Just Abdu!

At the jungle...

He can really jump!

Nusayba's old goggles:)

We drove up north during memorial day weekend and basically spend the day in the hotel:) We went swimming twice in the pool, but i didn't take any pictures (and regret it! :( )

This is an older shot (i think when he was around 3 months)

And this was just a couple of days ago:)



showing off our latest moves!

We miss you Nana!

Abdurrahman's cooing and Nusayba's reading!

yes, insha'Allah i will make an effort to take more pictures/videos of him insha'Allah. you should see/hear how he coos and interacts with us...it's amazing subhana'Allah!

Abdurrahman over a month ago!

We're now following the "teach your child to read in 20 easy lessons" and alhamdulillah, nusayba has really caught on. we only do 2 pages a day and only when asmaa's sleeping. she really looks forward to this "alone" time where my attention is just on her.

i think it's time i start incorporating some arabic!

Swimming

Since mid-March Nusayba has been patiently waiting for April 13th, the day she starts swimming lessons! I decided to create a calendar and clearly label 09/13 so that she would understand that it was some time to come. Alhamdulillah, the calendar wasn't a bad idea after all. I think she'll eventually understand the concept of months, the days in the week and that numbers go beyond 10:) Oh, the calendar also helped us keep track of the weather!

The anticipated April 13!

alhamdulillah, she was a lot braver than I thought she would be. They even ducked her face under water twice (after asking her to make a "bubble face") and she didn't cry or panic!

on the way home she exclaimed "a'jabatni alsibaha katheeran!" (I enjoyed swimming very much) :)

Pizza and a Hike!

Voala!

I can't remember where this was, but I think somewhere in south San Jose...beautiful nonetheless:)

Nusayba's on her way to reading!

nusayba read her first 3 words on thursday, march 26th! it was so exciting--for me of course:) we've been playing with letters and words for a while, but to see her grasp the concept and try to pronounce was so beautiful:)

the words were "blue", "red", and "green". since then she's been trying to pronounce words like cat, hat, hot, etc... but what's really amazing is that when she sees any words (on the diaper box, street signs, even the word "toyota" on our van) she now realizes that the letters makeup a word and the word can be read so she stops and takes a shot at it.


'Alaa is now on my case that i should be teaching her Arabic, but i have a feeling that once she really grasps the concept it'll be much easier to teach her to read in Arabic. It's not like English..like, why would there be a "k" in the word nife? :)

Wheat Grass

A little project the girls have been working on thanks to Maha:)

First we soaked the wheat grass for about 12 hours

Then we planted...

A layer of sand to absorb any extra water

then the dirt...

and finally the wheat seeds


we water the seeds twice everyday. once in the morning and once at night and placed them in a dark/shady area covered with plastic wrap until they sprouted


this is what they look like in about two days. we then removed the covering and placed them on the windowsill and continued watering twice daily

I find the roots amazing!

they grew very fast and the girls could notice the difference every day


say cheese:)

look at those roots! they've extended all the way to the bottom of the sand...subhana Allah, amazing!

we gave the grass its first haircut and...

made a delicious green smoothy with it!

We used the wheat grass, avocado, banana and apple juice...no, we didn't put any of the vaseline in there:)



Unfortunately Nusayba didn't get to drink from this batch because she didn't finish her lunch, but we made another batch and she drank two cup-fulls--i just don't have proof:)

Asmaa started off with a full cup and a straw and ended up like this:)