First day of Chanuka

Zvi had a half day of school today and we decided to pick Leora up from gan early so she could join us for lunch. Today was her last day at Gan Shalhevet and I can report that it was no different than any other day. She ran out to the gate screaming when I left. Let's hope things get better at the new gan ... I can't imagine them getting much worse for her. Yeshaya also had his playgroup today so Shira and I were all alone in the morning. I spent an hour at my grandmother's house as I try to do each Wednesday morning since that's the one day she's home. We had a great game of dreidel with chocolate lentils as the money. I won! Later I discovered that the dreidel was rigged and it landed on gimel over the half the time and rarely landed on nun or pay. We both played with the same dreidel though so I won fair and square and she's 60 years older than me!

My parents are going to Memphis tonight for Shmuel's, my nephew, Hanachat Tfillin party. He's doing the actual bar mitzva here and we're excited that we can join him for that. So we decided to invite my parents to go out for lunch with us and our three little kids so we could say good-bye to them. It's great when we invite them for lunch and then they pay.

Then we went to take our annual portraits of Leora and Yeshaya. Shira is very particular about every kid getting a picture every year and she was nervous what she was going to do here without Sears or JCPenney. She found this great place in Kiryat Sefer where a guy has a studio and he took really good pictures of Leora and Yeshaya. We're excited to see the final picture (we'll scan it in and post it here so you can all enjoy). Then the kids got some candy and Shira bought some things for our Chanuka parties next week and then it was home for candle lighting. That should have been it but Shira decided that Zvi desperately needs new shoes so she took the three kids to go buy new shoes for Zvi.

Chag URIm Sameach!