I can't believe that I forgot about this and have let it go so long without an update so, let's get back on track...

We've been here at our new place now for 9 months. It is hard to believe that it has been that long already.
Nasif has been taking tae kwon do lessons since Thanksgiving. He loves going to his classes. He started at a white belt and went to a yellow stripe and then to a double yellow stripe. Now he is getting ready to test for his next belt. We've also been going to the library for story hour. We've made a few friends there and look forward to going each week. The summer reading program there is about ready to start and it is "Digging into Reading" so Nasif is particularly looking forward to that. This summer is going to be challenging for Nasif because his father is going to be teaching all summer long in Texas and mommy is taking classes at the university.

I've been working daily with Nasif for his homeschool lessons. I've gotten some things together for him to do while I do my classwork but need to finish it so that everything is organized and finished. He is doing very well with his reading but getting him to practice sometimes is quite a chore. I need to find something motivating to him so that he'll sit down and read. He can do it but I think he feels overwhelmed - like oh my look at ALL those pages I can't read that many pages, kind of thing.

Well I think that's all for now. I'm hoping to continue on with this on at least a semi-daily basis... :)

Naughty boy!

I don't have much to post today. Nasif has been naughty all day and awhile ago I looked at the clock thinking it must be at least 1am and guess what it was just past 10. I am not sure what is going on today but Nasif was testing his limits everywhere. He took his scooter apart and I'm not even sure I got it back together properly. When his father got home from the office he kept running the scooter into his father so he lost it. It is now in my laundry room until I decide he can have it back. I was thinking of taking a picture to post today but he refused to keep clothes on all day so hence no picture today... I sure hope tomorrow is better!

Wednesday, Wednesday

Today is Nasif's favorite day of the week - library day. We went to the story hour program at our new library. They are going through the alphabet and reading books based on the letter of the week. This week was letter E and they read the book Chicken Big. It was cute and kind of funny. They also did some songs and then crafts. For our craft this week they had an egg drawn on a paper towel and then they colored it with markers. Then took a paint brush and dabbed water on it so that the colors ran. We're going to get them next week when they are dry so I'll post a picture then. They also got an Easter egg color sheet and a letter E color sheet. After story hour we went and picked out some new books and a new DVD to borrow. That was the highlights of our day...

On another note Nasif keeps calling me "Your majesty"... Not sure where that came from but it is hilarious. When he's a teenager I think I'll remind him of that!

Bringing Back Nasif's World...

I decided that since we moved one way for everyone to see what we're up to and how our family is would be to use our blog. I am making it a goal to post something everyday weather it is a photo or a post...

We are starting to get settled in here at our new place. It has been 28 days now since we arrived. It does not seem possible but I double checked and counted on the calendar.

Nasif has his own big boy room here and he loves it. He has all his toys there with and loves playing in his room. I think this is great because before his stuff was scattered throughout the house and he didn't really have a place to call his own space. Now he does!

This past weekend we went to the county fair here. This is the second time that Nasif went to the fair where he could enjoy. He rode a few rides with a friend. One ride he rode by himself, an alligator roller coaster, and he liked it the most. He told us, "It wasn't scarry at all momma." heheheee. We also did our splurge of cotton candy and a funnel cake.

The weather has really gotten cooler here too. It actually feels like fall unlike in Georgia. Since it started feeling like autumn Nasif and I changed out the Scentsy to Mandarin Moon and that added a nice touch. Now if we could see some leaves changing color that would be the icing on the cake!

Time

Time, where did you go?
Why did you leave me here alone?
Wait, don't go so fast
I'm missing the moments as they pass...

I love this song by Chantal Kreviazuk. It rings so true when you realize that time is passing so quickly and your children are growing up so fast - too fast.

Nasif's birthday was on the 16th but we waited until this past weekend to celebrate so that we had time to invite his friends after the winter break. When I think about it I just feel that there is no way possible that it was three years ago he was born and forever changed our lives. These past three years have been the best three years of our lives. We've had our ups and downs but I'd say that the ups outweigh the downs a million to one. Mahbub and I'd both say that there is no we love more than our little puchki, Nasif. 

I am sure that everyone has noticed my absence since Nasif's birthday. I worked so hard to make sure his party was a huge hit! I started weeks before cleaning out my house and reorganizing everything. I took a bunch of boxes to charity. I made his invites, the birthday banner, party hats, dinosaur eggs and fossils, and most of the food. 

