Chanukah 2012

For Chanukah, we decided to try to be awesome and "up the ante"on the pirsumei  nisah stuff with a glass chanukiah with twinkling tealights on our front lawn. Then we saw who is REALLY awesome, as neighbours down the road built a 10 foot high chanukiah from wood with electrical lights. So cool!


Anyway, we made the chanukia for outside (but had the kosher ones indoors). I got cheap glass containers and not-so-cheap glass paint and permanent markers, and each kid got to decorate two of the glass holders. I got to do the shammes since I'm the Mama :)



Ariel and Hila enjoy their sufganiot

Making chanukah cookies with my friend, Michal's, children!
We made sivivonim and chanukiot but Adin chose the
less traditional creation of a ... shark :)

Adin - our resident "germaphobe" makes sure
 that Hila washes hands when making the latkes.

At the shul carnival, the kids work on decorating candles.
Adin performs in the play!

Hila and Ariel show their sand art
creations from the Shaloh House carnival.

Lighting our multiple chanukiot. Michael wins over Talya's
affections and is holding her in this photo.

Hila's purim play. She is the one that is standing in a trance
and not holding the shield as the others are. She is trying to
decide if she should burst out in tears or not...seconds later, she
chose the "tears" option.

We had a couple of carnivals - the shul carnival, and a production at Hila's school, and a carnival at Shaloh House - one of the chabad schools in Brighton area. It was a lot of fun. Hila had been singing her chanukah songs incessantly during the few weeks leading up to her productions, but I predicted that she would refuse to even get onto the stage. She proved me wrong and did go on stage with her friends, but she never sang anything that day, until that night at dinner when she went through them flawlessly :)

Hila and I after her 8 seconds of participation in her chanukah play.

Grating the potatoes for latka making.

At Shaloh House carnival with Cousin Eden!

The boys work on the first clue in the Chanukah Hunt. The
blur is Avishai's dancing feet, because he was so excited
but couldn't contribute yet at this point.

On the home front, we made chanukah cookies with friends, played a cooler dreidel game that Josh made up, and then did "The Great Chanukah Scavenger Hunt" with the kids through the house. The boys were given clues to go from location to location in the house, by answering chanukah questions on a code-card, finding secret answers with invisible ink and glow in the dark makers, and eventually got to the final location where a package with containers bearing their names had little chanukah gelt and treats and little toys.

December Winter Break 2011

Museum Hoppin'

During winter break here, we spent our days checking out the great museums around Boston. By the end of the vacation, the kids were forbidding the word "museum" from leaving my mouth, so I guess they had had their fill :)

Hila checks out some plastic fruit at the kids' sized grocery store

An authentic Japanese home from the early 1900s.
 Hila is in the seat of honour which faces the mantlepiece.

Hila enjoys the Japanese bathroom - mostly because of
the cool Hello Kitty slippers :)

Clay-creation at the MFA.

Adin and Avishai cozy up to watch the sealions

The incredible jellyfish tank.

Recreation of the Galileo experiment.

Ariel uses a kippa clip to complete his electrical circuit.

Hila watches the penguins at their feeding time

We visited the aquarium in downtown Boston, which was amazing. Adin was in heaven as he loves anything "shark", I liked the penguins and thought that the jellyfish were gorgeous. We went outside to see the sea lions perform, and it was a bit cold, Adin and Avishai shared Josh's jacket as they watch the show, creating their own creature - a brown four legged, two-headed "Adin-ishai". (Josh may have appreciated the sea lion who apparently had cataracts, and further appreciated not being consulted about it on his day off).

We learned about crabs, penguins, jellyfish, and got to touch sting rays etc. 

The next day, we enjoyed the Childrens Museum. One of the exhibits was a Japanese house from 100 years ago that was flown - in pieces - to Boston and then rebuilt. It was interesting to learn about the different rooms and furniture, but Hila was mostly enamoured with the "Hello Kitty" slippers in the bathroom.

