(Click on image to have a larger and more detailed view)Wishing you all the very best in 2009
with love,
from our family to yours!
with love,
from our family to yours!
Tender Seedlings - Baha'i Class for Toddlers
Tender Seedlings, Class of 29 December 2008
Today at Tender Seedlings we had a 5yr old little boy joined us! His name is 'Rajjit'.
Mona and Aryan were so happy and excited to have a new friend.
Our new friend, Rajjit, is not from a Baha'i family, so he was not very familiar with the prayers that we sung at the beginning of the class, but he sat so nicely and was quite impressed by the videos and the other two toddlers singing along.
Story of the day: "The Lucky Man" Lesson in Kindness and Sharing, story adapted from the a Persian story.
Once upon a time, there was a little man named Billy who owned a small farm. One day he was walking back home when suddenly he tripped over and rolled down the hill. When he got up, he saw a bunch of grass stuck between his fingers. He said to himself, “God wants me to have this grass.”
When Billy was back home, he drew a butterfly on a piece of paper and cut it out and tied a piece of grass to its tail, then went into town. The paper butterfly fluttered in the wind. As soon as he entered the town, a little boy saw the butterfly and cried, saying to his mum, “I want that butterfly!”
Billy went to the little boy and said, “Don’t cry. I will give you this butterfly.”
The little boy’s mum thanked Billy and later returned with her husband, who gave Billy three big oranges.
Billy went on his way again and at midday he saw a carriage with horses and inside the carriage was a princess. When the princess saw the hat, she wanted to have it and asked Billy to give it to her. Billy kindly gave it to her and the princess was so happy and in return she gave him lots of money.
Billy then went back to his village and with the money he bought a big land for the farmers, and the farmers thanked him, because now they had land to grow lots of yummy vegetables and juicy fruits for everyone.
"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone,
let your heart burn with loving kindness
for all who may cross your path."
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Make colorful Butterflies with ribbons as tails, so that they can fly.
Trace and cut out a butterfly on construction paper. Let children color and decorate with felt, glitter, foams and other crafts materials at hand. Glue in tails by using ribbons.Here are some more pictures of our little Tender Seedlings at today's class:
We don't celebrate Christmas, but....
As most of you know, we are Baha'is and as a Baha'i we don't celebrate Christmas.
But we do have several Baha'i holidays celebrations during the year.
On Christmas eve I noticed that my next door neighbour, Heather, who is a wonderful and sweet lovely lady, was having dinner by herself in her house. That night, I was actually having a cup of tea at another neighbour's house, who happens to be Muslim and from Iran. The young girl who just moved here is Mana and her mother, Munirih, came to help her settle down here, but she will be leaving this January to go back to Iran.
So me and Mona were having a cup of tea and ice cream at their house, when I had to go back to my apartment to get something for Mona. That's when I noticed that Heather, our neighbour, was on her own. I felt so sad for her and went to say hello and to wish her a Merry Christmas.
I decided do something special for her and invited her over for dinner on Friday, which was boxing day.
So this afternoon, Heather, along with Mana and her mom, Munirih, came over for dinner.
The shops were closed because of the public holidays, so I had to do with what I had on hand, but did manage to get some cakes and sweets.
We had some sesame crackers with chilly crab and cheese and chives dip with soft drinks with ice (it was a really hot day today), then a bit later we had dinner.
I cooked Fried Rice - Mauritian style of course - accompanied with chili and garlic sauce and a classic salad.
Everyone loved the Fried Rice and were asking for the recipe. Of course i cooked way to much and now have fried rice for at least a week... lol.
After dinner, I offered double chocolate chip ice cream or ice blocks, but everyone was so full that they all declined, even Mona!!
So Mona made a little impromptu show for us (what a shocker!!) while we digested our food.
And after a while, I took out the fruits and made some tea and coffee and served the sweets, chocolates, cookies and chocolate mud cake that I bought from the shop. The cake was decorated with 'Merry Christmas' on it!! I bought it on purpose for Heather and thought it would be a nice touch.
Of course Mona went crazy on the chocolates and the cake and then was just unstoppable with her singing and dancing performances. But everyone seemed to enjoyed her! We even sang along and at one stage I even got up to dance 'hokey pokey' and 'Round a Rosie' with her!! lol... She also took out most of her toys to show to our dear neighbours and said that she 'needed' to wear her 'doctor's glasses' because Munirih wear glasses too.
But what was really nice this evening, was to get to know Heather a little bit better. She has a cat and has been living on her own in the same apartment for 26 years. She seems like an incredible person and I can't wait to get to know her a lot more.
As for Mana and her mother, Munirih, well they have adopted Mona and myself in their family, and it feels like we have known them forever. And even though our religions and culture are different, we have so much in common, maybe it's because they are Persians just like hubby and his family are and that's why we feel familiar with them, but in any case we love them and their big hearts.
