My hands are nice and soft

My hands won't need any cream today. First of all, the heat isn't on as it's over 70*F here in the DC suburbs. Second, this afternoon I decided to give up on combing the Corriedale wool I'd been fighting with, and carded it instead, giving me 8 ounces of hand carded rolags ready to spin:

This morning we went over to my parents, where we gave Dad his birthday gift:

From top left, going clockwise, it's a 1906 edition of Marx's Capital; a 1928 Plato; a 1934 Dostoevsky, and a silly birthday card.

We had a little party for Gilad's 4th birthday and Grandpa's 65th. The kids got their Chanukah gifts, we ate a little ice cream cake, and came home.

Everyone's been hard at work

Today, Feivel left for his big Boy Scout ride--Troop 613 left this morning to bike down the whole C&O Canal!  They'll make some stops during the week for rafting and the like, and finish in Georgetown Thursday evening.  The biked over 3 hours this afternoon and made it to their intended camping point at about 5:15 pm.

Jeffrey left early in the morning to meet up with the troop, help with davening and transport, and get them going in the northwest.  He just got home at about 8 pm.

The girls and Sachy spend the morning helping their grandparents with gardening and preparation for fence painting.  They worked very hard and Grandpa was very appreciative.

Gilad and Addie behaved nicely at their grandparents' house so everyone else could get their work done.

Meanwhile, being insane, I decided that just working the Slow Bee Mystery II shawl is not enough lace to be knitting (and I only have one other project on the needles at the moment, my Komon sweater from Knit Kimono).  So of course, I cast on Nancy Bush's summer Estonian shawl from the most recent Piecework.

We're just all worn out.

They're outa here!

Feivel is at boy scout camp; Sachy and Jeffrey are at cub scout camp; and I drove Kayla up to girl scout camp. The men all left yesterday morning at 6:30; I drove Kayla up to Leesburg in the early afternoon. So now it's just me at home with Tirtze, Gilad and Addie.

Gilad took scraps of paper last night and told me he was writing postcards. He scribbled on each of them, then "read" them to me. They say:

Dear Tatty/Feivel/Sachy/Kayla,
I miss you.
Please come home tomorrow.
Love, Gilad

Unfortunately, yesterday I also engaged in acts of plumbing. With Grandpa's help, I replaced the insides of our toilet, which had some pipe leak that make the whole house knock when you flushed. When we re-connected everything, though, it turned out that now the connecting pipe between the water valve and the toilet had sprung a leak. Oma took the original so she could run to the hardware store for me today to get an identical one, but I figured I would go to the store myself and find the right thing and get it done last night. Needless to say, the one I got was the wrong size at one connector end, so the toilet is still not usable. Sigh.

However our big new is:
Gilad is now wearing big boy underpants.

It's not Monday. No. It isn't.

Sunday evening not only was I staggering around I was so tired, but I couldn't even account for several hours out of the day.

We went to Mom and Dad's to celebrate Tirtze's birthday and to see Grandma who's in the process of moving to a retirement home down here. The kids all got their Chanuka gifts since we probably won't see Mom and Dad next weekend (iPod for Tirtze as a combined gift, fake Ugggs for Kayla, Pokemon cards for the boys, toys for the 2 little ones).

I stole a couple of photos from Mom to scan in. Now I'll have a pic of Josie to illustrate any and all posts about Dora (she's even wearing her sweatshirt with the big Superman "D" on the front--you know, SuperDora), plus one of Herbie just 'cause he's cute.

Feivel had his first 5th grade basketball team practice. We'll see just how this goes...he's not the only kid on the team from the special ed program, at least. He also had a boy scout meeting and felt very proud that he already knew a lot of what they went over, thanks to working with Jeffrey.