A number of things

As Sacha alluded to in the last post, we had a blast making a gingerbread house with some buddies this weekend. My grandma (my dad's mom) used to be very big on gingerbread during the holidays. We always did a big day of making gingerbread cookies and we would also usually put together a gingerbread house at the same time.

When she passed away, I ended up with all her gingerbread paraphernalia, including this great, heavy cast iron molds for a gingebread house. I never had any idea how much work she must have put into getting everything ready for us until last week, when I finally did it myself!

Thanks to some help from my lovely wife, who was home with laryngitis all last week, we made it into a big project with the kids - mostly Mateo - who helped shop for candy decorations, make the dough, press it into the molds, etc. Then, we had some friends and my brother and his girlfriend over and we all put it together, well, together! We had a really fun time. It reminded me of all those times we'd get together at my grandparents' house and laugh and laugh as we consumed massive amounts of sugar and cookie dough!

We had a fun rest of the weekend, too. We lit Hanukkah candles with the kids for the first time on Friday and Sunday nights (accidentally forgot Saturday - oops!) and that was fun. Sacha found some catchy Hanukkah music and we danced and played Go Fish while the candles were burning. We had a funny moment on Friday night, in which I was attempting to explain both Hanukkah and Christmas and how people celebrate God in all kinds of different ways. I wasn't getting complicated or anything, but after a few seconds, Mateo cut me off and said "Did anyone hear a fart?" We just about died laughing. Clearly the religion stuff was not as interesting as bodily functions!

Then, on Sunday, at the invitation of my grandma (my mom's mom), Mateo and I went to an organ concert at her church. They have this huge amazing organ and it's named after my great-grandmother, which is pretty neat. The concert was all Christmas pops music and Mateo was transfixed for most of the time. They had moved the organ console to the middle of the stage, so he got to really see what the organist was doing. It was very cool! We left at intermission, as the wiggles had started to set in, and I took him out for a sweet treat before coming home. We capped off the night with latkes and homemade applesauce and sour cream for dinner, and then a surprise visit from Apa, who had been away for the weekend and came home early enough to see the kids before bedtime.

Whew! Today has already started with a bang - our roof is being fixed as we speak and there's no rot underneath it. This is a huge relief. They're almost done and then we'll have no roof worries going forward. Unfortunately, we also got our first quote on building a new sewer line and holy crap, it is going to cost a boatload of money. Good thing we've started listening to a relaxation meditation at bedtime, because we are going to need the stress relief!