On Nasif's actual birthday we went to lunch with some of our good friends. We went to Olive Garden for lunch and had soup and salad and bread sticks. Nasif wanted cake so I also got him cake but he took one bite and looked at me and said, "Maa, I prefer homemade much more." lol! I guess I already have him spoiled to homemade goodies!

We had a lot of activities going on the past week or two also. We went to a friend's pirate playdate, met friends for breakfast and lunch, had other birthday parties to attend, and a Bengali celebration. 

Nasif's party was Saturday. The weather has been exceptionally warm this winter so we had our January birthday party outside. It was sunny and almost 75 degrees out. To lead our guests to our outside location I had dinosaur footprints on posterboard and taped them to the floor from the front door to the back door. We had our guests arrive and then we started eating. We had pizzas, pico de gallo with tortilla chips, baby carrots with ranch, cherry tomatoes, grapes, pretzels, popcorn, olives, and almond butter and grape jelly sandwiches. For drinks I made ginger -lemonade punch with strawberry ice cubes, ice tea, and water. After we ate we did our dinosaur dig. I had Mahbub empty Nasif's baby pool and we filled it with dirt and buried dinosaur eggs, dinosaur fossils, and gold coins. Then the kids took turns digging up the treasures in the dirt. I had made paper bags with dinosaur fossil rubbings and their names like Paleontologist Nasif. Afterwards we had a really cool triceratops pinata that my friend Rachel made for the party. The kids just loved it. I had put kitkats, peanut butter cups, Hershey's kisses, and lollipops inside. After the pinata I brought out Nasif's birthday cake I made him and the cupcakes. His cake was white with homemade icing and I had decorated I made a river with mud and grass around and then I put toy dinosaurs on the top and wrote "Happy Birthday Nasif". The cupcakes were homemade chocolate with homemade icing. I used my mom's recipe because they are egg free and dairy free. We lit his candles and blew them out and sang happy birthday. After that everyone played and ate cake and ice cream. As our guests left, we handed out goody bags that we had made up with 3 color sheets, 4 dinosaur crayons, 3 dinosaur tattoos, 2 squishy dinosaurs, a dinosaur stencil, and either 2 dinosaur rubber duckies or a magnify glass. I had them in little party bags and had labeled the top of each bag with each child's name. 

Nasif had a blast and loved having his friends over to enjoy his birthday party and to play together. We all went to bed early, but not until Nasif had opened all his gifts and I think played with every single one. Just for memory purposes I am going to list what he got: stuffed giant trex, dinosaur encyclopedia, batman car and truck, foam blocks, crayola color wonder desk, crayola color wonder cars book, dinosaur bath fizz eggs, bathtub crayons, cars sticker box, toy story journal with pen, Tommy hilfiger outfit, 2 tops: 1 long sleeve, 1 short sleeve, a preK workbook, 3 toy story puzzels, a super hero cape complete with mask, 2 animal puzzles, 3 jeeps, a claybook, a noisy racecar (lol!), a dinosaur puzzle book, a dinosaur popup book, an Oso color book, a pencil box, pack of crayons, a pack of color pencils, a toy story puzzle, and a Dr. Seuss memory matching game. I think that's all. I plan on taking a picture of him with each gift for us to include in our thank you notes to everyone. 

I think that most if not everyone really enjoyed the party, at least I hope they did! I am such a perfectionist that I know for next time there are some things that I am going to do differently. lol!

Anyways, once I find my camera cord and download my pictures I am going to post some of them here. My friend Jennie also took a bunch of pictures at his party so I am going to post her pictures too. Maybe I'll make a separate post so that we can see them and remember them all.

Well, I guess that is all for now... I desperately need to give Nasif a hair cut. He keeps fussing about it because he says that god gave him this hair and god will be sad and cry if I cut it off. lol! Sorry I guess and too bad... Everyone thinks you are looking like a hippy or maybe one of the Beatles! 

Oh before I go I also wanted to say that his favorite word right now is "ration". He asks me ALL.DAY.LONG if I need to ration this or that. Like we had some tortilla chips - "Maa do you need to ration these chips?" or when I gave him his vitamins, "Maa do you need to ration these vitamins of mine?" lol. If he can he asks if I need to ration it. lol! 

