We had a play date with one of Sasha's friends, Ariana and her mom, Stephanie. Sasha and Ariana love each other! We all had a lot of fun. Here they are reading:





Eating (they insisted on sitting on the same chair)




Coloring:



Washing their hands together:





Sasha helped us carve our pumpkins:






She loves her daddy:



Here she is practicing something she does at school: patiently waiting for everyone to sit down before she starts eating!



Playing in the leaves:








She's learning about the Baha'i Fund. She saves her coins in her piggy bank and then takes them out and places them in the fund box every month:

Learning to Read

According to experts, every child can learn how to read at an early age. They will show you when they're ready, there's no need to force it. As parents, all we have to do is give them the opportunity.

According to Montessori, more important than learning the alphabet, is learning the sounds of the letters. Once they know the alphabet phonetically, they can put the sounds together to make words:




Beginning of autumn in our back yard:


(I will post more pictures soon of the breath-taking colors of New England falls!)

Since its inception in the mid-nineteenth century, the Baha'i Faith has been the target of persecutions in Iran. The persecutions continue today with the arrest of 7 Baha'i leaders, and the prevention of Baha'i students from having access to higher education.
We're being asked to take action to create awareness of this situation.
Students, faculty and academics around the world are protesting the treatment of Baha’i students in Iran and creating international pressure.
James and I have written our University media with a request to publish an article about this and are trying to do whatever else we can to create awareness.

There's more information at these websites:

House Resolution:
www.bahai.us/house-resolution

Persecution of Baha'i in Iran:
www.question.bahai.org

Current situation:
www.iran.bahai.us

On CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/16/iran.bahais/index.html


In other news: James and I had been wanting to adopt a child for a long time. We went back and forth on this decision for various reasons. But a couple of months ago we finally decided for sure that this is what we wanted to do. We are overjoyed by this decision! This process is not as lengthy or difficult as we had been told in the past. We've been talking to several people who have already adopted and I've had a lot of questions answered. We've found a really good adoption agency and have started the paper work!

Sasha and I were sick all last week. We ended up staying home from school and "getting lots of rest" (as Sasha says). We're feeling better now, although still a little congested. After being stuck at home for most of the week and over the weekend, on Monday we decided to take a drive to the beach. It's too cold to go for a swim, of course, but Sasha was more than happy to play in the sand.
Here are some pics from that outing, as well as some others:





Even though our landlord takes care of these pine-needles with a leaf blower, Sasha loves helping by sweeping them up:




Helping daddy make apple crisp:



Helping me cut the dead parts of the leaves:





And vacuuming them up:



We discovered that her favorite color is red, and she was delighted to find a beautiful red dress hanging in her closet:



Making herself some breakfast:








Daddy's are for counting stars!

Various activities

Learning to make shapes with rubber bands on her pegboard:




Using a small rolling pin on her play dough:



Learning to role things up:



And make balls:



Her new thing is to put on a twirlly skirt and dance in front of the mirror:



We've started a new activity to learn life cycles. We started with the butterfly and frog, and will continue with a ladybug, a chicken, a bean plant, etc.

After talking about each stage in a butterfly's life, she matches the picture on the right with the one on the left.



I found little figures to go along with this activity!



I just love this concentrated expression:



We made chocolate chip cookies this evening. Here she is carrying the last tray of uncooked cookies to the oven:
(She loves using the oven mitt)



They're ready!!



Using the spatula to transfer the cookies to a plate:



I asked her to go wash her hands after helping me make something. After a while, I started to become suspicious because she was taking a really long time. I went to investigate, and this is what I found: She had plugged the sink and filled it with soap and water! I came in just as the water started overflowing onto the floor! :/