Slug Days......

Not really slugs, but that is how I feel about my blog currently. But the truth is I know a lot of my friends and family use it to keep up with our busy or not so busy life. So here is a bit of what's doing.

We finally got winter this weekend. We usually get a whole lot of rain for Nov., Dec.,Jan., Feb. and a little in March. This year I can count on one hand the number of days it has rained. So this weekend it really rained and it seems to have kept going, including hail. S is loving this he has just learned the Hebrew for hail and just learned about the 10 plagues in Egypt which includes hail. He is most excited now everytime we have hail which is a lot lately.

The kids have all grown again....Y looks the same size but is like picking up a lead brick, I am sure S will be as tall as me by the time he gets into 2nd grade. He starts 1st this year. He is pretty much up to my sternum....M is growing nicely and has the height and weight of her mommy right now. They are all sick again however, and i am not enjoying this......We just went through colds about 2 weeks ago and my guess is the hot cold hot cold weather we are having this month is what is doing it. Or it is food allergy which they also seem to have although for the life of us we dont know what it is. We have narrowed it down to certain brands of bread and certain brands of snacks. Oh boy! I am basically ready to nix anything store bought and bag going out for pizza. I am not convinced that restaraunt pizza is not a culprit in this......The only difficulty in this is all the stuff they get from school. Everytime there is a party of some sort for a birthday or holiday out come the snacks.......In fact i got quite a shock last week. We were asked to send him to school with COLA! Not just a drink, but COLA! I actually called one of the parents to check this out and sure enough, that is the requested drink. She also had issue with this, but has decided she can live once a month. In Judaism the new month on the Hebrew calendar is a big deal. It is traditional to have a special dinner or treat and treat as a holiday on a smaller scale so they have a party in school. The menu is this, sandwhiches whith chocolate spread, cola apparantly and some sort of chips. OH Boy! Fortunately, my kid is convinced he doesn't like cola. Gotta love brain washing...... :)But he loves the sandwhiches. And oddly enough, no rash either....so we figure it is a different brand of bread then we buy. So we have figured we can live once a month with a sugar high kid...He does walk a mile and a half home, so that usually wears off the the hyper.

The one thing about kids with food allergies is that I am becoming a wizard in the kitchen despite that fact that my sister thinks it is "3rd world." True I don't have a kitchen aide mixer or a bread machine but I have opted not to spend the money on those things. i do miss my bread machine from the states, but we make do. and i think in truth, the kitchen aide can take more time to clean up than is worth the "ease." A spoon is much quicker to clean and is easier to lick when its all done! I make 90% of my bread from scratch, my tomato sauce I do use a store bought paste as a base, but i am careful to make sure there are little to no additives and i just found one that claims to be straight tomato with nothing else and i will probably switch to that. I want to start making my own crackers, my M-I-L just sent me an easy recipe. And of course we do a lot of popcorn and oatmeal and the peaunt butter is all natural as well. I am also hoping to start doing only homemade applesauce, but the kids keep eating the apples before I can get them into sauce......The great thing about all this is that, we save money and I am enjoying improving my cooking skills. I don't always enjoy the time and energy it takes to cook but I do like knowing how to cook.


Next week is Purim which is the story of Queen Esther. Traditionally kids and sometimes adults dress up and here the story of Purim. It starts like everything else at night and adults here the Whole Meggilah. The Meggilah is the story of Esther. Then it is heard again the following morning. After that the tradition is to have a festive meal and deliver baskets of goodies and food to friends and neighbors to ensure that everyone has a festive meal, even those who cannot afford. We will be giving baskets to all our neighbors, 7 and then the following day we will be going into Jerusalem and will have about 8 there. Jerusalem celebrates a day later since it used to be a walled city like Shushan was back in the day of the story. We bought a few pre-made ones through the women's group for friends in Beitar. However, we will still have 15 baskets to make so a lot of work this week. We are going to do mini challahs (tradditional egg bread), mini kugel(which a noodle pie/cake essentially) and some type of dessert and/or a mini bottle of wine. Suffice to say there will be a whole lot of cooking going on this week. Purim starts a week from tomorrow night! They sell them for about $1.50 a piece around this time. We will also be having friends for our meal if all goes well. She is do anytime so they could be in the hospital in stead......The boys are going as soldiers and M will go as a bee. This will be of course if everyones attitude suits on the day of the event. It is a very festive holiday and whole lot of fun. I would like to say we will have pictures to post however, our camera died so we will be buying a disposable and sending hard copies to family only. I will try to post a follow up next week as to how it all went. After that i will be posting about our frantic race to get our house clean for Passover!