For ya'll who want to keep in touch

My sister's visit

2009-10-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

We had wonderful time with my sister Irada who visited for about 2 weeks in September. Isabella and Adib told everyone they know and they don't about their Aunty visiting.

Here we are at Senyor Pepper Mexican bistro. We enjoyed the decor, food and live singing with guitar.

Cruising on Potomac. We took one of those 45 min tours to see and to hear about the Monuments and other historical building, and enjoy the sunny day and fresh smell of the river waters.

Sunset on Potomac, it was a beautiful scene.

Look at the gray sky in the background! Irada and I went for a concert in front of the Capitol building out in the open; they have free concert on every national holiday and it was the Labor Day. And right after the first part of the concert was over and we broke for the intermnission it started to pour down so they had to cancel the second act and we got soaking wet by the time we got to the metro station. It was fun and quite memorable nevertheless.

At the Nature centre at the Rock Creek Park.

At the Botanical Gardens.

My sweet boy.

2009-10-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to the Great Falls Park in Virginia which is one site of the George Washington Memorial Parkway and is on Potomac river. It was a cloudy day and it drizzled a little but we enjoyed the outing very much, had a picnic (the yellow jackets were the only annoying thing), saw the visitor center and did some hiking.

Summer in DC

2009-08-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

I am getting less regular at the up-dating of my blog. But I can't let it go that way for more than 2 months, so here is a long due up-date.
It's almost beginning of the new school year, public schools start on Aug 24 here in DC, so, in a week, Isabella will start Kindergarden. Is she excited? Nah, don't know why, but whenever people ask her if she's starting school soon, she'll make a sour face and say, "Yes, but I'm not excited". I guess Isabella nad Adib enjoyed this summer and all the activities they got to do and places they got to see that they actually didn't have time to get bored and long for school. Plus they are inseparable and play together all the time, so they'll miss each other during the school hours. Adib has another year before he can start pre-K.
He turned 3 on July 5, and we had celebrated his B-day by a trip to the North Beach on Chesapeake river on Saturday and a B-day cake which was a carrot cake shaped like car with a frosting, all home-made, which Adib shared with his sister, Mommy and Daddy, on Sunday, after the Sunday School at the Baha'i Center. No party this year, may be when he turns 5 in 2 years:-) He's not into birthday parties as much as Isabella has always been, so he was quite content with the car-cake and presents sent by both sets of Grandparents.

We go to the National Zoo a lot, it's only a few stops by bus that we get on across the street from our place and get off right at the Zoo entrance. We've been there a number of times and everytime find new fun activities and see new animals. On Sundays we go to one of the Smithsonian museums, or hiking at the Rock Creek Park which also has a small educational museum, planetarium, a horseback-riding club where kids get to pet and feed beautiful horses. There is also a number of parks around our neighborhood and in summer they become "spray"parks with sprinklers and water fun for kids. It's quite useful when it's over 90'. July was rather nice and warm but August is hot and humid. So that is for my "almost end of summer, sigh..." post, enjoy the pictures.

At the Rock Creek Park

At the Air Space museum

Adib turned 3!

With Red Grammar at his concert for children in Strathmore, MD. It was a "back-yard" performance and we all sat picnic-style, on the grass or blankets. It was a great concert, he is definetely one of the best if not the best children songs musician. We had a blast! And Red took this picture of us and placed it on his web-site as well. Thank you, Red!

At the North Beach, Chesapeake.

Some recent pictures

2009-06-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

At the stable we discovered at the RockCreekPark. The horses were gorgeous and so gentle!

This one kept licking our hands and sniffing at Bella's hair. Did it look like hay? :-)

At the Imagination Bethesda Art festival. We had a magician, Persian dancers, craft making, pretend tea party and so on. Bella and Mommy made a paper plate carousel.

This is a fountain at the Chevy Chase Circle, on the border of DC and Maryland, 5 min walk from our apartment building.

I'm back and blogging!!!

2009-06-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, my last posting was in March, almost 3 months ago! I've never been that bad with blogging before and hopefully will be posting more regularly again. As many of you know, (from Facebook :-), we moved to Washington DC at the end of April. And the whole month of April we were moving. The reason our move took rather long time is because we were helping at the same time to move Michael's parents from Jasper GA to Augusta GA where they could be closer to Michael's older brother and his beautiful family.
Michael started his training with the USAID (US Agency for International Development) as a Foreign services executive officer, at the end of March and children and I joined him in DC a month later. Meanwhile Michael found a nice 1 bedroom apartment in DC and received our shipment and unpacked while myself and the kids stayed with Michael's parents helping them move and settle in their new house. Although the apartment here in DC is rather small, we like it a lot and with a little bit of engineering skills managed to fit in everything we needed to. And it's a great family friendly neighborhood with a few nice parks, public library, convenience stores, community center, all in a walking distance. And a bus stop is right across the road from our building. Public transportation is fairly good, so we decided not to bring our car and left it with Michael's parents for the time being. Michael uses metro to go to work and metro station (Friendship Heights) is about 15 min walk from home.

So Michael has been enjoying his training, meeting a lot of interesting people. And a few weeks ago at the graduation ceremony for Michael's orientation class which we all attended, we learned that our first international post will be the Philippines! We'll be going there in about 8-9 months time and we are pretty excited.

Meanwhile I am enjoying (most of the time that is :-)) being with my children all day, exploring neighborhood parks, the Zoo, Smithsonian museums and other fun places. Isabella used to be in preschool in Jasper GA (Headstart pre-K) and she enjoyed it, the teachers were great and we made great friends. But since we relocated towards the end of the school year we decided not to start her in a new school until the next school year, in September. We already registered Isabella at the district public school which is one of the best in the city and is about 15 min walk from us. It has an awesome playground and park adjacent to it and we like to go there on nice sunny days. And in summer they turn on sprinklers on the playground (they have it in a few different city parks and call them spray-parks :-) and the kids love it, they love splashing and getting wet which feels so good and refreshing on hot summer days. We've had a lot of rain and storms in DC lately which is not so typical for this time of the year, but I don't mind at all, i love the rain and always welcome it, especially after hot hot days.
Meanwhile we are doing some homeschooling too, reading, making crafts and playing outside. Although we have registered Isabella for kindergarden at a local school, I'm still investigating home schooling option and am reading about it. I'll try to write more about it in a separate post.
I don't get to be in touch personally with many of you but I do think about you all and hope you and your families are doing well and are in a good health. I'm trying to be better at keeping in touch and it's always thrilling to receive a phone call or email from good old friends. You can always leave a comment on my postings, drop an email at sevda.teske(at)gmail.com or call me on the phone.

Happy NawRuz! Novruz bayraminiz mubarak!

2009-03-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Our favorite recipes: Mexican Lasagna.

2009-03-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

Mexican Lasagna.

This lasagna recipe is my family's favorite. It's a little spicy since it's mexican, but everyone in my family finds that tortilla is much easier to digest and therefore is not as heavy on your stomach as the proper pasta lasagna. The original recipe calls for a pound of ground beef, but since we don't eat much beef in our family, I substitute it with ground turkey.

