Father Christmas

We met up with him right before our Lantern Tour at the Frontier Culture Museum:

Merry Christmas!

Visit to Santa:

Abby and Santa, deep in conversation

Benji, shouting what he wants at Santa, before running back to Daddy

Making Gingerbread Men

Benji wanted to take his shirt off to keep it clean

Caroling in the Caverns

Annual event at Grand Caverns, although this was our first visit. They light the caverns with hundreds of candles and give guests candles to carry through the tour. Various performers, including a bagpiper and dulcimer/fiddle group performs at spots with good acoustics. It was a really nice evening:

Our Elf Scarlet

She made it back a few days after Thanksgiving.  Kids are not sure if this is actually Scarlet or one of her friends, but they have taken to calling her Scarlet.

Waldorf Holiday Bazaar

More weekend fun. We stopped off at the Waldorf School holiday bazaar, which had all sorts of fun activities. We made a fresh evergreen wreath to hang near the door, and the kids each made a candle holder:

Gingerbread house, part 2

The day after we made houses at the Dukes, we found out that acac was having a gingerbread house contest, and they even supplied the pre-built houses for free! Too good to pass up, so we signed up and got to it on Sunday morning:

Rainbow Cottage, as Abby named it

Complete with a mandala and wood pile out back

While Mommy largely made the acac house, the kids decided to open the gingerbread kit that we had actually purchased for the year.  They were housed out, though, and decided to use the pieces and decorations to make cookies:

No more gingerbread until next year!

Gingerbread Houses, part 1

the Dukes invited us over Saturday morning for a little gingerbread house making. Holly kindly set up a house for each child and tons of fun decorations. They all took to it with gusto:

Benji with his finished house

Trimming the Tree(s)

We had our traditional festive tree trimming meal of appetizers and desserts:

Benji went right to work on his "Benji" tree:

While Abby took to trimming the big tree like a pro:

A little huddled conversation behind the lit tree:

And Abby let Benji add the tree topper for the first time ever!:

Be a Santa to a Senior

Annual girl scout event. Abby, with friends Bess and Emmelia, manning our craft station.

Kabbalat Siddur

It is a tradition at CBI to give each Bet (second year Hebrew) student his or her own prayer book at a special service (Kabbalat Siddur, which translates literally to Welcoming the Prayer Book). During the service, which was held last night, Rabbi Tom told them to prize this book and had them use it to lead the congregation in several prayers they have studied this semester. Afterwards, each student came to the microphone and stated what prayer meant to him or her. It was so cute - I wish I had thought to take video! A couple quick blackberry shots:

Leading the Ve'ahavta

Rabbi Tom enthusiastically explaining all the uses for the siddur

Abby explaining what prayer means to her

Study in Blue

More of playdate fashion show, which seems to be Abby (and Benji's!) favorite game.  Playing here with Isabel, who is sadly moving to Seattle next month.

Lego Class

Benji has been taking a motorized lego class on Tuesdays after school. He is doing an amazing job following directions (he is the youngest in the class) and has made some fancy creations:

Junie B. Jones and Jingle Bells Batman Smells

We took the kids to see this play at the Paramount Theater. Here is a picture of them right before the show - we were in the first row of the balcony. They both loved it!

One last dreidel post

Hanukkah with cousins

From our trip to DC:

Happy Hanukkah!

Just in time for the last day, we will finally get our first day pictures up:

The kids dressed themselves while we were cooking dinner

They each wanted to light a menorah

Festive meal - latkes and french onion soup

Very excited to get ... post-it notes

Benji finally got his computer (from Gammy)

Look at that happy face!