Here is a picture of Munirih, Heather, Mona and Mana sitting in front of the 'christmas cake':
I would also like to wish to my dear readers that do celebrate Christmas,
a very merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Much Love,
But we do have several Baha'i holidays celebrations during the year.
On Christmas eve I noticed that my next door neighbour, Heather, who is a wonderful and sweet lovely lady, was having dinner by herself in her house. That night, I was actually having a cup of tea at another neighbour's house, who happens to be Muslim and from Iran. The young girl who just moved here is Mana and her mother, Munirih, came to help her settle down here, but she will be leaving this January to go back to Iran.
So me and Mona were having a cup of tea and ice cream at their house, when I had to go back to my apartment to get something for Mona. That's when I noticed that Heather, our neighbour, was on her own. I felt so sad for her and went to say hello and to wish her a Merry Christmas.
I decided do something special for her and invited her over for dinner on Friday, which was boxing day.
So this afternoon, Heather, along with Mana and her mom, Munirih, came over for dinner.
The shops were closed because of the public holidays, so I had to do with what I had on hand, but did manage to get some cakes and sweets.
We had some sesame crackers with chilly crab and cheese and chives dip with soft drinks with ice (it was a really hot day today), then a bit later we had dinner.
I cooked Fried Rice - Mauritian style of course - accompanied with chili and garlic sauce and a classic salad.
Everyone loved the Fried Rice and were asking for the recipe. Of course i cooked way to much and now have fried rice for at least a week... lol.
After dinner, I offered double chocolate chip ice cream or ice blocks, but everyone was so full that they all declined, even Mona!!So Mona made a little impromptu show for us (what a shocker!!) while we digested our food.
And after a while, I took out the fruits and made some tea and coffee and served the sweets, chocolates, cookies and chocolate mud cake that I bought from the shop. The cake was decorated with 'Merry Christmas' on it!! I bought it on purpose for Heather and thought it would be a nice touch.
Of course Mona went crazy on the chocolates and the cake and then was just unstoppable with her singing and dancing performances. But everyone seemed to enjoyed her! We even sang along and at one stage I even got up to dance 'hokey pokey' and 'Round a Rosie' with her!! lol... She also took out most of her toys to show to our dear neighbours and said that she 'needed' to wear her 'doctor's glasses' because Munirih wear glasses too.
But what was really nice this evening, was to get to know Heather a little bit better. She has a cat and has been living on her own in the same apartment for 26 years. She seems like an incredible person and I can't wait to get to know her a lot more.
As for Mana and her mother, Munirih, well they have adopted Mona and myself in their family, and it feels like we have known them forever. And even though our religions and culture are different, we have so much in common, maybe it's because they are Persians just like hubby and his family are and that's why we feel familiar with them, but in any case we love them and their big hearts.
Here is a picture of Munirih, Heather, Mona and Mana sitting in front of the 'christmas cake':
I would also like to wish to my dear readers that do celebrate Christmas,
a very merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Much Love,
Gifts Mona received today
(Teddy Bear from our sweet neighbour, Mana)
(Little People's Little Town from uncle Navid and cousin Ajay)
Happy 34th Wedding Anniversary
Happy 34th Wedding Anniversary
to mamijoon and papijoon!
to mamijoon and papijoon!
(click image for larger and detailed view)We hope your love for each other keep flourishing for the rest of your lives
and that the seeds therefrom keeps growing in ours!
and that the seeds therefrom keeps growing in ours!
We love you both so much,
Big Bisous
xoxox
Big Bisous
xoxox
By public demand...lol
As per the request of some of you dearest readers, (request that had been made for quite some time now - sorry for taking so long) here are some recent pictures of me (long overdue!!!).
N.B: please note that there won't be any more pictures of me until sometime in the middle of next year!! (lol)
Thanks for taking my picture sweet-heart :) LOVE YOU!!
N.B: please note that there won't be any more pictures of me until sometime in the middle of next year!! (lol)
Mosquito bites and cash register
What does mosquito bites and a cash register has to do together I hear you ask, well nothing, just that they both were given generously to Mona on the same day!
Neither her father, nor myself have any allergies whatsoever, so we both thought that Mona was safe from allergies, well we were wrong!!
Mona has develop an allergy to mosquitoes bites! Yes I know it's totally absurd, but it's real.
Each time she gets bitten, the area when the bite is gets all swollen it's terrifying!!
The poor girl, she got bitten last week on both arms and one hand, and they were so swollen i was really worried about it. Then just when it started to get better, she got bitten on her cute little face and legs!!
Here are some pictures of her with the bites on her face (forehead and chin) when the swollen had almost gone!
And here is a picture of Mona's brand new cash register. I'm so happy about the christmas sales going on right now, because i got to buy Mona this toy for really cheap!! lol...