You will need
4 large flour tortillas
1 lbs ground meat
1 diced onion
1 8 oz can tomato souce
1 10 oz can diced tomatos with green chillis (Rotel Original works great)
1/2 cup cream cheese (half a bar of Philadelphia Original works well)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups grated cheese (Colby and Monterrey mixture works well, can use shredded cheddar or Mexican blend instead)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp olive oil

In a skillet brown meat and onion in olive oil until meat cooks through. Add cumin, coriander, diced tomatos with chillis and tomato souce. Turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 15 min. In a small bowl mix creem cheese and sour cream. Take 1 tortilla and spread 1/3 of the sour cream mixture, then put it in a lightly greased dish (I use casserole dish, can be aluminum baking pan). Spoon 1/3 of meat souce on it and sprinkle with 1/3 of shredded cheese. Now repeat it with 2 more tortillas which will result in 3 layers of tortilla -- cream cheese+sour cream -- meat souce -- shreeded cheese. Top it with the 4th tortilla. I like to sprinkle it with a little olive oil and basil leaves or pasta souce and shredded mozarella. Cover the dish and put in the oven, 350 F for 30 min. Let it cool down for 5-10 min before serving. Enjoy!

Kefir...yumm!

2009-03-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying drinking Kefir lately. In case you don't know what Kefir is, it's a cultured dairy drink, not as thick as yogurt and not as sweet as fruit yogurts or Danactive (I always dilute them with milk to cut on sugar, it's just too sweet for me). I knew Kefir from my childhood as it is Russian drink, but haven't had one in years. In our family we use probably a gallon of plain yogurt a week, our kids also like their rice and other grains to be served with a gallop of plain yogurt. As I was enjoying my kefir in pomegranate flavor (I like it even better than strawberry) I read the information on the bottle which I found interesting. Apparently Kefir originates from my very part of the world, from the Caucasus region of Russia.
On the bottle: Kefir History
Kefir is the cousin of yogurt and its roots can trace back more than 2000 years. Originating in the Caucasus Mountains of Europe where people live well past 100 years, the word kefir is thought to have been derived from the Turkish "keif" for "good feeling", probably due to the sense of well-being experienced after drinking it.
And here some more interesting info from Wikipedia: Kefir (alternately kefīrs, keefir, kephir, kewra, talai, mudu kekiya, milkkefir, búlgaros) is a fermented milk drink that originated in the Caucasus region. It is prepared by inoculating cow, goat, or sheep's milk with kefir grains. Traditional kefir was made in skin bags that were hung near a doorway; the bag would be knocked by anyone passing through the doorway to help keep the milk and kefir grains well mixed.
One can change the nutrient content by simply fermenting for shorter or longer periods. Both stages have different health benefits. For instance, kefir over-ripened (which increases the sour taste) significantly increases folic acid content. Kefir also aids in lactose digestion as a catalyst, making it more suitable than other dairy products for those who are lactose intolerant. The kefiran in kefir has been shown to suppress an increase in blood pressure and reduce serum cholesterol levels in rats.
It is a breakfast, lunch and dinner drink popular across all areas of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland (second largest producer after Russia), Norway, Sweden, Finland (especially Russian and Estonian minorities), Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania where it is known as an affordable health drink. In Southern Slavic countries kefir is consumed anytime in the day, especially with zelnik, burek and banitsa.
Horray for Kefir!

Ayyam-i-Ha 2009!

2009-03-04T19:35:00.000-08:00

It was a fun day, Feb 28, and we started it by going to Atlanta Baha'i Unity Center for the Ayyam-i-Ha party. There were pony rides, pet rabbits and a baby-goat, an inflatable slide, arts and crafts tables, and lots of other fun stuff. Bella refused to have her face painted which perhaps caused her itchy feeling in the past, so she usually doesn't want any face painting. Adib wanted to get one but the line was too long and we went for other activities instead.

Making Ayyam-i-Ha cards and book-marks

A hot-dog, my favorite!

Pony rides in the parking lot

2009-03-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

It was probably Adib's first ever pony ride. There were 2 ponies and a horse brought to the BUC parking lot for kids to ride, and Bella got to mount the horse too and made a circle around the parking lot, with Daddy walking by her side.

Petting zoo at the Ayyam-i-Ha party

2009-03-04T19:06:00.001-08:00

I love to watch kids interacting with animals. There was a litter of bunnies and Bella got to hold a few different ones. This black and white one was the most enthusiastic and interactive, Bella enjoyed being licked and tickled by its tongue.

I like this picture and Adib's reaction of surprise and laughter. As always this experience was followed by pleadings to get a pet bunny "I'll look after it, Mommy, pleeeease!"

A Birthday Cake for Mommy

2009-03-04T18:55:00.000-08:00

My dear hubby and my precious children made me a "surprise" birthday cheese-cake in a shape of a heart topped with fresh strawberries, yumm! You can tell which half of the cake was decorated by Adib and which one by Bella (more orderly).

Happy Valentine! Love is the Secret...

2009-02-14T04:55:00.000-08:00

Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 27)

Love is the mystery of divine revelations!

Love is the effulgent manifestation!

Love is the spiritual fulfillment!

Love is the light of the Kingdom!

Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!

Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!

Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!

Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!

Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!

Love is a bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!

Love is the cause of development to every enlightened man!

Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!

Love is the one law which causeth and controlleth order among the existing atoms!

Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the lofty firmament! 526

Love is the cause of unfoldment to a searching mind, of the secrets deposited in the universe by the Infinite!

Love is the spirit of life in the bountiful body of the world!

Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!

Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!

(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 524)

Miss Tesina

2009-02-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the Mato family on this beautiful addition to their family! Tesina is adorable! Fazal must be very proud to have become a big brother now. We hope to see you all one day.

Adib is 2.5

2009-01-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

Adib is now officially 2.5 years (30 months) old. He totally gave up his pacifier and is mostly potty trained and wears big boy panties during the day (still have accidents now and again and wear pull-ups at night). He recognizes all the letters of the alphabet, knows all colors and shapes. We have a little trouble with numbers, he likes to skip numbers between 2 and 8, so he counts "1,2,8,9,10". And these days he likes to call me by name instead of Mommy. I find it cute but don't want him to get into the habit of calling parents by names, so I keep telling him that though my name is Sevda, he should call me Mommy. He is such a sweet pea and brings so much joy into our family.

2009-01-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

I already posted some of these photos before but now I was playing with special effects on Image Zone and thought to post them again in black and white.

Fun with the cousins

2009-01-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

We had Michael's brother Nick and sister Karen visiting for 2 days on Dec 23, for Grandpa and Grandma's 40-st wedding anniversary. It was a lot of fun as always, and our big family's newst addition is baby Eliza, and now Nick and Amy are proud parents of 5! And Karen's adorable son Dylan is already 10 m.o.

Polar express Pajama story time

2008-12-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

At the local library they had a few Xmas activities for children this year. We went to a tree festival, which had a story time, craft activity, concert of children choir of Jasper and apple juice with cookies. At the conference room of the library there is a display of Christmas trees decorated by different groups/clubs and some of the decorations are really creative, like the tree decorated with ornaments made of recycled materials (plastic utensils, light bulbs etc). Another activity we attended was Polar express pajama party which turned out to be just a story time with cookies and chocolate milk, rather boring. Kids loved to jingle the little bells and sing along.

