Hanukkah

Last night was the first night of Hanukkah. We are not Jewish but I think it is a good thing to learn about other cultures and religions. It’s a way to show love and respect as we all deserve.

So as the kids ate latkes and challah, I read a book to them called “The Story of Hanukkah” by Norma Simon. The recipe we have for latkes came from a Hanukkah book I got at school when I was a little girl.

I introduced them to the song, “Hanukkah, O Hanukkah,” which I remember my brother’s elementary school class learning and singing on the radio many many years ago.

After we ate, we played dreidel with chocolate coins. Over the years we’ve collected so many dreidels, mostly plastic but my son has a wooden one.

My husband was given some dreidels when he did balloon sculptures for a Hanukkah celebration years ago and I think my son’s came from school.

Even in different religions we can find things we have in common, including celebrating miracles. Let’s please show love and respect to others. It’s the right thing to do.

There was lots of love shown in our family yesterday. Lots of hugs. People helping out. Jet even sang a song. "I love you. I love you... Mama."

I absolutely love it when we have good feelings in our home.

P.S. December 14 was also Monkey Day so there was some fun monkeying around going on. 

St. Nicholas Day

It's St. Nicholas Day, December 6. It's also Put On Your Own Shoes Day.

The kids had different reactions to finding candy in their shoes this morning.

Some were confused but went with it. Some put their shoes on and walked around with the candy still in them. Jet put his shoes on himself but didn't quite realize their was something in it. I had to take his shoe off and hold it up until he took it out. Then we put his shoe back on and he pointed out the "snowman" on the outside of the coin. Funny? I thought it looked more like one of the presidents of the United States but... we'll go with snowman.

Candy in Our Shoes?

December 6 is St. Nicholas Day. In Hungary, children leave out their boots the night before and Szent Miklós comes by and puts treats in them. Our children were surprised and happy to find candy in their shoes Monday morning. 

It was also Put on Your Own Shoes Day so that worked, too. And it was Microwave Oven Day so you know we used the microwave throughout the day. That particular holiday had nothing to do with shoes.

 

I wanted to make challah and latkes for dinner that night. Since Jet is my baking buddy, I decided to put an apron on him this time. We've had to do some outfit changes in the past when he's "helped." He really liked stirring the dry ingredients, I finally had to use a different spoon since he wouldn't give up the dough hook and get another bowl with flour for him.

 

Nichole did such a good job braiding the challah when we did this last year. I got to do it this year and I like how it turned out. Jet decided to taste test the bread when it came out of the oven (after a few minutes when it wasn't hot) without waiting for an invitation.

After we ate latkes and challah, we played dreidel with chocolate coins. Like last year, Jet got a kick out of the spinning dreidels and thought the coins were fun, too. After we were done, Jr. had fun scratching designs into the foil and I gave the kids instructions not to open the coins around Jet. He didn't get the connection between the coins that we were pushing around and the chocolate we were eating later. I'd like to keep it that way.

We had fun. I love good family time like that.

Tuesday, December 7, was Cotton Candy Day so that's what the kids had for after school snack. It was also Pearl Harbor Day so the we talked a little bit about that.

Latkes and Dreidel

December 7 is Cotton Candy Day.  Guess what.  Cotton candy is kind of a seasonal treat.  Guess what.  I went to the seasonal section of the grocery store, but no cotton candy.  I guess it has to be that particular season- Summer?  I don't know why.  I mean everyone knows that Cotton Day is in December, don't they?  Don't they?  Sigh.
Don't worry.  I still celebrated.

Look.  Look.  It's a cotton shirt and I put candy on it.  Get it?  Get it?  Cotton shirt?  Candy?  Cotton?  Candy?  Cotton candy.  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.  See?  My kids aren't the only ones who get creative with the celebrating.

While at the grocery store I did pick up potatoes and chocolate coins, though.  You know what that means.  Latkes and dreidel.  Today is one of the days of Hanukkah so Jeremy fried up some latkes (potato pancakes) to eat with sour cream and applesauce (some of the kids ate them with barbecue sauce) and the kids and I played dreidel.

See, kids, this is the danger of gambling.  No one has chocolate coins except Mom and what's in the pot.

And apparently Lucky was planning on crossing the River Styx and even had his payment ready.

It feels good to be celebrating this December since we missed out on a lot last year.

St. Patrick's Day 2017

Apparently, leprechauns struck our home today.  Nichole couldn't find a certain book.  None of us could find one of Lucky's boots.  We had no time because we had to walk the kids to school.  So Lucky walked in one boot and one church shoe to and from the school.  Sigh.
Later, we found where the leprechaun had hidden Lucky's other boot (never did find Nichole's book) and Lucky noticed that the leprechaun got stuff on his boot.  I would have thought it was just from the blackberries that he and Jr. Jr. spilled the other day, but Lucky was convinced it was the leprechaun.

So Jr. Jr. designed and built a leprechaun trap with a little help from his family.

He did a really good job.  It was similar to one we made in 2012 with the ladder, but instead of having a spot on the top for the leprechaun to fall in, the leprechaun had to actually jumped down onto the loose paper that would make him slip through to the bottom of the box.  Jr. Jr. put a lot of work into it.
On a related note: Jr. couldn't help himself.  He had a desire and was finally given permission to draw mustaches on the faces of the chocolate coin wrappers. 

I love those kids.