A "Roaring 20s" Birthday!

Haley's birthday was this weekend, and it was extra special because we haven't seen her for three weeks!  She is working at a camp all summer, and it just so happened that her birthday fell on a weekend when she got to come home.  She didn't want a birthday party, but we wanted to make it special and fun, so we decided to have a "Roaring 20s" theme, since it was her 20th birthday.  Rebecca and I made a cupcake bouquet...our first attempt, and it turned out so pretty!

We decorated with big tissue paper pom poms, beads, and other 20s looking things, all in black, white and green (Haley's favorite color). 

I made signs for the table in a 1920s font.

We gave her beads, a feather boa, a cute Flapper-looking headband we made, and a "20" pin to wear for her special day.

She had a great time with it!

She even wore her "getup" when we went out to dinner.

My favorite quote of the day: "If I'd known I would be dressing up like a Flapper, I would have been a LOT more excited about my birthday!"

Handmade Hanukkah Gifts

Last night we lit all eight Hanukkah candles!  I love to see all of the candles lit, but I'm always a little sad, too, because I really don't want Hanukkah to be over.  I really love this holiday.  (Want to know why I love it so much?  Click HERE to read my post "Why I Love Hanukkah")

This year I made some Hanukkah gifts again, although not quite as many as last year.  I think it's just so nice to share a handmade gift with someone you love!

For my Mom and Dad I made this Hanukkah bunting to help make their holiday festive.

Dad wanted a friend for the sock bird that I made for his birthday, so I made this sock monkey for him.

For my mom and Robert's mom I made lavender scented soy candles in teacups.

And for Robert's mom I made this sweet little zippered pouch in the shape of a doxie.

For Rebecca: one of my "Violet May" ruffled shoulder bags featuring her favorite color.

And for Haley: a Bible cover made with different Star of David fabrics.

For Robert I made a zippered bag to carry his tallit to and from Shabbat services.

And Robert, Haley, and Rebecca all got reversible fabric bookmarks. Here's one side:

 and here's the other side:

I didn't forget the kitty cats! They each got a catnip filled fish shaped toy. They LOVE their new fish toys!

Haley and Rebecca both made some gifts this year, too, including some peppermint goat milk oatmeal soap that Haley made.  She gave "Haley's Goatmeal Soap" to her grandparents and to friends from the Messianic fellowship we attend.  Her goatmeal soap smells so good!

Handmade gifts are so fun to make!

Happy Hanukkah!

 

Our Thanksgivukkah

This year we celebrated a holiday that only happens once in a lifetime: "Thanksgivukkah"!  Hanukkah and Thanksgiving happened to coincide this year.  I think these two holidays work perfectly together.  They both are celebrations of our freedom to worship God, and both are expressions of thankfulness for God's miraculous provision.

So, we did some special things for our Thanksgiving/Hanukkah celebration this year.

We decorated our Thanksgiving table with a Hanukkah menorah, dreidels and gelt.

Haley made sweet potato latkes...a perfect blending of two traditional holiday foods!

Instead of the usual rolls we have on our Thanksgiving table, I made pumpkin challah.  Yum!

The pies turned out pretty :)

Everything was delicious, and after our turkey dinner we enjoyed an evening at home lighting the menorah, listening to Hanukkah music, watching "Fiddler on the Roof", and being doubly thankful for our many blessings!

All photos except the last one were taken by Haley.  

To learn more about Hanukkah, check out these links:

Why I Love Hanukkah

The Festival of Chanukah (from Hebrew for Christians)

Chanukah (from Aish.com)

Why Are Christians Celebrating Hanukkah?

Yesh Tikvah Ministries: There is Hope!

A couple of months ago, Robert and the girls and I officially started a ministry called Yesh Tikvah Ministries.  "Yesh Tikvah" means "There is Hope".  This is something that has been on our hearts and minds for a while, and it is finally coming together! We're so excited about it!

Here's the mission statement we came up with: "Our mission is to provide help and hope to those who need it: meeting physical needs such as food and clothing, and meeting spiritual needs by sharing the hope we have found in Messiah Yeshua and proclaiming His Truth."

We have three ongoing projects: 
Tikvah's Closet, where we collect gently used and new clothing to distribute to those who need it;
Tikvah's Pantry, where we collect food and distribute it to those who are hungry; and
Handmade Tikvah, where we make and donate handmade items.

We've also started a weekly Torah study that meets at our house at 2 pm every Saturday, where Robert leads us in study and discussion of the weekly Torah portion.

