Soda has lots of sugar!

Yesterday while we were having dinner Zaid told me that his friend at the cafeteria was drinking soda, and said: "soda is bad for you, it has alot of sugar" =))

I smiled big and asked, did you tell her?

he said, ya

then he acted how it happen lol

Zaid: why did you drink soda?

Lilly: because I like it.

Zaid: soda is bad for you.

I felt so proud of him and told him how happy and proud I am..subhanallah when you talk and explain to your kids about why we should not eat certain things, they really do understand it. When i take him with me for grocery shopping, i always make sure to point out that..like when I'm choosing a box of cereal and he chooses a different one, I always say this one is better look it has less sugar, the other one has too much sugar...etc and mashallah he never complained. Now of course sometimes he eats a candy from school, a friend, or a party but he dose not go crazy and i tell him it's ok if you want to eat one or tow..but remember when we go home first thing is to brush your teeth and he does it by himself mashallah. Even when he drink apple juice, he got into the habit of adding water by himself...

Another thing i've been teatching him is to say subhanallah, mashallah...etc The other day we were watching this show about wild animals and he said..."look at this mama, SUBHANALLAH" it was the cutest thing :)

and when we hear an ambulance while driving we say, " ya Lateef ". I used to hear baba say that when we were kids=)

Zaid ya mama you make me proud =)

The War on Pacifiersim.......

Holyyyyyyyyy night!!! yesterday after i put Lana to bed!! she kept crying so i opened the door to see this!! i was like omg i don't have another one...... then i thought.. too bad it's time to wean her i guess:/
she cried and cried... i slept next to her, sang to her, explained that pacifier is خربانة now...bey bey pacifier...but she cried like there is no tomorrow...i was sooooo worried and i started questioning myself, am i doing the right thing? so what if she kept it...etc it was so hard.

after a while she took my hand and wanted to go downstairs..i went with her...she opened the fridge...closed it and i told her let's go upstairs...cried some more then all of the sudden took the weired looking pacifier now and threw it in her crib and came back to me! cried some more. I hugged her, kissed her, played with her hair. Then she had some water and finally slept around 9:30 she pulled my heart out :(
she wake up again in the middle of the night....here i almost lost it and wished there was another pacifier to end this whole thing...so what. she cried, had some water, and i slept next to her till morning.
day#2

Tonight i was not sure how she will take it....she did good the entire day without it..she took the nap in the car after we came back from the gym! but she got cranky after she wake up!
so it's bedtime now ( put the mattress on the floor) and i took her to her room, gave her her bottle, n closed the door......she cried for 15 min and went to sleep finally!الحمد الله even her cry was different tonight...it was the tired cry..not the crazy painfull one..whew, now i hope she will sleep the entire night...
she cried at 10:30 NOOO i wanted to die........decided to let her cry... i thought it was to much now..went to see her n ya 7aram! she had#2 !! i felt so so soooooooo bad for letting her cry:/ changed her n she went to sleep.

day#3

put her to bed she said, "namy" ohh she wants me next to her..i told her as I'm walking out I'm going to throw the diaper in the trash, ow beddy sally..enty namy and closed the door. alhamdulilah she did NOT cry at all!!! mission accomplished in 3 days MASHALLAH!! :D

another dose of Arabic!

ok so this morning finally i went to the gym again..exercised and got back home. I asked Ammar where is Lana.."oh i put her to sleep"! i go to grab something from the kitchen and Zaid comes to tell me that Lana has a kaka on the floor!!!! i yelled and looked at Ammar, WHAT?! and he says, yes he is right, with a calm voice n all Few seconds later, i hear Lana from upstairs..oh she is not even sleep... i go upstairs and i see the yuky theng on the carpet next to my bed..I'm like, u didn't even clean it!!! "nop, i just cleaned her". Ammar opens the door for Lana and there was a new surprise, she threw up in her room and the smell was unbelievable:( poor Lana!

what a nice morning! and i just started cleaning.................i really wish if we had wood instead of carpet.............................

alhamdulilah, i gave her banana to eat and some crackers, thank God i had some, and also managed not to give her any milk, alhamdulilah she did ok..i was really worried. we need to keep watching her..inshallah khyr..

Zaid started his first class of the yellow belt at 6pm today, i wish Mohamad was here to stay with Lana! i had to sit in the car because she was yelling very loudly and wouldn't sit still...

