the Pieces...WE #7

Wow...there is a lot of pressure when it's your prompt!

This week at Wrapped Emotions, I was the guest blogger...how cool is that? I spent so much time and energy thinking about what to write, about how to approach the prompt, about how to touch all the participants and make them think and feel...that I almost didn't have anything left for my own project! It's as if the post itself was my project for the week...

But that just doesn't do it for me:-)

So here's what I came up with....

Fragments. I think of the fragments of my life and how I try to work them into a coherent whole. I try to weave my family and home life into my job, I try to bring my children with me when I can, I try to work at home or share my congregational life with my family.

But it all comes down to time.

Time....ah, isn't that just it. There just isn't enough...and yet sometimes there's so much! I know that sometimes the hours fly by, and sometimes they never seem to end. Alternatively my friend and my enemy, my watch guides my days. Can I get home in time for dinner? for bathtime? for stories? for bedtime? How many more minutes can I stay at home before I have to be at work? How long will it take me to drive wherever I'm going? How many minutes will I spend on email, phone messages, meetings...how many minutes will I spend comforting, soothing, easing, scolding, teaching, praying, reading, doing....? Is any of it enough???

The craziness of this week left me without many of the tools to make the mosaic that I dreamed of as I wrote the prompt. So I present this mosaic, which I call "The Timely Mosaic"...the major theme is a photo that I took right before our building went under the construction knife, when we were cleaning it out. Something about the pile of clocks from our classrooms all lined up struck me...I didn't know why. When I came to think about what I would put into a mosaic about the time in my life, I thought right away of these clocks.

What did you build this week?

See more Wrapped Emotions participants here....

(and why don't you join in next week? It's a lot of fun!)

P.S. I used fd's flickr toys to make the mosaic.

Family History...Works for Me Wednesday

Maintaining our history is so important. Where we come from is a critical part of our personal identity. In our family, we maintain this history by naming children for deceased relatives. (This is an Ashkenazi Jewish custom, Jews of Eastern European descent. Sephardic Jews, Jews of Spanish descent, will often name for living relatives.) My children are named for my father-in-law, my husband's grandfathers, my grandfather, my husband's grandmothers, his uncle, my great-uncle and my great-grandmother.

This is one way we maintain our family history. As each child grows up, we tell them more and more about the person or people for whom they are named.

The more tangible, more regular way, that I personally maintain our family's ongoing history is through photographs. But I, like so many others, have trouble putting the digital photos into albums, into print....it's a daunting task, isn't it? I am not a scrapbooker, although sometimes I wish that I was! (All the cool toys and papers...mmm....)

Until I discovered Shutterfly's photo books. Here's what I do...I take my pictures off the camera regularly and label the folders with the date (for example: 9.16.07 Sam's New Bed) and I put them right into Picasa. Then I use Picasa to directly upload to Shutterfly, which maintains the folder names as album names (cool, eh?).

On Shutterfly's website, I maintain an ongoing Photo Book Project. They allow you to save the projects and add to them as you go. When I've uploaded a few albums (every month or so), I go through the albums and add them to the Photo Book, and place all the pictures in the album. Sometimes I have time and write the captions, sometimes I go back and do it later. I continue to fill the book until it seems to be a nice length, a nice ending point (like an end to the season), or Shutterfly is running a free-shipping sale or 20% off sale or something like that.

Then I click on "order" and it's done. The book arrives at my house and we sit together and look at it. And I keep them all on the shelf in a pretty row! And, to make it even better, there is a full "backup" of each book on Shutterfly's website.

My kids love to look at the books of themselves. We can look back, as my oldest (an elderly almost 6) says, "when I was little..." Since I've started making these books, I also do things like scan artwork, invitations, etc, and take pictures of big projects so we can put them in a book. I also made a book for my middle child of his first year, one page for each of his monthly photos for the first year, with his ultrasound on the back. I'm working on that book for my 3rd child. My poor first-born, born before the age of digital fun!

How do you maintain your family's history? This works for me!

See more Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer.

Unwrapping the Mind...Taking a Breath...

This week's challenge over at Wrapped Emotions is...

With your digital camera in hand...and I know you have one because I see the photos you post on your blog...step forth into the world. A public place, not your living room or Aunt Bessie's kitchen. Think of places you frequent...a park, a museum (where cameras are allowed), a store, a playground, but do not be limited by my suggestions. Find an object or objects that you have seen before...by objects I mean anything from buildings to poles to poodles to garbage trucks, anything. Lie on your back on the ground or floor and snap at least one photo from that vantage point. Relax.

This has been a busy week for me. With Rosh HaShanah in the middle, I've been rushing around. I think I've only taken a few pics in general, let alone bring my camera into a public place. Have I been in any public places? See the dilemma...

So today, what is technically the second day of Rosh HaShanah (I'm usually a one-day gal myself, but I did lead second-day services at Am Shalom this morning), I am relaxing at home, getting things done, and enjoying the absolutely amazing weather. But I'm still not in a public place!

So...I did the best I could. I went outside into my front yard -- pretty public, don't you think? I laid out on the grass...it was wonderful. For a moment, I just breathed. I looked at the gorgeous trees above me and I marvelled at the wonder of God's creation. The Torah reading for the 2nd Day of Rosh HaShanah is the story of Creation, Genesis Chapter 1. I think that the fall is the perfect time to contemplate creation as everything is so beautiful and lush and perfect...

And so I captured these pics...of the trees above and this one of the roofline of my house. Both are certainly a new view for me, I don't think I've ever laid down in my front yard.

And that is the other lesson of these Holy Days -- to look outside yourself, to look outside your comfort zone, and see the world as you'd like it to be. Looking at these trees, this blue sky, doesn't the world look perfect? I must believe that we have the capacity to make it so...

See more participants at Wrapped Emotions...

Mom is crazy!

Let it all hang out...
Originally uploaded by imabima.

Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.

We were hanging out outside today, running a little bit through the sprinkler, when Sam demanded his clothes (including diaper) off! I guess I'm that mom -- the one who lets her kids run around the front yard naked.

And I think I'm in trouble. Sam does seem to prefer being clothing-free. This might have dangerous implications for the future as he learns to take off the clothes himself!

Look who's 4 months old!

CIMG3682
Originally uploaded by imabima.

Hard to believe that she is 4 months old now!

Big Brother, Little Sister

CIMG3365
Originally uploaded by imabima.

Sometimes taking family pictures can be like pulling teeth. In this case, Sam was begging to be in the pictures with his little sister! So of course, I obliged. Aren't they cute together? This is the best one even though Michael's hand is still in it. Both of them are looking at the camera (wow) and have relatively nice expressions on their faces. I can live with the hand until I figure out how to photoshop it out or something. (I do like the guy whose hand it is, so I think that should count for something!)
Happy Spring!

p.s. Sam is 18 months old and Yael 3 months as of this picture. Hard to believe that in just a few months she'll be that big and he'll be even bigger. Amazing.