Hosting living room

We had six 11 year old from my daughter’s class at school for an afternoon called “hosting living room”, the kids in the 5th grade are divided into groups and each group visits the home of one of the volunteers. We always volunteer, my kids love it as we get to send out our personal invitations, decide on where and when, choose whatever activity we would like to have and there are no rules except mine (-:
This time we decided to have two activities, a creative one and a game, as it’s a mixed group of boys and girls and we wanted to please them all.
For the creative activity we chose to make eraser pencil toppers from Sculpey eraser clay.
The kids had a great time, they made all kind of funny little monsters and as they were working we were talking and saying that there are no rules for monsters, they don’t have to be pretty, they don’t have to be symmetrical, you can just go wild with your imagination and I think this is why they enjoyed it so much as they didn’t spend time making it as it should be or as expected, they just let their creativity go.
I took a picture only of the 3 my daughter made as I didn't have time to take a picture of all their cerations while they were here, I was busy entertaining...

There are fantastic other projects on the Sculpey web site, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Thanks to Michal for the idea and to Ruthy for buying the clay for us!
While the eraser toppers were in the oven (30 minutes, 100 degrees Celsius) we played a great card game called ‘Pit deluxe’, it’s such a fast-paced game that encourages shouting and yelling, You have to be well prepared in order to play it especially with kids (-:
Oh BOY the neighbors will never forgive me because the noise was unbelievable but the kids had a great time and that is what’s important to me after all. I think that most kids hear most of the time grown ups asking them to be quiet and here they were asked to make a noise, they appreciated that! Thanks to Koby for introducing the game to us.
They each left when the afternoon was over with a huge smile on their faces and my daughter was so happy and when she’s happy I’m happy.

It's PURIM!!

Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, it's celebrated annually and is characterized by giving mutual gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor, a celebratory meal, and other fun customs that include drinking wine, wearing masks and costumes, and public celebrations.
We like to make our own costumes, it's usually the kids that come up with ideas and I carry them out into something they can wear.
Besides my 3 kids, I usually also create a costume for Tamara, Guy's friend ever since kindergarten, as they dress up as a pair.
This year Raz wanted to dress up as a tea bag (-: I made it from paper cloth as it's quite see-through, there are 3 layers of the material, one for the back whereas the other 2 are sewn together at the bottom and filled with little pieces of black wool to create the tea leaves effect. All 3 layers are sewn together on the sides and shoulders. The tag is made from paper and cardstock to resemble the real labels that are interwoven in her hair.

Guy and Tamara wanted to dress up as a painter and his palette. To create the palette I used an old cotton sheet and sewed pieces of colored felt onto it.

For the painter we took an old shirt from daddy and smeared it with acrylic colors, painted a canvas the same colors that are on the palette, put a French baret hat on his head (thanks Ifaat!) and drew a black mustache on his face. The paintbrush is made from a black colored cardboard cylinder stuffed with newspapers on one side and a real paintbrush glued in the other side.

Each year I think, WOW we did it again, what will they think of next year? They always manage to surprise me. Last year they dressed up in a costume we named "crazy chef frying a sunny-side up egg".

This is Guy and Raz when they were 3 years old.

And as I'm in a nostalgic mood today, this is me and my brother, 38 years ago in costumes my mother made for us.

Happy holiday to all those celebrating!!

Kids birthday

My 11 year old twins celebrated their birthday in February, birthday morning I left a track of red and pink hearts from their room to the dinning room where they found balloons, each had a voucher connected to it, a voucher for a kiss and hug, a voucher for hot chocolate and brownies in our favorite coffee shop, a voucher for a present etc.
What’s a birthday without a party? Guy had his friends over for a pajama party two weeks ago and today Raz celebrated with her friends; we had a scrap party and altered coffee tins (all of them almost identical, I created one as and example and most of them copied it, girls…), had too much pizza and popcorn and watched a great movie, Bridge to Terabithia. Photos aren't that good, there is something wrong with the camera...
Special thanks to Ruthi for helping out with the girls, to Yafit for the paper and to Tzik for the internship (-:
Birthday project 2008 is officially over! This week, now that my sewing machine returned from repair I’m going to dedicate to sewing their costumes for Purim.

Saturday morning

It was a freezing morning but the sun was shining and the birds were singing so we put on our hot clothes, fleece accessories and went hiking in the Jerusalem area with friends and then had a picnic. The rain in the area at the beginning of the week and the cold temperatures brought out the Cyclamen, isn't it beautiful? We had a great time.

My champions

The Israeli Taekwondo championship 2007-2008 for cadets took place today and my 10 year old twins participated.They both fought like little lions, made the finals and both received silver medals.
I'm a proud mother today. Actually, I'm always proud of them, today I'm proud of their accomplishments.