We had a snow storm today. Beautiful, heavy snow all day! We had a great time watching it from the window, and playing in it outside.




Sasha is eating pretty well. She eats three meals a day and eats whatever we eat. We will do our best to keep it that way! We just put up a shelf in the kitchen which is just for her. It has a little pitcher with water and a glass next to it. And a rotating bowl of veggies and nuts. So if she's ever hungry or thirsty between meals, she can help herself.

And she does!

She's been getting more interested in her instruments, particularly her xylophone, which she's had since she was six months old. She actually started becoming interested in it after seeing my mom play it and sing. Now she does the same thing:


She loves drawing on her white board. It's one of her favorite activities, and she asks us to draw things on it for her too.



She has gotten so much practice drawing on the white board, that now she draws perfect circles, she writes the letter "T" and "I" and she made this face which we had to take a picture of, because she placed the eyes, nose and mouth in the right places, (which she had never done before). Here she is working on drawing a beard "just like daddy's":


She recently started playing the memory game:

Water coloring:





Every week at a bagel shop near our house, guitarists come to play and sing for children:



Playing Ring around the Rosie:




Some of you may know that my mom used to be a model and an actress. We finally bought a couple of the movies she was in when she was a little girl. My brother, David uploaded the clips where she appears in "Two Tickets to Broadway" -(She's the girl in the blue sweater) and "On Moonlight Bay", where she appears in a dance class, learning to waltz with the star of the show! (She's the one with a peach and blue dress)

Every now and then I hear a baby in the background, which is not part of the movie... is that Ela? : )

Misc.

Every Thursdays there is a Ruhi Book 3 (children's classes) study circle for moms. Today was my first time attending. Here are Mathisse (16 months), Sonia (1), Milo (3) and Sashita:



Two of the Moms, Brehana and Sharim:



Cuteness:




This next picture is of two people I love very much, my mother, of course, and my wonderful friend, Karim. He lives with his family in Colombia, but was in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks. He's been working with an educational program with the indigenous in the southern region of Costa Rica. On one of his last days he visited with my mom, which made me so happy!

Mima left us last week. : ( We were sad to see her go, but also glad that we got the chance to spend some time with her.
We took this picture on her last day. We had a good laugh after this because we set up the camera so that it would take the picture automatically, and placed it on the bookshelf in front of the window. There we were, smiling away, while some guy walked into the apartment next door and seemed to look into our window. What a funny sight he must have seen, not knowing that we were waiting for the click of the camera... all four of us happily looking out the window at him! : )

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Mima helping Sasha with her puzzle:



A gift from Mima: a hand molding kit with a frame.


New activities.
This is to help her learn about different ways to travel (air, water, land). After cutting out some of the different modes of transportation, she places them on the drawing where they belong:


Learning to count. She can almost count to 20, but she's just learning the concept of numbers. This activity has helped her incredibly. Together we count and place the correct number of stones on each card:



She kept trying to place all the stones on top of the number, so we made a new activity where she could place them inside these circles:



We were showing her how to make geometric shapes with these sticks by matching the colors. But then she started her own game of forming letters with them! We were so surprised. She made the following letters: T, I, F, X.



Having fun with her stickers:

Mom's last weekend

We spent our last weekend with Colin, Britt and family again. We hung out, played scrabble, went to the museum of natural history, and attended their monthly baha'i children's classes.

Here's a group shot:





Colin singing with the kids:


Today's class was about the soul. They talked about the quote by Baha'u'llah, "Thou art My lamp and My light is in thee". They made a lantern for their art project to go along with the theme:

Final product:



This was at the museum. Britt and Aman were trying to look like the rest of the skulls:
(FYI: These skulls are as old as 90 thousands years!!)



James with Britt in the Geology section, doing what he loves: talking about the Earth!



We had delicious meals as usual. James made dinner on one of the nights: Feta stuffed chicken roulades:


Sasha having the time of her life with her cousins:




And her Mima (as long only SHE gets her attention...notice how she's staring Anika down)



These were taken back at home:


Her bubble wrap dress:


Her cotton ball snowman:

Putting together a 48-piece puzzle with mommy:


All done!


Ballroom dancing: (Sasha was imitating the dancing that Mima was watching on t.v.)


Reading to her doll, Sally: