Happy Naw-Ruz 166

Tonight, after sunset, after the last day of the fasting month, we, the Baha'is all around the world, will be celebrating 'Naw-Ruz' (our new year).

And this year, Naw-Ruz has an extra special significance for us, as this year, the date 21 March, coincides with the 100th anniversary of the interment of the remains of the Bab on Mount Carmel, in Haifa. If you want to read more about it, click here.


Mona is getting all excited over here... We cleaned the house and got everything ready for this big celebration and we sorted out the which new outfits we will be wearing for the 3 Naw-Ruz Party we are going to.... so much fun!!!

And this morning, when I logged into facebook, I saw that my brother Brian (the one who lives in France) has created a challenge for the 'best naw-ruz' card!! I had to participate of course (no need to say who is going to win this one hands down, right bro?!! lol...just kidding... or maybe not!! lol...)
So here is a little card I made, 'expresso style', this morning:

Happy Naw-Ruz 166
with all our love,
from Mona and Sabby
xoxox

Video of Mona's Birthday at the Park

A little video of Mona's 3rd birthday party at the play park with her little friends and cousins:

For Mona

Je t'aime Mona,
"I love you forever, I like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be!"
------
Maman
xoxox

Thank You :))

Dearest loved ones,

Mona and myself, would very much like to thank all of your for your precious gifts, your warm wishes and your love on her 3rd birthday.

We were really overwhelmed by the generosity of your hearts and your sincere gifts of love!

Thank you so much for making this day so special for my little princess!

With all my gratitude and love,

Mona's birthday party with family

Last Saturday, after Mona's birthday party with her little friends at the Park, we went to Mamani's (grandma) house for a Princess Birthday Party with the whole family.

Here are some pictures of the party:

Mona, our 3 year old princess
in her new pink princess dress and shoes that her mamani bought her special day

Another huge pink birthday cake and lots and lots of gifts
- my little girl was really spoiled this year -
and Mona playing with her cousins!

Cake blowing and cutting... it was quite hard to get some good pictures because of the way the table was set, but I managed to save some shots (thanks to photoshop!)

Opening of gifts... Mona was so spoiled this year... she got lots of clothing for winter and shoes, lots and lots of toys (Dora or princess related), and a huge wooden doll house from her grandparents in Mauritius, and also a golden pendant of the Greatest Name from our dear friends Aryan, Dori and Yassi....

Family shots breaking the fast, eating dinner (pizzas) and having fun together, and a shot of Mamani wearing Mona's princess crown... lol...

We were so tired and exhausted from this day filled with love and fun... Mona was really happy and so blessed to have so many people caring for her and who loves her so much!

Mona's birthday party with friends

Last Saturday we had two parties for Mona's birthday!
The first one was in the afternoon at a play park in Adelaide, with all of her little friends.
We had such a great time, specially Mona and her friends...


It was really lots of fun... It was a pink party!
The table cloth and settings were all pink. The cake was pink naturally and the birthday girl was dressed in pink!! lol...

There were princess crowns for the little girls and party hats for the little boys. There were lots of noisy party whistles, bubbles, and favour bags with lots of lollies, fun toys and surprises for each little guest!

But the best part wasn't the yummy food on the table or the gifts Mona received!! (even though she did get spoiled this year!!)
The best part was seeing Mona having such a blast!! She was so happy to have all her friends come to her party!! And each time one of them was coming, she would run to the gate of the park, yelling out their name to welcome them and show them how happy she was to see them!
And to see her play and laugh with them was so precious!! I can still hear her laughter resonating in my ears and heart! It was the best birthday party ever for the both of us!!!

Here are some pictures of the party at the park:

On the first story board, Mona is showing off a handmade card that she received from her friends Danny and Amy. Then she is taking a peak at one of the gifts while no one was watching!

The bottom row are pictures of Mona and Achi... they were so cute together... Mona and Achi took turns lifting each other up to reach the bars, but none of them were successful, so they decided to go play somewhere else... lol..

The second storyboard is the kids having a great time playing with each other and running all over the play park!! And I have to admit, it was quite hard to take pictures of everyone!!
There were some bubbles blowing fun too... and lots and lots of lollies... :)

The 3rd story board are various pictures of the guests at various times of the party!

The 4th story board is obvious!! lol... Cake and family shots!!
(we missed the blowing of the candles shots!!)

And the last story board is about eating the cake and lollies and the opening of gifts...

There are more pictures of the party on my facebook, you can go and check them out, or wait till later when I make a slideshow and put it on the side bar!

All in all, we had a great time, even though we were concerned a little bit about the weather... It was quite windy and it did rain for like two minutes, but then the sun came shining through and we enjoyed the rest of the party!!

I'll be back soon with the pictures of the second party and even maybe some videos!!

What do we have here?!?

I got a question for you!
Can you guess what's in the bag???


Well, it's my Ayyam-I-Ha and Naw-Ruz gift combine!!
Yep, my mum, mami-joon, from Mauritius gave me the most exciting, cutest and extremely needed little gadget!!

A new digital Camera!!
A beautiful, sleek and hot camera!!
An Olympus Stylus mju 1040!!!

It's a 10 mega pixels and 3x optical zoom, a 2.7" LCD screen and lots and lots of other cool modes and functions! It's super slim and weighs only 108g and comes with 1 year warranty.

It's RRP is 299$ but I got a super great deal on this one!! I was so proud of myself, for the way I negotiated with the sales guy!! (Hmmm, let's say I just used my feminine charms on him... lol)
I got a free camera case (priced at 26$ - was the most expensive one at the store!) and I also got a 3 in 1 Mirco SD (2GB) at the price of 10$ instead of 38$ and....... wait for it..... wait for it..... the camera itself at the price of 250$!!!
Instead of paying 363$ I paid a total of 260$ for the whole deal!!! Is that a bargain or what!!

It's hot baby!! It's bright red stylish, glossy and sizzling hot baby!!
It's actually gonna be my sweet little baby for a while!!
Ahhhh, I've been dreaming for this day to arrive for a couple of months now!!
(Since Mona broke my older olympus camera at the park when she kicked her soccer ball right in the camera while I was taking a shot of her.. lol..)

To switch it on, you just have to slide down that red 'lens protecting faceplate' and slide it back up to switch the camera off!! I just love that thing!!!

Oh and the buttons at the back, lights up in a blue/purple light when the camera is in use!! It's just stunning and totally lustrous!! I love it!! The buttons are so soft, it's like using a touch screen! I think it's one....

It's also got a video recorder and so many other great functions!!
The auto function is really great. The camera analyses the scene and then applies optimum settings to get the most amazing results in the shots! I was stunned by the quality of the shots! I didn't even had to edit them on photoshop!!! I usually edit ALL of my pictures on photoshop!! This time I didn't have too, and that was just by using the auto function!

Here are some pictures I took from my new little baby:
And here we were testing out the 'smile detection' automatic shot! When the camera is on that mode, it will focus on the subject until it can detect a smile!! And it automatically takes the shot when the smile is detected. And it was really quick to detect too!! We were just blown away by this function!! lol... so of course we tried it out and even tried to trick the camera... but it can detect a smile even when your mouth is closed!!

I absolutely LOVE my new baby, I mean camera!!
Thank you so much mami-joon cherie, for this really super duper great gift!!
I can finally record videos again and you can expect to see some, I mean lots of videos of Mona, specially videos of her 3rd birthday!

Now, I'm gonna go read the instruction manual and learn how to use this little baby!!
THANK YOU MUM!!! LOVE YOU!!! LOVE YOU!! and Love the camera too... lol...

She's turning 3

My babygirl is growing up!!
Yep, and it's her birthday soon... and boy oh boy, is she excited about it... she keeps talking about it several times a day!!


