Tag: Friends

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בית חם or Hot House

The other day Aaron hosted a בית חם ‘buy-it ham’ (the ‘h’ is a rough sound not a soft sound) or roughly translated, a hot house.

Basically, throughout the school year, each child gets a turn to host 4 or 5 other kids in the class at their home. Its usually children that don’t really play together during school and its a way to encourage new friendships and getting to know each other.

They usually happen 4 times a year and the teacher allocates who goes where. She asked me a few months ago if we would host one and I asked if we could do a later one as I had no furniture and was pretty much terrified of having a bunch of Hebrew speaking kids to look after.

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So this week was the last lot of hot houses for the school year and Aaron was asked to host. I think she took it easy on me and only allocated 3 children to come over, two girls and a boy. I also asked our babysitter to come over for the two hours so she could help me with speaking to the kids. Thank carp for the babysitter, she was amazing!

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Hosting a hot house is a big deal, the kids love them and really look forward to them. Usually a craft or two is done and sometimes the kids make something to send to the soldiers or to a charity.

We made flower mirrors with glue and paint and glitter stickers and googly eyes. We also did an experiment and made a volcano erupt. Since it started at 5pm and the kids were being fetched at 7pm, I made them dinner. I took a page out of Pintrest and the kids made spaghetti  and sausage monsters. So. Much. Fun!

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All in all the kids had fun. Aaron had a blast. There were no tears, theirs or mine. Success!

 

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2nd play date – Success

You may recall the somewhat awkward and heartbreaking 1st play date we had a week or so ago.

Well, Faith had another friend over today and it went so much better. I think I was more relaxed since I knew what to expect. Aaron also took on the roll of bossy mcboss mentor and got the girls playing with a ball and also teaching them some karate moves.

I even read them a story!  In Hebrew!

We have just bought a set of bookshelves from friends who are relocating to the States and I could finally unpack the last of our boxes. All the books! So while the kids were playing I was unpacking and I came across Not A Box by Antoinette Portis. Its a very simple story about using your imagination, and as I found out, quite easy to translate into Hebrew as I went. The kids loved it.

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After the book, the kids took all the empty boxes and created a carnival game, Aaron wrote ‘points’ on each box and they placed them at different heights and then took turns throwing the ball into them to get the most points. Definitely not just a box.

I fed them supper before Faiths friend had to go home and both girls didn’t want the play date to end. I consider that a great success!

 

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3 more sleeps…

3 more sleeps until we are on the plane and 4 more sleeps until we are Israeli citizens.

Its gone so fast.  It feels like yesterday we were counting down months instead of weeks and days!

One of the things I haven’t spoken about is friends.

Friends are the family we choose and leaving them behind is heartbreaking.

We had a farewell last Sunday and so many people came to say goodbye, I never got a chance to speak to everyone and certainly not for as long as I would have liked.  Im going to miss each and everyone of you!!

There are just some special souls in this world and my sister from another mister, Wendi, is one of them, leaving you is like leaving a part of me behind.

We met at work 8 years ago and just clicked.  We have the same sense of humor and can tell each other anything.  I know we will only be a Skype call or a Whatsapp away but its just not the same.

Im just going to have to have to work on convincing you to come over (once the kids are out of school of course Wends).

Thank Gd for technology, Im not sure how people did it before.  Its hard enough as it is, I cannot imagine not being able to Skype and FB and Whatsapp at the drop of a hat!

 

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Pancakes for dinner!

Last weekend I asked Twitter for an easy pancake recipe.  Jessica and Shirley came to my rescue.  I couldnt decide which recipe to use so a merged the two together and it was yummy!!!

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What you will need:

1 x cup flour

1 x cup milk

1/4 x cup sugar

1 x tablespoon oil

1 x egg

2 x teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

splash vanilla

Measuring/pouring jug

Heavy frying pan

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What to do:

Mix all ingredients together so that there are no lumps or bumps.

Transfer mixture to a pouring jug.

Spray&Cook the frying pan and set to a medium to high heat.

Pour in crumpet sized or larger sized amounts of batter.

Wait until the batter starts to bubble before turning over.

Leave for a minute or two and transfer from the pan to a plate.

I leave the plate in the oven on a very low heat to keep them warm.

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Tonight we are having pancakes with Neapolitan ice cream, strawberries and blueberries.

Im also doubling this recipe cause they were so yummy last time 🙂

YUMMY!

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A wedding post

A few people have asked to see photos from my wedding.  I cant in good conscience just give you pictures without a bit of the story.

Paul and I were married just over four years ago.  We got married in the same shul my parents were married in.

Since we had decided to get married on the 12th not the 14th of February we decided we didn’t want roses, not only would they be cliché but damn expensive!

