A Pinterest-Inspired Project

I've been in a crafty mood lately. And I've been on Pinterest A LOT. Then I realized I wasn't making or doing any of the stuff I'd been pinning. So as I was unpacking from my trip to KY (I presented at a conference in Lexington, woohoo!), I decided my colorful clothespins that belonged in a jar I had taken with me needed to be put to use. I began to think, what can I do with colored clothespins? Well, this came to mind:

After I finished I took it to Staples to have it laminated! Here is what Y did with it:

Of course, the best way he knows his colors are by naming the colors of Thomas and his friends. So I took this as a jumping off point and put Clarabel on the brown color. He sorted the rest of them:) Yay!

Family Vacation and Family Pics

So since my last post we've been to Egypt and back! (And that was last year). Our vacation was splendid, but I will publicly announce that I will never fly AirFrance EVER again. You've been warned, they're terrible. And for my blood pressure's sake, I'll stop right there. On the other hand, KLM (which we flew on the way back) was FABULOUS, as well as their airport. They are so kid-friendly!

Egypt the first few days was interesting. Yousef was sick and miserable, so family gatherings were interesting to say the least. However, after he got better (and Lana and I had a bout of vicious cold) things were smoooooth sailing. We had a wonderful time between visiting family, riding horses at the pyramids, and EATING. Boy, did we do a lot of that. Yousef even ate too. Buuuut after a honeymoon period of about 3 weeks, we seem to be back at square one when it comes to food. This too shall pass.

Here are a few pics (which doa horrible job of representing our trip. I just kept forgetting to pull out my camera, plus I had technical difficulties...

At the pyramids.

Yousef with my aunt's dog, Fluffy.

Stopping for a quick family pic at the house, on my birthday:)

Since we've been back, we've been taking it easy, catching up with friends and on housework, and we even went to Dallas for a quick visit. We also went to take family portraits, which were borderline disaster.. But we got a few good ones. Here we go:

Not bad, eh? MashaAllah

Silly smiles.

Yummy finger.

Sweet.

And here is one of those disasters I was talking about. LOL!

So much to be thankful for, al7amdulillah!

Since the last post was all Yousef....

My last post sat in my draft posts for over a month. Yes, life has been that busy. But here I am today to update you all about Lana and the latest happenings at home!

Lana is 5.5 months old now. She is currently rolling in both directions, all over the room. I can no longer keep her on her playmat so we lay out a blanket with a bunch of baby toys for her to explore and move about as she sees fit. :) The other day, she managed to roll herself up in the blanket by rolling over repeatedly and ended up looking like burrito! It was so funny I had to grab my camera:

Ok, so I should have taken the pic from the side. Not much burrito showing here, but cute little munchkin for sure!

And at the tender age of five months, Lana started eating solids! Woot! Woot! Mashallah she is loving it so far. I knew she was ready because every time she sat in my lap as I ate, she would open her mouth when the spoon came her way (mind you, I was the one eating:P) So it came as no surprise to me when she welcomed rice cereal with open lips. She's now eating squash, peas, carrots, applesauce, rice cereal. We'll be adding new foods slowly:) Here is a picture of Lana's first time eating carrots:

As I'm typing this post I look over at her, as she's laying on the floor on her stomach sucking her thumb, and she just smiles big at me. Like she knows I'm writing about her. :)

Yousef also had some firsts recently. Of course he's still obsessed with Thomas and all his friends. So I'm trying to branch him out to see the other fun things we can do together, like play-doh and finger painting! Here are a few pics I took about a week ago of him exploring

And that's all for now! We're going to play and grow some more for now!

Two and Terrific!

Yousef is turning two! This is a great time to reflect on how TERRIFIC (and terrible:P) he is.

I can't even begin to describe where the time has gone. But one thing is for sure: like the most expensive paper towel on the market, I've soaked it all up as best as I could. I frequently like to revisit Yousef as a baby (I think 2 means he has officially graduated baby status *insert sad face here*) by looking at old pictures and videos. They make my heart flutter and my cheeks hurt! While I miss those glorious days, I'm fortunate enough to relive those amazing moments now with Lana (who is 4 months old, but more on her later!).

Yousef is many things. He's rambunctious, fun-loving, a jokester, the sweetest kid you'll find, and one of the most opinionated little munchkins I know, to put it nicely!