We love to pose for camera

2008-12-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

Santa at school

2008-12-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

Santa brought all the kids at Bella's school backpacks, teddy bears and school supplies.

2008-12-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

Few more fall pictures

My sweet kiddies

2008-12-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

It's always fun to rake dry leaves, make huge piles and jump into the piles of leaves.

Fun Thanksgiving with cousins

2008-12-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Michael and 9 m.o. old Dylan

Brunch with Tarissa in Atlanta

2008-11-27T05:14:00.000-08:00

Bella's party

2008-11-27T05:10:00.000-08:00

I love cheese-cake!

Playing doll house with my buddy Ethan

Isabella's 5th birthday

2008-11-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

Congratulations!!!

2008-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Our dear friend whom we served with at the Bahai World Centre in Israel, Ben Pastores got married in Haifa, Israel in October.

Congratulations dear Ben and Zaira! We are very happy for you and wishing you a marriage full of love, mutual understanding and mutual support. You are in our hearts and our prayers as you are embarking on this journey, this new stage in your lives.

Welcome baby Alexei!

2008-11-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the proud parents Serghei and Liudmila and big brother Ilya! What a perfect little boy, and what a beutiful announcement. We miss you all so much.

2008-10-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Check out my new links related to Internal and External nutrition with Xango. Michael and I are a part of an exciting adventure with Nadira Haniff as our guru, the project is called 180 Days to Greatness! She is training us on a new approach to network marketing and how to become successful in any business. Giddy up with Nadira!

Fall festivals

2008-10-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

October is month of fall festivalls in North Georgia. Apple festival, Marble festival, Octoberfest and others are held in different towns. The typical festival has arts and crafts booths, pony rides, inflatable jumping play houses or slides, face painting, and southern cooking of course. There are also pumpkin farms with hay rides, petting zoos, corn mazes, pumpkin carving and other fun stuff for kids. we didn't get to visit a pumpkin farm this time, but we went to get some fresh apples grown in the apple orchards in Ellijay.

Walking at the local parade

2008-10-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for a parade at the Marble Festival, jasper, GA. I'm also a member of MOPS group (Mothers of preschoolers), we get together once a month at the local church. At the parade Michael, myself and the children were dressed in orange and had "Xango" caps on. We also had a table at the business expo introducing folk to Xango juice and the brand new skin nutrition system from Xango, called "Glimpse". It's all based on mangosteen fruit which is imported from South Asia (mainly Thailand), the juice and "Glimpse" skin care is manufactured here, in the US, by a network marketing company called Xango. Xango already made over 1 billion $ within 5 years, on a single product, wonderful mangosteen juice. Michael and I are flying to Salt lake city, Utah, for an annual xango convention. It's in about 10 days, and I'm excited!

Banana - Nut Bread

2008-09-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here is another of our favorite family recipes, it's a banana-nut bread. Interestingly (take a note), it's especially favored by the male part of our family (Orville, Michael and Adib), they never get tired of it.

Banana Nut Bread

2-3 very ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups all purpose flour (whole wheat works great and is more nutritious)
1 cup regular sugar (brown sugar is even better)
1 cup chopped walnuts
100 gr (1 stick) butter, melted
½ cup plain yogurt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 F

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
Grease and flour a 9x9 baking pan (I use 2 smaller loaf pans). Pour the mix into the pan. Bake for about 45 min to 1 hour or until the top is golden-brown and inserted toothpick comes out clean. It’s delicious when it's warm with a little butter, or at room temperature. Good for breakfast and snack too.

Ethan turned 2!

2008-09-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

We had a pleasure of joining Ethan and his family in celebrating his 2nd birthday. He was definetely aware of the significance of the day and blew off the candles on this cool "Cars" cake and greatly enjoyed it too. Thank you for inviting us to join your birthday party, Ethan, it was fun.

2008-09-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't help but posting these pics of my big guys, we already ate them, and it's so much tastier than the store bought tomatoes. There are some more ripening up, yumm!

Reading on the grass

2008-09-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

One of the latest favorite activity we've been doing is having a reading session in our back-yard. We take a blanket and spread it on the grass in the back-yard and read books that we take from the library. Sometimes we take a picnic basket with fruit and other snacks and have a picnic-reading outside. Kids love it and it's easy, don't even need to drive to a park, it's relaxing for me too. Sometimes we just stop and listen to the birds and count how many different sounds we can hear (birds, bugs, train wistle, lawn-mower etc). If you don't have a back-yard, you could take some books along to the park, beach, anywhere out on a nature.

Safety Awareness Day

2008-09-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

I took kids to the park this morning where there was a kind of fare, all about different community helpers who help us to stay safe, like firefighters, ambulance, nurses, police, school bus and others. Kids got to sit in real veicles, got their own fire-fighter hats and jumped on inflatables. Bella even got to hold a baby-bunny. It was fun and educational activity.

From Our Favorite Family Recipes

2008-09-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

From now on I am going to post one of our family favorites regularly, once a week or once a month, if times goes too fast for me.
Most of them are my adjusted versions of recipes passed down to me from my Mom and to her from my Grandmothers. Some I learned from different friends here and there, some from my Mother-in-law and some were taken from cook-books or TV-shows.
I love cooking and baking and I love to experiment, replace some ingredients with others or add something to it. My experiments are not always successful but I promise to post only those that I consider successful and are loved by my family and friends. Although I love cooking, I don’t like to spend long time working on a dish, so most of my dishes are fast, especially when you have 2 demanding attention kids. I try to spend minimum time in the kitchen and at the same time provide my family with nutritious and tasty food.

Anyways, here is a recipe for an “Apple cherry cake” which is my version of my Grandma’s “Charlotte” apple cake. It’s simple (20 min prep. time), loaded with fruit and can be used not only as a dessert but as breakfast or snack as well.

Apple Cherry Cake

3 green apples (Granny Smith)
1 cup frozen depitted cherries
1 cup + 1tbsp sugar
3 eggs
½ cup plain yogurt
½ tea spoon baking soda
2 cups all purpose flour
50 gr butter (half a stick). Do not melt it.
½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Peel the apples and slice them thinly or chop.
In a bowl, mix eggs, 1 cup of sugar, vanilla and salt (beat them for a couple of min). In a measuring cup mix yogurt with baking soda ( it will rise), add it to the eggs and sugar. Add flour and mix well. Slightly grease a baking pan ( I use oven-prove glass dish). Put chopped apples on the bottom of the pan, arrange cherries on top, sprinkle 1 tbsp sugar over the fruit. Slice butter evenly on top, then pour the batter evenly over. Bake for 40-45 min or until the top is golden and a stick or knife inserted comes out clean. Enjoy.

Harvesting tomatos

2008-09-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

We've been picking some cherry tomatos that grow on our deck (thanks to Max for sharing the plants with us), and before they make it to the dinner table, Isabella and Adib usually eat them. The big tomatos are still green, it'll probably take a few more weeks for them to ripen. Yumm!

Another trip to Amicalola falls

2008-09-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

W we visited the Amicalola Falls nature park again, I just love this place with its tall trees, rocks and waterfall. We did hiking and had a picnic under the big shady trees, and although it was a pretty hot day, it was nice and pleasant experience. Enjoy the pictures.

