Passover Perseverance...

We are back home from our whirlwind of adventures.  I am totally exhausted but the kids slept in the car and woke up in their beds and they were raring to go today.  Whoop Whoop... start kaleidoscoping some chaos mommy!  The kids were very happy to be back home... almost giddy.  This makes me happy.  They just love the new house.  I do too.

In addition to being tired, now I need to unpack all the packed up craziness from our adventuring... oiy vey.  That so did not happen today.  Kids didn't get out of pajamas until after lunch.  We only went outside in our backyard (kick it up for a new house with a back yard) and it was gorgeous out.  And of course because there are like zillion other things to do, we decided to properly decorate the kitchen for Passover... I mean we have a bunch of days left, why waste them.  I am thinking this got Jonah thinking too, because then later in the day he insisted on painting... so I made up a project that I had sort of thought about - kinda - sorta... We made these very "creative" seder plates and read a ton of Passover books.  The plates came out pretty good and for the first time Vera really enjoyed getting "painted" to make some hand and foot prints-I think we are gonna convert her into a project monster!  Our seder plate worked as follows:

1. I drew a big circle on a piece of heavy paper
2. Jonah made circle prints from little cups - six of them on each plate
3. he glued Easter grass in one circle for parsley for each plate
4. we did a green hand print for each kid
5. we did a brown foot print for each kid
6. then Jonah did a sponge paint color mix of red and yellow paint (turned into bright red orangey)
7. then he did a sponge paint color mix of red and blue paint (turned into purple)
8. then I cut out the green hand print for the lettuce
9. and the brown foot print for the shank bone
10. I cut a rectangle out of the orangey paint for a brick to symbolize the charoset/mortar
11. and a triangle out of the purple paint for the bitter herbs
12. Jonah glued everything into the circles and then we added a plastic egg from his Easter basket

VOILA, a pretty awesome seder plate made by the kids!

Jonah gave me a thumbs up.  We ordered in dinner and then did the bedtime routine.  Kids went to sleep.  All in all I give the day a very very tired thumbs up too...

breakfast in my chair in my kitchen!  awesome!

mommy I want to do art!! yeaahhh crayons!

we are both happy and well rested... watch out mom!

making a seder plate with circles and paint!  thumbs up mom!

whoop whoop, now the glue!

easter grass?  cool it looks like parsley!

paint is everywhere-just like I like it!

I am totally getting into this paint idea... it tickles my toes!

purple!

phase one drying during dinner

hand and foot prints...

serious artist assembling the final project

we are fully decorated!

Jonah goes right up to Mr. Pharaoh when he is on the floor and points his finger at him and screams. "LET MY PEOPLE GO!!" and then tackles him... and he is very frustrated that "King God Moses" is sill in the box...

Kicking it up for Charoset! Carribean Style!

So we are full swing into Passover/Easter preparatory celebrations!  For the fist time in a long time, we are not hosting our wacky creative Passover seders this year.  Rather, we are making a pilgrimage to NY to spend the first night of Passover with our best friends and the second night with my family (Nana, Pop, Uncle, Aunt, cousins & GG - we will also celebrate GG's -that is Great Grandma- 95th birthday).  Then on Sunday we will be in Brooklyn with Grandma and Grandpa and do some Easter fun!  Monday we will return home... exhausted but hopefully happy from all of the family, friends, fun, food and festivities!  

For the two Passover seders, we will be bringing my Haggadahs (those are the books you read during the meal).  Right before Jonah was born, I wrote my own Haggadah, filled with tons of wacky songs and silly customs from around the world.  It is not short, but it is fun! One of the things we do every year is make Caribbean style Charoset.  Charoset is one of the symbolic foods that sit on the seder plate.  It is traditionally made with apples, walnuts, sweet wine and cinnamon.  It is supposed to look like mortar, to remind us of the bricks the Jewish slaves had to carry and with which they built the pyramids during their time in bondage under the Egyptain Pharaoh.   It tastes sweet to remind us that Moses & God helped us to gain freedom from slavery and we can celebrate that today.  So, because Jocelyn's family is from the Caribbean (more on that in later posts) I try to incorporate Caribbean customs and foods even when we celebrate Jewish holidays.  You see there were (and still are) Jews throughout the Caribbean!  I found this Caribbean Charoset recipe years ago and now it is our custom!  Tonight, the kids and I made some to bring to New York.  It was fun and tasted pretty good too!  Take a look!  Our recipe is simple: apples, mangos, papaya, pineapple, coconut, walnuts, almonds, grape juice, cinamon, and ground ginger.  Put it all in the food processor... yum!

My 2 chefs!

little passover reading time too!

smelling and tasting the mangos!

yummy!

mixing it all up!

voila!  carribean charoset