For FHE this week we decided to do a traditional Seder dinner for Passover to help the kids learn more about their heritage as children of Israel. I pretended all day to be a Jewish mother bustling around getting things ready for the feast: setting the table, buying the unleavened matzah bread, cooking a real little whole chicken (a stretch for this semi-vegetarian girl!) for the matzo ball soup, and trying to figure out adaptations for the symbolic foods that our kids might actually taste.
Isaac with the two candles the mother lights at the beginning of the Seder, the "wine" (apple juice), and just below that the matzah (unleavened) bread covered with a napkin.
Russell and Elijah's cup of "wine"
(we used apple juice because I wasn't so sure all of the kids would drink grape juice)
I'm not sure if I got the plate set up just right, but here's what it should have:
1. A shank bone (we used a bone we picked up in Kashmir that was probably a goat bone)
2. Charoset--this is supposed to be chopped up nuts, fruits and spices. I mixed peanut butter, almond butter, applesauce, cinnamon and sugar. The kids loved it.
3. Bitter Herbs--I mixed wasabi paste with some plain yogurt since I didn't have horseradish
4. Green Vegetable--I used cucumbers instead of parsley so I was sure the kids would eat it
5. Boiled Egg
We did not do everything strictly as we might if we were Jewish, but we did our best. We used a modified version of BYU professor
Victor Ludlow's Passover Seder script. We summarized some of it and used some pictures as we told about Moses and the children of Israel in Egypt, their deliverance, the Last Supper, and the appearance of Elijah in the latter days. Here's a
good article from our Church magazine on how the Passover symbols apply to our own LDS religious beliefs. I got the recipes for the matzo ball soup and the (sinfully) DELICIOUS matzo almond bark dessert from
Family Fun. I realized as I studied more about the Seder that more than anything it is designed for children, so it should be fun and include songs, laughter, good food and cozy family togetherness. We taught the kids the
"Dayenu" song's chorus and we sang it after Rich recited all the things God had done for the children of Israel. Here's a
YouTube video with the song and some images that show the Christian connections.
Everybody loved the matzo ball soup. A fair amount of silliness, but they were attentive the whole time. Isaac stole the matzo for the afikomen and bartered with Dad for the delicious matzo almond bark for dessert. Russell said, "I want to do this when I grow up too."
And then, of course, there was the all-you-can-eat Blue Bell Ice Cream after the race!
The first race was the Kid's 1-Mile Run. Isaac and Russell were all set to go, and they bravely walked through the pouring rain to the starting line as thunder and lightning struck in the distance. Russell had the bad luck of standing in a fire ant pile at the starting line, and burst into tears at the starting bell as they attacked him! We brushed them off and he bravely set off running with Rich by his side to catch up to Isaac (who had waited for him). They finished together at 11:01. So proud of my boys who are best friends that stick together and work hard. 
I set a New Year's Resolution to train for a 5K, and slowly and sporadically I have gotten to a point where I can at least jog that distance VERY slowly. 
So while the kids bundled up in the car with Grandpa, Rich & Ellie as the rain pelted outside, Katie, Dave and I decided to go ahead and face that race.
And we finished it! I jogged the whole time with squishy sneakers, making mental notes at several points of where I could run for cover if it started to hail. At a few points the visibility was so bad that I wasn't quite sure how much farther I had to go. But I just kept on plodding along and finally crossed that finish line. I came in 276th place, but I finished and had a blast running in the rain! Wahoo!
