January was a fairly uneventful month. Since I managed to screw up and miss the sign-up deadline, Mikaela missed basketball season at the JCC this year (oops!). We did get to enjoy celebrating cousin Margo’s Bat Mitzvah, and the opportunities to see Cousin Annie, Aunt Mo, and Uncle Cor brought about by that occasion. Both Jonathan and Mikaela got to stay up late a the Bat Mitzvah party – they were having a blast and we couldn’t imagine trying to make them leave early. As it was, neither of them wanted to go at the end of the night.

January closed out with the Beth Torah Chili-Cook off. Mikaela helped – some with the making of the chili itself, more with the shtick behind the chili. The video linked above is what Mikaela refers to as her “cooking show,” where she described (basically) how to make my chili. Her video got rave reviews from Chili Cook-Off attendees – I had it set up and running on my MacBook right next to where I was serving samples of the chili. At the Cook-Off itself, both Mikaela and Jon spent most of their time playing games. We came home with two cakes and a plate of cookies froma the cake walk, and more small prizes and candy than a bad-weather Halloween haul, thanks to the “fishing” game that Jonathan did over and over and over again.

I know, I know – this is LONG overdue. But by way of catching up, December was a crazy month. Right after celebrating Jonathan’s birthday, Chanukah started, then it was Miriam’s birthday and the Winter Break from school. In the midst of all of that, we went through several weeks of the four of us taking turns being sick – bottom line is that blogging got pushed aside. I’m trying to get caught up today.

Chanukah was nice. We got to enjoy the full range of celebrations. We celebrated at home, with just the four of us. We did the annual big-family celebration at Rick & Teresa’s house. We invited our neighbors from across the street, the Alexanders, to join us for one night. And we concluded Chanukah at Grandma Marcia & Zaydie Larry’s house. While it was fun, it was also busy – it seemed we were always on the move.

Right in the middle of Chanukah, we also celebrated Miriam’s birthday. December featured a great snowstorm for sledding and playing in the snow. Oh, and a less-than-pleasant discovery that when wind blows snow sideways, it finds its way up into our house vents (and leaves water damage on nearby ceilings.

Jonathan’s third birthday celebration is already underway. Miriam and I went to the CDC with a music-themed Blue’s Clues cake (at Jon’s request). We still have the guitar cake for tonight and another music-themed cake planned for the Chanukah party on Saturday night. Of course Jonathan is convinced that, if he turned three on his birthday today, then when he has his “Chanukah Birthday” (as he calls it) he will be four!

While Grandpa Steve and Grandma Sali were here, Mikaela and Jonathan discovered the magic that happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar – Jonathan calls it a “blocano”.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We had the largest Thanksgiving Feast yet at Grandma Marcia and Zaydie Larry’s house – I believe the final count was 28. We were served by the biggest turkey yet too – a full 30 pounds of Thanksgiving bird. It was great that so many out-of-town-based relatives were able to join us – Grandma Sali and Grandpa Steve from Montana, Corey, Monique and Annie from Chicago, Steph from Springfield, and Jeff and Brandi from Houston. Both the food and the company were great!

Now, if the Jayhawks can just pull off a victory over the Tiggers this afternoon . . .

We buried Bubbie today. It’s been an incredibly emotional few days. The words and notes of support from family and friends have been wonderful. Jonathan doesn’t really understand what’s going on – just lots of people around and disruptions in his schedule (though getting to spend some fun time with Aunt Mo this afternoon was a treat). But Mikaela is struggling with all of this. At first, she just tried to ignore that Bubbie had died. She wanted to pretend that nothing different had happened, she even wanted to go to Sunday School on Sunday. But she left Sunday school about 15 minutes early, as the reality of it all hit her, at which point she also decided that she wanted to come to the funeral. After the funeral, Mikaela turned to Miriam and said, “I just want to go home and go over to Cannon’s house to play and forget all of this.”

All of the grandkids spoke at the funeral. Corey and Matt and Greg all spoke beautifully. I had an unusually difficult time figuring out what to say. You can read the full text of what I wrote after the jump.

continue reading "RIP Jean Rittmaster May 10, 1918 – November 14, 2009"

Halloween anticipation has been building for several weeks in our house. The kids both settled on their costumes early on – there was never really any doubt the Harry Potter-obsessed Mikaela would go as Harry Potter, and she received most of the components of her costume as birthday presents earlier in the month. We were somewhat less certain what Jonathan would choose to do, but as soon as we mentioned Halloween, Jonathan was excited to get to wear his dinosaur costume again — and this year, he actually wore it, instead of being afraid of it!

We actually started our celebration on Friday, with an evening playdate with Mikaela’s best CDC-buddy Logan, and her brother Garrett. Rather than carve pumpkins (sharp knives around four young children just seemed a bad idea) we picked up tempra paint and let the kids paint their pumpkins. We also picked up an additive for the paint that was supposed to make it glow in the dark – unfortunately, the additive didn’t seem to work at all. After painting pumpkins, we ordered pizza (and I somehow accidentally ordered a BBQ pizza from Pizza Hut, instead of plain cheese. Oh well. Lots of leftovers for lunches after ordering a replacement pizza).

We watched movies while eating pizza – the boys watched Monsters, Inc. upstairs while the girls watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone downstairs. Plans for the return playdate were already underway before the movies were over.

We lucked out with terrific weather for Halloween. Warm enough that we didn’t need to wear coats to trick-or-treat, but Mikaela wasn’t too hot in her Hogwart’s robes and Jon wasn’t melting with his dinosaur hood up. Despite a runny nose and a cough, Jonathan had plenty of energy for trick-or-treating, though he and Miriam turned back to home a few blocks earlier than Mikaela and I did. The only real downside of the whole trick-or-treat experience was the smoke machine that one of our neighbors decided to use as part of their yard decorations. After walking through the smoke to knock on the door, and then back through it to reach the sidewalk again, Mikaela had a pretty nasty asthmatic cough herself. Luckily, we were almost home at that point.

What do you do with an energetic preschooler who can’t go back to school for 24 hours, because he was sent home sick? Show him how to use iMovie! Looks like the kids have started learning the songs for the Thanksgiving program. If you search this blog, you can probably find video of Mikaela singing these songs.

(Sorry for the dim lighting – I really need to do something about the lighting in the Great Room).

Jonathan and Mikaela got to break in their Halloween costumes a week early at “Boo at the Zoo” at the Kansas City Zoo. After a rainy week, the skies cleared up on Saturday morning and though the day started out kind of cold, the sunshine warmed us up and made for a really pleasant day at the zoo. The cool weather even encouraged some of the animals that are normally pretty sedentary when it’s hotter to move around, like the lions and tigers. We spent a good four hours walking around the zoo, checking out animals and collecting candy and prizes. We had hoped to check out the new baby orangutang, and we kind of did, but the baby was napping with its mama, and they were curled up together in a tight ball. If you looked carefully at the mama orang’s arms, you could just barely see the baby’s tiny little ear sticking out.