Hanukkah party from last weekend

Our agenda was simple: survive Hanukkah with five 3-year old boys.  

First, pre-party, there was baking.  Jonathan whipped up a platter of Russian tea cake cookies (also known as snowdrops).  As everyone arrived, they were served sufganyot with strawberry jelly.  I told them the Hanukkah story as they were finishing.

 After hand-washing, we "practiced" that it was the eighth night of Hanukkah by lighting the candles.  (The silver circular thing is the train tracks to the Hogwarts Express.  After the boys saw it in the beginning it got moved so as to avoid breakage.)

Our little pyros.

Singing the blessings.

Mesmerized by fire.

I asked everyone to sit on the floor in preparation of dreidel, and Jonathan went back into the kitchen (all the pictures from here on out were taken by Amanda, Brian's mom.)  Xander spontaneously showed everyone his electric menorah which plays the tune to Maoz Tzur.  Thank goodness I pulled out all my songsheets from last year, because no one (including me) knew all the words, in Hebrew or English.

A quiet moment.

Handing out gelt in anticipation of dreidel.

Ari needed gelt too.

This is a very serious game.

Spinning requires intense focus.

Their captive audience.

Explaining why he needed more gelt, no doubt.

Someone must have got gimel, take all!

Eden's a fan.

Brian and Andrew love chocolate, too.

Yasha has the menorah!

Everyone took turns holding the chanukiyah until it became a fight, when all of a sudden it became Ari's turn.  Ari then put it in another room.  What a smart baby!

Cracking themselves up.

After dreidel came storytime.

Listening from Yael's lap.

I love reading books to kids this age.  They get so into it.

Listening intently.  The tale of the Maccabees is suspenseful! 

Moving into the kitchen for latkes with applesauce and sour cream.

We had prepared sugar cookies for decorating, but the kids' attention span had run low, so I figured the planned content part of the afternoon was over.  Commence playtime!  AKA running around in circles with musical instruments.  They wanted to form a band, and that they did.  Oy our house was loud.

Don't let the picture fool you.  They barely paused once.

Completing the running circle.

Playing flute in the ball tent.

Different angle of the band.

Right about to climb through the tunnel.

The kids played, the adults talked, and three hours after everyone arrived, we had the place back to ourselves.  Xander cried because he didn't want his friends to leave while Jonathan and I plopped on the couch, exhausted.  The house was an utter WRECK.  But everyone had a really good time, and that's what counts.