Update before we head out to Houston

We're leaving tomorrow and will be back on Sunday. We have appointments set up with several potential schools for Sasha. We'll also be looking at what the options are for houses... We need to figure out a lot of things, like do we rent or do we buy?
We'll give an update of our situation when we get back.

In the meantime, here are the latest of Sasha!

Slicing strawberries for breakfast:



and green beans for dinner:



Some school pics (taken by her teachers)
I love this one. Can you see the love between these two? Sasha loves Julia!



Table-washing is an important Montessori activity. It helps children learn to attend to an entire sequence of visual motor tasks:



The children handle geometric solids under the cloth and try to guess what they are. Here Sasha is saying "ovoid!"



The Montessori math curriculum begins with concrete and gradually moves towards more abstract math concepts. Because children take in knowledge through their senses, these beads are a good way for children to visualize and hold quantities. She is presented with one bead, ten beads stuck together, (as seen below), 100 beads, and a cube of 1000 beads.



Building a bird feeder with Daddy:



Making play dough roses with mommy (I remember when my mom taught me to make these when I was a little girl)



Making a shopping list. Sasha loves practicing her writing. The Montessori method encourages writing phonetically to begin with. I got a great video of her spelling out words phonetically while writing her shopping list. (link on right)



The days have been getting warmer and warmer, and as they do, we find more reasons to be outside. Sasha and I walked to "pick up" daddy after he got off the bus coming home from school:



At Baha'i class they talked about the equality of men and women. Their art project was to decorate a bird who's wings represent this equality. One is the man, the other is the woman, and not until both are equal can the bird fly.



Random:










James in front of his poster at the NE section of the GSA meeting (Geological Society of America).

Happy Naw-Ruz!

Showing off the laces she tied all by herself!



Cutting her pancakes:



We had a warm day, so we hit the park!






Showing of her cute outfit that Kathy sent:



Beautiful Colors:





Helping me wash the dishes:



Showing us her band aid:



Play dough

Sasha can tie shoes!

Thank you grandma for the beautiful scarf that you made! It's beautiful and Sasha loves it! Here's a pic with her wearing it.




She learned to tie shoes today! It began when she was two. Every time there was tying involved, she wanted to have a try. After creating some nice, big tangles, we would ask if we could have a turn, and that was that. But she never gave up. It seemed like her hands would never be able to hold the strings correctly at age two. But because of her persistence we decided to show her how it was done. Yesterday it looked like she just might be able to do it, and today she offered to help daddy tie his shoes. Check out the video! (link on right)

Ayyam-i-Ha and Birthdays!

School has been keeping us extremely busy lately. It will continue to be hectic for the rest of this semester. This is James' last semester and he's trying to focus on finishing on time (before he starts work in August). He's trying to continue writing his thesis, but he's also doing other things like drilling his stalagmite, regular visits to the lab, preparing and teaching classes, etc.
I'm in the middle of a semester of intense writing- paper after paper after paper!

We just had a nice breather this weekend though, when we spent a couple days with the Ruhes.

They are a family of musicians:





I think Sasha enjoys visiting with them. What do you think? : )



Sasha and Aman playing Guess Who?



Anna and James decorating the house:



Dinner in the making:




Sitting down for dinner:



With her cousin, Anika (they're four months apart).



Aside from the spelling, Sasha wrote this all by herself!!



Opening presents!





We celebrated Colin's birthday:



They even sang me 'happy birthday'!



Hanging out:









These were taken other days. Here she was playing with some kids at the Baha'i Center while I was in a study circle.



Her teachers took this one at school in the playground:



Practicing her writing. (can you tell she chooses her own clothes?)



Making dinner all by herself! This recipe is flexible enough that if she put too little or too much of something (which she often does), it was still good. She was so excited to do this all on her own. Thankfully she's very cautious of the hot stove.





This is one of her favorite dishes. It's sort of an alfredo sauce with pasta. Since only I make the dish for her, she has coined it "Alfredo a la mami"!