Birthday Party Trip

In our house we start planning birthdays months in advance, and the plans change several times along the way. I dream along with the children, and then when we come across something that I really want to encourage, I do just that. This time, it was when our little princess started to talk about wanting to do a trip as her birthday party. We had fun planning where to go, what to bring, whom to invite etc. etc.

And off we went! The party of course started already in the car! It was a real joy to listen to the excited girls in the back seat! We had two cars, – thank you, Savta (Grandma), who was willing to come along and drive the other car!

The place we were headed to, was En Gedi, a beautiful oasis in the Judean desert. We hiked from waterfall to waterfall.

It was actually warm enough for the children to really get into the waterfalls.

They loved it.

And we enjoyed the hike in between as well.

Along the way we came close to interesting wildlife.

And afterwards we did our birthday picnic by the Dead Sea, – or the Sea of Life, which it is also called.

I had bought all this fun stuff to make it all beautiful and festive, but by the time we had our picnic, the (warm) wind was so strong that I was glad it did not all fly away. (So, – we told the kids to hold on to their plates…)

The main thing is, – the birthday girl was happy.

And so were her guests.

I had made Cookies and Cream Cupcakes, upon request from the birthday girl.

We had pitas with various spreads and vegetable sticks in addition to the cupcakes and other sweets.

I think that from now on, we will do our birthday parties as trips! Great experiences! Very bonding. You get to know each other better, and you get to learn about places in the country you live in. (And, – you don’t have to clean up at home afterwards…)

By the way, her friends were also saying they wanted birthday party trips for their next birthdays! Now, that is a good measure of success, isn’t it??

New week, new month, new opportunities

It is a new week. And not only that, – today is the first day of a new Jewish month. And we don’t pass on an opportunity to celebrate! 🙂 I really like the fact that we in Jewish tradition make such a point of times like these. It gives us so many opportunities for new beginnings!

My blueberry muffins from the women’s group this morning

I want to make use of this new beginning to remind myself to live more in the moment. To take time to stop and just LIVE! Like  right now, I hear my two lively children jabbering away, singing happily, having a jolly good time. And honestly, – their energy-level can be quite tiring on me! But I know that one day I will miss hearing them like this! I will long for these happy  uncomplicated days. So, – I should enjoy them NOW! I want to LIVE them NOW. To be really present right now.

They are some of my favorites!

We are starting the month of Kislev, – the month of Hanukkah, – can you believe it?! Less than a month to Hanukkah!!! (What happened to fall this year? Did we just skip it??) We are entering the season of Lights and Miracles! I love it! So many moments to enjoy! I am wishing you all a wonderful month of Kislev! Enjoy the moments!

Something is stressing me out, Imma…

– Something is stressing me out, imma… My 9 year old was pouring out his heart to me. He was unable to relax, something was stressing him out, but he didn’t know what exactly.

Hmmm, I’m thinking, – Could it be that your abba is out there defending the borders of our little country, right now… Or could it have anything to do with the fact that we just had an exercise where you had to run to the bomb shelter twice in one day, once at school and once at home??

Our children in the bomb shelter during an exercise earlier this week.

However, what I am saying out loud, is that everyone goes through periods like this from time to time, and maybe he should try a relaxing bath and then we’ll read a book together on the couch.

And afterwards I am telling myself, who is also getting kind of stressed out by the combination of everything, that everyone is going through times like this, and maybe I should think of something relaxing to do… how about tea and chocolate after the kids are in bed??

Life…

It can be so wonderfully beautiful, and also so incredibly complicated!

– God, please give me wisdom to give my children what they need when they need it! Oh, God, please fill them with Your Peace, in the way that only You can!!

Our daughter was drawing the whole time we were in the bomb shelter. Here is the finished product:

She did a pretty detailed job. (Note to self: Next time remove the vacuum cleaner and pack of toilet paper before the exercise…) However, I like how she drew the “music” as we were singing songs together while we were in there. And then she added this thought bubble, with a single question mark, because she didn’t know what we were thinking…

Well, – what is there to think?? What are we doing this exercise for? What is going to happen? Is anything going to happen??

May the focus of our thoughts be that whatever may come, we are safe in His Hands! He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps!

When I was in this same bomb shelter by myself earlier in the day, when the children were at school, I came across this verse from the Psalms:

“I cried out to You, O LORD: I said, “You are my refuge, My portion is in the land of the living.” Psalm 142, 6

Quite powerful, don’t you think? HE is our refuge!!

Birthday Girl.

This sweet princess of mine has been counting down days for many long weeks, and finally in the beginning of this week, – her seventh birthday came around!