Lowe's Day

I don't have any funny quotes for  today. Sorry! Maybe he'll come up with something later on today.

This morning we went to Lowe's for their Build and Grow project. Nasif LOVES these projects. We've been taking him since last Sept. (Sept. 2010). I think we've only ever missed two. Once when we were in Florida last year and then once when Mahbub was to take Nasif while I was on a Scentsy business party. They are usually 2 times a month. Today we built a castle complete with an opening and closing door, knights, a dragon, a princess. Afterwards we went to Books a Million. They used to have better prices but have gotten to be more expensive than B&N. We've been invited to a couple of birthday parties in the near future so we went to pick out some books. Also, they had a sale where you can buy the Dr. Seuss Easy Readers like Go, Dog Go! and The Tooth Book were buy 2 get 1 free. So I bought 2 for each of our parties and got 2 free for Nasif. I'm going to try to get a picture of Nasif's castle and post here later.

Family Trip

I haven't forgotten! We've been out of town!

Mahbub is a professor and the winter break has rushed to an end. We wanted to do one last family outing/family event before he had to be back at work today. We had thought about going to Atlanta because that is one of our favorite places to go but we've been pinching pennies so we decided to opt for Jacksonville instead. 

We went and spent a whole day at the Jacksonville Zoo. Nasif loves animals and he loved every minute of it. They had so many different kinds of birds, snakes, and frogs. They had an ostrich, zebras, elephants, giraffes, white rhinos, bongos, alligators, apes and a couple different kinds of monkeys, bats, anteaters, komodo dragons, sting rays, and more. We walked through all the exhibits. It was a really nice time and the weather was perfect!

Nasif's highlights from the zoo:

* Petting the stingrays  - He said, "I don't want to touch that it feels disgusting." I just took his hand and plunged it into the water and made him pet it and then he broke out in giggles. 

* Feeding the Giraffe Luna - He begged us to do this and giggled nonstop. Did you ever see how long a giraffe's tongue is? Did you know that their tongues are black so they don't get sunburns? 

* Ridding the zoo train - This was his first train ride. From the moment we walked into the zoo and he heard the train whistle he was asking us to go.

* Seeing the Anteater - Nasif said, "He shouldn't be called an anteater. He should be called an ant vacuum." 

* Petting the goats

* Sitting under the penguins and watching them swim

After the zoo we went to our hotel and checked in and then went to dinner. At dinner Nasif informed us, "I can't sleep at the hotel. You didn't bring my bed here. Is my bed in the trunk?" 

The next day we went to the Jacksonville MOSH. That was a lot of fun too. They have an exhibit for kids about inside the body. When you enter you walk in through this huge mouth. Nasif wasn't too sure he wanted to be "eaten", but once inside he loved it. They had all kinds of body parts and they had a giant heart that showed how blood is pumped and flows through. There were robotic arms that kids could use to pick up different items. They had a burping machine and a farting machine too. There were quite a few hands on experiments. The next exhibit was the Atlantic Ocean with whales, manatees, and dolphins. They also had 1 allosaurus. That was a huge hit with Nasif. They also had a water exhibit in which Nasif enjoyed turning water on and letting it flow down "dirty pipes" (Thank you Sid the Science Kid!). There was also an animal exhibit with snakes, frogs, turtles, alligators, an opossum, lizards, and owls. Nasif loved the owls! There was also a very interesting exhibit called Weird Matter. It was full of different science experiments for kids to do. Nasif went crazy in there playing with everything. He especially liked the handheld microscope and was putting it on everything to see all the little details. The part of the museum that Nasif didn't like was the history of Florida/Jacksonville. I know it was boring for him though because it was mainly adult oriented. 

After the MOSH we went to the River walk and marina and walked around. It was to rain and have thunderstorms but the weather was actually beautiful and just absolutely perfect. We took lots of pictures and videos.

Our time was very short but full of fun and enjoyment and most importantly family time. We cannot wait to go again to Jacksonville, and feel sorry we didn't go sooner! We saw a lot of things we'd like to check out in the future. 

Today it is back to normal. I'm feeling an itch to re-organize and re-arrange my house since we're back and I think I just might undertake it!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip: