More Photos

Updated photos have been added to amir's facebook account. If you are not a member, just sign up to facebook and request friend from Amir Taller.
New photos from father's day are also available here
Here are just a couple of photos from Amir's phone camera - of Ayla and Adilyah playing with Adilyah's arches

Adilyah - 12 Days Old

Adilyahs First Week

	The Midwife - Cathy
Adilyah and Ayla when she was the same age

First Week

Adilya Alma Taller - just an hour new ~

Pregnant

Midwife Cathy checks my blood pressure at 36 weeks.

Devotinoal Gathering

Ayla's Birthday Party

Window Painting

Ayla's Birthday

We spent Jan 9 2008 with a day packed full of Ayla activities. In the morning we went to a playgroup and in the afternoon the whole family along with Ayla's best friends, Kalindi and Anisha, went swimming. In the evening Dziadek came over for some chocolate cake.

Birthday Gift from Babcia H.

At the Window

Holidays

Ayla and Una

Hanukkah

Winter in Edmonton

Halloween

A Large Collection of Ayla from Summer - Now

Babcia Hanna's visit
At The Beach
Summertime
Saba Benny and Savta Nurit's Visit

Baby Sister on the Way

As many of you know, Ayla is finally about to become an older sister. The due date is March 9. Ayla is very excited, and we believe she understands what's going on with Mama's belly. The working name for her unborn sister is Aditi, and Ayla often points to her mom's belly and says 'mama stomach aditi' (in either language). We will know only for sure after the birth how well she understands what is going on if, as many other kids her age with a new sibling, she will still point to her moms belly and say there is a baby in there. We have a very good book which explains with illustration the birth process, including a drawing of a labouring mother with the head of the baby coming out of her (its done quite tastefully). Ayla likes that book very much and is often to name all the characters in it by people in her life - 'this is Abba', 'This is Mama', 'This is Ayla', 'This is Kalindi', 'This is Anisha' etc. (did we mention she is very smart?) We are now reorganizing the house. The current plan is to have Ayla be in her own room with her own bed before the birth. After the birth Amir will probably be in there with her while Ania will be in the main bedroom with the newborn, at least in the beginning. This a plan in progress. Meanwhile, here are more photos of Ayla

Ayla wearing her Chinese outfit (photo from the summertime)
Ayla with Laika
Ayla in the fall

Ayla speaks!

Hi everyone. I know we have been delaying this for a while, a lot has changed since last we wrote in this blog, but many of the changes are gradual and slow - we don't have an exciting update every couple of weeks like we did when Ayla was just born. Ayla will turn two in a couple of weeks. It's been an exciting year. The biggest development is in her mental capacity. She is becoming smarter as she grows and amazes us each time. She hears only Hebrew from her father, and only Polish from her mother. Currently she probably understands more than 300 words in each language, and can speak almost 200 in each. Twice a week she goes to day home with our downstairs neighbour, Niko, which speaks to her in German, so she can also understand German sentences. English is her weakest language (though that will probably change once she goes to a public school or kindergarten). She knows a few words here and there, mostly from talking to her three year old friend Kalindi. Basically she can communicate her wishes, and understand what is basically going on and what is asked of her. around 19 months she said her first basic sentence (Bye-bye Abba), and a month and a half later her first complex sentence (Laika rotza ochel - Laika wants food). She knows that objects have different words in different languages, and that you say one word to abba, and another to mama. She doesn't really get confused between the languages - she knows which word belongs to which language, though she might sometimes forget which language is appropriate at that moment. As for sentence structure - she knows that there are different types: 'this is' 'thoos iz' 'tu est' 'ze shel' , and occasionally needs to be reminded which belongs to which language. She sometimes just says a generic 'tdza se' which everyone understands, but that's more from wanting to conserve words than from not understanding the difference. Okay, now for some photos, and we'll get back to observations on her development in the next post: Around August we were invited to a celebration in the local Hindu temple by Niko and Kumar (parents to 3 year old Kalindi and 1 year old Anisha). Ania dressed in her Sari, and ayla got her own special bindi!

Ayla Art

Ayla has been doing art for a while now. We got her a drawing table for her size, which comes with a special place to hold scrap paper and finish drawings. She enjoys it so much she occasionaly experiments with other forms of art - wall painting, floor painting, carpet painting, and body painting among others. Ayla Rose Taller's (Initials A.R.T.) first attempt at art was around May, while sitting on her dad's lap and seeing him write some notes on a peice of paper. She insisted on trying herself, so she was supplied with a marker and scrap paper. The result of the event can be seen here:

Her artistic achievements have only gotten better since. We can see her talent blooming and wish the best for her, as she continue to grow and experiment, even if it requires us to carry bulk supplies of 'wall art removals'...

Banff and Jasper

On late June, Aylas grandma and grandpa came to visit her from Israel. We all went for a few days trip to the rockies - Calgary, Banff, and Jasper through the Canadian day weekend. For part of the trip grandpa Mike joined us. We all her a wonderful time. The (many) pics from the trip have been posted up in flickr