Precious Moments

The girls are anxiously awaiting Christmas, but in the meantime they are keeping themselves busy by playing with mud.

One difference between the twins is that Maya dislikes being dirty while Sahara feels most comfortable covered with mud and dirt.

Sahara, our mud princess.

Here's a great example of teamwork. Maya pours while Sahara mixes. In the end they made wonderful mud cakes.

We went to a friend's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese. It was the first time they met Mr. Cheese and they are now totally fascinated by him.

"The Three Little Bears"

Maya and Sahara read lots of books with mommy and daddy, so they decided to read a few books to their little babies. This is crazy cute. Don't forget to turn up your volume.

"The Giving Tree"

Holiday Cheer

We have been very busy hanging out in the snow, getting ready for Christmas and going to birthday parties. All happy things to be busy with. Here are a few pictures from our adventures.

We drove up to Palomar Mountain which is about an hour East from Fallbrook, CA. We have been getting so much rain / snow that we have been taking every opportunity to enjoy it. Here's a picture while we were driving. The trees were beautifully flocked with snow.

The ice on the trees looked like crystals when the sun hit it. It was crazy cold might I add.

We brought Bella with us for her first snow experience. She seemed to like it, but I couldn't really tell.

The girls can't seem to get enough of the snow. Look at their happy faces. The girls are asleep as I'm writing this, but they did not gently drift off to sleep tonight but rather tantrumed and cried until they passed out. That's what happens whenever they miss their mid-day nap. As you might guess, we try to avoid that as much as possible.

Looking at their cute happy faces makes me feel better after a night like this.

We took the girls to the Irvine Spectrum for some ice skating. It was their first time and they were all over it. I have to apologize, I only have pictures of Sahara. The camera batteries died before I could get any pictures of Maya. Bummer !


Here's Sahara going for it. She kept on insisting that her daddy let her "do it" on her own. So whenever he let go, she would start flailing on the ice. It was comedy.

Merry go round bliss with Sahara.



Sweet Maya smiles.


Here's our Christmas tree. The girls absolutely love decorating the tree. So we have been making a lot of decorations and are constantly adding to the tree. I will take a picture of the finished tree and share it with you later.


Here are the girls with their pet guinea pigs. They often pretend that they are the guinea pig mommies and are constantly cuddling them. It been a full time job for me though because I constantly need to supervise them so they don't love their guineas to death. Too much hugging and squeezing can be dangerous.


Here's Maya proudly showing off her baby.

We went to a birthday party at Air Time in San Diego where the girls got to play like crazy monkeys in their inflatable castles and obstacle courses. Here's a classic video of them in action.

Growing Like Weeds

The girls are 3 1/2 years old and they seem so grown up. I listen to the things that they say and talk about and I can't believe my ears. They constantly surprise me with their independent thoughts and wacky sense of humor. Here are some photos of the girls while on a few field trips.

Our future engineer building a tower at the New Children's Museum in San Diego.

Here's our future architect and Tata Rose busy building.

Here's Maya taking a photo with a Lego tourist at Lego Land.

They girls riding in Santa's sleigh.

Here's Maya with a lego mommy and baby.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow !!!

On Thanksgiving weekend we got some snow in our local mountains. So we packed up the kids and headed to Big Bear Mountain. We were able to find spectacular rates at Northwoods Resort, so we stayed until Monday. The best part was that it snowed all Saturday night so when we woke up on Sunday we were in a winter wonderland.

Family shot in front of a huge Christmas Tree in Big Bear Village.

Here's Sahara walking in the snow.

Check out this smile. Across the street from our hotel was the Elk Lodge which happened to have the best bunny slopes around. We were there playing in the snow three days in a row.

Here's Maya making a snow angel.

We couldn't keep the kids from eating the snow.

All in all I think we built three snowmen. The snow was so light and fluffy we couldn't get it to stick together so our snowmen were pretty short in stature.

When ever the girls saw some untouched powder snow they would drop on the backs and try to make snow angels.


Here's Maya at the Starbucks across the street from the Elks Club. She is waiting for her hot chocolate with whip cream.