We decided on daisies and because they are my favourite flower in any colour we decided that our decor would centre around a multitude of daisies in every colour and type we could lay our hands on.

I didn’t want the retinue to be multicoloured as I wanted them to stand out so I decided on grey.  Because my SIL lives in Australia I decided that the bridesmaids and mothers could wear any grey they wanted, they could buy off the rack or have it made, it could have another colour with it as long as the predominant colour was gray.  My boy BFF had to be on my side of the retinue so to differentiate him from the other guys he wore a grey shirt while they all wore white shirts and we had grey ties and yarmulkes made for them.

As an aside, despite living on opposite sides of the world and having absolutely no contact with each other, my BFF and my SIL managed to find two unique outfits in the exact same material and shade of grey!

My dress was made for me by the same women who made my mothers bridesmaids dresses 28 years before.  It was adapted from a picture I found.  In retrospect the only change I would make to it would be to have one button on the coat.

So without further waffling, here are some of my favourite pics!

All the boys in the stairwell in my Grandfathers building
My Granny Fan, my mom and me
On the balcony outside my moms bedroom
My second mommy, Paulina and me
My two BFF
How could I not show you my shoes?
Just Married 🙂
Husband and wife
Right here, smiling at each other... not likely, we were counting the steps 😉
This right here captures the mood of the day!
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To my friends…

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not possibly born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – Anaïs Nin


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Thankful

I am immensely thankful that my brother is alive!

Banged up and broken but alive!

On Wednesday night I was messing around on the computer when the house phone rang, I grabbed it because Paul and Aaron were asleep and I didnt want them woken up.

It was my mom, she sounded calm when she told me that Cliff had had an accident and they were in the ambulance on the way to the ER.

I asked if she wanted me to come and she said yes, so I got dressed, woke Paul to tell him and rushed out to the hospital.

They had arrived there just before me and had put him into one of the trauma rooms.

He had blood all over his face and one arm, other than that he looked ok.

Turns out all that blood was from a head wound, his arm was fine.

It also turned out after he complained about a sore knee and we went for a few x-rays and a CT scan that his knee was fractured.

It took 4 hours for the ER doc to stitch his head and only when they moved his pants to splint his leg did they notice the huge gash under his knee.  We were not impressed.

What was impressive and amazing were Cliffs two friends, Timor and Mark.  They were fist on the scene, they stayed with him until he was moved into a ward, they cleaned him up and held his hand, they didnt even smack him when he swore at them and they didnt laugh too much when his concussion caused him to ask the same few questions over and over and over again.

Speaking of, the first thing my brother asked when we told him he had been in an accident was if anyone else had been hurt and made us promise that the other woman involved was ok (she was uninjured), the fact that his first thought was for other people just shows his character.

Once he had been moved to a ward (5 and a half hours after we had arrived) I took my mom home and then went home to sleep.

On Thursday they operated on his knee, he had a fracture in the knee cap, his tibia had split vertically down a few inches and he had almost severed the tendon.  They did a bone graft, put in two pins to hold the tibia together and stitched the tendon back together.

He will have to be in a cast for 3 months!

Then will come hours and hours of rehab, physio and hard work.

I am so so so thankful he is alive!!!

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Today was awesome!

This morning we took Aaron to shul.

It was Simchas Torah and the atmosphere in shul was relaxed and joyous.  My grandfather was given a very big honour by being called up to the Torah to read the first part of the beginning of the Torah.  He has been a lifelong member of the shul and to be honoured in this way is a big deal, so we wanted to be there for him.

Aaron had a great time, he moved between sitting with mama upstairs to sitting with daddy downstairs and sitting with his Banga (my grandfather and the story of the name we call him is for another post).  He played soccer outside with the big boys, got an ice-cream, played on the jungle gym, watched the men dance with the Torahs in shul, danced with mama and daddy out on the road, ate chips, drank juice, kissed the Torah and generally had a great day.

We spent the afternoon with a friend of ours, Shirley, and made toasted cheese and tomato saamies and played with Aaron.  She stayed and helped bath Aaron and when it was time to go home Aaron would not let her go!  He had so much fun playing with his Aunty Shirl.

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Now Paul is putting him to sleep and we are getting ready to watch some TV.

What a great end to the weekend!

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Girls Girls Girls

At the ripe old age (ha ha) of 30 I find myself with more female friends than I have ever had at any one time before.

Some are married, some are divorced, some are single, some have older kids, some have newborns and some dont have kids at all.

Some I have known for many many years, some I have only recently met and some I have known all my life.

Some I met at school, some I met at work and some I met through the internet.

I am truly blessed to be surrounded by these strong, capable, amazing women, to be able to learn from them, to commiserate with them and celebrate with them.

To you all, you know who you are, thank you for enriching my life with your friendships.