Some of Sasha's favorite things

Are to put on a dress and dance:




Perform for us and then take a bow:



Her shapes puzzles:




Snapping, zipping, buttoning, lacing and tying (She still can't tie her shoes, except for the first step. But the loops are a bit trickier for her)

Here she is proud of lacing:





We have a new special routine at nights: Reading books together. James and I read to her often, and especially right before bed. However, this is different because each of us is reading on our own. It's an awesome time, and very different from any other activity. We hope to develop a love of reading in Sasha, and for her to see that mommy and daddy enjoy reading too. It's also a good calming down activity right before bed. And not to mention helping Sasha focus on one activity and concentrate for so long. We started last night and it lasted 45 minutes!!

We went to another Baha'i children's class today. Every week a different class gets to go upfront and say prayers using the microphone. This week it was Sasha's class's turn. I asked her if she wanted to say a prayer and she said "yes, I want to say the Healing prayer". There's a video of this on youtube (link on the right).

The Healing prayer, written by Baha'u'llah, is as follows:

Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

Here she is with her friends at the Baha'i Center:




Every so often James and Sasha go out on a date together, just the two of them. They hope to make this a life-long tradition!
James, with his excellent and diverse taste, introduces new foods to her often. Here she's eating one of her favorite things: Miso soup and Edamame!



Learning to use chopsticks:



She met two little boys at the restaurant and fell in love with the littlest one:



Playing at home:



We filled up her play sink with water. She loved it! She kept filling her little tea kettle with water, pretending it was lemonade, then tea, then hot chocolate. We were very hydrated that day!



It's so cute to see her drawings, especially when she draws the arms coming out from the head. For this drawing I asked her if those were the ears, which I think got her thinking that arms don't come out of the head. But then she fixed it by drawing ears just above the arms. Adorable!



I couldn't stop staring at her while she typed on the computer. So I took a picture to freeze that moment in time:



We went to a birthday party for one of her school friends, Julia. The party was in a gym filled with obstacle courses, a foam pit, lots of jumping areas and ropes...etc. Needless to say, they all had a blast! Sasha was fearless, as usual. She jumps off anything, no matter how high.

Snow and more snow!

Making snow angels:




Mommy's:



Sasha's:



Daddy's:



An activity she used to do often, but hasn't in a long time: Sorting colors and beads




Another one of her favorites at the moment is the Mystery Bag. Every time we play, I put new objects in the bag which she has to guess by using all senses, except her sight.





In this game she has to use her senses to find daddy!



Daddy's turn:



So close! Sasha was being so quiet and still that James turned around to look for her somewhere else! When he did, she made a little noise so he would find her...



And he did!



Cuddling up with Daddy:




She had her first dental appointment a couple of weeks ago. She did so well! The dentist told us that children need to start flossing at an early age. So she's learning how:

children's classes, number rods and solar systems

The children's Baha'i school just started in Boston. Sasha will be attending every week, and James will be teaching a class for the older kids (ages 6-8)!

Sasha with her friend, Amira (5 years old), before classes started:




The children are learning how to be kind, compassionate and generous, as well as learning to express themselves by using the language of the virtues. They practiced saying nice things to each other using the virtues.

Here she is in a class with other children closer to her age:




Sasha has been really interested in counting and writing numbers and letters. Here she is playing with her number rods. Once she can line them in order, she can see that 10 is the longest rod, while 1 is the shortest. These number rods help children visualize quantities.

In this picture, she is counting the bars and writing down the number:




I helped her write the number 5, but the rest she did completely on her own!



The teachers took this one at school - matching textures:



She's been learning about the solar system, so we molded the planets out of these interesting play dough-like, foam beads (called Play Foam). They're hanging in the background of this picture, with a big, yellow balloon for the sun.
She really likes them! We tried to make them to scale, and we did a fairly good job. She held each planet in her hand while we talked about fun facts about each one, like that Pluto is a ball of ice and not really a planet at all. Or that Jupiter is a big ball of gas. There are lots of good books out there about the solar system - Very simple, and with beautiful images.

Skiing!

We went skiing this weekend with Colin, and Sasha's cousins, Isaiah and Aman. It was the first time for all the kids, and they all did really well. Actually, the boys learned to snowboard and Sasha learned to ski. She learned the most important thing: to stop. She was able to make a "pizza" with her skis (the snowplow). Sasha has amazing balance (which is probably one of the reasons she learned to walk at 8 months). She was able to ski at high speeds and not fall over. (I posted a couple of videos on youtube).
The boys did really great too. They all began on the beginner's hill and the boys moved on to the steeper, more advanced hills by the end of the day!
















These last few are from a few days ago.




Just woke up from her nap:



Looking out her bedroom window, happy to see that it snowed!