Hanukkah 2018

It's time again for one of the kids' favorite holidays: Hanukkah!

As frightening as it may be, Irene was insistent that she could light her own candles this year. Well, everyone's gotta go sometime... Fortunately, she didn't burn herself or anyone else, so maybe she was right?

We kept to our usual traditions of lighting candles, reading the story of Judah Maccabee and his brothers, and letting the kids pull the tabs on the paper hanukkiah to reveal various activities.

We also participated in Valley of Blessing's Hanukkiah Contest again this year. We put together a chicken-themed hanukkiah with a chicken wire base, real wax-filled eggshells for the candles and a mama hen for the shamash. Sadly, we didn't win. That's ok, though. I know whose was really the best, ;)

Hannukah 2017

It's that time of year again! Hanukkah is one of our favorite times because we make it a point to set aside each and every day to do something all together as a family. 

Our yard hanukkiah went up on time this year with a couple of improvements. Firstly, I got a light so it could be see all night long. Then I figured out how to put a long toothpick through the candles to hold the flames in place in the wind that kep pulling it apart last year. :)

We pulled out the decorations from previous years along with the hand hanukkiahs they made.

On the first night, we went to VoB for a service and they had put a light on the huge hanukkiah out front. Driving up, though, all you could see was the giant shadow on the side of the building, wich made it even cooler!

One of the things we did as a family was to go to the Greensboro Children's Museum together. Out front, they built this gigantic climbing maze that has two pyramids that are 30 feet high. Stretching between the two, about 24 feet off the ground is a web tunnel. 

In order to reach it, you have to climb all the way up through the maze of ropes and nets. The kids went right up, begging me to come along. I told them that I thought I was over the weight restrictions, so one of them ran inside to ask. Unfortunately, they came back out and cheered because there isn't a restriction on adults climbing it... Lucky me.

So... up I climbed. But I didn't go alone. Rebecca climbed up, too. Even the littles went.

Once at the top, it takes a bit of an effort to get in there. Fortunately, there aren't any pictures of me flopping like a landed fish trying to get myself into the tunnel. 

Once inside, it's a bit of a crawl for an adult, but a fairly easy crouch for a kid to get across to the other pyramid.

Once there, we climbed down to a very fast metal slide. Rather sadly for me, the only way I could get into it was headfirst, so it launched me out onto my face. The kids thought it was great fun, tho. A little hard on the butt, maybe, but still fun.

Then Ezra decided to recreate my first time through it.

Only I wasn't so graceful.

On another day, we made Hanukkah slime! 

It was pretty fun, but kinda gross, too. It stuck to everything. 

I found it on clothes, towels, walls, the floor... everywhere.

It was fun to play with, tho. :)

On another day, Rebecca took the kids to the Winston-Salem Children's Museum. They have such cool stuff at that one! This whole thing was hand-knitted by a Japanese lady!

The beanstalk in the middle of the museum is awesome! 

And the donut factory is appropriate since donuts (sufganiyot) are a traditional Hanukkah treat.

This room, with the air tubes and scarves, is a huge favorite. It's cool to let the scarves go in one end and watch them fly through the tubes to be spit out somewhere else.

After our regular Shabbat service, we had an afternoon of games and fun. One of the adults dressed up as Antiochus Epiphanies (that's what the A on the mask stands for. It's definitely NOT Captain America) and the kids had to beat him at Connect4 to kick him out of Jerusalem. 

While not exactly historically accurate, it was fun nonetheless. 

We also had a hanukkiah contest again this year. We won it last year with our block hanukkiah. This year we made one out of Perler beads. Want to guess how many we used? Actually we're not really sure exactly, but the flat base alone took about 3000, so we guessed maybe 4500. Sadly, tho, we didn't win. 

We did some other things that we didn't get pictures of, like going to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi one day. We also ate a TON of donuts. I mean a literal ton. At least, that's how big I felt at the end of it...

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!