She loves playing shopping and pretend to pay money etc when we play. Now she is the 'lady' from the shop and is so happy to have a cash register and keeps scanning all the food items in her little shopping basket. And the bonus is that she is also starting to learn how to count with this new toy!!
And here are some more funny pictures of Mona who was making funny faces for the camera:
(I think you can see the bites a bit better on those pics)
Neither her father, nor myself have any allergies whatsoever, so we both thought that Mona was safe from allergies, well we were wrong!!
Mona has develop an allergy to mosquitoes bites! Yes I know it's totally absurd, but it's real.
Each time she gets bitten, the area when the bite is gets all swollen it's terrifying!!
The poor girl, she got bitten last week on both arms and one hand, and they were so swollen i was really worried about it. Then just when it started to get better, she got bitten on her cute little face and legs!!
Here are some pictures of her with the bites on her face (forehead and chin) when the swollen had almost gone!
And here is a picture of Mona's brand new cash register. I'm so happy about the christmas sales going on right now, because i got to buy Mona this toy for really cheap!! lol...
She loves playing shopping and pretend to pay money etc when we play. Now she is the 'lady' from the shop and is so happy to have a cash register and keeps scanning all the food items in her little shopping basket. And the bonus is that she is also starting to learn how to count with this new toy!!
And here are some more funny pictures of Mona who was making funny faces for the camera:
(I think you can see the bites a bit better on those pics)
Showtime...
Last Thursday we were at one of hubby's aunt's house with the whole family and Mona had lots of fun playing with her cousin Negin. They were most of the time upstairs playing 'dress-up'.
After dinner, tea and ice-cream (and lots and lots of lollies), Mona decided it was time for her show!
She literally made a show for all of us adults. She stood in the middle of the lounge room and would start to tell stories, sing and dance at the same time. And each time someone would talk, she would stop her show, walk up or run up to the person and tell them to 'be quiet' or 'noooooo, stop talking'. All eyes had to be on her for her show. And of course she took a bow each time and waited for the applause! A real show girl!!
Here are some funny pictures of Mona wearing the glasses of cousin Ruha while they were playing dress-up (same kind of glasses that the rapper Kanye West wears in the video clip 'Stronger'):
After dinner, tea and ice-cream (and lots and lots of lollies), Mona decided it was time for her show!
She literally made a show for all of us adults. She stood in the middle of the lounge room and would start to tell stories, sing and dance at the same time. And each time someone would talk, she would stop her show, walk up or run up to the person and tell them to 'be quiet' or 'noooooo, stop talking'. All eyes had to be on her for her show. And of course she took a bow each time and waited for the applause! A real show girl!!
Here are some funny pictures of Mona wearing the glasses of cousin Ruha while they were playing dress-up (same kind of glasses that the rapper Kanye West wears in the video clip 'Stronger'):
Playing with Mona...
Mona sits on her pink chair and holds her little pink diary book in her hands and says:
"we need to look at the list of things to do today!"
Then she starts reading and telling me all about her list. She counts each to do thing on her fingers and the list goes like this:
"First I need to go to the meeting (i.e a Baha'i Meeting),
then I need to go to the shopping,
then I need to go to my friend,
then I need to go to the zoo,
then I come back to your house!"
My almost 3 year old daughter is a very very busy girl, and if you do ask her, how is or how was your day, she will either tell you: "I had a busy day today!" with a very tired sigh at the end of her sentence, or she will tell you: "It's my holiday today!"
lol...
Her imagination and creativity always amazes me!!
She sure is one funny girl...
"we need to look at the list of things to do today!"
Then she starts reading and telling me all about her list. She counts each to do thing on her fingers and the list goes like this:
"First I need to go to the meeting (i.e a Baha'i Meeting),
then I need to go to the shopping,
then I need to go to my friend,
then I need to go to the zoo,
then I come back to your house!"
My almost 3 year old daughter is a very very busy girl, and if you do ask her, how is or how was your day, she will either tell you: "I had a busy day today!" with a very tired sigh at the end of her sentence, or she will tell you: "It's my holiday today!"
lol...
Her imagination and creativity always amazes me!!She sure is one funny girl...
Books update...
Mona just absolutely positively LOVED the books!!
(what a surprise!) lol.
She is walking around with half of the little books from the 'Angelina Ballerina' series. She takes them with her everywhere and carry them in her little pink 'Dora the Explorer' purse!
In the book 'Love You Forever' there is this little song that the mother sings to her son every night till he grows up. And when the mama becomes old, the son in turn sings the song back to her and later on sings it to his own baby daughter.
The song goes like this:
"I'll Love you Forever,
I'll Like you for Always,
As I long as I'm living,
My Baby will be!"
