Famille Du Pentium

“What happened to Day 4?” I hear you cry.  Well, I decided to do things a little different this year.  In previous years, I’ve posted something *every* night, and taken pictures… mostly of the presents that our kids opened.  But I realize that just posting a “yadda yadda yadda, we lit candles” posting every day and links to pictures of presents isn’t really in the spirit of Hanukkah.  So now, I only post when there’s something interesting.  Like today, before we lit candles, Ethan opened his present from last night (he slept over at a friends and missed presents) which was the “Real Steel Robots” game, which is amazingly similar to a game I played as a kid called “Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots”. So here’s a video:

Or, here’s a picture for the Flash Challenged:

Real Steel Rock Em Sock Em Robots

Whoa! Is it day three already? And I haven’t even posted a picture of a Menorah with candles blazing.

Day 3 Candles

So tonight was Nana’s night, and I know she always enjoys seeing the kids enjoy her gifts, so here’s a few pics for her:

Aaron

Ethan

We interrupt this Hanukkah to bring you pictures and videos from Justin’s school’s 2nd grade Winter Concert.  Hope you have flash installed, so you can watch these via YouTube.  Link to the pics below.

*** Updated: You can see the still pics here.***

So, Eeyore seems to like laying on our gifts:

Eeyore On Taun Taun

Poodles like Taun Tauns!  Who knew?!?!

Apparently, he also like Autobots, since he later took a snooze on a Kree-O Transformers Optimus Prime box.

Eeyore on Kree-O

All this while his own Hanukkah present, that yellow furry bone by his hind quarters in the second picture is his brand new squeaky toy.   It’s like the kids throwing out the toy and playing with the box.

Hope you’re enjoying your holiday.  Raw pics here.

The holidays are upon us.   And, as most of you know, it’s a much better holiday for the Humphries-Dolnick family this year.

So we did up the traditions in style; jelly filled donuts (actually munchkins), and Browns Fried Chicken (TREIF!).  Then we lit candles, said our traditional prayers, and sang our traditional songs.

Here’s a sampling of some of the stuff I got the kids this year; I decided to order a bunch of stuff from ThinkGeek:

Taun Taun Sleeping Bag

This little baby is the “Taun Taun Sleeping Bag”.  Remember the Star Wars episode when Luke ends up stranded on the frozen planet, and Han goes out to find him, finds him, slices open his Taun Taun, and puts Luke inside it to keep warm?  Yeah, that little mini story is told by this sleeping bag, complete with intestines inside and a light saber zipper opening.    Now the Humphries-Dolnick family can sleep warmly inside a sliced open Taun Taun!

Ethan: Meh.

Ethan shows his apathy with a “Meh.” T-Shirt.

Justin's Cuddly Zombie

Justin has a new cuddly zombie to snuggle with at night.  Complete with viewable guts.

I also gave Marla an electronic firefly jar, and Aaron got a bottle of Ghost Pepper flakes, the hottest peppers on the planet.  Oh yeah, and I got something for myself too: a USB controlled rocket launcher.  Maybe I’ll post pics of that later.  Meanwhile, here’s the raw pictures from tonight.

As usual, we drove to visit both families this year – Marla’s first, then mine.  The kids had a great time playing games at both houses.

Get your Humphries-Dolnick Thanksgiving Picture fix HERE.

Here’s one of those odds and ends I promised: a picture taken of Justin while he was mad.

Mad Justin

Yeah, it’s been a while.  How are you?  I’m doing well, thanks.  We did, in fact, do stuff this summer and I’m just now getting around to posting some pictures of it all.

First, Aaron played in the Section 6 tournaments again this year, and we won a few medals.
Then, my new emloyer had their “Take Your Kids To Work Day“, complete with Mr. Freeze.

Then of course we enjoyed the 4th of July festivities.

Lastly, we took a trip to the Oregon coast for our family reunion.

I have a few more random odds and ends, which I will hopefully post soon.

For those of you who may have forgotten how old you are, Aaron graduates from Middle School tomorrow.

After that, he’ll be a High School student.

***UPDATED: ADDED CORRAL & CAPRICCIO VIDEO***

Below are videos from the McCracken Middle School Symphonic Band performance at the University of Illinois SuperState Band Festival.  Hundreds of Junior High, High School and Collegiate bands come to perform, and two are chosen as SuperState Honor Band.  McCracken Middle School was one of them.  Watch the videos, and you’ll see why.

 
First up, we have announcements and introductions.

 
Next, the Band performs Prestissimo.

 
Now one of my favorites, Unravelling.

 
Next, the band performed Ancient Dialogue.

 
Finally, they performed Chorale & Capriccio.

 
Finally, here are a few pictures of Aaron at the performance.