Last Saturday, I took her to the city and we had a lovely few hours there, and I took the opportunity to visit the big toy shop at Rundle Mall, ToyRus.
I got her 4 little gifts (pictured above). But as you can see from the picture there are only 3 left!!

Yes, that's right, she begged me to give her the birthday gifts from the moment we got home on Saturday afternoon till Sunday morning, when I gave in!!
I had to explained to her several times that if I gave her all her gifts she wouldn't have any to open at her birthday party and that she would be sad if she didn't have any gifts to open then!! And guess what she answered back: "I will be happy because mummy and daddy will buy more gift for my birthday."
lol... She is so intelligent and have great come backs for anything you have to say!!

So we made a pact and we decided to open the smallest gift on Sunday and to keep the other gifts for the birthday!! And boy, was she happy about that!!!

And here she is posing for the camera with her little 'Dora Fairy Princess' doll.

Mona had a funny request for her birthday, she absolutely wants to have pink birthday card!!

Wherever we go, at the news agency, the supermarket, or any other shops, she will magically find the stationery section and choose a pink card and a pink envelope and would then ask me, really I should say, beg me, to buy it for her!!! I still haven't bought one for her just yet...

but it's really funny that she would choose her own birthday greetings card for herself...

My little mermaid...

Mona and water... that is a long story... hopefully it will turn itself into a love story...

Let me recap a bit for you, Mona has always been scared of the swimming pool. We used to take her to my brother in law's house for a swim, but since they moved houses and no longer have a swimming pool, it's been about a year or so that Mona hadn't been to the pool.

I was a bit anxious about her she was going to react at the Aquatic Center for Aryan's birthday last Sunday, but she seemed very excited to be going and to my big surprise wasn't hesitant for a second to go into the pool.

We started off with the babies pool, she could easily walk in there, and I stood near by (taking photos of course) while she wandered about the pool.

Then all of a sudden, she walked out of the pool and started walking to the bigger kid's pool, where her friends Aryan and Reeshab were swimming. I quickly ran after her and helped her get into the bigger swimming pool.

She slowly ventured by herself in the swimming pool...

And got a bit more confident and wandered a bit further away... at this point I was still wearing proper clothes on and was just waiting to see if I needed to go in the pool with her or not...

She started wandering deeper into the pool till about where the water reached to her waist... on that shot, she almost slipped... ooops... but she didn't fall... instead she came back towards me and asked me to come in the pool with her.

While I went to get changed, Mona with the help of auntie Dori, ventured again into the big kids pool... This is a huge thing people!!
She would never be in the water unless if in the safety of an adult arms!!

There she is having a chat with her friends, Reeshab and Aryan, while waiting for me to come back...

And here, she was following Reeshab's instructions on how to swim!! lol... so cute!!

When I finally came with her in the water, she was so happy and excited... really she was really really excited and kept jumping and bouncing up and down in the water...

Here we were both spinning around in the water...
I showed her how to swim, and she followed most of my instructions. She kept forgetting to close her mouth when her head went under the water!!

I was really proud of her and kept encouraging her so much...
She walked very well in the water and went really deep, till the water was just under her chin... The pool's water level went from 25cm to 90cm and she could walk in the water up until 85cm and still have her head over the water level!!!!
She is getting really tall, that's for sure!!

Here she was swimming, kicking both her feet and arms in the water... naturally with me holding her from under her arms....
She totally loved it!! She also enjoyed splashing me a lot with the water as well as anyone who would come close enough to us to get splashed!!
She would make me sit in the pool and keep splashing me until my eyes would burn!! lol...

And here we were having some fun under the water falls!! lol

I really loved those shots from under the water falls.. we really had a great time just laughing and enjoying each other's company in the water...

I was so happy and proud of her for having conquered her fears!!
She is such a strong girl and is definitely growing up very quickly....

Naturally, Mona asked and keeps asking for a birthday party at the swimming pool...
But one thing's for sure, I will definitely take her more often to the Aquatic Center!!