A New Independence Day!

Hey my lovely fans,

I am happy. We really did it , we ousted a fascist regime and fascist dictator! Egyptians did it, some think it is a military coup but it is not! It is the will of a nation! You might not understand but if only you could see, you might imagine. We were living in darkness literally, no electricity for up to 6 hours and sometimes more a day, no gas, no water and not even money, nothing! We were deprived of everything while the authorities were busy working on transforming governmental institutions into Muslim Brotherhood ones! They are still resisting, killing innocent people in the streets but it will be over so soon!

I know this is not a political page, it is child-centered but this is something that affects my children, this is a lesson that my children witnessed and would learn forever and they participated in it ;) This is a lesson about freedom, how they should fight for their dignity and freedom! their father set a great example in this revolution, he was always there in the streets with protesters, he cheered and got tired but he was fighting for a greater cause. I think today was the first day he really slept after a long long time.

This is what they call a military coup!

So, this was us on the night before "he" was ousted!

Dida was a little scared from all the fireworks!

Nothing better than daddy's arms to feel safe!

Today, I prepared this bath to celebrate even more :) It represents the Egyptian flag. Honestly, it wasn't such a good idea since the water turned dark black afterwards. I hated giving them a bath in it but the girls were so happy.

We all had some random science experiments. We did some of them before but Farida is involved this time and Sarah has already forgotten ;)

                                       

Thank you for listening to our story, we hope it inspired you a little. Thank you and please, come back soon.

Love,

More Monsters!

Hi all,
Today's post is as late as usual but I know you'll excuse me this time, poor baby Farida was hospitalized for 2 nights. We are glad we are back home and she is safe in her family's arms.
This is what we did just on Halloween's day: Sarah created her own monsters, I did only one, can you guess which one?

Then we turned on the black light and danced with Sarah and Farida wearing their hairy head bands that glow in the dark :)

 We also did some glowing in the dark erupting volcanoes, pardon the pictures but it's hard to take a photo while stopping Farida from shooting everything down and helping Sarah all at the same time.

And these were some erupting volcanic monsters ;) We loves these!

Thank you for being with us. Come back and visit soon :)

Love,

Merida!

Hi,
I told yesterday I would prepare something "Brave" themed. If you knew how crazy I am in real life, at least mentally, you'd have guessed I wouldn't have slept without doing it. Sarah also is obsessed with the movie, she wants to buy her dress (I couldn't find it in our stores:( ). And yes, I would go to the extreme to get my kids the things they love, it is not spoiling, it is called "childhood". At least, Sarah knows when mommy/daddy tells her she doesn't have money to get something to wait until some other time when mommy/daddy has it.

Anyway, thank you CountingCoconuts, you are an inspiration as always. Mari-Ann did an awesome "Brave" sensory tub, please go and visit. I didn't have anything in hand to do this sensory tub so I had to begin from scratch. I took the girls & headed to Toysrus and bought this kit so yes, this is the most expensive sensory tub I've ever prepared. It cost $24.99. However, if you are looking for cheaper options, they sell princess Merida and queen Elinore with a bear, a bow and arrow set for $19.99 and even better, they sell princess MErida alone (mini) with her costume for $6.99 which is awesome.
Let me tell you that this is one of the closest sensory tubs to my heart, the movie is inspiring and I feel I relate to this sensory tub. The movie was like a wake up call to me as a mother, go and watch it and you'll know what I mean.

                                                before                                          after

This is the place where I hid it so that it surprises Sarah!

I want to capture her first reaction when she sees it!

Here's what's inside:

• green & blue gems
• green & turquoise glittery pom poms
• Green water beads
• The castle (included a bed, a table, a chair and their theme revolving photo)
• A box (that contained a picture of one of the the 3 brothers)
• Merida
• The Magic cake (bought it in a rubber set from dollar tree)
• bow & arrow
• Angus (Merida's horse)
• a panda/bear (I colored all of it black to look like a bear ah and we had it from McDonald happy meal)
• Trees (some came with the set and some I had)
• a crown (taken from a cheap doll we had in hand)
• a magic pot (had it from the miniature items we bought before travelling)
• Ps & Qs (P for princess & Q for queen) You can scroll down and see how we used these ;)

 Here are the after they got to see it, I made Sarah search for her surprise :p Sarah spent more than an hour playing with it. I tried not to guide her to any direction, she made Merida ride her horse, sleep on her bed, climb the stairs, sit on her chair, ...etc.

