Our family is an interfaith one. My husband is Jewish and I’m Catholic. We are raising the girls Jewish, but are also teaching them about many of my Catholic traditions. In our home, it always seems like we are celebrating something! It’s been fun for me learning all of the wonderful Jewish traditions and holidays as I experience them with my husband and daughters. I am always looking for ways to incorporate Judaism into the girls daily lives. Being Catholic though, it doesn’t always come natural for me to teach them about Judiasm, but I do try in any way that I can. A few years ago my sister in law told us about this wonderful program Called PJ LIBRARY. They mail us free Jewish children’s books and music to families on a monthly basis. (you can go to pjlibrary.org to find out more) Every month we look forward to a new book or music CD. The books are usually sent in accordance with a holiday or tradition that we are celebrating! It’s been so great and helpful in teaching the girls more about their religion and holidays. And I have learned so much as well, even my husband enjoys reading them with the girls! It makes them feel connected and special when we receive the books! Signing up was so simple and since then we have received well over 24 books!!!!

I don’t know what it is but when all three of my children are home together, they can not help but turn their playroom and bedroom into a ginormous mess!  I have to admit, it’s taking some time for me to accept that this is just how they play and if I want to keep them away from wasting their day on TV and electronics then I can not keep getting in the way of how they choose to play. Up until not too long ago (maybe a month ago) I literally would follow them in and out of each room, cleaning up after them constantly, never allowing the rooms to look like the photos above (and I think this was definitely extreme!! Not sure what they were thinking today!). My whole day was literally spent picking up and putting their toys away and complaining about all of the stuff they had. It’s definitely great exercise but I knew I had to start letting go a little bit (This is bad though, and probably will never happen again! Not to this extreme!). And so, little by little instead of cleaning up right away or nagging them to clean up (I don’t want to be a nag!) I have decided that as long as the mess stays in their room and the playroom they can leave it until they are done playing (can’t promise I will last that long but I will try). They have to clean it up and everything has to go back where it belongs at least an hour before bedtime. Today was really the first day I didn’t nag them about the mess. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of ignoring it. But I did take the pictures so that one day I can remind them! They really do play so nice and I really do enjoy having these memories of my little girls playing together as they should. I want them to look back at their childhood and remember how much fun they had together!

Isabel created this little sign that I hung on our sliding glass door.

Melina made this cute little turkey at school. Kindergarten November 2014

Created by Isabel

Lia created this one and the letters to the right are supposed to say Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful for this incredible life, my husband, my family and these amazing little girls who are forever creating something!!!! I could not ask for anything more! This life is my heaven on earth!

Happy Thanksgiving!

These little girls just love to have fun! From the minute they wake up until their very last minute before bedtime, these girls are just loving life and Im just so lucky to be witnessing it. They live in a world of fun. Sometimes I feel like we live in a children’s museum where the fun never ends. Every single one of them adds such joy and life into my life. I love how they dress up and play pretend. How they head over to the playroom in the morning and start writing on their white board pretending to be teachers. How they collect every book in the house and set up a bookstore. How they take clothes from their closets and make little price tags and pretend to have a boutique. How they create little menus and play restaurant. How they go into my closet and put on my high heels. How they take anything in my house and turn it into something fun. Yes, EVERYTHING they do causes a HUGE mess, and yes sometimes I have to yell and scream for them to clean it up but they are making so many memories together and I’m so happy to be their mom. I’m so happy to be the mom that cleans up after them. That I’m the one who gets to clean up after another incredible memory that they have made. I love you girls!

Will this little lady ever know how much I love her? This is Isabel, my beautiful, smart, caring, compassionate 7 year old. She is the oldest of my three beautiful daughters. She is funny, fierce and sometimes sassy. She is a thinker, she is an observer. She is the one who gets to make me a cup of coffee. She is the one that dad asks for help when he needs to measure something. She is the one who walks her sisters to the bathroom when they are too scared to go by themselves. She is the one who has learned to do homework while her younger sisters sing and scream and cause chaos. She is the one who has had to wait for my attention because I was busy changing or feeding or cleaning up someone or something. She is also my little helper and the one who sometimes gets blamed for the things her little sisters do. The one who has had to deal with her stuff getting ruined by a three year old. The one who has lost story time because her toddler sibling wasn’t cooperating. The one who doesn’t remember that before her sisters came we would sit and lay with her for hours. We played and read books. Went for walks and long car rides. We sat and played with playdough and painted and sang songs, collected leaves and sat outside on a blanket just looking at the sky. I’d hold her in my arms for hours. If she didn’t want to walk, I’d carry her. I Carried her around while she would rest her leg over my 9 month pregnant belly when I was pregnant with my second child. Does she remember that I carried her even if my back was killing me just so she felt safe? Does she remember us making a big fuss over every little thing she learned? I notice now that when we make a big deal about her little sisters learning to read or skip or snap their fingers that she doesn’t realize we also made a big deal about her little and big accomplishments. Does she remember that she too got away with a lot of the same stuff her younger sisters get away with. As the older child she will remember less about her earlier years and  more about her life with two sisters. Her sisters are her best friends. I know there are times she would love to have me all to herself, but my God she misses her sisters when they are not around. Having three children so close in age makes it more challenging to have special time with each one but I do make sure everyday to kiss and hug them, read and play with them and make sure they know how much I love them! Each and everyone of them!