Fruity Fruits!

Hey friends,

My beautiful sweet little daughter, Sarah was hospitalized for 3 days for an asthma :( Her first one and hopefully the last. It was heart breaking to see her tied to an oxygen mask and to a cannula! Anyway, she is better now and here is a picture of her on the day she left hospital. She was so funny in the hospital, looking for ways to escape :D She faced all this as strong as one little girl could be,God! I love them so much!

Away from all the drama, Sarah got back to her school and they were discussing fruits. I had to add my touch :p  So, I prepared her some simple things. A sensory tub, a puzzle, stickers and a coloring book. Here is what is inside the tub:

• plastic fruits
• fruit erasers
• small mini trees
• fall leaves (from the dollar store)
• confetti (leaves)
• Blocks (with pictures of fruits on them)

 Farida was trying hard on the puzzle :D

Our dictionary

Farida was so good doing this :)

Thank you for being with us. Hope to see you here soon. We appreciate your comments!

Love,

One More Random!

Hi,
I gave up, I'll never write on regular basis so, bear with me, please!

These are some random pictures from our past few days. There was no purpose in my mind in doing/introducing them whatsoever except seeing my kids play and laugh and they laughed a lot and it made me happy. There has been a lot of changes here lately, Farida is growing up fast and now, she can protest throwing lovely forgotten tantrums. Sarah and I fight no more, lol, we discuss and talk and nowadays, I tend to put myself in her shoes! What does it feel like to be small, helpless and with no choice? Not good at all so yes, it made a difference. "Mommy, I don't want to sleep. I want to play a little more." In the past, I would have responded saying that it is bedtime and put her in bed but come on, do we sleep on demand like this? NO! Then, why would I expect her to do so? 

Anyway, Here was the first invitation:

play-dough, googly eyes, shells, stones, pom poms, cutters and colorful sticks. Needless to say that this play-dough was once a cake with candles to blow off, then a monster and then pizza to serve and eat! 

On another day, we played with water beads AGAIN! The second and third pictures are exactly what we saw when we stuck our faces in the beads to take a closer look. Playing with the light can be so much fun :)

A day on the beach, as you can see, Sarah was testing the surroundings and checking whether she can do it or not :) Cautious as usual! A great sensory activity for both kids, playing with and throwing sand!

So again, I admit, I am selfish and I let my kids play to see them laugh because it makes me happy :p This was today and it was hilarious, every time, Sarah sets up something, Farida comes and knocks it downs laughing hysterically which in turn makes Sarah laugh as well. We broke 10 of these plastic glasses :)

I love kids' imagination, it is hilarious! Today we were telling Sarah "Snow White"  bedtime story with some modifications and all she was concerned about was where Snow White's mother was so we had to tell her she was preparing food. After some events, she said, "I bet her mother is doing the dishes right now!", LOL!

Thank you and please come and visit soon,

Love,

Shaving Cream Errors ;)

Hi,

We continued with our shaving cream exploration but kept facing errors, at least according to me ;)

On the second day, I added water beads to the box/tub! I think I am starting to hate water beads or at least my stupidity. I have a small figure and a very aching back so to clean the water beads, bend over the tub and collect the escaping ones was a torture to me. I had to give up after collecting half the amount and throw the rest as they are. Don't worry, I have a lot more water beads. The girls of course didn't feel my suffering and had fun, isn't that what it is all about?

                                      

On the following day, I put shaving cream in a Ziploc bag and added a few items in there. The idea was to prepare a sensory activity for Farida and an I-spy game for Sarah. Of course, I should have left some space in the bag so that Sarah can see what's in there! Also, I should have prepared 2 instead of 1 so that both girls can enjoy at the same time. Look at the pictures and you'll know what I mean!

     
                              

Someone couldn't wait for her turn ;)?

These are random pictures fro yesterday at the park that I love:

What an advancement for a girl who never wanted water near her face!!

 We also went to "Brave" movie and let me tell you, it is awesome. Sarah wants to go and watch it again. Of course, we'll do something related to the movie very soon but still not sure what exactly yet!
Thank you for being with us in our errors,
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,

Messy Play!

Hi,
I got bored of structured play so I thought we might take a break from our theme for a day or two so instead, we can get messy. The invitation was very simple but we all loved it, I wish we had backyard, it would have been even more fun. Here:

The invitation consisted of:

Colored ice cubes

Baby Oil

Glitter

Warm Bath

Color Mixing was fascinating in the beginning!

Final Color (makes me wish I didn't have a black ice block)

Sister share & Love :)

Yes, you can get in the tub!

After being splashed with water, LOL :D

Of course, they took a quick shower afterwards and changed their clothes but more fun was still there. I loved the fact that Sarah shares everything with little Farida. Do you remember the slime we did in Mad Science Sunday? I stored it in the fridge and we reused it. This time, I hid some objects in it (about 8-9) so it was a combination of a sensory activity and "I spy" game. 

Some of the miniature items hidden in there.

Carefully exploring!

Farida grabbed it from Sarah's hand and Sarah eventually let go for her sister.

I did nothing wrong, mommy :)

Busted!

The only solution to this was to keep the pacifier in Farida's mouth.

I hope you had fun, come back and join us soon. 

P.S. If you have any suggestions to improve this blog, you're more than welcome to share them :)

Love,