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!

Birthday Time

It's birthday season in our family, so get ready for a few fun cakes. Here's one to start with, made for a student. I love doing flower cakes!

Garden Party

Last week was our Big Move, so I apologise for not writing a any posts. I also missed last week's parsha, unfortunately, but as you can imagine it's been very very hectic. Besides that, I hosted a melave malka (yes, 3 days after our move!). The party was beautifully set up and arranged, so I'd like to share it with you. I had so much fun planning it, it's such a pretty, sweet theme.

 

 

Salad bar buffet: Everything, from the dressing to the veggies to the croutons, was in various sizes flower pots and planters.

It's very monumental; our first party in our new home. We hope to be able to host many more happy occasions, and to use our home for reaching, teaching, and giving.

Parshas Lech Lecha: Like the Stars and the Sand

For this week's parshah we made star cookies, and we sprinkled them with "sand". Even Big Brother Jr. understands why: there are so many stars that we can't even count them!

Here he is rolling out the cookie dough. His older brother was at a friend's house, so he got the be the "star" of the show, without fighting. He really, really likes to eat raw cookie dough and cake batter though, ugh.

I tried out this sugar cookie recipe. It came out excellent- very easy to roll, baked nicely, and tastes good too.  The sand is brown sugar and cinnamon.

Any ideas for next week's parshah dessert? Post in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you.

Rosh Hashana Cards

This is a little out of order but it can't hurt to show what we did for Rosh Hashana. Originally I planned on buying plain cards and sending them out, but I realized that I could make it into an activity. Stamping with apples is not a new idea - I think every preschooler has done it at least once in school for Rosh Hashana! - but we still had a lot of fun. It was nice to send people a personalized card, but most of all I was so happy to have a way to entertain the boys for a few hours!

Paint is a child's dream, and my nightmare. For some reason I am very hesitant to use paint. I once did finger painting, a while ago, and in less than 5 minutes it was one big mess of colored mushed together, all over the place. I tried so hard to be clean- I taped down a plastic tablecloth, covered their clothing, and just gave them a little of each color on plastic plates. But somehow they needed complete baths afterwards - there was paint covering their hands and arms, on their sleeves, in their hair... and the whole thing took 10 minutes! Maybe that's where my fear of paint came from.

Now the boys are a little older, and  it wasn't "finger painting", so this time was more of a success. They did mush the colors together at the end, but at least we got some nice card.

A few tips: The apples need to be sliced perfectly smooth, otherwise you won't get complete prints (ours weren't perfect). Also, I used a plastic knife instead of a popsicle stick, because I didn't have any. The apples were too big and slippery for my boys' little hands to grasp.