Post Passover with Pete's aPizza Plus the Penguins... Priceless

Finally!  Amen!  Hallelujah!  Time to bite a slice, sip a brew and lick a scoop!  Good bye Passover, hello taste buds!  This year I was really the only in my household who held strict to the Passover restrictions and I was wanting my annual ceremonial Post-Passover Pizza Party!  And well my kids, you say party and then say, "yeeaaaahhh" and then ask when, where, what should they wear and if there will be cupcakes?

So in honor of tonight being the end of the first Passover in our new house, we decided we were going to order in from the recommended pizza place of choice in our new 'hood and have some fun!   But first we had to live the day. 

The day was pretty fun.  It was the first day that it was just the four of us, together, hanging out and doing a lot of nothing and not much of something... but I think we needed it.  The kids seemed delighted to just hang out inside and outside with both mommy and mama.  There was one outing to a store which was uneventful except for the fact Jonah decided to nap on the way home in the car.  The kid never naps???  So then when it was time for our pizza party- guess what?  Yep.  Jonah slept through it. 

That's ok, Vera thoroughly enjoyed it (every bite).  We thought overall that Pete's New Haven Style aPizza was ok to good.   I am kind of a pizza snob, and I liked the crust, but didn't love sauce.  It definitely was not my favorite New York Style pizza but then again it didn't claim to be.  This was New Haven style pizza-I don't really know what that is.   I did really like my salad and the pasta dish.  The pasta dish was baked with pasta, cheese and spinach and Vera gobbled that up too-yum!  I guess we would order again, but I think I may like the actual pizza from Flippin' Pizza and Homemade Pizza better - but the jury is still out.

Finally we woke Jonah up to eat dinner.  The guy was a little cranky but he negotiated a viewing of "Happy Feet Two" for him and Vera and then all was right with the world... the kid should go to the Middle East - he'd solve that problem in no time.

I must say, I give the move TWO THUMBS UP!  And I must admit, I did get choked up at the end (there were some tears-mine).  Jonah and Vera loved it (it was Jonah's second time seeing it) and even Mama liked it.  I have a feeling we may be buying the DVD and more viewings are in our future.  The baby penguins are super super cute, the story is unpredictable, it has a moral that teaches we can all change the world & it is ok to be different, and if I understood the storyline correctly - there are gay krill (Matt Damon and Brad Pitt) with a relationship arc in it?!?!  Talk about a progressive children's animated movie.  Like I said, I loved it.

don't even think about taking away my pizza!

Sipping Some Shabbot Sangria

Happy Friday everyone!  Tonight we celebrated Shabbot dinner with some good friends.  This was the first Shabbot since we moved in that we had guests.  Even though we only had 3 guests (it's not the quantity but the quality) it does take some preparations to get the whole fabulous Shabbot dinner together!  I enlisted the help of my pickneys (Jonah & Vera).  Tonight is also the last full night of Passover and we have a little tradition that I have been doing the past 6 or 7 years now.  We take all the left over sweet Manischewitz wine and all of the left over matzah and kaleidoscope those babies up into some yummy sangria and matzah chips.  Then you cook up some fish with salsa verde, make a big salad, a bowl of guac, a bowl of queso, a bowl of salsa and finish it off with some spinach with raisins on the side and that equals a fabulous Mexican Fiesta Shabbot - Passover Style!  Plus it is very kid friendly.

So even though Vera intended on helping, she decided to take in some extra zzz's during her afternoon nap and it was just Jonah and me.  Sangria Time!  We made three pitchers: (1) red, (2) white and (3) juice.  Jonah did all the pouring, mixing and adding of the fruit and he loved it!  Then we washed up and Jonah broke up a ton of matzah pieces into a basket for dinner.  Finally, we made some Passover brownies from a box  (see how much we love box mixes for Passover with toddlers here) 

Tonight was fun!  Before everyone got here for Shabbot, Jonah, Vera and I were dancing around the kitchen singing our favorite Shabbot songs ("Bim Bam" and "There's a dinosaur knocking on my door...").  We did all our prayers and dinner turned out pretty good. We sipped sangria and laughed a lot!  There was a house tour and lots of Jonah running around and playing with all his toys and with our "buddy" guests!  Vera was fast asleep by 7:30 and Jonah stayed up till 10 and then finally passed out in his bed.  Another week living in our new place and it is finally starting to feel less new and more like home.  Tonight we managed to spill lots of Passover Shabbot wine and drop lots of Passover Shabbot crumbs on the floor.  We are off to a rockin' start!

