Homemade Matzah!

In honor of פסח שני, today we made homemade Matzah! I thought about doing it last year but when I realized that פסח שני fell out on a Friday last year, I abandoned that thought. Well this year, I decided to do it...and we had LOADS of fun! My neighbor has a "reddler" (the roller that punches holes in the Matzah) and the kids had tons of fun using it!

We did learn a few things about Matzah baking- its NOT easy (and we didn't even have an 18-minute time limit!) You've got to roll them REALLY thin, and its very hard to get a nice round circle shape (I guess that comes with practice). And you've really got to keep an eye on them in the oven, or else in a second they can burn (and that's in our toaster oven... never mind a real stone furnace!)

So I guess we won't be opening a professional Matzah bakery just yet...but we sure had fun making them! (and they were delicious too- we ate them for supper!)

The case of the missing Bruria

The other day, I woke up early, and quickly took a shower before the kids would wake up. When I got out, I peeked into their room...everyone was sound asleep in their beds...except Bruria!

I started calling her name, but she did not answer. So I quickly threw on a robe, and ran downstairs to what she was up to. There was no sign of her anywhere. Where could she be? That's when I noticed that the front door was wide open. Oh no, where did she run off to before 7 AM?

I went outside, calling her name (what did the neighbors think?) but there was no Bruria in sight. Yikes! Where could she be? I ran up the steps, and sure enough, there she was, in the middle of the path leading to our apartment...sitting on one of our little plastic chairs, happily munching on (of all things!) chocolate chips!

Mr. On-the-ball

I was reading my sister Chavi's post about her darling little Chana and how she's become Miss Independant...and it sounded an awful lot like her cousin, Naftali!

B"H Naftali is one smart cookie! He's become a real independant thinker (just like the rest of the family!) - I keep saying that we better watch out- once he starts talking, B"H, he'll let us know exactly what's on his mind! (he does a pretty good job of doing that already, with his limited vocabulary and extensive body language!)

A few cute episodes recently:

• I gave him a date to eat (after checking it of course) but before eating it, he opened it up, and held it up to the light, acting as if he was checking it himself!


• Yesterday, I got him dressed and put his shoes on, and then went to my room. I was putting stockings on, and he quickly brought me my shoes. Then, we went downstairs, and he grabbed my purse and ran to the door- as if to say, "Nu, Mommy, we're all ready, let's go!"


• Whenever I'm baking and he sees me pouring out the batter into the pan, he starts to point and reach for the bowl to lick it out! You should have seen the look on his face when I gave him the bowl from some plain egg whites I had whipped up- the taste was not exactly what he had expected!


• He already wants to get dressed by himself- and he even wants to pick out clothes himself too! Today he went to Azriel Shraga's drawer, took out two shirts (okay, he doesn't quite understand that you can't wear a shirt on your legs) and proceeded to attempt to get dressed!

B"EH he (and all his siblings and cousins) should grow up to be independant, capable, motivated adults...but meanwhile, it would be nice if they'd just act their age!

Pretzel Baking!

This afternoon, Yisrael's best friend Yisrael Meir Ratner came by, so I decided to do another baking activity with the kids. This time, we made hot pretzels. (I like to do baking with the kids because its a controlled activity that keeps them all pretty busy, with minimal mess involved. And having something yummy to snack on is always an added bonus!)

First everyone had lots of fun shaping their dough into different shapes- traditional pretzels (Yisrael is REALLY good at it), cars, mountains, faces, snails, snakes, circles, sticks, etc. Each kid ended up making a few different ideas before settling on their final version. Poor Naftali was very upset that I wouldn't let him have some (he eats raw dough) and was begging everyone to share theirs with him!

Once the pretzels were out of the oven, everyone gobbled them up - they were YUMMY! And since they were half whole wheat, I didn't feel too bad if they filled up too much before supper!

(Can you guess who made these?! )

Tzara'as Cookies

Someone I know tries to make dessert for Shabbos based on the Parsha... so this week I decided to do the same! The kids had a blast tracing their hands and making cookies...(now I just hope they don't fight when Azriel Shraga sees that his cookie is smaller than Yisrael's!)

Please bear with me...

I've got LOTS to blog from the past few weeks (if I can remember it all!) but B"H things are pretty busy around here, trying to get things back in order after Pesach.

So I'll do my best. I will post things on the dates they actually happened, so make sure to check below this post...

Stay tuned!