Dylan's visit

2008-09-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

Aunt Karen and Dylan visited us recently. Dylan is already 6 m.o. and started on solids a couple of weeks ago. He is precious and handsome little guy. We love you, Dylan!

Oliviya's Birthday

2008-09-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

At the end of August we joined Oliviya in the celebration of her 3rd Birthday, in Atlanta Baha'i Unity Center. It was a fun "Super-hero" party and even her Mommy (Susan) and Daddy (Parker) were dresses like Batman and Superman.

Making cookies

2008-08-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

We made cinnamon gingerbread men and stars and Adib did a great job decorating his cookie tray all by himself. Nevermind him wearing a dress and a hair-band, that's what growing up with a big sister is like. Bella put her dress on him and they pretended to be 2 sisters.

Photos on the fridge

2008-08-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

Here are few photo-collages of our kids that I made, and thanks to Sieni whose idea of using up old fridge magnets I used to stick the photos on the refregerator door. The fridge looks nice and no need to buy picture frames and then make holes in the wall to hang them, plus it's a nice craft project you can do with your kids.

Our tomato plants

2008-07-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

Max Eblaghie shared some of his tomato plants with us, and I replanted them into bigger pots on our deck. They seem to be growing well and just as I was getting impatient to see the actual tomatoes growing on them, I noticed this morning that on the cherry tomato plant there are few little green tomatoes now. Kids like to help me watering them, especially spray the leaves and everything around with water :-)

The picture above is from a few weeks ago and the ones below were taken this morning, with a close up shot. I'm excited, it's my first own tomatoes ever!

Catching up with Nikisha

2008-07-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Michael's old friend Nikisha was in town for a few days, so we drove to meet her in Atlanta and went out for dinner. It was a great pleasure to meet Nikisha and Isabella occupied her for the most part of the evening with her endless questions and stories, she is a chit-chat especially when she likes someone a lot. Bella still talks about her new friend Nikisha and asks to go visit her again.
Hope, you reached home safely, Nikisha, and we hope to see you again soon.

At the virtue class at Mouzhan and Thumper's

2008-07-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Playing after the class and making silly faces

Before and after the haircut

2008-07-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

So there it is, I was undecided whether to cut Adoib's curls off or not and I promised myself (and the rest of the family) that after his 2nd birthday we'll give Adib a proper haircut. Some people thought it was his first haircut ever but last summer I cut his hair myself, with a buzzing machine, almost shaved his head. So this time we went to a hairdresser and both Bella and Adib got their new hairdo. Adib amazed everyone by how quietly and nicely he sat during his haircut, though squeezing my hand tightly (the sign that he was very nervous). Bella also was a big girl during the haircut and was very happy with the outcome.

Adib makes this funny face when I ask him to smile to the camera :-)

This ones are "before"

This picture was taken 1 year ago, July 07.

Teske Family reunion 2008

2008-07-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

We spent the 4th July long week-end in Augusta with Nicholas's family, Grandma Joan, Grandpa Orville as well as his 2 brothers, Ed and Ralph, and their sister, great Aunt Addie. Ralph's daughter Jen came from Illinois with her husband and 2 children, Zachary and Katy and another cousin of Michael, Jerry with his wife and one of their daughters, Nathalie, came from Florida. We had great time with a cook-out, fireworks, Adib's B-day cake and lots of swimming in the pool. More pictures from reunion here

Eating hotdogs

Grandpa Orville and his 2 brothers, Ralph and Ed .
Karen, Sevda, Nathalie, Cindy and baby Dylan

Adib is 2 !!!

2008-07-09T05:07:00.000-07:00

My little dumpling is 2 now! We celebrated Adib's 2nd birthday at the Teske family reunion that was held in Augusta, at Michael's brother's house with a birthday cake (marble cake with milk chocolate frosting I made ahead of time). Though Adib's vocabulary seems to be limited comparing to some other children of his age and considering how advanced Isabella was in speech when she was 2 (she spoke in sentences when she was 18 m.o, but they say girls develop speech faster anyway), when he woke up on the morning of the July 5, we said "Happy birthday Adib!" and with excitement in his eyes he said "Party? Cake?", we were surprised to learn that he knows what the birthdays are all about :-)

Atlanta Zoo

2008-07-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

We took children to the Zoo last Saturday and although it was hot, we had a great time. There are a lot of educational activities, demonstrations and shows, petting zoo, train ride, carousel and a nice play area for children. We spent about 4 hours there. We recommend visiting Atlanta Zoo!

Servants of God

2008-06-25T12:51:00.001-07:00

When we were at the local park this morning, an elderly lady walked in on the playground holding a tiny newborn in her arms. The beautiful baby boy was 6 weeks old, and I assumed that it was her grandchild. However when I implored her about it she said that it was indeed a foster child she was taking care of. And it wasn't the only foster child she looked after. She also had a preschool age boy who was a foster child and the 2 girls who were her actual grandchildren, and she was looking after all of them. She said she'd been taking foster children and providing primary care for them for a number of years now. I meet Moms with foster children every day at the park, pool and other places where parents and children are to be found. It's amazing how many people take responsibility and help to care for babies and children either abandoned by their parents or being taken from them for different reasons. The foster parents do get some financial support from the authorities yet I think it's very courageous and self-sacrificial act. Some of the foster children go back to their real parents when the latter are allowed again to have custody over them, others are adopted or get guardianship. I also see families with children who probably were adopted through the international adoption because the kids often times look Asian, and international adoption is quite pricey. It's such a praiseworthy act of service to humanity. In the Baha'i writings there is a big stress on education and training of children. And if parents can not provide the education for their children then community should take the responsibility. And those who don't have children of their own, are also encouraged to provide education for a child, or children. Here are few of my favorite passages from Baha'i Writings regarding the matter:

"Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom"

"Blessed is that teacher who shall arise to instruct the children..."
(Bahá'u'lláh, Bahá'í Education—A Compilation, p. 9)

Among the greatest of all services that can possibly be rendered by man to Almighty God is the education and training of children...
('Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections From TheWritings of 'Abdu'l-Baha, #106, p. 133)

According to the explicit divine Text, teaching the children is indispensable and obligatory. It followeth that teachers are servants of the Lord God, since they have arisen to perform this task, which is the same as worship. You must therefore offer praise with each breath, for you are educating your spiritual children.

Our library

2008-06-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite place is the local library. When I was a child myself we had children library in our neighborhood but it was nothing like the libraries here in the states. The library here is such a bright, child and family friendly educational place. They have family story times every week where children listen to stories, sing and make a craft, and now during the summer month when school is out, there are 2 or 3 story times every week. And last week there was a festival at the library encouraging children to read during summer called "reading is fun!". There was a fantastic show by magician, games, inflatable slides, prizes and Bellas' favorite characters Clifford the big red dog and Curious George, the monkey. I took Bella for that festival but Adib missed all the fun since it was his nap time and we left him home with Daddy.

We always takes piles of great children books when we visit the library and read them with Bella and Adib. We are looking forward to the next story time we will be attending Wed morning.

Week-end with the cousins

2008-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

last week-end we spent in Augusta, GA, visiting Nick and his family. Bella and Adib had a blast playing with the cousins and spalashing in the pool. It was quite hot, in 90's so it was great to be near the pool. We are going back to Augusta for the 4 July Teske family reunion. I'm looking forward to meeting some of Michael's cousins and uncles and on the July 5 we'll celebrate Adib's 2nd birthday, yay!