Check out this video of Maya.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a peaceful and pleasant Thanksgiving this year. Sahara, Maya and myself just got over the H1N1 virus. So the turnout for our Thanksgiving feast was a little light, due to cautious relatives wanting to keep their distance. In the end we had a day full of cooking, arts and crafts and quality family time. What more could you want, right?

Here's Sahara with her turkey hat on.

Here are some of the crafts Maya and Sahara made leading up to Thanksgiving.

We collected some Autumn leaves and sprinkled them with glitter and glue. The two turkeys in the middle was an art project Uncle Saba introduced to the girls. They used sharpie markers and colored a turkey on a plastic sheet. Then they taped it onto a piece of foil that was wrapped around cardboard. It turned out pretty cool. Thanks Uncle Saba !!!

Work in progress...

Maya showing off her turkey creation on Thanksgiving day.

Here's daddy and the girls decorating the gingerbread house with candy on Thanksgiving morning.

Here are a few turkeys the girls made.

Here's the grand finale...Maya and Sahara helped to make the sweet potato side dish and a sweet potato pie which had a home made crust.

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Tai Kwon Do

We have taken the girls temporarily out of preschool to give our pockets a break during the holiday and also give mommy a break from all the colds and flu's they have been bringing home lately. As I am writing this I am recovering from a terrible cold. Aside from this, we have a rat eating holes through my car. The latest damages include a hole through my leather seats and my GPS system not working. Despite setting a dozen traps in and around the car each night, we were still not able to stop the dirty rat. So today we had an exterminator visit us. I hope this is the last we will be seeing of the elusive rat.

Other news, Sahara and Maya have started Tai Kwon Do classes. Their teacher, Master Jun at Sky Martial Arts, is amazing with the kids. Maya has become a star student. Sahara on the other had has been playing more than focusing, but I'm sure that will improve with time.

Sahara waiting in line to do a new exercise.

Check out Sahara stretching.


Respect and discipline is a big deal there and at the end and beginning of each class, everyone bows to the teachers and parents. Another cool thing is that the kids are training to say, "YES SIR !" every time the teacher asks them to do something. It's so cute !!!

Look at my happy campers in their new uniforms.

Here's the class waiting for the teacher to give them instructions. Aside from the main teacher, their are 3 - 4 assistant teachers that are giving they students one-on-one attention.

Here's a little clip from their first class. So cute !!!!

Happy Halloween

I think it is safe to say that we milked Halloween for all it was worth. We went to two pumpkin patches, had a Halloween party at school, had a Halloween play date, went to the library for a spooky story telling night and went to the Wild Animal Park on Halloween day. In addition to this, the girls made a ton of Halloween crafts and had a great time passing out candy and trick or treating on Halloween night. Needless to say I am very happy that we are past this holiday.

Here are a few of the pumpkin creations the girls made.

Here are the spiders the girls made at the Wild Animal Park craft table.

We had a little pumpkin carving competition. Daddy Nader was on one team and all the girls were on another. Here's daddy Nader's creation. Not bad....not bad....

Here's the pumpkin Maya, Sahara and mommy made. Now you be the judge on who won.

My two little dears petting a rather large deer.

Sahara didn't want to leave this deer's side.

Here's Sahara sitting in an egg. She is reenacting the hatching of a baby dinosaur.

We rode the carousel five times that day. As you can see mommy is enjoying herself.

Here's a picture of Sahara being Sahara. I say "smile !" and she sticks out her tongue.

Look how big Maya looks.

We went to a Halloween play date at our friends house. Here's the craft table we set up.

Here's Sahara going nuts with the glitter. Did I mention that blue is her favorite color. Oh, I forgot to mention that Sahara no longer uses a binky. I know, totally amazing.

Here's the girls preschool class getting ready to perform their Halloween program. It was mayhem but totally cute. Can you spot Dragon Sahara and Dalmatian Maya.

Here's a closer look.

Here's a picture of mommy messing around with her little monsters.

We went to the Murrieta public library for their spooky story telling one fine evening. Our little Dragon and Dalmatian was paying close attention.

Now that Halloween is over our only struggle is the candy of course.