To go with this theme, we had to do both girls a crown. I know that it would mean nothing to Farida but making Sarah prepare it for her sister has a meaning, I love to see her doing something for her sister, taking the time and the effort to do it! She'll remember it one day!

Sarah's crown!

Farida's crown!

Sarah already knows all the alphabet letters upper & lower case but more practice won't hurt, still Brave-themed ;)

Simply cover the Ps & Qs!

The last one took her some time 

but I was determined she would do it before moving to something else. 

I want to enhance her attention span. 

I had to absorb her frustration and she did and was proud of herself.

We had to do some magic, simple, short, cheap & fun! A simple experiment. Here's all what you need:

bowl, water, pepper, dish soap. spray the pepper on the water, put your finger in the dish soap and into the peppered water, it forms a star. Sarah kept her finger for too long and that's why you probably can't see it but Sarah could :)

This was unplanned but Sarah asked for it and I went with her, she asked for a bear mask, one for me and one for her so we did it. It is not about the final product but the process. She was so happy I was sitting with her doing my own mask.

Ah, and I put "Brave" book on hold from our library so probably we'll have it in a week or so.

I hope you had fun with us. Tomorrow we are off to the doctors so probably nothing. Thank you for joining us.

Love,

My Five .....

Hi,

How are you doing? Did you miss us? I will assume you did :) Packing bags and last minutes shopping mania but we are ready to go in a week :) 

Today, we continued with our theme "All About Me" and today as you know is Sunday ;) I know you probably forgot but it means it is Mad Science Sunday. So, we had a themed Science Sunday. We had to know our FIVE SENSES! Perfect!

We started off with our sense of TOUCH! I filled 5 balloons with different fillings and asked Sarah to touch, feel and guess what was inside. Then, she could cut them with scissors. I gave her choices of course. We entertained Farida with some sensory activities, playing with stones & rocks. The balloons contained: 

• Rice
• Salt
• Water Beads
• Pasta
• Water

I giggle every time I see this picture, teasing her sister was hilarious to her! 

Don't worry! I was keeping an eye on Farida and watching which pieces she was tasting!

Only the big ones!

After that, it was the sense of SMELL! 6 empty medicine bottles filled with cotton balls. I used different perfumes. I know I should have used natural products like vanilla or something but I didn't have any. Anyway, Sarah matched each 2 similar scents and strange enough for me, she did them right!

Then, we moved to the sense of TASTE! I gave her a tomato, an olive, a piece of chocolate, a spoon of honey and a spoon of citrus juice while she was covering her eyes! Of course, you can guess which one was funny for me ;)

Citrus Juice! Do you think she liked it :p

After that, we used this sheet printed from one of the sites I mentioned in the first post. We kept quiet for a few minutes in our room and I wrote down each sound Sarah said she heard with a drawing beside it so that Sarah can recognize it. Then, we went outside and repeated the same thing and noticed which sounds were similar. So, it was our sense of HEARING!

Yes, Sarah could hear the sound of turning on the camera :)

Since we were outside anyway, we did our last experiment with our sense of VISION! I had this egg cartoon which I colored inside with different colors. We were on a mission, to hunt for colors outside! Whenever we found something that had the same color as one of our spaces in the egg cartoon, we would take it and put it in there. We found: a brown stone and pine cone, a green leaf, a red piece of paper, a yellow sunflower, a white flower, purple and pink petals on the ground. We couldn't find anything blue or orange! It was fun!

This was definitely one of the unforgettable lessons we ever had, we laughed and we had so much fun. Give it a try! Thank you for sharing us our fun moments.

Love,