Latkes at Yaya's House

This afternoon was the holiday party at Yaya's house. It was potluck and we brought latkes. I had to admit that I bought them instead of making them because Yaya asked me how to make them and said that she had tried to make them earlier in the week for Simon but that they didn't come out good and none of the kids would eat them! I told her the best recipe is to go to the Butcherie and buy them. Francesca (she just turned 2 last month) performed a wonderful rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"--she actually knows almost all of the words and it as very cute. I'm working on teaching Simon "Oh Chanukah Oh Chanukah come light the menorah" but so far it's not going very well. He can say Latkes, so I guess that is a good start.
Pam got him 2 books, one of which is about big trucks which she said she got for him because the 2 of them spend a lot of the day looking out the window waiting for big trucks to go by.
During the party, Simon really only wanted to eat cake and then when we got home, he ate 2 bowls of cold vegetable soup (which he ate happily, but kept saying "cold!"), a bowl of pasta and a few bites of chicken. Then he had a bath and then he went to bed. After we read stories, I turned off the light and was sitting in the rocking chair with him and we were saying goodnight to lots of things. I said "n'night moon" and then he said "n'night cars" and then I said "n'night walls" and he said "n'night Dada" and then I said "n'night Grandy" and he said "n'night manana" (which is what he calls a banana) and then he giggled and then said "oh man-ana!" Get it...he was saying "oh man" and then he added the "anana" part to make it sound like manana...he made his first joke and was very proud of himself! I love it that he thought of it, then giggled to himself and then said it outloud so I could hear it too!