And as she woke up in the morning, this is what she saw above her bed…

….and I was smiling to myself in my own bed, as I heard her waking up and rejoicing over the balloons and over the fact that it finally was her birthday! (Within fifteen minutes she already told me this is her best birthday ever… ;))

The fun thing with having your birthday during a holiday, is that you get to spend the whole day at home and helping to get everything ready. Oh, what excitement! The gift-bags for her guests she put together the day before already, so on the day itself she focused mostly on the setting of the table and decorating it, while I put the cake together. We prepared games, set up a detailed program and she put on the dress she had chosen and put out already a week earlier!

Her guests arrived, and with them a noise-level that is hard to imagine before you have experienced it… But really, they were just all very happy and excited and full of energy! So, – as long as everyone was having a good time, and no one got hurt in a any way, I tried to just go with the flow, even if we didn’t really stick with the said program… And my princess, – she totally loved the whole thing!

One of the activities that we had great success with, and that I am recommending to anyone looking for ideas, is to make edible necklaces. I provided them with candy and snacks with a whole in them, and the children would thread them through and end up with a fun edible necklace! (I got this idea from a blog called MudpiesandSunshine.com, and she has many other good ideas over there as well.)

I am thankful it all went well, happy that the birthday girl is happy, and in a way relieved that we have about eleven months till we start the countdown once again… 😉

Sick-day.

No, it is not me who is not feeling well. It is my son, poor one. Yesterday evening, after we came home from the afternoon-activity where we did the fun fall leaf craft I told you about, he complained about feeling sort of under the weather. And sure enough, when we measured his temperature, we found he had a fever.

When my children have the flu, they are so thankful just to enjoy the comforts of home. Last night he said that lying on the couch was the best experience he had had his whole life… Oh, well. At least we understand that there was nowhere else he would rather be than right there…. And I suspect he might have exaggerated a little, just to convince me to let him stay on the couch also after bed-time, which I did. He slept a feverish sleep, very light, waking up easily. And so he stayed on the couch the whole night. Together with my husband, who was there with his four different screens following the US election as closely as he could from so far away… 😉 (*And I think that is as far as I will go in my discussion of the elections.)

Today I am again very thankful for my home office and flexible work situation, which makes it pretty easy to work around the children’s sick-days. When they are sick, they are normally so knocked out that they really don’t demand that much anyway. He stayed there on the couch, sometimes under the blanket, sometimes sweating without a blanket, depending if his fever was on its way up or down. When he had the energy for it, he watched a movie. And I would bring him glasses of lemonade or cups of hot chocolate, and at times sit next to him to hug and comfort and just be cozy. But most of the time I was dealing with paperwork, lots of paperwork, which I actually made great progress with today.

For the phone calls I had to put the movie on pause though. Didn’t think “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” as background noise would give such a professional impression… 😉 I am really glad my work situation allows this kind of flexibility. Because I so want to be there for my children. My calling as their mother is way higher than my calling to work, as I see it.

Meanwhile I eat oranges so as to fill up on vitamin C, to stay strong and healthy myself…

Pillar of Salt dough…

When would salt dough be a more fitting craft for the Torah Portion than for the week of Parashat Vayeira, when we among other things read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt?! Our shabbat table is this week going to be decorated with two very unique pillars of salt!

(Here is the salt dough recipe again for those who like me don’t want to go back to the old post looking for it:

1 part salt, 2 parts flour, 1 part water and a little bit of oil.)

I thought I would share a few salt dough tricks for those less familiar with it.

The way to attach pieces together is by glueing them together with water. Different body parts, like the head for instance, is helped by also adding a tooth pick to help them stay attached also after being baked.

Clothes are made by rolling the dough flat, and then just cutting it to the size you want as you attach it.

Hair is easily made by pressing the dough through a sieve or something like this:

And then you attach it with the water glue, like this:

Ta-da! Meet Lot’s wife x 2!

These are so thick, I think they will bake on low heat all night long. And I guess we don’t even have to paint them, as I imagine this was about the color Lot’s wife turned. Or, what do you think?

Footstep craft for Lech Lecha.

We are totally getting into this little project of ours of every week doing something related to that week’s parasha, portion from the Torah. This week we are reading Genesis 12 – 17, and the name of it is Lech Lecha, which is basically the commandment God gave to Abram to get up and walk on his way from the land of his father to the land that God was going to show him.

The whole parasha is full of walking, Abram goes here and there, up and down, arrives somewhere, leaves again, and so on. So I thought the focus of our week would have to include walking. For a craft we did our footprints, which was so much fun and so simple and quick!