At the Amicalola Falls Park

2008-06-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

Canoeing in Blue Ridge

2008-05-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

Last week-end we hung out with Max, Kelly, Ethan and Max's Mom who was visiting with them, in Blue Ridge (North Georgia, about 45 min drive from Jasper). First we had dinner out on their deck, BBQ, salads, yummy corn, and then we went for a canoe ride on the Blue Ridge lake. It was a perfect late afternoon for outing and we had a lot of fun riding in a canoe. It's relatively big lake and the scenery is beautiful.
Photos courtesy of Max and Kelly (I forgot to recharge the battery on our camera so we didn't take any shots).

There are no more foreigners in our family :-)

2008-05-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

That's right, I am American now! I passed my interview yesterday followed by a ceremony, at the end of which I was given a certificate that states that Sevda Teske is an American citizen, and allows me to apply for the US passport (which I already did, he-he :-)
If you want to hear more details, I applied to get a US citizenship in March 2008, a little over 2 months ago and then I was invited to take my finger prints which is a part of naturalization process, where I was given some study materials about US history and government structure. The materials consist of about 100 questions and answers. Soon after that I got a letter inviting me for an interview on the 28 May to the Immigration and Naturalization Office in Atlanta, at 9.45 am. So we had to live home at about 8am to be able to be there on time considering that traffic would be heavy during the morning rush hour. Michael, myself and the kids got there on time but Michael had to take kids out while I sat at the room with about 100 other applicants waiting to be called for an interview. Michael meanwhile took the children to the pet-shop and the thrift store to keep them entertained.
There were about a hundred people from 45 different countries who were interviewed and granted the US citizenship. It took about 2 hours from the time we arrived until I was informed that I passed the test and should be back for the ceremony at 2.00 pm at the same place, so we had just enough time to have lunch and come back. The ceremony was very nice, the speaker lady, a president of the INS office in Atlanta was very sweet. She read the list of the countries which the applicants represented and when she named one's country, one would stand up and remain standing until the the Oath of allegiance was over. We also gave a pledge of allegiance to the American flag after which we were given the certificate.
And we watched a short video of President Bush congratulating us, new citizens, saying - "Now you are as American as the direct descendants of the Founding Fathers" which was impressive thing for me, wow!
Families of the applicants were allowed to be present at the ceremony too and they sat at the back rows but since Adib was very tired and became fussy, Michael had to take the kids out and miss the ceremony. All in all it was a nice experience and as I left the ceremony room and reunited with my family, Isabella excitedly shouted "Mommy, are you an American now? Gratulations! "

Visiting little Dylan

2008-05-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago we visited Michael's sister Karen and her family in Decatur, GA. Baby Dylan is already 2 m.o, so cute. It was nice that uncle Nicolas with his family were in town too so we all hanged out at aunty Karen's and enjoyed playing with Dylan. Isabella and Adib were thrilled to see all their cousins and they played outside a lot. And later we all went out for dinner, it was a fun day. I love the picture of Adib and Connor, they look alike and even their shirts are matching :-)

Native American Pawaw

2008-05-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

That's what an Indian baby-carrier looked like, all made with wood and fur.
An Indian girl rocking on real stuffed bear

On Mother's Day we went to check out the annual Indian (native american) festival, a Pawaw, in Canton, GA. It was a fun experience, with a lot of arts and crafts stands, tipis and lots of animal hides and fur (a sad thing to see). I enjoyed seeing people wearing traditional indian attires, painted faces and chests, listening to the native american flute and watching demonstration of trained hawks hunting for pray. We missed Indian dance performance though since it was around lunch time and the kids were starving after the long walk. To see more pictures from our outing click here

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

Spring has been really beautiful in North Georgia this year, with lots of blossoms. I especially enjoy seeing colorful and bright flowers on Azalea bushes, all shades of pink, orange, white and peach colors. And we had plenty of rain this spring too which replenished all the lakes and drinking water reservoirs, considering how dry last summer was and Atlanta was threatened to run out of water resources. I love rain and last night there was a big thunderstorm which scared Adib and woke him up in the middle of the night. I'm savoring the last days of spring before the hot summer arrives.

Happy Mother's Day to all hard working Moms!!! Wish you all a wonderful day :-)

2008-04-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

At Chuck-&-Cheeses.

Adib enjoying sunny afternoon out on the deck

At the park

At Jump-start

2008-04-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

We go to this fun place every once in a while and both Bella and Adib have great time jumping, sliding, playing ball etc. It's not a very big place but there is a variety of inflatables that suit different age groups. Everybody loves the biggest slide though, even adults slide from it, it's really fun. It looks like a huge guy skiing on a snowy slope. And last time we went there, Adib would climb up and slide down all by himself, I was there to make sure he gets out of the way when bigger kids were sliding.

Evening with candles

2008-04-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I read on my friend Selvi's blog how she uses candles in the evening instead of turning on lights and I thought this was a nice idea. And about a month ago there was an email circulating at least in Atlanta area (could be the whole country or even world-wide) suggesting that on certain day, it was the end of March I believe, people have an "Hour for Earth" switching off all the lights and electric devices for an hour, from 8 till 9 pm. We missed that "hour" since we were driving home from visiting our friends Max, Kelly and Ethan in Blue Ridge during that time. But I decided to start having energy saving nights at least once a month. Kids were excited, at least Isabella since it's still beyond Adib's understanding. We tried that a couple of days ago when we didn't turn the lights on all the way till children fell asleep which was about 9pm when it became completely dark . It was a great experience, relaxing and uplifting. We read prayers by the candles (the sun was still up and the candles could be hardly noticed), children took bath and then as it was getting darker and candles became more visible we read a couple of books with Isabella until it became too dark to read even with the candle. Adib by then was already asleep in his crib. It was amazing how calm the children were and how easily they drifted off to sleep. Their tiny bodies really need to experience this natural and smooth transition from bright light and daily activities to twilight and dark, which must help to release hormones that calm them and prepare our bodies to sleep. We did that today again and I'm tempted to do it everyday but I know it won't be possible because of various activities on some nights, but we'll try do make it a regular thing, and help to save energy!

Spring break and spiritual renewal

2008-04-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

Isabella had a week off at school for a spring-break and although we couldn't do much in terms of going out because it was raining a lot and also because Michael has very busy time at school this month and is finishing his studies and graduates from school at the end of the month, nevertheless we had very nice family time and used that week to establish some good habits. One of them was sitting down as a family for prayers and Baha'i songs about virtues. I printed Baha'i prayers for children on different colored paper and decorated each prayer with glitter, little beads and so on and Bella and Adib help to distribute prayers. When they sit nicely and reverently during the prayers, they get a sticker. Bella is doing much better already and Adib still needs a lot of practice but he learns from our example so eventually he'll get it :-)

What an example of humbleness

2008-03-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I sat in front of the TV which rarely happens these days, but sometimes after I put kids to bed and have finished my chores around the house and still got some time to relax and enjoy my personal time, I may watch a little TV or read a book.

