Phew, it’s been an intense couple of weeks. Lots of deadlines and responsibilities with an overnight in the hospital for my little one thrown in (my little love is a-ok). I’ve almost shaken off all the stress and am ready to embrace spring (should it ever arrive).
One of the projects I worked on was preparing a seder for 14 at our place. It involved bringing a table up from the basement and taking a door off it’s hinges, I was not involved except to offer our friend who helped an ice cold beer after the job only to realize we had no such thing. Nice. But I was involved in the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the making of the new family Haggadah, did I mention the cleaning? Luckily I am married to a man who is actively involved in the life of our family. He stayed up until 2 braising 15 pounds of brisket. Yum.
I did not take very many photos but here are a few of the set up, a couple of my lovely friends who came even though not everyone was 100%, and of the aftermath.
You can’t see them very well but I have 2 of these beautiful lotus centerpieces that house 3 candles and have a built in frog for creating low floral arrangements. I got 1 from ebay the first year ebay was up and running. It’s silver and I think I paid under 5 dollars for it. I LOVE it. I found one that isn’t silver but is an exact copy at the thrift store for around the same price and was thrilled to have both on our seder table. 
These 2 are the shots I took as I was preparing the table.
My eldest made the 2 ceramic creations in this shot at school and we used them for ceremonially washing our hands during the seder. The orange on the seder plate in a relatively new addition. The story goes someone asked a Jewish scholar/rabbi when women would be able to become rabbis and he replied, “A woman will become a rabbi when there is an orange on the seder plate.” And so now many people add an orange to both represent women and there struggle for equal rights but also to represent the possibility for change. Hope.
There’s the nice guy who helped my nice guy lug up the dinning table. Thanks G, we owe you.
I love these of my nephew who read the 4 questions for the first time! The 4 ?’s are read by the youngest at the table and he really did a wonderful job reading them, it was nice to have a child’s voice among all the adults. He was very proud and rightly so!
I’m not a braggart, but don’t I have beautiful friends? Here they are entertaining/terrifying the children the 10 plagues finger puppets.
And this is me “reclining” on the sofa after everyone was gone and my husband and I had done the initial clean up. Actually he was still in the kitchen and I decided I could not possibly move another muscle, until I got the urge to document that is and then I shot up (well, more like crawled) and got my camera. Here is the credenza where we put out the yummy food. Brisket, roasted beets with caramelized red onions, carrot sald (with lots of garlic and parsley), green beans with shallots and garlic, a yummy green salad, my SIL’s kickin’ matzah ball soup, my FIL’s special cucumber dish, and the roasted potatoes that I saw here. The irony is not lost on me.
I was too tired to even kick the pillow out of the shot. It was a good kind of tired, kinda.
We don’t have a dining room, per say. We use the extra room for a playroom so we set up the table in the middle of the living room. Where it will now stay, did I mention the door off the hinges thing?
My favorite spot above the computer with a rotating collection of my collections.
The children’s wooden Passover set. That’s the best Manishevitz wine you’ll ever taste, fyi!
So you’re probably thinking, if you’re still reading, that actually I did take ENOUGH Passover photos!
I’ll stop because my writing is all fawn learning to walk today,
Paper Dolls for Boys 