Emily!

James' cousin Emily moved to Massachusetts around the same time that we did, but unfortunately we haven't had the chance to see as much of her as we would like to. This evening we finally went out for dinner with her. Here are a few pics.. sorry a couple of them are blurry. :(

Connect the dots!

Sasha's new fun game is to draw things by connecting the dots, as shown in these videos:

Trick or Treating

On Friday we went trick or treating with our friends Ariana and Stephanie. Every year businesses open up their shops to trick or treaters, hand out candies or give them treats from their bakery. Police and volunteers come to make sure that the streets are safe for the hundreds of children that show up in the late afternoon. It was Sasha's first trick or treating experience and she loved it! We were a bit worried that because most of the little girls were wearing beautiful, dressy, princess outfits, Sasha would change her mind about wanting to wear her big, fat, grey, mouse costume! But thankfully this was not the case. She loved it.

She even had a run-in with another mouse... something about how there was only room for one...












We were also waiting for Sasha's friend Mariel to join us. However, she had a doctor's appointment and showed up late, after we had gone home. But since Mariel had been anxiously waiting all day to go trick or treating with Sasha, we didn't want to let her down. Sasha put her costume on and we went back. We went out for dinner afterwards with Mariel's mom, Karina, and her mom, doña Guadalupe, who's visiting from Puebla, Mexico. Karina and her family are returning to Mexico next week, so we hope to visit them this week again.

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!)