On another note, i totally forgot to take zaid and buy him a new gift as i promised him each month for the calender thenge (because we were is San Diego), so habeby he came to me yesterday and told me mama i didn't get my gift! i knew i can not delay this and told him go dress and lets go right now :) i took him to the store and he chose 2 toys ( a gun and an airplane and a new notebook for the Arabic). while driving back and being excited with his toys and remembering why he got them, a new idea came to my mind. Zaid how about you get an extra star if you read the Arabic story too?! he said no, and i thought maybe i should not push it so i didn't say anything. But while he was getting in bed, he brought the story and was like mama yallah lets read!! i was soo happy and excited mashallah!! surprisingly that day he wrote the Arabic early! so reading took the place of writing and the bed time routine did not change subhanallah! he started reading letter after letter and you can tell how much effort he was giving..it is really hard..and after few words, he would breath hard lol. i kept praising him after every word... one time he said mama i don't know it! i looked at him and said u know this word..u know this letter see...and when he reads it, you can see his eyes glowing with happiness. really it was one cute, proud, and happy moment with him to share habeby :) tonight we did it again...every time he gets a word, he did this cute dance with his feet lol, and i made him draw the stars himself...now he even like to pray sunnah too! again, his prayer sometimes is aloooooong sujood only ;) and it's ok he is only 6.

Also, after discovering that pbskids stopped sesame street, sid the science kid,....etc Ammar had an idea for zaid and he agreed, every morning now we put the Arabic sesame street CD's for him instead... :)

we will see how far we can go with that....but I'm liking it so far ;)

الحمد الله

kids update

so alhamdulilah the calender idea seems to work:) zaid is writing his 4 lines of Arabic every night, alhamdulilah. We skipped the English because his homework is enough! and he is learning it anyway.
he likes to pray.. i don't push him..i just say oh I'm going to pray now..sometimes he comes and stands next to me, sometimes he does not hear me, and sometimes he pray his way! like the other day, his prayer was basiclly a looong sujuuuud only!lol

alf alhamdulilah, we are still memorizing Quran, we are in the middle of surat Al Balad now mashallah! not easy...but i feel so proud each time he memorize a new aya or sura alf alhamdulilah.

Zaid took his yellow belt 2 weeks ago:) and is done with soccer for this season walhamdulilah! we didn't decide if he is going to join again! it was OK and I'm not in favor...he likes to wait for the ball to come to him instead of him running after the ball..

Zaid is 6 and still waiting for his teeth to fall down!

Lana is 2 mashallah! where did the time go? i can't remember why i didn't do anything spacial on her birthday! and we still did not go for a family pic as we planned (waiting for Ammar! e7em).Lana is my joy habebty, i love this crazy girl and everything she does Allah y7meha. she has her own personality..if she wants something she will get it. she is a risk taker..and is not afraid to stand for herself mashalla..when zaid, mohamad, or any of us run after her to scare her away, she does not care..she runs 2 steps and then remembers why I'm i running!? she stops with her face towards us and defends herself by kicking with her feet, screams, and giving us her famous look (zawra) lol.

the girl really has it mashallah! she made herself fall from the table, pushed the chair that's sitting on top of the table!, she climbed on top of the sink in our bedroom n took a bath, she likes to try everything we are doing..mashallah all that and still manages to smile! and make us laugh. Zaid gets annoyed from her sometimes, especially when we are trying to do the homework or when he is enjoying his spacial toys! but when she is sleep, he misses her and asks me where is she? :)

الله يحميكم يا احلى اولاد

Safari Zoo Trip, 2011!!

we just got home from San Diego alhamdulilah...i felt like i have to write something about it. It was a very spacial trip because the whole family was there mashallah! Brothers, sisters in law,cousins, and also a very nice memory of our honeymoon days;) we visited the Safari wild animal park. it was a prefect get away. we saw different animals up close like the lion, the birds, and my favorite one was the Cheetah! it's so pretty subhanallah! we had lunch, walked, and walked in the cold weather.. and later we went to soup plantation for dinner! Then to Hayat Hotel to spend the night, the drive was around 20 min! it felt like forever cus we were SO tired! not to mention that Ammar had no sleep the night before cus of the qyam night at the masjid! we opened our room, prayed, n off to sleep! i think it was around 8pm.

Today the kids were up at Fajer..Ammar went back to sleep n i stayed with the kids, the view from our room was so beautiful, i called baba and told him i wish if u were here with me right now. then we had breakfast with Raghad n Yassir, the food was very good alhamdulilah! then we had a nice walk outside with the kids but it was freezing! then we stopped at this yummy chocolate place! too much calories..but who is counting lol. i felt like all what we did in this trip is eat:) we took off around 4:30 and as soon as we got into the freeway, it started raining like crazy.. then was an accident! so ya it was also another hard drive back..Lana was giving us a hard time too. alhamdulilah we r back, happy, and had great time:) you know it was successful trip when the kids don't wana go home;)

Ammar had to leave us fast for a meeting in the masjid! Allah ya3ty el3afyeh i don't know how he does it mashallah Allah ye7meh.

another week for zaid! last week we singed him in the masjid for the winter break 3 day program, that Ammar organize each year, and he had LOTS of fun alhamdulilah with the kids and with his dad. Ammar said I've never seen this side of zaid ;)

Happy New Year! may Allah bring baraka to our life, time, and Peace, may Allah protect our families and kids.