A Little Halloween Hunkering Down

Since this past Friday it has been quite busy around here.  We started officially celebrating Halloween on Friday evening at Boo @ the Zoo! On Saturday afternoon, it was a big Race Day for me on and a play date for the kids. Saturday night there was a huge road trip despite the impending "Sandy" storm to Brooklyn, NY.  Why you ask?  For Jocelyn's father's 40th anniversary of his ordination as an Episcopalian priest.  Sunday was celebration day in Brooklyn of Grandpa with lots of food and family.  And then we literally braved the storm, and drove back from Brooklyn all night to DC.  We woke up on Monday in our house and Sandy was blowing up a storm!  We hunkered down for two days - no school, no work, no exiting the house... but we did HAVE POWER (THANK GOD!!!)  We also had some water enter our basement - no too much and nothing to complain about.

Monday and Tuesday were long days and nights.  We spent lots of time in our pajamas. We also did lots of cooking, arts & crafts, watching TV and playing... not so much sleep.  But we survived and yes, we even managed to have some fun.  Well, you decide, pictures can tell quite a story.  Jonah & Vera seemed to have a good time.  Jonah kept asking to "do more things mommy, PLEAASEEE!" and then Vera would echo, "more mommy, PLEASSSEEE!"

Those kids are TOO much!

Here are some highlights...

ACTIVITY #1:  Making, baking and decorating a pumpkin Halloween cake - occurred over 2 days

ACTIVITY #44:  Painting Halloween wooden cut outs, cleaning up lots of paint and playing with them after they dried... 90 minutes

ACTIVITY #135: Hand and Foot Prints.  We did this the first time last year (that is the first picture) This year we did purple hand bats, white feet ghosts, and green feet Frankensteins (in honor of Frankenstorm) and then put eye stickers on them and cut them out and pasted them onto paper plates and hung them as decorations.  40 minutes.

last year's prints...

 

 

ACTIVITY #437:  Dressing up as pumpkins (in hand me down outfits), eating pumpkin peeps, and having a pumpkin dance party and photo shoot... 30 minutes.

 

 



This is our Halloweeny Decorated Kitchen:

Spirit Day Shabbat!

Last Friday was October 19.  There were a few reasons why it was an extra special Friday: (1) It was Shabbat, (2) It was was my gorgeous, smart and wonderful niece's 8th birthday! and (3) It was Spirit Day!

 

We called our niece and wished her a happy birthday and then we celebrated a Spirit Day Shabbat.  We got all purpled out!  (Purple is the offical color of Spirit Day) We wore purple.  We decorated the table with purple lights and napkins.  We had a purple tissue paper table cloth.  I also manged cook up a pretty spectacular turkey meatloaf, carrots, and roasted potatoes for dinner. (No, it wasn't purple but I am trying to get back into cooking up meals during the week and on Shabbat).  We all sat down and ate dinner!!!! This almost never happens, but we all ate the same food and the kids actually ate it and liked it... the babysitter was there too - so it was a fun Shabbat!

 

We had an entire discussion about Spirit Day - how we should not make anyone feel bad about themselves and if we see anyone making someone else feel bad or not being nice to someone - we have to tell an adult right away.  We talked about how it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, what color your skin is, your hair is, your eyes are - it matters that you have a big heart!  And that you always have "listening ears" and "gentle hands" - that is really important and to be a good friend.  We also talked about how there are all kinds of families - and we read The Family Book by Todd Park.  We LOVE that book.  It talks about how some people have two dads, some people have two moms, some people only have one mom or one dad or both. Some people have lots people in their family and some people don't, but all that matters is that families love each and take care of each other. I think Jonah (and Vera) got it. 

 

Then we had a Spirit Day post dinner dance off!  It was pretty wonderful!

 

Shabbat Shalom Everyone!

 

Tonight is Spooky Shabbat and we are heading off to Boo @ the Zoo!  You'll get the update next week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friendly's Fun

In honor of the over 80 degree weather we had here yesterday, I decided to write about the ice cream restaurant that I grew up going to as a kid - Friendly's.

The east coasters out there will sort of get this one... not sure who else will.

Growing up on Long Island in the mid70s and 80s, we lived a pretty good life.  My childhood was filled with dance classes, Girl Scouts, soccer games, birthday parties, holidays, vacations, summer camp and so much more!  My mom was class mother and Girl Scout leader.  My dad was my soccer coach and visited my elementary school to teach us how to dissect a frog (he was a science teacher).  We ate dinner together every night around the table and my mom cooked that dinner.  We hardly ever ate out.  Wednesday nights, pizza at the local pizza store was on special so we used to get that as a treat.  Often during the summer, we also got a Carvel treat - because you know Wednesdays were Sundaes at Carvel!  At some point, my brother and I grew a little older and my mom went back to work and we became latch key kids... we had a key, but she wrote us notes in our lunch bags (the brown paper bags) and yes, she made us our lunches all the time. She also prepared our snacks and they were ready for us when we got home - also with a note...  Looking back, it was not a perfect childhood by any stretch of the imagination but it was good.  I am lucky that I have parents who love me and have supported me (sometimes despite themselves) in everything that I have done (and I was not an easy kid to raise!).   I spent years working out my all my parental angst in therapy and will continue to do so for years to come - but I know I was a pretty lucky kid.

How lucky?

Lucky enough that after every big moment in my life (and plenty of others) we always went to celebrate at Friendly's!  Dance Recitals, Soccer Games, School Concerts, New Haircuts, Good Grades, Graduations, Milestones... we went to Friendly's.  With friends, with grandparents, with each other... we always went to Friendly's.  Sometimes we even went - just because- for breakfast on the weekends...

(BTW, I know I have this crazy thing with memories and food... it is on the list of things to work out in therapy, but that list is very long...)

So it only makes sense that this summer when Vera and I went to pick up Jonah from Nana Camp, we would go to Friendly's!  Jonah had already been once during the week during Nana Camp.

So we went.  It was sort of chaotic.  We missed breakfast and had to order lunch...  no one ate the ice cream that came with the kids' lunches... well I think GG ate Jonah's smiley sundae... I don't normally take my kids to restaurants these days... I just can't really deal with it.  We made an exception and it was sort of OK... especially since there was basically no one else in the place.  It wasn't the Friendly's I used to go to as a kid as that one has closed down (sniff, sniff) but it was a Friendly's.

And we got some pictures to document the occasion.  Four generations at Friendly's - now that is something to celebrate.

Thank you mom and dad for taking me to Friendly's all the those years.  I remember it!  Everything from the huge Reese's Pieces Sundae we were never allowed to get to the smiley pancakes and the watermelon roll we used to bring home for our BBQs during the summer - it was good stuff!

Thank you Friendly's for being that spot I will always remember fondly and tell my kids about!

Thank you universe for giving me the opportunity to take my 3 and 1 year old to a place that meant so much to me as kid and to be able to do so with my mom and my grandmother.

I am a grateful girl who loves food and the memories she has of the smells, tastes, and treats of oh so many years ago!

YUM!

Got Gourds?

We do!

We have the two small round ones we found at the farm this weekend.  We call those our Jonah and Vera pumpkins.  We left them outside with our scarecrow... and well the squirrels (hopefully not other city rodents) have been taking little bites out of them for snack...

Yesterday, we went on a pilgrimage to Safeway for some big pumpkins.  You know, to carve and paint.  First we walked to Safeway but we couldn't find any.  We walked further up the block to Magruder's Market but they only had the small pumpkins.  Jonah and Vera were doubting mommy's ability to obtain the aforementioned big pumpkins for the special art project.  I made an executive decision to return to Safeway and do some further investigation.  As Jonah likes to say,  "Keep trying Mommy!"  And guess what, we had missed these two big boxes of pumpkins on the opposite side of the entrance (note there were only like four pumpkins in each huge box at the bottom).  A box of "pink" pumpkins and a box of orange pumpkins.  Vera really liked the pink pumpkins so she got one of those.  Jonah picked a big orange pumpkin.  I thought we needed another big orange one for the jack-o-lantern.  Mission Accomplished.

We got home and went at it.  Vera got to paint her pumpkin.  And apparently wanted to paint her hands, feet, face and body - but she sure did have fun.  Jonah and I carved one of the big pumpkins and then he painted the other.

Then we started the pumpkin seed process and snack time.  Jonah had to go through all the pumpkin guts and pick out all of the pumpkin seeds.  He did a great job!  We tried to let Vera help, but she started to eat it all so we had to abort her mission.  They both got a few candy corns and candy pumpkins with snack.

 

 

 



Our first round of Halloween decorations are up!  We had our own little PUMPKINPALOOZA afternoon and it was pretty fun!  We need to toast our pumpkin seeds and do some more holiday art.  Oh and yes, mommy still needs to finish making the costumes in time for Boo at the Zoo on Friday!

 

Halloween is almost here!   Gourds, tricks, treats, costumes...  For one day (or a few as we like to extend holidays to get the most out of them over here), we get to be who we want to be, eat candy and get a little spooky... sounds good to us!