And for the rest of September & October

here's a few highlights:

Stroll around west village and highline with Zoe who was in NY for a few days.

Ruby climbing the rocks in Central Park in autumnal sun!

And surprise - more Ruby looking cute, with absolute - can go nowhere without - best friend Mickey

Thalia's 2nd birthday party. Very sweet.

And then it got to the end of October and the madness that is Halloween in this country. People go to TOWN. This is Ruby staring up at one of the houses across the road.

And then the next group of visitors - Lizzie, Meir, Tali, Yoni & Lia

It was a full house. 8 of us in the flat was cosy but good..Ruby loved being with her cousins, and I LOVED having my sister and seeing the kids (and you Meir of course).

Here we all are at the Brooklyn Childrens Museum.

We also checked out Crown Heights which was interesting...

I took Lizzie to a Sheryl Crow concert at Radio City (where we discovered how much younger than Sheryl's other fans we were), and took them to our favourite steakhouse. They were busy, did NYC to the full and I think (and hope despite me being quite miserable and sick for the entirety of their trip) had a good time...

Let's pick up where we left off - Al's parents visit

Lots of fun. Ruby particularly enjoyed being spoilt rotten by grandparents. I enjoyed being cooked for..sorry G and T would have written more about your trip but I've got alot of blog to catch up on! Suffice to say it was lovely to have them here.

The reason for the blog absence

It's been a really really long 13.5 weeks but I may just be coming out the other end. Starting to have pockets of the day where I don't want to throw up. I'm sure I'll be very happy once I get over this!

My mum's visit

It was really lovely to see my mum. In fact the first day she arrived we got the piano (after the mani pedi). Ruby - delighted to see her, and very eager to receive all the presents she bought for her while she was here..

Lots of barbies in the garden:

We had a night at ours when my cousin Yossi happened to be in NY with his wife Lilach and very well behaved kids Dassy and Stav. We also had Ethan and Vanessa over and Charlie and Roberta. Alot of Wantmans in one place, does not happen often.

But then happened again in Boston. We did a really nice long weekend in Newton where alot of our family are. It was my great uncle Sylvan's 93rd birthday so all their kids came into town. Sylvan and Florence were on brilliant form as normal, Peggy & John were there, Richard came from Seattle, Saul Abarbanel (Yossi's dad) who's usually in Israel happened to be in Providence so came down for the evening, and Andy was there with his beautiful kids Rebecca & Emily.

We don't have much extended family in the UK so it feels great to be with all our lovely U.S. family, we've had such a nice time. Although of course mixed with a bit of sadness as it makes me miss my dad alot.

Ruby had much fun climbing furniture with Rebecca & Emily.

And I did!

I bought an old piano. Love Craigs List. I'm extremely happy but v little time to play it. When I do want to play Ruby gets annoyed. But I will find the time and am very excited!

The new addition

Dining table is new. Main achievement of weekend. Somewhat pikey underneath the white tablecloth but Craigs List inventory isn't what it was. Now we just need chairs.

We've had a nice weekend - very relaxing, also included a trip last night with friends to a great Mexican restaurant in Spanish Harlem (which we discovered is now called SpaHa) as well as a piano viewing. Thinking of buying an old upright piano.