Miss. Manners

Sahara has been short on manners lately. Here are a few candid shots of little Miss. Manners in action.

Here we have Sahara eating with her feet on the table.

Here we have Sahara trying to take a box of toys away from her sister.

Here's a shot of Sahara eating rocks.

Here's some footage of Sahara showing off her new talent for spiting. Click the link below...

Sahara Spitting

And here's my personal favorite, Sahara attacking the dog. The best part is her sinister laugh...

Sahara Attacking Bella

Absolutely priceless !!

Flower Farming

Today we harvested a third of the Safari Sunsets. It was a very hot day but that did not stop Nader....

It may be a little hard to tell but the plants in the foreground were just harvested and the plants in the background still need to be harvested. There is still a lot of work ahead.

Nader has set up a little production area in the shade of the avocado tree. Here you can see him creating field bunches to drop off to the flower brokers.

We loaded up the Subaru wagon with our bounty of foliage. Tomorrow these Safari Sunsets will be at market, how exciting. I never would have guessed it, but some how some way along our path we became flower farmers. Life is an adventure !

Fallbrook's Finest

Summer time is in full swing in Fallbrook and the vegetable garden and fruit trees are going off. Take a look...

Yummy peaches.

Pomegranates are almost ready.

Squash.

Tomatoes.

Eggplant.

Nader's protea propagation experiment.

Home sweet home.

Did I mention that we have 100 fruit trees. You should see our water bill.

The figs are on their way.

Bananas. I should mention that Nader is very excited about the fact that our banana tree is bearing fruit. He checks it everyday and updates me on it's progress. It's kinda cute.

The passion fruit vine has hundreds of passion fruit.

The Banksia are blooming.

The Safari Sunset Lucadendrian will be harvested tomorrow and dropped off to a local flower broker the following morning. Nader will be complaining about his back for days.

Here's Sahara closely inspecting the purple cone flower.

Lately the girls cannot get enough of the outdoors. They are constantly "asking" to be let outside.

Sahara riding the garden Zebra.

Today daddy built the girls an activity table. This is a project that was inspired by our last visit to Lego Land.

Ta da !! An activity table complete with one compartment for water and another for sand. Sahara enjoyed filling the buckets with water then pouring it out on herself. Maya on the other hand organized rocks in and out of the activity table for about an hour.

Bella was close at hand trying to score a new toy to chew on.

Sahara still preferred the dirt to the sand and was caught red handed in the flower pot.

Stay tuned for more from the Fallbrook farm...

Growing Leaps and Bounds

The girls are now 14 months old and are growing up so fast. They no longer look like babies anymore but rather little people. Here are a few recent pictures of Sahara (a.k.a. Sa-bu-ba) and Maya (a.k.a. My-u-ya).

These two rascals managed to climb into their bouncer toy together. Look closely at Sahara's leg sticking out. We are now having to teach the girls to share and to be gentle with each other. This is a constant job and as you can see the struggle usually ends like the picture above.

I love Maya's serious look. Check out her new hair cut. Now she can see without a rubber band in her hair. I'm sure I have mentioned this before, but Maya is a lot more reserve than her counterpart. It usually takes a while for Maya to warm up to people, but when she does it is something very special. That is why family and friends would do almost anything to win her affection or to see her smile.

Here are the girls on their play cell phones while in their swings. Too funny.

One major development worth mentioning is that the girls are now putting themselves to sleep. For the first year of their life they were rocked to sleep. Now we put them in their cribs while still awake and they put themselves to sleep. This of course was not easy to teach although Sahara took to the new sleeping arrangement a lot easier than Maya. We still do not leave the room until they are asleep just in case they need some reassurance that we are there.

Here's a another accomplishment, both girls can now manage to put a plastic egg together. You wouldn't think it but this is very hard to do.

Another hobby that Maya has taken up is organizing things. Maya is constantly arranging toys. This is an all day activity. For example she will take all the similar toys and put them on the couch one by one. Then she will step back and look at her work. Then she will take each toy, one by one, and put them in a box. If I try to put an object that is not like the other toys in the box she will promptly grab it and throw it out.

Here's a great shot of my little sun baby playing in the sand box. Sahara looks like she is browned by the sun then sprinkled with sugar. I just want to eat her. By the way, look how cute Bella looks.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Epi !!!

Sahara and Maya wanted to wish their Grandpa Epi a Happy Birthday !!!

Here are a few pictures from your last visit with your grandchildren.

Here's a shot of Maya running into Grandpa's arms. This is a rare occurrence with Maya, and as you can see Grandpa Epi looked a little surprised himself.

Sahara & Grandpa.

Fun in the sand box that Grandpa helped set up.

We love you grandpa !!

Lego Land

We visit Lego Land pretty often, but this time I remembered to bring my camera.

Sahara and Maya love the water area. Check out Sahara (right), she is running around with legos in her hand.

Here's another cute shot of the girls enjoying the water. Sahara runs through this area like a bull and when it's all said and done, she looks like a wet rat. Maya on the other hand joins my side whenever the other kids get too crazy in the water.

Home Sweet Home

After traveling around for 3 weeks it is very nice to be home. Uncle Saba and Grandma Linda (a.k.a. TaTa) picked us up from the LAX airport. Maya and Sahara were very happy to see them.

Wow !! Check out Maya's sweet smile.

Since we have been back the girls have been enjoying the swing that Grandpa Epi got us. In the future I will be sure to get two of everything to ensure we do not have any infighting.

Sahara is back to raiding the fruit bowl. Those new teeth are dangerous.

Now that we are back in the swing of things you will see regular postings.