Parshas Bo: Plague of Darkness

Black and white cookies this week. Simple but delicious!

Parshas Vaeira: the First Seven Makkos

I know I'm a little behind, so let me show you what we've been doing the past few weeks. Two weeks ago we made makkos cupcakes (or makkot, as they say here). It was really cute and the kids absolutely loved doing it. The cupcakes were tie-dye, just to make it more fun.

Here's what we used:

Blood: decorating gel
Frog eyes: marshmallow and chocolate chips
Lice: sprinkles
Wild animals and dying animals: animal crackers, gummy bears
Boils: red jelly beans
Hail: white jelly beans

Anyone for a kinim cupcake?

Underwater Sensory Bin

I like themed sensory bins, in theory, but it takes a lot of work to prepare them if you want them to really be good. I don't have that much time and foresight to plan a theme and have everything on hand for it, and besides, I don't really think the kids appreciate it. This time I happened to have some ocean things and I put them together to make this sensory bin. It kept them busy for about 10 minutes, till they started dumping out the water! I used plastic fish, watering cans, a toy boat, glass marbles, leaves, and a blue sponge (just because I felt like it needed something else to make it fun). Blue water made it so cool!

Parshas Shemos: Basket on the River

This was real hands-on for the kids, and of course lots of fun for me.

The box is made of tea biscuits coated in chocolate, the water is decorating gel tinted blue, and the trees are pretzel rods with buttercream frosting. Jelly bean "rocks" and fruit roll up "blankie". The kids were ecstatic! The sand was put on to cover some holes made by eager fingers.

Chanukah

Monday nights are Dinner and TALK in our home, and while I usually just focus on preparing food, once in a while my inner creativity breaks through. If I had lots of time I would plan themes and color schemes every week, but there are so many other things in my life vying for my time and mental space. So I don't. But when a special occasion comes around I can't resist having fun with it. Two weeks ago was our golf themed birthday party, and last week was Chanukah. I did a "fire" color scheme, much more fun and bright than the classic blue and silver look!

 

The kids helped me prepare these dreidel-strawberries. It was actually funny, because my husband took a small poll and not a single male around the table had noticed that they were supposed to look like dreidels, while every female thought it was obvious.

both brothers trying to spin the dreidels!

And here is the menorah challah I made for Shabbos.

Parshas Vayeishev: Yosef in the Pit With Snakes

I know this is very simple, but it's a parshah dessert nonetheless! Big Brother Sr. tie-died a T-shirt in school as a ketonet passim; I thought that was really clever.

Birthday PAR-TEE

centerpiece

For my husband's birthday I wanted to make a cake that reflects something he enjoys. Golf is one of his hobbies, and I've been thinking about this golf course cake for a little while. Put it together with our Monday night class in our home, and bang, you have a golf themed birthday party! There were lots of golf related foods and play on words.

"woods and irons" and "chip it in"

Full view of the dessert table and dinner table (delicious BBQ on our new grill!)

We had a cute little game- guess how many tees.

I saved the best for last. Presenting the birthday cake!

I learned more about golf preparing for this party than I ever thought I would. It was so much fun to plan. Now on to Chanukah!