Hanukkah 2016

It's Hanukkah time!

The kids love this time of year because we spend 8 days and nights reading stories, lighting candles, and doing all kinds of fun stuff. I'ts a tradition for us to have a different fun thing to do each day, one of which is to go through the neighborhood near us and see the lights they do each year. This year, though, we decided to walk instead of drive. It was a new perspective. The kids found one of those projecting light shows and got all silly dancing in it. :)

Then, another day, we went and got donuts at Rise Bakery. They were oh, so good! They also make a bangin' chicken biscuit. :) According to their sign, they're the "Best Dang Biscuits and Donuts" and they're certainly making a good attempt at it. :)

After breakfast, we went out to Durham to see Rebecca's grandmother at the nursing home.

Olivia and Gabe played their recital pieces to the delight of the family.

After lunch, we were headed home, but decided to stop off for a hike through the Eno River State Park. It's a really pretty trail that runs right along the river.

Gabe found a hollowed out tree to hide in.

Olivia tried her hand at skipping rocks.

Then she spent some time jumping across the ones she couldn't skip. :)

Emma tried to scare me by hiding behind this rock and jumping out at me. :)

It was a very nice 4 mile hike and we were glad we made the detour for it.

But the highlight this year was making these. We made handprint hanukkiahs for each child to light their own candles every night. We used a board and painted their hands on them and then glued nuts (the hardware kind, not the eating kind) to each fingertip to hold a candle.

Despite the obvious fire hazard, we let them carefully light their candles and had no mishaps or burns the entire week. :)

It was pretty bright once everyone's was lit! :)

And this one is our prize-winning family hanukkiah! We all worked together to make it and brought it to church for the homemade hanukkiah contest and it was voted the best of the bunch!

Once again, it was a great time together as a family and we look forward to next year!