Shabbot Shalom!

three pitchers of Shabbot Sangria!  adding the kiwis!  (looking a little like a bartender here... or a chemist..)

mixing up some Passover brownies

I can totally do it by myself now!

and I am quite good at licking the mixer!

It's a matzah pizza sorta day...

Today was a "matzah pizza" sort of day"... It was cold out.  It was sunny out.  It even rained at one point.  It was sometimes cloudy.  It was often windy.  We did some fun stuff like "decorating" - which I had not let myself do until ALL of the boxes were unpacked.  The kids and I hung pictures, put things on shelves and and continued some wall decaling (is that a word).  We were all very excited about the "wall decaling" - more on that later.  But in the end, it was an ordinary day albeit a day during Passover.  Lots of playing, reading books, trying to run around outside and of course eating our meals.  My big "exciting" thing of the day for the kids: matzah pizza.  An old stand by of Passover moms everywhere: one piece of matzah, jar of sauce, and some mozzarella cheese - 6 minutes in the toaster over and there you have it... matzah pizza.  The idea is great if you are 2.8 years old and it definitely satisfies the "I need to eat something I am starving" moaning stomach of the 41 year mommy keeping Passover (and the 1 yr old watching it all go down from her high chair apparently finds it all hilarious).  So there you have it - a matzah pizza day...  Tomorrow I am thinking it is potatoe pancakes (from the box) and applesauce... whoop whoop!

very excited about this new invention called matzah pizza - he ate 4 bites and then went back to kicking the blow up matzah balls around the kitchen and smashing into Mr Pharaoh calling him Batman...

Vera did not stop giggling all through lunch.  She had avocados, pears, cheese and some bits of the matzah pizza and was just happy!

PACE, Playgroup & Passover Cake...

When Jonah was born I took a "class" called P.A.C.E. Moms.  A number of DC moms had recommended it to me.  It was basically a 'mommy & me' class for urban moms with their first children in Washington DC.  We started when Jonah was about 2 mos, I think.  We were 10 moms and 12 babies (2 sets of twins).  We sat on the floor with our babies.  We had these looks on our faces like we hadn't slept in months and these crazy looks in our eyes that just screamed, "what they hell is going on and what are we doing???"  The class was once a week for 2 hours for ten weeks.  It was one of the best things that I ever did.  I needed it so much.  Just to have a place to talk and listen to other moms and realize that you weren't the only one who thought, "yes, this is a wonderful experience, but it is also f-king hard."  Anyway, since then I have tried to remain friends with many of my "first" mom friends and I have met other moms through them. There is this one group of stay-at-home moms that I have been in a playgroup with for the past three years.  The group has had members come and go.  I myself took a leave of absence when we moved to Chicago for 6 mos (surely there will be future post on that little adventure), another hiatus when I was battling breast cancer last year (yes, I am sure another post will deal with that...) and most recently when we bowed out for about a month because we had to escape our old condo due to a rodent problem and live in Baltimore (yes, another post on that adventure as well). 

Here is how it works: each round of playgroup, we (one of the moms-the same one-always does this-she is totally awesome for doing so) set up a schedule and each mom takes a week and we visit at each's house for few hours, usually in the morning around 10-12ish.  All of us now have two kids about the same age as Jonah & Vera.  Some of the older kids are in nursery school and sometimes miss playgroup.  Jonah hasn't been for almost  a year because he had been in full time daycare from May 2011 through January 2012 (because I was sick) and then in nursery school until the rodent episode... and then we moved. So all this to explain, today was playgroup day for us - first time in almost 2 mos that Vera and I had been and first time in almost year for Jonah.  We were all very excited... and maybe a bit anxious.  Then it turned out, at the last minute, playgroup was on the verge of being cancelled due to host sickness.  So, we offered to regroup and have it at our house - spontaneous offer and we hadn't prepared at all - but hey that is what kaleidoscoping chaos is all about.  So we did it and had it at our house.