So switching from channel to channel and getting frustrated with all the commercials that interrupt programs every 5 minutes, I accidentally got hooked on the "Animal Planet" that was broadcasting a film about emperor penguins. It must have been "March of the Penguins" but I realized it only afterwards. I love programs about animals but it's usually not my top priority to watch when I have just a little TV-time but it just fascinated me and I couldn't help but to watch till the end to know what happens to these dedicated animals and whether or not they make it to their destination. I saw the animated movie titled "Happy feet" (great to watch with kids) but I didn't know about the incredible distances (70 miles and more) that these penguins have to walk in a bitter cold and blizzard to get to the ocean which is the only source of food for them, so they march without any food for 3-4 months. And the most fascinating thing is that male penguins walk carrying each the egg that the female laid earlier. Meanwhile Mommies have to walk to the sea to get the food and get back to their newly hatched chicks just in time to feed them. Then Daddies pass the chicks to Mommies and walk over 70 miles to get food for themselves. It was heart wrenching to watch these birds caring for their offspring with such dedication and love. All their life is a struggle, hardship, walking and trying to survive. And all the reward they need is to have their chick alive and fed. It just made me think about us, humans. How demanding and complaining we sometimes are. How many blessings we have and how we take things for granted and complain for not having more. These penguins are sort of symbol of humbleness and humility for me. The film is fantastic.

You can read about these amazing birds here

I love you, you love me...

2008-03-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

I love you, you love me, we are happy family
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too! (Bella's favorite song from "Barney and friends"

Adib adores his big sister and she is a nurturing and loving with him. Although they sometimes have hard time sharing toys they love each other's company and Bella likes to help me change Adib's clothes and always shares with him any special treat even if she knows that is the last one she is allowed to have. It seems to be so natural that brother and sister are close and are best friends and in a way it is but it also requires a lot of teaching and guidance from parents so that the loving relationship is being developed between the siblings.

Bella got bangs, she asked me if she could have bangs so I cut them. Doesn't she look like a really big girl with them :-) And here she is being a model posing for Mommy in her "Princess dress"

Adib at 20 m.o.

2008-03-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Adib is 20 months old now and his second birthday is not far away. He is still in this innocent age when he can blissfully walk in Bella's pink shoes or try on her hair-clips and bracelet, or play with her dolls and beads. Pretty soon he'll declare that pink and anything with hearts and butterflies is for girls! But for now I enjoy him not trying to fit any stereotypes and just being himself. He is such an adorable, happy and affectionate kid. Just yesterday he learned how to give a kiss properly (with a sound) and he practises his new skill all the time now kissing us on cheeks. We are so very thankful to God for having Adib as well as princess Bella.

At the play-date at the "Jump-start" center

Another cutie is born

2008-03-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

Introducing Dylan Sky Blue! We've got a brand new nephew, Michael's sister Karen and her husband Eric Blue just had their first baby.

Isn't he adorable! We love you guys and are looking forward to meeting Dylan in person.

Bath time

2008-03-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

It's always fun for them to splash together in a bath-tub. And Adib absolutely loves his new bath robe that his Grandparents sent him from Baku. Thank you Amina and Kasum baba!

Posing for the camera

2008-03-03T09:08:00.000-08:00

Bella has got a new pair of shoes, pink with sparkles. She chose them herself and for few days she wouldn't part with them, wearing them everywhere even at home.

2008-02-21T21:30:00.000-08:00

The sweetest thing to me is to watch Isabella and Adib showing affection for each other. Adib often runs to Bella and hugs her especially if she hurts and cries. He is so cute in the way he shows compassion and love. He is my snuggly bear.
Bella with Patch

It's been a while...

2008-02-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting on our blog for I guess more than a month. I had (and still have) some problems with transferring pics from camera to computer and Michael is having busy time at school, presentations, exams, and so on.
February was quite busy, we have many family birthdays, wedding anniversaries and other memorable dates in February.
Our 5th wedding anniversary was on the 15th Feb which we celebrated by going to the "Fatz", a new place in Jasper and apparently a new chain of restaurants. The food was really good but kids were not in their best behavior so it's hard to decide whether we enjoyed the outing or not.
We took a trip to visit Michael's brother in Augusta, about 3.5 hours driving south, we had a great time, played games, did some fishing and just catching up with them.
And Michael's sister Karen is expecting her first baby any day now, so we're all excited for them.
And next week we'll be celebrating Ayyam-i-Ha intercalary days in according with the Baha'i calendar which are followed by the blessed month of Fast when the followers of Baha'u'llah will restrain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset and focus on meeting the spiritual needs of our existence. I'm adding few random pics from the past couple of months.

Joining Kelly and Max in celebrating Kelly's passing the board exam for pediatrics. We went to a japanese restaurant "Okinawa" in Ellijay which was fun and scrumptious experience. Kids loved watching cook making food in front of us, with big flame and performing different tricks.

Here are my little artists. Adib seems to be more into arts and drawing than Bella. Even at his age he already enjoys painting and using colors and shapes. I'm looking forward to enjoying art and craft projects with him as Bella doesn't care for arts and crafts. She is more into reading, drama and dancing.

Out and about

2008-01-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

Since my sister's visit was brief, we tried to do as much as we could in terms of showing her interesting places in Atlanta, shopping etc. We actually got city passes that allow you to visit 6 most popular sights of interest for a discount price. So we visited Georgia Aquarium , "World of Coca-Cola" museum, CNN head-quarters, museum of natural history "Fernbank", Atlanta botanical garden and others. We also went to a puppet show at the Puppetry center and in addition to the show we could visit a museum of puppetry including the exhibition of Jim Henson's puppets (the author of the puppets of the"Moppet show", many characters from the "Sesame street" and others). We also got to make our own puppets on a different floor of the puppetry center, in a "work-shop" area.
At the Coca-Cola museum we got to try samples of Coke from different countries as well as other drinks manufactured by Coca-Cola company, we also got each a free glass bottle of Coke before we left. I'm not a Coke fan, but it was tasty and a lot of fun.

Visit to a Baha'i school in Green-Acre, Maine

2008-01-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

We were able to visit Abdul'Baha's room in Green-Acre mansion, the room where he stayed during his visit in America. The mansion was a gift from Sarah Farmer to Abdul Baha and now Baha'is hold summer schools, conferences and various deepening activities in that beautiful place.

At children museum in Portland

2008-01-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

The boat was fun, it was rocking as on waves.

Inside the big fire engine.

Our visit to Portland, Maine

2007-12-31T07:59:00.000-08:00

Sevda, Saida, Irada, Tarlan, Zemfira
Ayan, Djamilia,Bella, Rustam, Adib

The morning after my sister arrived here flying some 20 hours over the ocean, we drove to Atlanta airport again to catch our flight to Portland, Maine. The 2.5 hours flight went pretty smoothly and kids slept the whole time.
We visited our friends, whom we have known since... practically birth. Djamilya is my Mom's close friend and we grew up in the same appartment block in Baku. Djamilya has 2 daughters who are almost the same age as my sister and myself, and we used to play together a lot. And her youngest daughter Zemfira is now married to another great friend of mine, a baha'i from Baku, Tarlan. So it was great to catch up with all of them and meet Tarlan and Zemfira'h 2 precious children. Rustam is almost 4 and Djamila is 2. We stayed with Djamilya and her older daughter Saida, and Isabella became good friends with her 7 year old girl Ayan. Ayan would read books for Bella, they did painting together and played a lot, and Bella still asks me when we visit Ayan again.

