Wednesday, September 19, 2012

5 Powerful ways to connect more deeply with you children


5 Powerful Ways to Connect More Deeply with Your Children



Take a 2 minutes and read these 5 beautiful points of great reminder. We tend to forget these little things in the daily hassle and bassel of life whether we want to accept this fact or not! It is the truth. 

I like point 5, its a very different prospective.

Homemade Eczema and Winter Salve



With winter around the corner I thought it would be nice to share a recipe for this Homemade Salve we make to help H with her dry skin/eczema she gets here in Tabuk's dry weather. The best part is you ONLY need three  ingredients!! H has been using it for 3 years now. One badge lasts us a bit over 6 months, because its applied to her whole body almost.


This time we added one more ingredient to it and found even better results. After consulting with my homeopathic doctor and sharing with her H's positive experience with the homeopathic calendula ointment, I added  Calendula Mother-tincture too the salve to the original recipe.



MashaAllah!! In less then three days her skin got smooth again. The only place she's having an issue with is her little bum, every time she uses the toilet, the water makes it dry. Its not at all as bad as it was before we made the salve.

So, what is this recipe you all must be wondering?? Well, here  it is, its shared Sonoma Garden Blog,. We have tried a lot of her wonderful easy and simple homemade recipes she shares, from food to personal care products. The Lip balm is really nice too and works great with my and AR's dry lips.





Thursday, September 13, 2012

DIY: Felt Bean Bags


I made these bean bags for us to play different games. They are great for outdoors and indoors. They are super simple and fun to make. It's a great feeling to see your child play with something that's especially handmade  for them. The kids love the way they feel and the little sound it makes when its moved. We used felt, but they can be made with other fabrics as well. Hope you enjoy making them for your little ones.

Here's what you'll need:

Felt in assorted colors
Scissors
Strong thread or embroidery floss
Needle
(Optional: Sewing machine if you don't want to hand stitch the pieces together.)

Once you have all the supplies cut 2 pieces of felt in the shape you would like your bean bags to be. Then start stitching the side using the blanket stitch (I really like the way it looks on the finished bean bag). Before closing the bag fill it with rice/beans/ lentils and then stitch it close.

Here are some fun things that can be done with bean bags.
  1. Balancing game - walking with the bean bag on the head, we count, say our letters, Haroof and recite while playing our balancing game.
  2. Bean Bag toss - in baskets or in a scoring bean bag toss we made from a cardboard box.
  3. Pass the bean bag in a circle - we made up a few fun ways to do the passes
  4. Played catch the bean bag
  5. We passed them saying colors in English and Arabic. Its a great for color recognition.
  6. Counting by 2s, 5s, 10s can be made fun too with bean bags.


Tuesday, September 11, 2012

We're back!

Bismillah,

Assalamualikum wa rahmatullahe wa barakatuhu

It's been a looooong time! The last few months have been very busy and full of Summer fun. We were on summer vacation in Toronto, Canada, and now back home and settled and in a rhythm Alhumdulillah. As most of our time was spent outdoors, running errands and meeting friends and families, I had no time to blog. As much as I missed it at times but everything kept me so busy. I am happy to be back and blogging.

Alhudmulilalh, after all the unpacking, we a back in our daily rhythm. The beauty of having a rhythm in life is, it can travel with you where ever you go (at least some parts). This was one thing that really helped me in on our vacation too. Although it was not always easy, but if we did some of our main activities, like the morning circle, our bedtime ritual even if they were a  condensed version. the kids were much more collected, calm and content on those days. The days we would miss them it would be totally apparent in there behavior.

Lakeshore! Miss it!
A small herb garden in Royal Botanical Gardens

Another wonder of Allah SWT's nature, Webster falls. no matter how many times you go there, it still  refreshing

Our road trip to Orlando in Pictures.

The Swan family we met while canoeing in a river in Ann Arbor,  Michigan
Peach Honey sticks we bought at a farmers market in Atlanta Georgia for a healthy sweet treat!
Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The falls were a sign of Allah SWT Qudrah. SubhanaAllah  they are a beautiful. You have to walk in a cave for a mile and then the Fall comes. It was beautiful!
Gem and stone search at the Falls.
Children's Museum in Tampa, Florida
Animal Kingdom, this was the kids favorite place.
Animal Kingdom, we didn't want to take the kids to Disney, so we found other places.   Although Animal Kingdom is part of Disney, its still has a touch of nature.
This tree is 2000 years old 
Sea World
Fascinated by Dolphins as usual!

On the way back we drove through Washington and we stopped to see the Native Indian museum which had a really nice children's area where they had there own personal passports, they really enjoyed stamping there passports. We also went to the Natural History Museum and the Space Museum.
Natural History Museum

So this was a little picture summary of our summer trip. Of course there a lot of other things we did and places we went and people we met, it hard to remember and go through every thing. These were some main highlight of this Summer.

Ramadan prep, decor and family Eid gift exchange night is a huge part of our annual rhythm.

Until next post please remember us in your duas