tales from a far-land

On the Saturday before Easter, we continued one of the traditions we stared last year.  We invited some of Aiden and Madilyn's friends over decorate eggs.  We held this little party out on our patio so that we could just wash down the patio (and the kids if needed) after the fun was done.  The kids are really starting to get into arts and crafts, so I was excited to see how well all of the kids would do.  Aiden really didn't show any interest whatsoever in dying his eggs and solely wanted all green eggs.  So, we had a lot of green colored eggs.  Madilyn, on the other hand, concentrated really hard on dying and decorating her eggs.  She wanted to color them just right and add stickers to them after they dried. In fact, she was the last kid at the table still decorating her eggs, while all of the other kids were playing on the swing set.  I think we have found a fun little tradition for both the parents and kids. Madilyn and Bryce Egg decorat...

This Pesach holiday, we enjoyed our first night's seder with so many of our close friends and family.  It was the largest Seder we have hosted to date.  Everyone contributed to the meal which turned out fabulous.  I do not believe anyone left hungry.  The haggadah we used this year I created by using some traditional Reform Judaism language and blessings along with some excerpts from a Humanistic haggadah.  I thought it flowed nicely and wasn't too long in length.  Plus, I was able to successfully deliver all of the Hebrew prayers during the Seder.  All of my practicing really paid off.  The haggadah was only ridiculed a little bit when we asked everyone at the table to sing a song about Moses fleeing Egypt to the tune of "Gillian's Island".  It was a fun evening filled with laughter, discussion and tons of good food and wine. A special shout-out to my fabulous friends and family who making cleaning up such a breeze.  You all know w...

During the first weekend in April, we decided to take a road trip over to Laguna Woods, California, to see Great-Grandpa (GP) and Great-Grandma (GG).  We hadn't visited them in over six months so we were well overdue.  The kids just adore GG and GP!  Several times during the trip, they asked to sit in GG's lap or if it was alright to color them a picture.  It was such a delightful visit, as always. While in California, we enjoyed several of our favorite activities with GG and GP: We visited the 99 Cent Store so the kids could each pick out five toys each to play with at GG and GP's house.  Well, as you could imagine, taking two toddlers to a store full of toys and telling them  to choose only five things to buy was a little chaotic and unrealistic.  To quote GP:  "We entered the store with the intention to spend $10 total, however, I am almost positive we missed that mark as we left with about $30 worth of merchandise instead."  Either wa...

Madilyn's classroom at preschool took a field trip to Butterfly Wonderland in Scottsdale this past March. Butterfly Wonderland is an indoor rain forest butterfly pavilion.  All parents are given the opportunity to chaperone and I quickly volunteered (along with my friend Kathleen from California during her visit).  We arrived bright and early at preschool to get all of the kids loaded into the school van and other parents' cars. We then drove across town to the newly opened Butterfly Wonderland.  The first stop once we entered the attraction was a brief 3D movie about the life of a monarch butterfly.  The kids loved it and at many moments during the movie tried to catch the butterflies as they would have the appearance of flying around you.  After the movie, the Wonderland staff move you into a room where you are able to watch the metamorphosis of a butterfly.  I found this exhibit particularly fascinating as I have never watched this occur in real life. ...

Happy St. Patty's Day from the Farrell-Landers Kids!  Yes, these are way overdue, but I wanted to blog these for posterity's sake.

We celebrated Purim this year at Temple Chai.  Purim   is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar.  It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plots to exterminate all of the Jews.  His plan is foiled by Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai, who ultimately save the Jews from destruction.  One of the highlights of Purim is dressing up in costumes.  Some attribute this tradition to the fact that Esther initially “masked” her Jewish identity.   The kids much obliged this tradition and dressed up before we headed to the Temple.  The first portion of our temple’s Purim celebration is the reading of the   megillah (scroll).  This is the Purim story and is typically read and preformed in a humorous and rowdy way.  Our kids may still be a little young for this portion of the holiday as it was a little longer than we expected, but they were very good and we kept them pretty ent...