We stayed in Portland for 4 days, it was snowing a lot. I've never before seen such dry snow, it was like glittering powder, you can not even make a snow-man or play snow-balls because snowflakes just don't stick together. Although it was cold (23' F), we felt very warm and cozy with our friends who showed us a lot of hospitality and took us around to show us the city. Tarlan also drove us to Green-Acre, a Baha'i school founded in a mansion that Abdul-Baha received as a gift from Sarah Farmer. We also went to a children museum which was a lot of fun for the kids. I loved Portland with its fresh crispy air and proximity of the ocean.

A visit from Irada and trip to Maine

2007-12-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

My sister Irada is coming for a visit in a week! I'm counting days now, I'm so excited!
She will be staying with us for 2 weeks leaving on the 28th Dec. Another thing I'm looking forward to is visiting my friends in Portland, Maine. We are going to Maine when my sister arrives, actually the next morning after she arrives to Atlanta supposedly at 5.30pm, we are flying off to Portland. She's going to have a long trip, but 2.5 hours of flight from Atlanta to Portland is nothing comparing to her 15 hours (at the least) flight from Baku to Atlanta with a stop over in Paris.
We will spend 3.5 days with my friends from Baku who are bahais and we grew up together and found the Faith together and became bahai on the same day! They have 2 children, almost same age as ours, but we haven't met their children yet neither they met ours, so kids will hopefully have a lot of fun together.
It's my first time seeing the country outside of state Georgia, and although it's cold there (I know, it's already snowing there, but that's what winter is supposed to be like, in my opinion) I'm looking forward to our trip, and my sister will be with us too, yey!!!

Festival of Trees at the library

2007-11-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

At the end of November at the local library in Jasper there was a festival of trees, which probably indicated beginning of Christmas festivities here. A number of local organizations and firms such as banks, churches, schools and so on, decorated their own Christmas trees right at the library, and the trees will be there till the new year, I believe. I was curious about the "festival of trees" and took the kids over there. It was in the evening, first there was a story time at which the librarian read a story related to Christmas, then she sang songs with children and afterwards everybody made a craft, a mint candy reindeer. It was nice that the librarian mentioned also other holidays which are celebrated in December as well, such as Hannukah and Kuanzaa.
Then we went to the conference room which was used as a display room for the decorated trees. On one of the trees decorated by members of MOPS (Mothers of preschoolers, an international Moms club sponsored by christian community) we found art pieces made by Isabella during the MOPS meeting when I sat in a room with other Moms discussing various things, and kids were in a different room drawing and making ornaments supervised by a teacher. Adib was excited about all the sparkling ornaments and garlends on the trees running around them and trying to pull some of them down.
Later there was a performance of bell-ringers and then strings, a children choir and other singers.

Bella posing for camera with trees at the background

Adib cuddling with a huge teddy bear

One of Bella's art work
Another art piece

Concert

Story time with Miss Kristy

Craft making

Thanksiving 2007

2007-11-26T08:19:00.000-08:00

Being busy with cooking, feeding children, washing up, I forgot to take pictures of the family and the Thanksgiving dinner table which was really beautiful with all the tasty food we all prepared. There was traditional roasted turkey of course, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoe casserole with pecans, yumm!, salads, grilled salmon, pumpkin pie with wipped cream and delicious cappuccino made by Karen.
It's always a lot of fun to have family around and children make it extra special. We also did some crafts and played games with the boys, "apples to apples" was fun with Caleb, Connor and Chandler.

Baby on the way

2007-11-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law Karen and her husband Eric Blue are expecting their first baby in February! We are all excited for them and baby's sex is going to be a surprise. Isn't she the most beautiful preggo? We love you, guys!

Gingerbread house and other activities

2007-11-25T20:55:00.000-08:00

It was so great to have cousins staying with us for almost a week. Uncle Nicholas had to go back to Augusta to work but aunt Amy with children stayed through the Thanksgiving, children had roaring time together. Isabella and Elysia are almost the same age, Elysia will be turning 4 in February. Although there were occasional struggles over sharing toys, most of the time they got along great with each other and played very nicely. Amy homeschools her 4 children and is doing terrific job.

So here are pictures of different activities we did together.

Grandma and Grandpa gave Isabella and Elysia a "Gingerbread house" kit, one to each. Apparently it's a traditional craft children like to do before Christmas, and you can make it from scratch or bye a kit that has pieces made of gingerbread (all edible), to make walls and a roof of the house, frosting to make snow on the roof (acts like a glue for decoration) and a lot of different candy to decorate the roof, windows, tree etc. Boys helped us to make the 2 gingerbread houses and to eat the candy of course :-)

Chandler with his craft (I guess airplane)
Connor and I made some origami, here is a turtle and a fish
2 princesses busy assembling a puzzle
We love each other soooo much, we are best friends ever!

More pictures of the fall in North Georgia

2007-11-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Couldn't resist sharing these pics I took from our deck a couple of weeks ago on my blog. It was middle of November, quiet morning and colors were simply spectacular , and the next day storm blew many of the leaves off the trees. Right now most of trees are bare and it's pretty cold.

Avocado cream from Israel

2007-11-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

I can not believe I got this "Avocado" hand cream again. I used to use this cream in Israel and that was the only remedy for my dry skin in winter. Since I moved to the US, I tried different creams, olive oil, baby lotion on my hands and nothing was as efficient. So I decided to look on Ebay and have found it! It's imported from Israel, exactly the same one I used to buy while living in Haifa. And it works wonders. And when I applied it last night, the perfume reminded me of different things and different people who crossed my path there and I got a bit nostalgic. I'm so happy to have my avocado cream again!

Spending few days with the cousins

2007-11-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

We have uncle Nicholas's family (aunt Amy and their children, Caleb, Connor, Chandler and Elysia) staying with us till Thanksgiving. They usually drive up here for Thanksgiving and stay over for 1 or 2 nights but this time they decided to stay right after Bella's birthday party through Thanksgiving. It is so great to have them stay with us for a few days, our children adore their cousins and are having such a great time.
Here is play-dough fun, Michael has also joined in with Adib.

Sitting together in a big chair watching "Pooh bear" cartoon

Isabella turned 4

2007-11-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

We had family and friends with children coming to wish a "Happy Birthday" to Bella. We had pizza (Sevda made few different kinds of pizza), games, craft, cake and last but not the least, a "present opening". It was fun, Bella was very happy and enjoyed her special day.

Mona and Thornton Chase

Adib enjoying a cup-cake. Yumm!

Bella had a "Hello kitty!" cake, she's been into that cartoon most lately and so we decorated a chesse-cake (made by Daddy) as a kitty's face.

