Gavi's Musical Debut

The very same week as her first dance competition, Gavi has made her singing debut at the Akiva Talent Show. It should be noted that she was supposed to be singing with her friend Marissa, who chose the song. They practiced together for hours. Unfortunately, Marissa got sick and Gavi was forced to take the stage alone. We think she was very brave to stand up there and sing all by herself.

I'm going to attempt to upload my very first edited video. Since I was playing around with the editing software there is a random picture of the kids at Rachel and Kurt's wedding thrown in so I could practice the "fade."

Stay tuned for more Abelow movie masterpieces!

Juliana Lost Her First Tooth

Juliana lost her first tooth last weekend. It's been loose FOREVER. She was so excited for it to finally come out. The first night she didn't want to put it under her pillow. She said she was going to wait until she had two teeth for the tooth fairy, but she changed her mind and left it for the fairy the second night. Just so you know, the Tooth Fairy leaves $2 for a first tooth.

Juliana's Penguin Project

Juliana's first year at school has been one full of projects. Our (because, really, these are family projects) current project is to do a report on the Royal Penguin. As a part of the penguin project we have to write a report about the Royal Penguin and make a life-size model to share with the class. During the course of our intensive research (Wikipedia), we learned that the Royal Penguin is just about the same size as Ben.

What's that you say? Dress Ben up like a penguin? Excellent idea!

How lucky we are to have Nana here to whip up an adorable Royal Penguin costume. He looks just like the real thing. The only down side is that Juliana won't be able to hang Ben on the wall in the hallway with all of the other Penguin models.

A "real" Royal Penguin
A "Ben" Royal Penguin

Hanukkah

This year Mike's family ALL came to Nashville for a week. We had to hold a special "9th Night" of Hanukkah so we could all celebrate together. It was lots of fun. The kids loved having their aunts, uncles, Grammie, Bop, and Grandpa visit for the week - an endless stream of people to play with.

The House that Abelow Built

For the first time this year we attempted to build a gingerbread house from scratch. It came out pretty well and the girls had a ball decorating it.

There is a lot of candy on this house. We had to send Mike out for a candy run so we could finish the roof. We learned that American gummy bears are shorter and fatter than their German cousins. Coincidence? I think not.

When Ben woke up from his nap and saw what we had done, he just couldn't keep himself away. I found him sitting on the dining room table liking the house from end to end. He said, "I don't touch it, Mommy. I lick it."


Part I -- Build the House

Part II -- Decorate the House.

Part III -- Gaze with admiration upon that which you have made.
Part IV -- Test the stability and the tastiness of the House.

Part V -- After one month of resisting temptation... eat the House.


New year it will be bigger and better! Just wait and see.

Christmas Day

Not much to say about the big day. We had the usually overindulgence of food and gifts.

Both Gavi and Juliana got notes from Santa letting them know that there had been production problems at the North Pole and that some of the doll elves had fallen behind schedule. Their American Girl dolls (the ones that were sold out in November) arrived via elf messenger a few days after Christmas.

The only thing Ben really wanted from Santa was a baseball helmet and a ball and a bat. Blue. Santa thought that wasn't quite dramatic enough for Christmas morning, so he also brought a really big train table. I'm not sure how he stuffed that down the chimney ...

My brother's favorite quote of the day was from Gavi, who upon opening a gift from Mom & Dad, exclaimed in all sincerity, "Oh, Yea! A Hebrew dictionary."

Here are a few pictures summarizing the day.

Yes, in Virginia there is Santa Claus

We visited with Santa in Woodbridge, Virginia, on December 23. We weren't the only ones trying to get a last minute visitation, but the kids held up pretty well. And even though Ben wasn't smiling, he didn't scream like last year and I didn't have to be in the photo this time. A Merry Christmas for all.