Uncle Brian Visits and Fancy Nancy Does Hanukkah

This past Sunday was chock full of activity. Nothing new there. These events, however, were extra special.

First up, we had Nana, Pop Pop and Uncle Brian over for a spread of Jewish deli - bagels, lox, schmear, corned beef, the works.

Oh, and pickles. We all love the sour pickles from Benjie's Deli. They are quite large, so when I phoned in the order, I asked for 3 sour pickles, since they can be sliced into 5-6 spears each.

Except the deli counter guy must have had some wax in his ear. Because this is what we ended up with.



Three pounds of pickles. And no, we don't have any pregnant women in the house.

After a gut-busting meal, Lauren dragged willing subject Uncle Brian into the playroom for some dress-up.



My big brother's more of a kid than I ever knew. Pretty awesome.

Lauren, Norm and I then headed out to the JCC for a much-anticipated occasion. Fancy Nancy Beauty Day, followed by a Hanukkah celebration. Pretty interesting combination, right? It turns out that the illustrator for the Fancy Nancy books, Robin Preiss Glasser, lives locally and belongs to the JCC. So she hosted an event to promote the newest book in her series.

We arrived, books from home in hand, ready for signing.



There were tables set up for us to apply nail polish.



And receive a dusting of fancy face glitter from Ms. Glasser herself.



The roomful of fancifully dressed little girls then sat down for a personal reading of the latest book (something to do with fashion). The coolest part was that she told us the real people whom her drawings of all of the characters in the books were based on. Nancy is based on her niece and Frenchy the dog is based on her own dog (we even were shown photos of both to confirm the remarkable resemblance!)





Lauren and I then waited to have her books autographed by Ms. Glasser, who was quite enamored of our little sprite in her fancy dress.







After the Fancy Nancy extravaganza, we stepped out into the hall to join the throng of kids already engaged in Hanukkah crafts and activities.

Hanukkah Twister, anyone??







Face painting.



And dreidel spinning, just to name a few.



We even ran into her bff from school, Ava!



A very full day of excitement behind us, the three of us slipped out to grab dinner and return home for our own candle lighting ceremony. Definitely a great day to remember.