So far it's going great, and we're excited!  We've been able to provide clothing for five different families, and we've donated school supplies to families and schools.  We are getting ready to put together food baskets for Thanksgiving to give to a few families so they will have a nice Thanksgiving dinner.  We are working on a project through Craft Hope, making pillowcase dresses for girls around the world.  And we have a few regular attenders at our weekly Torah study.

We need more space to store the food and clothing, so we are making plans to remodel our garage for a Yesh Tikvah Ministries headquarters building.

Thanks to Haley, we have a website, a Facebook page, and a newsletter that goes out every week.  If you're interested, go to yeshtikvah.org and sign up for the newsletter...then go like us on Facebook!

Here are those links again:
Yesh Tikvah Ministries Website
Yesh Tikvah Ministries Facebook Page


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Sukkot Party!

Today is the last day of Sukkot, an eight day Biblical festival when we celebrate and thank God for His provision, and we remember when God's people lived temporarily in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt before they entered the land God promised to them.  During this time we spend time in our own temporary dwellings.  Our family sometimes goes camping, and other times we build a "sukkah" in our backyard.  You can read more about this holiday and why I love it in my post from last year "Why I Love Sukkot". 

In order to "dwell" in a sukkah, we eat in it, pray, read, and sometimes sleep in it, and we invite guests to spend time in it with us.  This year was extra special, because we had a party in our sukkah!  We invited everyone from the Messianic fellowship where we attend, and some other friends, too.  We ended up having 20 guests.

Haley and I had lots of fun decorating the sukkah.  We went a little crazy buying decorations... it was a very good thing we found most of them at the dollar store!

We made a pumpkin spice cake with two bundt cakes put together, and an ice cream cone to make the stem.  It turned out pretty cute!

A lady from our fellowship purchased a lulav and citron, the "four species" for us all to wave.  (For an explanation about this, you can read this article about Sukkot from Hebrew4Christians.com.

At the beginning of the party, some guests made more decorations for the sukkah while we waited for everyone to arrive.

Then everyone got to build their own tiny edible sukkah! It started to rain (oh no!!!), so we finished the tiny sukkah building project inside.

Rebecca's tiny sukkah

It stopped raining (yay!!!), and we all went out and sat in and around the sukkah to read some scriptures about Sukkot.

Then we ate in the sukkah.

And then Haley brought out her guitar and led us in some singing.

And we sat around the campfire for the rest of the evening.

A great way to spend a Sukkot evening! I think we'll do it again next year!

Renewing Our Wedding Vows

Last month we took a family vacation to Niagara Falls. The first thing on our agenda was a wedding vow renewal! My husband and I decided a while ago that we wanted to do something special to celebrate our 25th anniversary, and a big party with friends and family just wasn't practical since most of our friends and family live on the west coast and we live in Delaware.  So we decided to renew our vows in a small ceremony in a special place.  We visited Niagara Falls a few years ago and we just loved it.

For the vow renewal I wore a silver dress.  We included our daughters in the ceremony, and they wore matching red dresses.  Robert wore a silver tie with his suit, and a red boutonniere to match my red bouquet.  The girls had silver bouquets and silver shoes and I wore red shoes.  The bouquets were made of fabric roses that I made myself.

Before our little ceremony, we had a photographer do a photo session for us. Telina of Telina Fishbach Photography did a fantastic job!  Here are a few of the photos she took:

Aren't they great? Telina was very sweet and fun to work with.

We had our ceremony in the same beautiful park as the photo session: Oakes Garden Theatre, which overlooks the Falls.  We had written out our vows in advance.

We read them to each other and sealed our renewed covenant with a cup of wine (grape juice, actually), and we exchanged new silver rings with the Hebrew inscription, "Ani L'Dodi, V'Dodi Li", which means, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine".

We borrowed the meaningful Jewish wedding tradition where the bride and groom are under a chuppah(canopy) or tallit (prayer shawl). Robert covered me with his tallit in a canopy of protection and love, symbolizing that no one will ever come between us because we are bound together as one.

Haley did the duty of "best man" and held the rings, and Rebecca held my bouquet during the ceremony. At the end, Rebecca said the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:24-26) in English, and then Haley sang it in Hebrew. Later we signed the handwritten copy of our vows, and the girls both signed as our witnesses.

After the ceremony, we went on a horse and carriage ride!

Then we had dinner at "Elements on the Falls", a restaurant that overlooks the Falls, where we had a window table.  The view was beautiful, and the food was delicious!

 The girls wrote on our car window:

The day ended with fireworks over the Falls.

It was a very special and meaningful day!