Here are a few fun facts about Yousef:
-He LOVES, I mean L-O-V-E-S, Thomas the Tank Engine and all other trains.
-His love for Elmo is dwindling by the day.
-He fell off his tricycle for the first time a few weeks, cut his lip, and managed to push his tooth back (but so far he's ok!)
-He loves basketball and soccer. MashaALLAH he has quite an arm and a firm kick! Ronaldo in the making!
-He likes to wear his Jordans (shoes). Who knew a kid that small could have an opinion on what he wears?
-He should be called the ice-cream monster (or the sweet-toothed monster) <--We still fight that battle daily, sweets are not food, sweets are NOT food!
-He talks a mile a minute, likes to make eye contact when having a conversation (both make driving difficult!), and half the time (more than half) I don't undrstand what he is saying! But he in confident in his talking and LOVES to tell stories. More often than not he wakes up taking about "Thos. Choo choo twaaaain! *Insert a bunch of words I dont understand here* Mama, giddo, bye, oofy wi2i3 boom") (Transalated: Thomas choo choo train! Mom, grandpa, go bye bye, yousef fell boom!)
-Yousef is a parrot. Be careful what you say around him.
-He loves his baby sister and often likes to copy her as she kicks her legs on the floor. This can be very dangerous for Lana at times.
-Yousef is counting from 1-10 (he doesn't know what it means yet!), can chime in when I sing the alphabet song.
-He likes to sing songs with hand motions and loves ring-a-round-a-rosy!

Two weeks ago we had Yousef's birthday party (just an intimate gathering with the grandparents and aunt/uncles). Thank GOD for that. Aside from the fact that a two year old has no idea what a birthday party is, he was moody enough to make me THANKFUL that there was not a huge crowd there. Even with just us he seemed overstimulated, but he DID have a BLAST! Since Yousef loves Thomas so much, I decided to make him a Thomas cake! It took 5 days to make (I did a little bit each day) and it turned out OK. The hardest part was frosting the cake, but in the end it's the thought (and the taste of course) that count! Here are a few pics from the night:

He wore his Thomas costume for 4 minutes and 38 seconds.

Here is that tantrum I was telling you about, when we didn't open his gift right away.

Family pic!

Someone opted to have a lollipop instead of cake!

Here is the messy, time-consuming, yet tasty Thomas Cake made by Yours Truly! :)

Milestones

Milestones. I do such a terrible job of documenting them and that has to change! So here goes nothing:

Yousef is, as I mentioned in my last post, beginning to strand words together to make very simple sentences.  The maximum number of words in a sentence that I can actually understand is three! Yay for talking!  The other day, we were sitting playing in his room while Lana slept in hers.  He ran to the door to close it, but as he went, I said "No, oofy, Leave the door open!" (in arabic).  He proceeded to make a gesture with his hand (put all five fingers together to make a cone shape) and said "Mama, no ifta7 bab!" (mom, no open door!) IT was the cutest thing ever! I laughed so hard, so of course he did it over and over, until I no longer found it funny. Haha, kids will respond to all kinds of attention, even the negative.

Speaking of responding to attention, Yousef has been giving us a very hard time sleeping lately.  I feel like we are Ferberizing him all over again!  For almost a week he was waking up in the middle of the night screaming and a few times threw up. That passed, and I thought, ok, we can sleep again!  Then he started deciding to stay up late (I'm talking 2 am) and on top of that wanted to eat waffles as a midnight (*ahem, PAST midnight*) snack! I kept thinking, this can't be good.  He'll get used to needing to eat at this time every night.  So I started changing him, reading a few books, saying prayers, and putting him to bed.  For a few nights he would lay there for 15 minutes, then start screaming and crying.  For the next few nights, he would be crying before we even put him in bed. And I'm talking the screaming at the top of your lungs, hurting-the-throat, kicking-your-legs, and breaking-your-heart kind of crying Tonight, his dad took him to sleep in the guest room. *sigh* Praying he doesn't get used to that! *This too shall pass* <--repeat!

I think all this crying may be stemming from one thing: I've started weaning him from a bottle (finally!). It better be gone by his 2nd birthday!  We are using a soft-tip sippy cup (for milk only, everything else he drinks normally).  As great as it is, it seems to be causing him a lot of frustration.

And even though he is having a hard time with those few things, including eating normal meals, Yousef has found a few things he likes: whole grain waffles, fresh-fruit homemade popsicles, ranch dip (sometimes eaten directly with a spoon, gross), just about anything sweet (God, help us!), and moonwalks at our local indoor inflatable playground! At $5 per entry for him, we'll be frequenting there a lot! Once he turns 2 the price goes up, but hey.... he slept like a BABY the day we went:) SO worth it!

Lana is now officially three months and 2 days old. TIME FLIES! My little sweet pea has picked up some rather idiosyncratic habits.  For one, about a week ago, she started needing to grab a fistful of her hair in order to fall asleep.  Sometimes she likes to twirl it and grab it repeatedly (almost like she's scratching her head).  It's too funny.  The other habit, I'm not so happy about. Yesterday she put herself to sleep THREE TIMES.  I know, you're thinking, are you crazy? She put herself to sleep and you're upset?!?!?! Well, yes.... because she sucked her thumb to do it! Oh boy that is one habit I despise, so we're going to go ahead and nip that one in the bud.  I will keep trying to give her the pacifier.   Usually she will accept it at night to fall asleep, but I have to keep my hand on it firmly in order for it to stay in place. Yay me!

