The Rest of September

If you remove Jewish holidays, birthdays, soccer games, family visits, and most circus animals, did anything else September even happen? Not really, but we'll try.

After more than 10 days quarantining at home, Ethan was excited to return to school and share cookies with his class to celebrate his birthday with friends.

Speaking of Ethan's birthday, Daddy and Ethan worked very hard together and finally finished the newly gifted remote control car they built themselves.

western day at school

manly day at home

Rona's cage was found open one morning with no hamster inside. We were convinced we would never see her ever again until much later that night when the cats were roaming around her cage. She had returned after who-knows-what kind of hamster adventures that day.

What did Maggie do??

Why can't she keep her legs on the couch?

Silly Spenceman

Sleepy Spenceman

Spenceman started Pre-K shul school this month.

special Daddy/E-man outing to fro yo

Actual footage from Kol Nidre (Yom Kippur Eve) - Times are weird.

And that's a wrap on September!

Sukkot End: The Conclusion

After the hustle, noise, and excitement of the family weekend, we concluded the 8-day holiday quietly, simply, and with Team Cohen.


At the end of a lot of joyful holidays, we were excited to celebrate Simchat Torah. Due to some unforeseen quarantining, we couldn't join the community at shul. Instead, we were grateful to have a virtual opportunity to dance with the Torah and still managed our annual edible Torah activity.

Sukkot Middle: Cohans Come

It is considered a mitzvah to extend invitations to guests to join in meals together in our sukkah. And so we did. We invited 3 Cohan humans and 1 Cohan canine to spend the weekend with us in the middle of the holiday. With the 3 families combined, that made 13 humans and TWELVE 4-legged animals at our house - yikes! Hosting all the guests and residents fulfilled a whole lot of good times, and I'm sure the divine presence was there somewhere.

Knox was happy to share Reggie's humongous bone.

Jacob and Mira joined Aunt Syssa and me for a mani-pedi party on Friday night.

Knox, Reggie, Ethan, and I went on a walk together VERY EARLY on Saturday morning.

Uncle Craig had been gifted a custom paint-by-sticker present for his birthday the day before. How else were 4,000 stickers supposed to get on the paper?

The party traveled to Touch-a-Truck which hosted a slew of fun activities for the kids, handed out sugar, AND raised money for a good cause.





Because our family get togethers never have enough sugar and because you must celebrate all things with ice cream - Happy Birthday, Uncle Craig!

While Aunt Syssa and Uncle Craig snuck out to celebrate the birthday as adults, the rest of us had a fun night ahead. First, homemade cousins pizza in the sukkah:


As Saturday night was coming, we hosted a dance party just like CYJ does each week after Shabbat.


Then, we said our official 'Goodbye' to Shabbat with Havdalah in the sukkah.

Our special night STILL wasn't over. Next up, lateover pajama party with movie projected on the sukkah walls!


We had one more morning together on Sunday.

And we had one more planned activity for everyone: making edible sukkot!




And last, but not least, recording a weekend with the Cohan family in the memory books is not complete without including the canine cousins' love affair.