After this was the Science Museum. We watched a presentation about volcanoes, and Hila sat nicely, pretending to take pictures of the show on her "camera" that is a blue building block that Adin painted a lens on it, along with Hila's name. She "snapped" many pictures that day and then later was spied speaking on it urgently (apparently it's actually a phone with a camera...)

Last, we went to the Museum Of Fine Arts with Josh M (a REALartist!) and kids. We rotated through different stations with different art projects - watercolour, clay, and print-making. The boys made some nice projects, and Hila made a nice mess :)

Pi day (March 14 ... 3.14)

What? You're off all day because of Parent Teacher Conferences??

I was not thrilled to hear that the boys all had the WHOLE day off because of Parent-Teacher conferences...and then another half day off next week. I tried to see the silver lining and thought that at least we could do an activity at some place that'll be quiet since it's mid-week. I was disappointed to learn that the waterpark and the snow tubing that I had been hoping for were both closed...

Our next plan was to do something a little educational and then an activity that was "really dumb" :)

We began the day, after davening and some math homework, with a visit to "Finagle a Bagel" - the factory in Newton that prepares the bagels (apparently 100,000 bagels per day to be exact) for their various bakeries. They're not kosher, but I had heard that there isn't sampling anyway, so we went for it.

There was a window to watch the boiling process of the bread, and another to see the baking, and the cool conveyor belt that brings it for baking after being topped with various toppings.

The window with the dough making was supposed to be open today but wasn't (reminiscent of the water park and tubing....whatever....). There was a cool monitor that showed "live", how the lines of dough are formed by one machine, and then pass through the 2nd one which makes the circle of the dough. A man is watching the process and occasionally pulls out a line of dough that isn't up to standard. (a certain "I love Lucy" episode goes through every one's minds...). There was some info on the history of the factory and interesting facts. Ariel mostly enjoyed the part of the self-guided tour, when he moved his arm too close to the "do not enter" area and set off the alarm. In fact, his exact words immediately afterwards were, "Should I do it again?"

Ariel points to the bagel cutter (horror movie flashbacks) and Adin is showing the bagel conveyor belt.

Next we drove to Woburn to "Laser craze" where the kids did jumping castles/slides/rockwalls and loved it. Then they joined the blue team during four mini games of lasertag, while Talya held onto me for dear life as I ran around trying to get Avishai to the red team's headquarters without being shot or needing to recharge his weapons. Phew...

(pictures aren't great quality because it was pitch black and smoke machines everywhere...was really really cool)

Winter visit to Cape Cod

In January one weekend, Josh had two days in a ROW of being --- da da da dum -- NOT on call! Hurray! That morning, we made the spontaneous decision to go see the famous Cape Cod area. We found a hotel with an indoor waterpark and reserved one night's stay.We had a really good time, and the kids talk about it often enough for us to realize that they had had an even better time. Avishai, in particular, will often ask - at crazy random inappropriate moments - "Please can we go to Cape Cod today? Please?". The waterpark had a wave pool and sprinklers and waterslides. Ariel and Adin did the slides and loved it. We finally convinced Avishai to try it once (he was exactly tall enough)and I waited at the end of the slide to grab him as he was propelled out into the pool. I was lifting him out of the water, and as his head broke through the surface, he was already calmly forming his sentence "I am NOT big enough for this slide." Cutie-pie. He refused to go again, but still had a great time in the rest of the pool activities.In the evening, there was an outdoor bonfire, for which we brought our own marshmallows from the kosher bakery (even in the multitude of kosher food items to be found here, kosher marshmallows are pretty impossible to find in a regular store).There was an arcade, for which each kid was given 2 dollars to enjoy. Shockingly, the "crane game" for the blow up balls was not a complete scam and we managed to get each boy a ball from it! And then we realized that each boy had actually gotten their favourite colour as well! As we left the arcade, there was mention of Hila having a bit of a fit if everyone had a ball besides her...we decided to invest one more time in the "crane game" and successfully presented her with her own purple ball. These balls cost 50 cents or a dollar in any store, but the boys were SO excited to have won them. They still play with them and bring them to shul (and pummel each other).It was a great little vacation! Highly recommended!