Mona has already memorized how to sing the little song from the book 'Love You Forever' and sings it back to me at night after reading the book or randomly sings it during the day!
(what a surprise!) lol.
She is walking around with half of the little books from the 'Angelina Ballerina' series. She takes them with her everywhere and carry them in her little pink 'Dora the Explorer' purse!
In the book 'Love You Forever' there is this little song that the mother sings to her son every night till he grows up. And when the mama becomes old, the son in turn sings the song back to her and later on sings it to his own baby daughter.
The song goes like this:
"I'll Love you Forever,
I'll Like you for Always,
As I long as I'm living,
My Baby will be!"
Mona has already memorized how to sing the little song from the book 'Love You Forever' and sings it back to me at night after reading the book or randomly sings it during the day!
The first time I read her the story for bedtime, she sang it back to me and gave me a kiss and a hug, and you cannot imagine how much she melted my heart when she did that!!
I love you Mona, Forever.... and as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be!
I love you Mona, Forever.... and as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be!
Books, books and more books...
It's been a while since I bought Mona some new books. (well not really, we did buy some books last month, but anyway, one can never have too much books right, no matter what the age!! Even though Mona's library is getting way much bigger than mine now... anywho!!).
You see there is this book "I'll Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch, which I really really really wanted to get for Mona's bedtime stories a long long long time ago, but each time i took her to the bookshop, she would choose a different book, which of course had to be way more expensive than our allocated book budget, so I could never get the book I truly wanted for her, right!
But today, I did. (Well Mona was not with me when I went shopping, that's why!)
So I finally got the book I have been wanting to get her for so long!! Finally!! Yeah!!
Then I saw this cute little book about 'Angelina'. You know, Angelina, the mouse ballerina!
Two weeks ago when we went to the library, Mona choose to borrow an 'Angelina Ballerina' book, and she loved it so much that we read it most night for bedtime, just after reading 'Spot's baby sister'. So I decided to get that book too for her and it came with a small Angelina Library book, which consisted of 6 little board books of Angelina!
I can't wait till Mona gets home to find her new books!! Ohhh boy is she gonna be excited!!
Oh did I mentioned that I went to the bookshop to buy myself a book and instead came out with 3 books for Mona and none for me!! (mind you, it's not the first time this happens either!!)
Oh well... next time i guess... right?
Here is a picture of Mona with her book 'Spot's Baby Sister' under her arm:
This is a picture of 'Jemima', Mona's new favourite doll. She takes her EVERYWHERE she goes! And her Jemina is wearing a ballerina outfit (see how the ballerina theme is being repeated here!!):
Jemima is a character from 'PlaySchool', a tv show for preschoolers, which we both love watching together everyday. We sing along and dance with the presenters, we learn new stuff everyday and there's even a storytime section! We love this show!! (No seriously, we do learn new things everyday, specially me!!)
And each time the show comes on, Mona runs to get her Jemima, and the three of us sits together on the couch or on the floor and watch 'Playschool'.
You see there is this book "I'll Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch, which I really really really wanted to get for Mona's bedtime stories a long long long time ago, but each time i took her to the bookshop, she would choose a different book, which of course had to be way more expensive than our allocated book budget, so I could never get the book I truly wanted for her, right!
But today, I did. (Well Mona was not with me when I went shopping, that's why!)
So I finally got the book I have been wanting to get her for so long!! Finally!! Yeah!!
Then I saw this cute little book about 'Angelina'. You know, Angelina, the mouse ballerina!
Two weeks ago when we went to the library, Mona choose to borrow an 'Angelina Ballerina' book, and she loved it so much that we read it most night for bedtime, just after reading 'Spot's baby sister'. So I decided to get that book too for her and it came with a small Angelina Library book, which consisted of 6 little board books of Angelina!
I can't wait till Mona gets home to find her new books!! Ohhh boy is she gonna be excited!!Oh did I mentioned that I went to the bookshop to buy myself a book and instead came out with 3 books for Mona and none for me!! (mind you, it's not the first time this happens either!!)
Oh well... next time i guess... right?
Here is a picture of Mona with her book 'Spot's Baby Sister' under her arm:
This is a picture of 'Jemima', Mona's new favourite doll. She takes her EVERYWHERE she goes! And her Jemina is wearing a ballerina outfit (see how the ballerina theme is being repeated here!!):
Jemima is a character from 'PlaySchool', a tv show for preschoolers, which we both love watching together everyday. We sing along and dance with the presenters, we learn new stuff everyday and there's even a storytime section! We love this show!! (No seriously, we do learn new things everyday, specially me!!)And each time the show comes on, Mona runs to get her Jemima, and the three of us sits together on the couch or on the floor and watch 'Playschool'.
1 more pic
Forgot to add this picture of Mona with her crown on to the Tender Seedlings post (see below).
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