We basically just painted the bottoms of our feet, and then while the paint was still wet, stepped without too much movement onto a white sheet of paper.

Yes, even Imma did it… Abba was also offered to join in the fun, but declined. 🙂

The plan was to use finger-paint, but we didn’t have black finger-paint, so the one who chose that color used another crafting type of paint. It all came off in the bath afterwards either way!

Here is the final result. May we always walk in the way that God has called us to!

To run like an eight year old.

“On one of my scrapes I have fallen three times”, I hear my son explaining to his sister in the back seat on the way home from school. She points compassionately to a pretty bloody knee, thinking that is the one he is referring to, but no, he says “that one I have only fallen on twice”…

The way he is able to run and fall and get up and keep running again, is admirable. And it is not that he is that clumsy and prone to falling, – it is just that he gives it his all, the running, the getting there first, or even second. He is just an average eight year old.

He loves the breaks in between classes at school. Once I asked him what it is that they do, him and his friends. “We run around the school.” was his answer. Ah, yeah, that sounds so interesting and enjoyable… (*Don’t misunderstand! I also love running. But around the school. Seriously.)

By the way, last time they had an exercise on the siren and getting quickly to the bomb shelter, – he came home very proud to tell me that he had been the very first one to the bomb shelter from the whole school! (*Never mind me being prepared for a deep conversation about feeling safe in spite of threats etc…)

The other day we were some families gathered at a parking lot waiting for still more families to arrive before we would do a hike together in the area. The adults stood around, looking at their watches, getting stressed with all the time that went by. The children just kept running back and forth, up and down. And this is before going on a hike, remember. Then later, on the hike itself, we had to keep reminding them of not running ahead of us, because we didn’t want to loose sight of them…

I am about to start a pretty focused training plan for my own running right now, with specific tasks for most of the days of the week. Because I need that type of thing to keep me going, to reach my goals, to keep me focused. Eight year olds don’t seem to need that at all. They just keep running for the fun of running. Who needs a training plan?

Oh, I have so much to learn from them!

Oh, Shabbat…

As the afternoon was nearing an end, I took a moment to just sit and take in the Shabbat-atmosphere. Around me I could see a mild chaos of collected stuff that reflected what we had done today. There were books and newspapers, puzzles and games, cups and glasses, and leftovers from a Noah’s Ark that was built with chairs and blankets… I could hear the children and my husband outside playing catch. And I felt so very thankful!

It is not that the whole Shabbat had been filled with peaceful moments. We sure have our share of sibling fights and so on. But somehow at the end of it all, – it is the good moments that stick and make up my memory of the experience.

Now that Shabbat ends relatively early, and leaves us a pretty long Saturday Night, we like to do movie-nights with the children before they go to bed. Tonight was no exception. Popcorn and all. And as I sat there, with our princess on my lap, I reached out to hold my husband’s hand. Not long after, she put her little hand in between ours, and it became another one of those moments that are so very little, but then again so very big.

I hope you all had your batteries well recharged during this Shabbat, and wish you a great new week! Shavua tov!

Noah’s Ark Craft.

Those of us who follow the traditional Jewish reading of the Torah, will have started reading it all over from the beginning again just last week. In our family we have always read the parashot, the weekly portions of the Torah, and at times we have printed matching coloring sheets for the children to color during the week. But this year, I thought to try to take it one step further.

It started with the thought of having the Shabbat Table decorated for the parasha (Torah-portion) of the week. You should have seen what a wonderful table we had last week, decorated like Gan Eden! The children had prepared beautiful colorful drawings of the days of Creation and of the Garden of Eden. We also spread fig leaves all over the table (hehe…) and put all kinds of different fruits on the table. I really like that this makes us think creatively about the parasha. In a sense it brings it closer and helps us relate to it on all kinds of different levels!

So, to this week and its parasha. We are reading about Noah’s Ark! What fun! Today we made this salty play dough that you can bake in the oven till it gets really hard.

Here is the simple recipe I used:

1 part salt, 2 parts flour, 1 part water and a little bit of oil. Just knead it all well together till it gets a nice and smooth texture.

This one worked hard on the actual Ark…

… while this one made all kinds of animals, two and two…

Look at this super-cute lion for example!

And now they are baking in the oven on low temperature (80 degrees celsius), and I guess we will let the big ark bake longer than the little animals (they are all babies, according to our princess!)

The plan is to paint it all tomorrow, so that all is ready for the Shabbat table come Friday. (Stay tuned for pictures! :))