Funny Zoe pictures, Tie Dye and DINNER!

Zachary's class mate celebrated her birthday recently and one of the activities at the party was Tie-Dying. Zoe was very excited to partake as well and Mama had a blast channeling her inner Moshnik (recall Camp Moshava summers 1986-1990, 1992, 1998) to help them. Zoe did stripes and Zachary did a sprial. The kids LOVED doing it and of course want to do more tie dying as soon as possible. Maybe a good family activity one sunday afternoon???


Recently, Zoe has been caught on camera doing some funny and cute moves. She is quite the ham and also likes to pose for pictures so Daddy takes advantage and snapped these of her. Zoe has started swim lessons so she has found a new use for her water wings (see first picture). No cats were harmed during the snuggle photo shoot, Jackson sure is a good sport. Alas, Zoe's "guys" that she often sleeps with (see middle picture) may have not enjoyed the way she carried all of them at once!

To celebrate Daddy and Uncle Yossi's 35th birthdays this spring we went to Mike's Bistro in Manhattan http://www.mikesbistro.com/, (a kosher meat restuarant) and did the Tasting Menu. It was delicious and we had so much fun with Aunt Brooke and Uncle Yossi. All the children did go to sleep with their babysitters and there were no issues making it a worry free evening. This picture shows the final course - a flight of sorbets, YUMMY! Here is the menu of what we ate:
Tomato Fennel Bisque
Beet endive salad with citrus dressing
Steamed Sea bass in ginger and scallion broth over stir fried vegetables
Duck gnocchi... See More
Chicken breast with reduction of pan juices over kale and kasha
Wagyu beef skirt steak over hash of pepper, ground bison,with ancho chile tomatillo sauce
Sorbet sampler-Banana, Passionfruit, Mango, Rasberry, Yuzu.
Mama's favorite was the Tomato Fennel Bisque, but Daddy was partial to the Wagyu steak. Either way we went home happy.

fun pics of the kids

As you can obviously tell - we love to take pictures of our kids. Glenn especially enjoys utilizing the camera to get those unique shots. Sadly our regular point and shoot can't do all the tricks we would like so here are a few pictures that Glenn snapped using our friends fancy camera - an SLR. He enjoyed playing around with the focal plane and catching the kids when they weren't necessarily just saying cheese.
Zoe, with post nap hair (aka crazy hair) is enjoying a popsicle. Mama placed her on the counter to perch, not necessarily safe but Daddy caught the picture before she was moved. Zoe is making a funny face too - but as always we still think she is pretty cute!
The blurry object in the foreground is a train. Meanwhile Zachary is enjoying a page out of one of his activity books.
So here is the difference with our point and shoot camera, not nearly as crisp and much more washed out. Nonetheless still some fun pictures. Daddy and Zoe went to one of our favorite parks while Zachary had school and Mama had to work. Zoe was quite the ham and also took some pictures of her own.
Practicing with her afikomen prize, a jump rope. Too cute!

Zoe's Pesach Play at Gan Hayeled Nursery School

Zoe's school, Gan Hayeled Nursery School, performed a Pesach (Passover) play telling the story of passover. Most of the girls were Egyptian princesses who rescued baby Moses from the river Nile (note Zoe's baby). Zoe, being dressed as a pricesses, also had to carry her magic wand. As the director of the school Lana, told the story, the kids acted out the parts, thus the worried look on Zoe's face. Seated behind Zoe is her teacher, Connie. The boys in Zoe's class seen below on the left, all were king Pharoah who wouldn't let the Jews out of Egypt. After many plagues, Pharoah let the Jews leave, but then changed his mind. So G-d had to help the Jews cross the Red sea by parting it for them (note the blue towels which Zoe is helping to move for the Jews to pass through) and then the sea closed back up before the Egyptians could cross it and catch the Jews. The play was peppered with songs and all the plagues - always love the frog song and of course the kids were adorable.


Here we are with Zoe at the school seder which followed the play. She loved the chocolate caramel matzah (as did we) and we made it at home for Pesach. It was so nice to be able to watch Zoe perform, and a treat that we could both be there.

Pesach/Passover Prep

The night before Passover begins, each family is supposed to perform a Bedika Chametz - or inspection for leavened food items. This custom has been changed such that one of the parents hides about 10 pieces of bread throughout the already immaculately clean house and the children are supposed to use their bedika kit (wooden spoon, feather, candle) to find and collect this bread and place in a paper bag to be burned the following morning. Note that our kids also used a flashlight - much safer than going only by candlelight. The next two pictures show the kids before the inspection and then during with Daddy. They did a super job and found all the pieces that Mama hid.

Also exciting was the parsley that Zachary grew and harvested in time for our seder. Here he is cutting the parsley to place on our Seder plate. See the previous entry for more on the parsley.

And finally - we needed a new family portrait - complete with Zachary's parsley. The kids did a super job during the Seder -- saying blessings, singing songs, and finding the afikomen. We were grateful to share our first Seder with our neighbors and friends and then the second Seder, Grammy and Grandpa joined us as well as more friends. It is wonderful to celebrate such a fun and yummy holiday with so many wonderful people.