Accolades

You may have heard that Tony got tenure late last year (woohoo!), so we recently hosted a get-together with our neighbors to eat, drink and celebrate. Tony did not want the party to be all about him, which is good, because he and I pretty much cooked from after breakfast until our neighbors arrived for dinner. Haha! But it was worth it...everything we made was delicious and nothing says celebration or "We love our neighbors!' like spoiling folks with good food. Here's a sample of what we made...most things had a Hawaiian or Italian tilt:

Spam Musubi

Focaccia Bread

Huli-Huli Chicken

Pesto Squash

Coconut-Pineapple Cake

Time to party!

We played Telestrations After Dark. SO hilarious!!

Great fun!!

But that wasn't our only recent event that deserves a shout-out...there have been many! Let's start with Shabbat@home! More baking and cooking!

And jovial family time...we had seven adults and nine kids!!

It was yummy!

And it was Tim's birthday, so we did a little extra celebrating. He (the dad) turned eight. Can you guess why? He's a leap-year baby! 😉

Early the next morning, we headed to the high school where all of the bands were performing for our school district's 58th annual Pancake Days! They sounded great.

And the pancakes got an A!

In conjunction with the music and hearty breakfast, they had a huge district-wide art show...both Brie (bottom left 3D art) and Samuel were featured!

This was Sam's first time (top right)...he was quite pleased!

Speaking of art, Sebastian is still relentless in his arts and crafts these days. It's a lot!

Twins!

Then we had an award-winning visit from Gammy! We surprised Samuel at school during lunchtime!

And baked hamantaschen. They were really good!

On Friday evening, the fourth, fifth and sixth graders led Shabbat services, so we got dressed up!

The kids not only recited readings and prayers, but they wrote and shared their interpretations of them. They did a beautiful job!

Very impressive!

Well done, everyone!

Proud Gammy!

And knitting teacher Gammy!

Purim Carnival time!

And Purim Shpiel costume-making time (see below)!

On Monday, we went to see Brie's musical theater production at school! She was a narrator and camper in the "The Giant Children-Eating Tiger." One of the other actors jumped ahead in the script, which cut out Brie's singing solo, but luckily, the director caught it and Brie was able to sing it later in the show. Phew!

 Monette (the tiger--she was awesome!) and Brie!

Brie and Brenna (also a narrator and camper)!

Brava!

Then there was the Superhero Purim Shpiel! We borrowed costumes from a friend.

Can you tell that Super Villains and the Care Bears were included, too? These are the shirts and headbands that Karla, Gammy and I created. Yay, for Joann's Fabrics!

Actually, Brie reprised her Cheer Bear role!

Rabbis Coran and Kraus with Wonder Woman and Iron Man.

And Samuel was one of Thanos' creepy underlings. It was his first acting experience and he took it very seriously!

There was a green screen that put the actors and actresses in front of fun sets. This one was a cute joke.

In this one, you can see the boys at the top right in Gotham.

Stew (Robin) rockin' out!

We won't win any Tony Awards, but we all had a fantastic time performing in the shpiel. Hope we can do it again next year!

So this was my list of people and things who deserved some praise these days. Lucky us that the list is long...

P.S. If Brie deserves an accolade of late, Best Big Sister Ever would be high on the list.