This blog is filled with ideas to turn everyday moments into Jewish moments, especially for families with young children.
All in Holidays
There’s so much to love about Hanukkah! This eight-day festival is filled with candle light, miracles, spinning dreidels, donuts (sufganiyot) and dreams too! They’re so many ways to celebrate, and we share some of our favorite recipes, activities and DIYs, especially for families with young children!
There are so many fun ways to celebrate Rosh Hashanah - The Jewish New Year! From yummy foods to DIYs to family outings, we share so many ways for your family to have a sweet new year!
We’re getting ready for Valentine’s Day and Shabbat by making love bug challah rolls. These cuties are extra simple to make too by using frozen bread dough rolls, and their adorable shape comes from baking them in a muffin tin! You’re invited to make them too with your own little love bugs!
We’re getting ready for Valentine’s Day by making mini bundt cakes topped with edible flowers. These little cakes are so so pretty, and perfect for celebrating a day of love, especially because they’re pink or “varod” in Hebrew! Come bake some with us!
I loved creating a very crafty “arty party” birthday for an adorable 4 year old girl. She was imagining Peppa Pig and her brother George too. I made adorable craft kits for all her friends, each with two crafts - a handmade necklace and Peppa’s house! This is a sweet theme for a birthday, or even a special party to celebrate friendship, family and love (think Valentine’s Day or Tu B’Av - the Jewish day of love)! Come take a look!
Today I’m making special Valentines (Galentines!) for my girlfriends - sweet bracelets on a thread with 13 seed beads! Not only does the number 13 have special significance to the Hebrew word for love (Ahavah), a red string bracelet is also known in mystical Judaism to bring protection and luck, so these simple bracelets pack a lot of power! Whether you are making one for yourself or several for friends, we share the tutorial to make your own!
It’s cold and rainy today, and we’re spending time indoors giving new life to discarded books and papers! We’re creating decorative paper garlands with bird and leaf silhouettes which makes us think of warmer days and spring! This simple craft is so versatile - you can use any type of paper and silhouette too. I love doing this with friends, and we have some tips for making garlands with littles too! So let’s go make some paper garlands with vintage papers.
Celebrate Tu B’Shevat and Shabbat Shira with freshly baked bird challah. These cuties are so simple to make with frozen bread dough, and they can also be painted with “edible” paint! This is a wonderful way to honor birds on this special Shabbat! So let’s go bake and “paint” bird challah!
The Jewish holiday Tu B’Shevat (named for the date of the holiday - the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat) is the birthday of the trees! We have so many ways to celebrate!
On this last day of Hanukkah, we are making intention word bracelets with alphabet beads as a personal promise to ourselves to shine bright like the Hanukkah lights. You can choose any word that is meaningful for you. We chose the Hebrew words “or ve ahavah” which translates to “light and love” in English. See the steps to make your own bracelets.
During this time of year, it’s so wonderful when children have the opportunity to be the light for someone else by participating in an act of kindness. Today we’re sharing a wonderful family mitzvah - children making stuffed animals for other children in the hospital. Your invited to join us at our family mitzvah day and create your own tradition of an acts of kindness day too!
We’re celebrating Hanukkah in the most delicious way - with a donut decorating party! We made a batch of chocolate and vanilla donuts in a newly gifted donut baking pan and decorated them with homemade icings and delicious toppings! This is a wonderful party to set up for adults and children alike. Let the decorating begin!
We’re deep diving into Hanukkah celebrations with some wonderful new DIYs, like this speckled clay menorah in a simple design. I make a lot of projects with littles in mind, but this menorah is a wonderful project for adults (it involves coffee and wine)! So let’s go make a menorah for the Festival of Lights.
To spread smiles and happiness this Hanukkah, we’re making colorful dreidel necklaces to share with some of our favorite friends. We use paint chips from our local home improvement store to make these cuties, and string the necklaces with beads in different shapes and sizes. This is the happiest (and easiest) dreidel necklace for littles, so let’s go make one!
One of our favorite traditions is to decorate our home as a family for Hanukkah! My most-loved decorations are handmade, like these festive dreidel garlands and mobiles - all from a collection of paint chips. This is a wonderful collaborative project to do with littles, and we show you all the steps to make your own!
We’re in the kitchen today making “apple donuts,” a healthy twist on the traditional Hanukkah sufganiyot (donut)! These adorable donuts are apple slices, spread with yogurt “frosting” and topped with colorful sprinkles! They’re so yummy and refreshing that you’ll feel good about snacking on them for all eight days of Hanukkah!
We’re starting to get a little topsy turvy around here! On Hanukkah, we spin tops called dreidels, and they’re just so many fun and creative ways to include them in our Hanukkah celebrations - like with this cute puffy dreidel necklace. You only need a few materials to make your own, and they’re the perfect accessory for littles to wear while singing the dreidel song! So let’s go make a puffy dreidel necklace!
Celebrate pumpkin season (and Shabbat) with fresh baked pumpkin challah rolls. These cuties are so simple to make with frozen bread dough, and they can also be dressed-up for “challah-ween” with icing, sprinkles and candy eyes. This is a wonderful family activity for fall. So let’s go bake and dress-up pumpkin challah rolls!
We recently baked a “patch” of gourd and pumpkin cookies to celebrate fall! They were so fun and festive, we decided to also use the cookies for pumpkin (and gourd) patch cupcakes! This is a simple (but oh so cute) activity with store bought cupcakes, dried fruit and nuts! It’s also a wonderful activity for littles to help with too. Come visit our pumpkin patch and make some fall cupcakes us!
We’re sharing our fall harvest with family and friends at a Sukkot dessert. The sukkah is meant to be an open tent, and extending hospitality and sharing something delicious with people you love is what makes this holiday and the fall season so special. Come take a look!
