About Me

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Hi. I"m living in the Northeast with my supportive hubby, 2 great girls and toddler son. I run a home based business around scrapbooking and rubber stamping and love everything about those crafts! I also work p/t as a Physician Assistant in Internal Medicine...back after a 10 year hiatus to take care of the kids--loving that, too!

Monday, October 12, 2009

In Full Swing...

So it's been just over a month since my last post, right after school started, but it seems like we've been at it much, much longer. We are in the groove of getting up and getting ready for school, going to our after school activities, doing homework, and GASP...even cooking dinner on a fairly regular basis each week.

Just recently, both Leena and I had another birthday. She really wanted to go to the American Girl Place in NYC, so we took her last weekend and she had a fabulous time picking out a doll (Julie: circa 1974) and a bunch of accessories. Yasmeen made out pretty good considering it wasn't her birthday (well, if you ask her, it was her 1/2 birthday). She was able to take her long forgotten friend that she gotten for her 5th birthday, Marisol, to the hair salon for a complete "makeover" and even bought a new "sk8er girl" outfit for her. Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at Bubba Gump's in Times Square and walked around for a bit before returning to the peace and quiet of Hillsborough.

Adam is enjoying his music and swim classes. Unfortunately, soon after his first music class, he got a virus that knocked him down with high fevers for several days. I guess it wasn't a good idea to let him mouth every nook and cranny of every darn musical instrument he came across at that first class. Now I go armed with antibacterial wipes and grab everything within his reach before he does and give it a good rub down. Thankfully, no more germs for now. As for swimming, it takes me a good 45 minutes AFTER class to get us both showered, dressed and ready to head back to the van. All that for a 30 minute class...but, if you saw how utterly excited he is while in the water, you'd do it too! He is a natural swimmer...kicking, kicking, kicking all the way up and down the pool length while I try to hold him securely and avoid getting totally DRENCHED by all the splashing. Now if I could only get someone to take pictures of us so that I have proof.

Adam has also started pulling himself to a stand on just about anything...whether it's stationary or not. Since he's been confined to the family room for most of his gross motor skills practice, he's used the toy bins, the TV stand, and Leena's easel as balancing objects to help himself up off the ground.I bet it won't be long before the girls are begging me to make him stop chasing them or taking their things! He's also becoming much LOUDER! Maybe it's the girls' influence, but that boy knows how to holler! Today at Girl Scouts, we went outside for a bit to play a game, and I bundled him up in his Elmer Fudd hat and he was not happy for long. But he sure did look cute!

Yasmeen continues with Tae Kwon Do and is really enjoying it. She has 2 more segments to go before she is ready for her first belt testing. We are going between 3-4 times per week, but she never complains, and somehow I manage to pack everyone into the van and get her there each day on time...well, most days, anyway. She enjoys practicing her kicks at home and I often catch her doing her moves in the family room for a captive audience-Adam. Once she sees me, though, she acts as though she was merely scratching an itch or something...gotta get her on video!

Mohammed is working hard, both at his regular job and at firefighting. He will start traveling a bit more this fall, so we aren't looking forward to that. At least, we'll have his return to look forward to.

And for the record...IT'S GIRL SCOUT COOKIE TIME. Get your order to us right away before you have to wait another YEAR to eat some yummy cookies. Come on...if you don't want to eat them, we can always donate them on your behalf to our current charity: Operation Shoebox, which give the cookies to soldiers.

Well, that's it for now...here are some pics from the recent weeks!