Milestones

I'm not sure if this really counts as a milestone, but last night Simon had his first friend sleep-over without the parents also there! I guess it's more of a milestone for Asher, who slept at our house without his parents, and less so for Simon, who didn't go anywhere or do anything different than usual!
Basically, Asher's sister, Meirav, was having ear tubes put in today and they had to be at the hospital in Petach Tikvah at 6:30am. I offered to have Asher sleep over here so that Lauren and Alan wouldn't have to deal with him in the morning or have only one of them go with Meirav. He's the kind of kid that I just knew would be totally fine. He knows us well, so it's not like he'd be afraid to ask us if he needed something or whatever. And he and Simon get along so amazingly well and hardly ever fight. When I told Simon that Asher was coming to sleepover he was beyond excited! Eli was excited too and he watched me blow up the air mattress for Asher and said "can I jump Asher's (only he pronounces it "Asser's") bed?"
I ended up not even being here when Asher got here because I went to Ashkelon to pay a shiva call with Tali and Kira. I had turned my phone off in the shiva house and when I turned it back on when we were leaving around 9:00, I saw a text from David that said "are you coming home soon? I can't handle this." I got nervous that the kids were still up and causing trouble and thought David was going to be mad at me for leaving him alone to deal with it all, so I called him and he said "you left me so many dishes to wash, I just can't handle it." Of course he had gotten all 3 kids to bed with no problem.
Best line of the night did come from Asher. Shortly after he got to our house, David asked him if he had eaten dinner and he said yes. Then a few minutes later he said "David...I'm hungry for something that tastes like dessert!"
He also tends to wake up very early, so David made him a sippy cup of chocolate milk and showed him that he was putting it in the fridge and said when he wakes up in the morning, he could go get the chocolate milk and then could go play quietly in the playroom until the rest of us wake up. I happened to wake up at 6:00 and the house was silent but then I heard very quiet footsteps and sort of whispering. Clearly Asher was playing so nicely by himself! I think Simon woke up around 7 and they were both playing really well alone. Because of the early wake-ups, we were actually out the door and I dropped off 3 kids at 3 different schools by 8:30!
Our neighbor happens to be one of Asher's teachers and when I dropped him off, she asked me why I had brought him. I explained that he slept over and she said next time I should tell her and she could take him to school--never even thought of that!
By all accounts, the sleepover was a grand success. I asked Simon today if he wants to sleep at Asher's house one time and he said "yes." And then he added "but you are going to come too, right?"
Pictures are from swimming and some other randoms from yesterday afternoon.