Our little "getaway"

For our final day of Bain Hazmanim, Bentzi and I decided to spend a nice morning, sans kids. So we got everyone off to school, dropped Naftali by the babysitter, and headed to a nature park not far from Beitar. We took a nice hike together, and we really enjoyed the peace and quiet, just us and nature, with no kids underfoot! After quite a hectic month of Nissan, it was just what the doctor ordered!

Our Post-Pesach Outing

After a busy few weeks of getting ready for Pesach, and Pesach itself, we took the kids out for a nice trip. First stop was the Azrielli Observatory, which is on the top floor of the highest building in Tel Aviv. There's a great view of the surrounding area, and they give you a nice audio tour explaining what you are looking at. The kids really enjoyed the view- they've never seen anything quite like that before!

Our next stop was גני יהושע, a beatiful park in רמת גן- probably the biggest park in the country. It has beautiful lawns, a mini-zoo, playgrounds, and a lake in the middle for paddle boating. Naftali was completely captivated by the ducks in the lake (he kept trying to run in after them!)- we weren't able to get any pictures of him with the ducks because we were too busy trying to hold onto him! We got to see the peacock open its feathers, which I don't think the kids have ever seen, and we enjoyed a nice picnic supper before going to play on the playground equipment.

Naftali found a slide which he LOVED- he went on it at least 20 times (I'm not exaggerating!) and probably would have continued had I not taken him away!

After that, we headed to Hod HaSharon, to visit Savta Esther (the kids' great grandmother- Bentzi's mother's mother). We had a really nice visit, and the kids really boosted her spirits and gave her lots of nachas!

Pesach with Savta and Saba Yosef

We were priveleged to host Savta and Saba Yosef for Pesach, and we really had a nice time together! We got to hear Saba Yosef sing דיינו in Arabic at the Seder (he grew up in Lebanon), and the kids really enjoyed their אפיקומן present (a toy called Morphun, which you will probably see soon posted on this blog once the kids start making really elaborate creations with it!) We all had a really great laugh when Savta hid the אפיקומן on the second night and it got eaten accidentally (its a long story!) and the kids really enjoyed going to the park with Savta so often (I did too because I got to rest while everyone was out!) It was so nice to spend so much time together (especially since they had to keep two days of Yom Tov!)

Thank you so much Savta and Saba Yosef for all the goodies you brought us, and for all your help, and for all the great time we had together! We miss you!

(in typical Yunger fashion, we forgot to take pictures for Savta and Saba Yosef's entire trip- until we were literally waiting for the cab to take them back! Oh well, at least we were so busy enjoying our company that we didn't have time to take pictures!)

Our visit to the "Zoo" in Beitar

Like every Chol HaMoed, the Iriya of Beitar works hard to bring different activities to Beitar so that parents can take their kids out on fun outings without having to shlep too much (or pay an arm and a leg!) This year, they brought a mini-zoo to Beitar- and it was perfect for us! The kids are young enough that they really enjoyed it and they didn't feel "jipped" because there were no big animals like lions, giraffes, etc.

We actually tried going on the first day of Chol HaMoed but it was such a mob scene that we decided to go to a park nearby and try again another day. Sure enough, when we went on the last day (Erev Yom Tov) it was much quieter and we were really able to enjoy ourselves.

The "zoo" was split up into a few different areas. The first room had a bunch of animals in display cases- like lizards, turtles, snakes, cockroaches (yikes!), tarantulas (YIKES!) and the like. The kids really enjoyed going around to see each exhibit- they especially loved the tarantulas (the one pictured below is dead but there were live ones too!). One of the "zookeepers" took a snake out of its cage, and was letting kids touch it and even hold it. Azriel Shraga was the only one who worked up enough courage to actually touch it (and even that wasn't long enough for me to whip out the camera and get a picture!)

The next area had lots of animals for petting- rabbits, chickens, birds, guinea pigs, and a big turtle. Azriel Shraga was pretty scared that the animals would eat him (I have no idea why he wasn't scared of the snake!) and Bruria wasn't too interested either, but Yisrael and Naftali couldn't get enough of it!

Chol Hamoed Sister Get-Together

On the second day of Chol Hamoed, we met up with our cousins (and their parents too!) for a nice BYOM (Bring Your Own Matza) picnic in Gan Almaliach- a great park we discovered that's right near the mall. Its got nice grounds and fantastic slides- and the location was about equal travelling time for all of us, so it was a nice place to meet up. The kids had a great time playing together, us sisters enjoyed shmoozing together, and the brothers-in-law had a great time talking in learning! We all had a really nice time- although we missed Ruthie and family, who weren't with us (and of course it would have been really nice to have the rest of the Minkus family with us to- IY"H one day!)