Baby girl has finally started to push up on her arms during tummy time and is gaining better control of her neck. Although she does still have bobble-head bouts where it uncontrollably bobbles around.  It's too funny!  She has also mastered the social smile, mashaAllah.  She loves smiling at me and her baba and Yousef!

It's been a joy to watch them both grow, al7amdulillah.  I pray to Allah everyday to continue to bless us and to protect them!

Gosh, I'm really bad at this posting thing, aren't I?  Well, here goes nothing!

Things have been crazy busy lately.  Between still trying to adjust to life with two kids, family in town, ramadan (9th month of the muslim lunar calendar where we fast from dawn until dusk), and Mohamed's summer school class that kept him out till 10 pm for four nights a week (yikes!).... I managed to stay sane and write about it!

Lana is fast approaching her 3 month mark and I'm reveling in her new developments.  For this month it's: the social smile! She loves to smile at Yousef when he plays with her (and boy does she stare him down).  Lana is starting to smile at me when I talk to her, and the best time is in the morning when she first wakes up.  Thank God she likes to sleep in like her momma and Yousef, but when she's up,  she sure is a happy baby mashaAllah! She is growing nicely al7amdulillah, quickly outgrowing her adorable outfits (some she only wore 2 or 3 times!).  But I'm happy because she finally fit into this one:

Yousef is soon to be two years old, and mashaallah he has a lot to show for it.  He's starting talking in 2-3 word sentences.  Both in arabic and english. Yay! He has an affinity for basketball (or any sport involving a ball), he has a major sweet tooth, gives me the hardest time eating (not sure how he survives on two bites of an egg and a few crackers all day long), is starting to figure out how to play on our emotions, is very rambunctious and opinionated.  He cracks me up!  To prove he loves basketball, he must dress the part:

As for me, I'm about to start school again very soon, so life will get more and more interesting! But, I can't wait to have my regularly scheduled mom-time (even if it is school!).  Well, that's all for now:)  This tired momma has GOT to get some sleep:)

A Rare Opportunity

It's a rare moment in the Elkadi house where I'm actually home, both kids are asleep, and dinner's on the stove. PHEW! I can FINALLY sit down for a few minutes to update my cyber-fans on our happenings of late!

Well, Lana is 8 weeks old today! Almost two months!  Time flies by in a very scary way. Just today I was hugging Yousef on my lap when I realized he's already almost outgrown it.  He is hot and cold when it comes to cuddles.  Usually he wants to cuddle when Lana is breastfeeding (jealous!).  But most of the time he won't stop for a hug or kiss:(  I just have to steal them from him in passing.  My baby's all grown up! It's only a matter of time before he'll start telling me how embarassing it is that I hug and kiss him in front of his friends. *Insert Evil Laugh Here*

These past two months have been a roller coaster.  But compared to my two months with Yousef, this is like a kiddie rollercoaster!  I mean, yes, I have two now.  While it is difficult and challenging, at least I know what I am doing.  I have to say that I'm doing much better than I expected I would be, al7amdulillah!  We've had family in and out since she was born, so there was always help (even my 13 year old niece would help... with the dirty diapers too!!1 Thanks Iman!).  But with all that family, there's been little down time at home.  I'm in Sugar Land almost every other day.  In fact, I spent the entire weekend there this weekend due to much needed babysitting during "mommy time!" That's right. I treated myself this weekend to a photography class (can't wait to practice and post what I've learned) and a lil fun in the sun with some girlfriends!

But I digress.

Yousef is a sweet older brother.  He kisses and hugs her (sometimes while laying down on TOP of Lana.. but we'll get to that in a moment).  He protects her (once I caught him pushing his older cousin away from Lana and yelling "no, zido [cousin], no baby nana!" while he tried to kiss her and play with her, awww).  He sings to her (Baaaby Lana, Baby Lana, I love you!).  He lets me know when she's crying, he smiles when she wakes up.

But there's another side to Yousef's relationship to Lana.  Like any other toddler, he is jealous!  He tests me to see what I will do if he pokes her, pulls her leg, strokes her hair (sometimes he's really just doing this out of curiosity, but many other times he's looking at me defiantly waiting for me to react!)  So far we've only had two or three instances where Lana cries from something he's done to her.  He usually ends up kissing her instead of pulling her leg when I ask him to stop. It's sweet.

And Baby Lana loooves her big brother too! She loves to smile for him, and her cousins.  That's right, she's starting to smile.  It melts me heart (sorry for the cliche).

Well, naptime is over now, so I'll have to run!  I'm hoping to update more often now that things are starting to settle down more.  But for now, here are a few pics to keep you entertained:)

These next three portraits were taken of Lana at 10 days old by my friend Dessa from Awfully Pretty Photography. Check her out, she's great!

These photos are just a select few from the last two months:)

All dressed in Red, White, and Blue for the fourth of July. GREAT fireworks here in Baytown:)

Yousef's first trip to Chuck E. Cheese's!

My little American cutie:)

Makes me laugh, even in her sleep!