Closing Out 2011

It's Hanukkah already?  Micah's first year lighting candles on his own.  We live for danger, and the fire extinguisher is just ten feet away.

And so it begins. . . .

Seriously, Mom?  A puppy hat?

Christmas Day, after starting to cook dinner but before we remembered the stockings.

Dinner, with stuffing recipes courtesy of Mom and Mina

Creamed Spinach, Mom's recipe again, two thumbs up from Thea and it only took one call to Florida

The stunned look of people who realized that Mom cooked an entire holiday dinner and it's actually edible.

Photo by Emad Al Junaidi:  Dinner stop at Annapolis Mall on the way home from dropping off Oma.  Front row: Micah, Nadia and Thea, back row: Norah, Janet and me

11:59:59 pm New Year's Eve, Rocking in 2012 with a gang who knows how to party

Thea's contribution to the Third Grade Heritage Festival on December 23, 2011, German cookies

Second Night of Hanukkah

Christmas Eve, after the children were snug in their bed

The 2011 Christmas Card Photo

Our last day of 2011 included a trip to the Apple store at Freehold Mall to sort out an issue with an iTunes card.  It affirmed all the reasons why I prefer shopping online.  Noise, chaos both in the mall and particularly in the Apple store, and no parking.  Fortunately the geek girl helped me sort out the issue and by the time we were home, the email with the resolution to the problem was in my in-box.

The holidays were good, it was the first Christmas spent in New Jersey for us.  We're usually in Maryland with my mother - and I have been with my mother for every Christmas, ever.  And this year was no different because after opening presents, making Christmas dinner, I flew to Tampa to fly home the next day with my mother who was visiting her cousin.  Sauerkraut, red cabbage, lentil soup and roast pork - a second, near midnight Christmas dinner.   Sauerkraut and lentil soup for breakfast.  Heaven.

Oma spent another night with us on her way home to Maryland, which the kids loved - though out six hour drive in the rain down I-95 back to LaPlata no one loved.  On our way back home to New Jersey we met up with our friends at the Cheesecake Factory, and the kids got to torture Uncle Emad while I got to catch up with Aunt Janet.

Good-bye to 2011, you were a decent year, for me at least.  The kids are doing well, are happy and healthy.  Micah is in a 'regular' kindergarten, Thea is in third grade at Wicoff Elementary. This is the last year they will be in the same school until Thea's last year of high school and Micah's first.