Category Archives holidays

Views from Passover 2009

Each year Passover preparations begin long before the holiday is actually here. We are religious enough that we change out our pots/pans and from pure laziness use disposable silverware/plates. We put all of our chametz into one area and use certain cabinets that have been readied for Passover. This year we thought about what to make for Seders in case we had them at home. It was a good thing since we found out the Sunday before that we would be doing them at our house. Our boys have no clue what is done behind the scenes for Passover. I have to admit that I did not realize much of this until I met JL. Sure, my relatives did all of these preparations, but I only recall going to their homes for the Seders with the rest of the extended family.

When all was said and done we were ready to go for both of the Seders last Wednesday and Thursday. We made chicken, sweet and sour turkey meatballs, oven roasted sweet potatoes, cauliflower and the traditional items for the seder itself (hard boiled eggs, gefilte fish, and charoset). We ran out of time to make matzah ball soup, but added an amazing quinoa dish for the second night.

Now I welcome you to our table to see how my family celebrated at our Passover Seders last week.

Here are two views of our table. 

View of the seder plate and matazah cover     Another view of the table

A closer look at our Seder plate all set with the tradiational items: 

Seder plate all set

The boys are lucky. Aunt S and Uncle M bought them some amazing fun items to have during the Seder. Check out NHL’s place at the table and a closer view of the kid’s Seder plates. 

Kindergarten kid's place at the table    Colorful kid seder plate

Check out all of the extra items that they also received.  There are the Passover Ten Plagues Finger Puppets (great to go along with the 4 Question Finger Puppets that we already had), Passover counting book (adorable for JSL), Passover Memory Game, Bag of Plagues, Flip Frogs, and 10 Plagues masks. More about the 10 Plagues Finger Puppets coming tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday. 

Lots of Passover fun

The boys enjoyed trying most things. Here they are eating the celery dipped in salt water. 

Little guy trying celery Big guy eating celery

While NHL was busy getting the 10 plague finger puppets in order for their part in the Seder, JSL had fun playing with the 4 Questions. NHL even started singing in Hebrew showing us that he has learned a lot at Hebrew School already. 

Having fun during Seder 10 Plagues ready to go

Our only little glitch in the Seder was when JL got quite ill. He had a little too much horseradish along with his wine and turned quite white with massive hot flashes. We finally turned on the fan and he felt better. Of course this photo taken earlier is a little funny looking back at it. 

Chugging the Kedem wine

Overall, we had two nice Seders at our house. It was great ,having our boys, Nana, Papa and Aunt T here with us. Still, it will be nice in the future to be able to celebrate with more of our extended family.

TheAngelForever

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Afikomen fun time

Dear NHL and JSL,

Thank you both for being sources of joy and entertainment during the Passover Seders on Wednesday and Thursday night. It made Daddy and me smile seeing both of you enjoying yourselves with Nana, Papa and Aunt T. Of course, you were both extra busy with all of the special items that Aunt S and Uncle M sent for you to have during the Seder (photos of those coming later).

JSL, you wanted to do everything that your big brother was doing. If he closed his eyes while Daddy was hiding the Afikomen, you did the same thing (albeit while looking out the cracks in your fingers). You gobbled up gefilte fish and were not too interested in anything else until the goodies came out after dinner.

NHL you helped to read from the Haggadah and even sang part of the four questions in Hebrew. You were brave and tried the bitter herbs and kept trying to figure out when it was time to taste more of the traditional items from the Seder plate. 

Nana makes sure NHL does not look Trying to sneak a look

I love you both with all of my heart,

Mommy

__________________________________________________________

 


Dear Kid Saturdays at Cutest Kid Ever

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Passover wishes and winners

For those of you that celebrate Passover I would like to wish you and your family a Happy Pesach. I will be a scarce the next few days while observing the holidays with my family. When I get back I will be catching up on e-mails. 

Seder plate all ready to go

It is also time to announce winners of some giveaways.

The winner of the Clorox Disinfecting Wipes Decor Canister coupons are: 

Clorox Wipes Winners

Sarah, Heidi and Bing were the lucky winners and should be receiving their coupons in the mail any day now. Hopefully they will enjoy this product as much as I have. Seriously, it makes cleaning that much easier.

The winner of the DaBibs giveaway is: 

DaBib winner

Killashandra’s information will be passed along to the sponsor and it should arrive in time for her new little boy’s arrival.

Do not forget to enter my Exergen Temporal Scanner and Tie Buddies giveaways.

TheAngelForever

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Ready or not, here comes Passover

No matter how much I am in denial, the reality is there.  Next Wednesday night is the first Passover Seder.

Over the last month or so we have been slowly gathering more healthy recipes to use for Passover.  Of course also with that we have been going into debt buying Passover items before the stores run out. This year JL and I promised each other that we would not buy as much of the prepackaged Passover foods, mixes and things. We have our own baking pans for Passover and bought ingredients that can be used to bake the boys some goodies. Of course we did buy some Rainbow and Bon Bon cookies because those are quite difficult to replicate.

Here is the cabinet in our kitchen completely filled with all of our non-perishable Passover food/baking/spice items.

Passover non-perishable items (goes WAY back and under)

My biggest dilemma with Passover is breakfast. Most morning I eat instant oatmeal. It is filling, low points and keeps me energized for the morning. Sadly there is no really good option with this for Passover. The boys will likely be eating a LOT of matzah and cream cheese. Yummy indeed,  but it is not really an option while being good. I seriously do not want to undo the weight loss that I have done, especially given the commitment to work outs that I have been doing. Since Sunday, I have already done 16.5 miles of work out with Leslie Sansone (not including today).

One option is trying this:

New to us this Passover

According to JL, it can be used as a hot breakfast cereal of sorts. Has anyone tried this and have any suggestions? Trying to come up with some more options for Passover. We have yogurt, although not one that I really like since it is Kosher for Passover. There will also be egg whites, which are great if I have time to cook them. And of couse I could also do cottage cheese and fruit.

If you have any other suggestions for healthy Passover meals, especially breakfast and even lunch, I would love to hear them.

TheAngelForever

There are a lot of past postings where I talk about Passover. Just do a keyword search for Passover. Here are my posts from the Seders last year: Happy Passover 2008 – Seder 1   and     Seder Part Deux – 2008.

 

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