We put Vera down for a nap and then Jonah and I decided to make a Passover cake for the playgroup (best baking experience with toddler-it all comes in the box! even the little pan!).  Jonah had a great time making the cake and we talked the whole time about sharing with our buddies who were coming to visit - all of our toys!  And making sure we were all set with the rules: no hitting, no biting, no kicking, etc.

And then our buddies arrived!  Jonah did well when it was just one of his buddies. Then more buddies arrived and he ws still OK.  But then there was a whole crew of us in the playroom - 4 moms, 3 big brothers, 2 little brothers and 2 little sisters... and he started to lose it a bit.  There were at least 3 episodes of full on melt downs that required total Time Outs in his room.  At some point, we had a session of cake eating. At another point, Jonah begged to go outside and managed to get a bunch of us outside. Lots of biking, throwing & kicking balls, playing with grass, and running around ensued (and a bit of Spiderman and Batman role playing for good measure).  Vera had a great time and laughed for most of playgroup.  It was awesome to see my mom friends.  Although, it is totally interesting how our conversations happen in three sentence blurbs and not one conversation ever really gets finished... We almost always need to plan specific "staff meetings" to really discuss anything of note (these meetings often occur during the evenings in TBD places where there are menus and full bars and we take taxis home).  When everyone left, Jonah kept walking around the house saying, "where did all my buddies go?  mom, I want my buddies back please???"  He does love to play and especially to play with his buddies!

In the end, we had a pretty good day - not without its stressful moments.  Jonah needs to work on sharing and working through his aggression (weirdly the Pharaoh punching bag seems to be helping... see picture here), but he is an awesome chef!  Vera is still giggling her way into every one's heart.  And the two of them, well, they just love each other sooo much!

mixing up by hand

with an electric mixers- wow!!!!

watching it bake in the oven

who knew Passover cake could be such a fun activity?

and the box is loads of fun too!

and it tastes great too!

with vanilla Greek yogurt for a snack! yummy!

my cutie pies!

so much love!

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...

Perfectly Passover

Today we spent pre-Passover and the first seder with some of our best friends in the world and met some new great passover buddies as well!  My kids love my bestest friend's kids... seriously, my almost three year old Jonah will tell you he "LOVES" all three of them - doesn't matter that they are 13, 11 and 8...   I am so happy about this.  So we were at their house early this morning and spent the day "carrying on" in every way.  It was plain fantastic.  I met "A" in 1990 on a plane going to Israel to spend my year abroad at the Hebrew University and tonight was evidence that we were supposed to sit next together on that plane!  Thank you A and family for one of the best Passover seders!  We will always remember it and the food was delish.  We used my "Heather Haggadah" and I led the wacky crazy extremely participatory seder.  A and her family did all the hard labor, cooking, setting up, etc.  I usually do that, so I know how hard it is.  Again thank you!  The guests were fun and totally into it!  From the grandmas, moms, dad, unlces, aunts, cousins, kids and even Uncle Greggy everyone seemed to have a good time and I had a blast!  We are back at the hotel and exhausted.  Here are a few choice pictures to show you how great our day was!

pre passover seder tv and snacks!

pre seder getting our wiggles out in a real car!  awesome!

interesting passover craft:  eye dying!  there is an egg on the seder plate, and we always start the seder by eating an egg.. that is right after we play the EGG GAME (the same egg served as theplace card)!  and crown the egg head!!!  so let's color those babies up and add face stickers for good measure!

not so bad for a bunch of wandering jews!

getting rid of the last bit chamatz!  Searched for it!  and then disposed of it!  go Team Kids!

Team Kids side to the table

rest of us... there were 19 of us in total!  whoop whoop!

what a gorgeous seder plate-with pretty nifty glass cups!

the four questions using finger puppets!

the plagues!  hail and lice are pretty good friends!

Vera building a pyramid! 

mama and Jonah playing the egg game!

Ms Egg and Mr. Matzah... she knows what is coming tomorrow morning... Matzah Brie... he is drunk and thinks he is getting lucky tonight... oh well!

searching for the afikoman!

ending with chad gadya and a dollar for everyone who tried to find the afikoman

CHAG SAMEACH
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!