Max and adorable Ethan

Children books

2007-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

We like to go to the local library with Bella and check children books and videos. And some of the books that we check turn out to be a true gem. Like the book by Leyla Torres "Liliana's grandmothers" that tells about a spanish (or hispanic) girl Liliana who loves her both Grandmothers one of which lives on the same street and the other in another country, and likes to do different things with them. Bella loves this book because she can relate to it, having one Grandmother overseas, and I like how it is written and how it teaches children to value the family. Another author that we fell in love with was Judith Caseley, we read few of her books over and over like "Apple pie and onions", "Ada potato", "Dear Annie" and others. Another thing that we are doing now, we check in the library audio CDs or audiotapes with children stories which come acoompanied by book, and both Bella and Adib listen to them in the car. Bella doesn't like to ride in a car, but with stories it's much more fun, and Adib loves music and bounces to the music when the story begins and ends. Our favorite was "Suzy Mule" by Barbara DeRubertis.

Friends from Ukraine and Moldova

2007-11-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

At Ethan Eblaghie's birthday party back in September we met Antonina, a young lady from Moldova who is doing her internship in Blue Ridge, GA, and we learned from her that there are few more Russian speking ladies from Ukraine who are her flatmates and they are doing internship together. We also met Josie there, a nice and sweet lady, a nurse who works with Kelly. She also works (or volunteers, I'm not sure) at the place where the girls-students are working. So we passed the invitation through Kelly and Max to Josie and the Russian speaking ladies to come over to our houise for lunch. We had really good time, and Bella had a chance to practice her Russian. She was pretty talkative on that day and even sang few songs in Russian and English for the guests. Here are few pictures taken then.

King of Glory

2007-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Check out this video too, it's on the history of Baha'i Faith and life of Baha'u'llah, the King of Glory.

The Life of Baha'u'llah

2007-11-12T12:28:00.001-08:00

It is a Baha'i Holy Day today.
The main prophet founder of the Baha'i Faith Mirza Husseyn Ali known as Baha'u'llah (Glory of God) was born on the 12th of November 1817

Adib eating with spoon

2007-11-12T09:40:00.001-08:00

I just love watching my baby eat all by himself, he looks so grown up and independant. I guess I should get used to think that he's not a baby anymore.
He takes eating seriously too, look how focused he is :-)

2007-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

Daddy and son. Adib never passes a chance of sitting in a driver seat.
Mommy, we just pretend that the laundry basket is a boat!

Enjoying a sunny day

2007-11-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Fall in North Georgia

2007-11-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

Here are few pictures I took yesterday while strolling with Adib down the street.

16 month old

2007-11-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Our little pumpkin has turned 16 months yesterday. We had his 15 months check-up just a few days ago, it was delayed because of the flu which we all managed to get (with Bella going to school now we'll be probably be more exposed to sicknesses and bugs than before).

Adib is still on the top of the scale for his weight, height and head circumference, which means that over 90% of children (perhaps just boys if they have separate charts for each sex) his age comparing to him will be less in height, weight etc.

He also got 3 shots, 2 nurses gave him shots at the same time in both legs, he could already predict that and started to cry when they asked Michael to hold him tightly with his arms immobile.

Adib eats all by himself with a spoon now, he still doesn't get every single spoonful successfully in his mouth but he does pretty well, it's just a matter of practice. He drinks with a straw, we stopped giving him a bottle when he was about 12 months. He had a sippy cup which he liked but then we lost it on while out walking and since then we've used a cup with a straw.

He still is very affectionate with his Daddy who is always a number 1 choice when he is around, and he also shows affection to Bella and Mommy. It's so amusing to see how Bella and Adib hug and kiss each other, he can not give a proper kiss yet, he just opens his mouth and approaches you as if he is going to swallow whole of you :-) They like to play and laugh together and scream and be sometimes very noisy together too. He doesn't articulate any words yet, but "mama", "baba" for bye-bye and "drrrrr" for cars. Adib's favorite food these days are mini-bagels and cherry tomatoes. Whenever he is hungry and if the food is not ready yet he asks for a bagel bringing me to the kitchen and pointing at the cabinet where I store them.

Candies are bad for you

2007-11-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a neighbour seeing us outside called out to me asking whether I would like to have a candy for Bella. I said "no, thanks." He said they had left-over candies from Halloween and he thought Bella might like a lolly-pop. Bella was by my side and started to whisper to me that she would like a candy, but I explained to her that candies are not good for us. She said "Doesn't Mr. Ed know about it?" I thought that was a clever question and smiled and said that I hoped he knew that too. Later I was thinking about it and how we tell children often that candies are bad, it's junk, it may cause cavities in our teeth. But on the other side when someone is offering it to us we want our children to be polite and appreciative of the offer. So I decided that I'm not going to say "it's bad for us" but instead to say "I know it tastes good but it's not the best thing for us, and we can have it only occasionally". I think it's somewhat disrespectful to say that it is bad or junk, because some people like it and offer it to us and we eat it sometimes too and even use it as a reward for kids which contradicts with "it's bad for you". And also knowing how children enjoy all the sweet things, I don't want my kids to grow up felling guilty about something that tastes good and makes them feel good, it will only make them want to have more of it. So I guess it's better to teach them moderation and pass the knowledge about the negative consequences of having it too much or too often. That's one of the reason we don't participate in trick-or treat, we don't want kids to eat candy without moderation even for one night a year. And we also don't like scary and spooky stuff that is associated with Halloween but find it difficult to avoid this because at school, on TV and everywhere they load us with this silly stuff.
The only part of Halloween that I like is pumpkins and costumes, but not witches, ghosts or skeletons.

Once when I was serving at the Baha'i World Centre, while working as a janni cleaning with the other young lady, we had lunch together. And when I asked her whether she was a vegetarian she told me that she used to be but then she decided that it would be disrespectful and might offend the host who wanted to serve her some meat. And so she trained herself to eat meat so that she could accept and be grateful for whatever food she might have been offered. I was very impressed with that 18 year old girl and thought it was very mature and thoughtful of her. And nowadays I meat many children and adults who say that meat is bad and we shouldn't eat it. Some go to extremes expressing their disgust openly and almost making it personal and hating those who eat meat or telling terrible stories of how the poor animals are treated at the slaughter houses and so on. We also know from Baha'i Teachings that meat is not necessary for our bodies and in future people will stop using meat but it doesn't happen over night.

Visit from cousins

2007-10-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Uncle Nicholas was visiting over the week-end, and kids had so much fun together. Here are some photos, we love the ones with Grandma nad Grandpa.

Up-date on Adib's development

2007-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

You can tell there is a boy in the house, Adib has little toy cars all over the house and outside in the backyard as well. He just grabs toy car whenever one gets in his sight and then carries and leaves it somewhere else. We find them in the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, everywhere and he even sleeps with them too.

He is now sitting with us at the table during the meals. He used to sit in his baby chair just next to the table and I put food on the high chair tray in front of him. But since he figured out how to lift the tray, he would lift it and drop everything on the floor once he finished eating. But few weeks ago he just refused to eat from his tray and was frantically pointing to the table so my parents-in-law suggested that we remove the tray and bring his chair closer to the table, so he literally sits at the table with us. He really liked this idea, I guess that's what he was desperately trying to tell us. Now he has his food on the table in front of him and he sees what others are eating and points his little chubby index finger to indicate what he wants to try and vocally expressing his wish as well. Once he had sufficient he will pull his bib off and try to get down from the chair.

He recognizes some words by now, like shoes, feet, ears, nose, birds, airplane, moon and so on. He follows simple instructions such as "close the door please", "bring me your shoes", "put it on the table" etc, however he doesn't say words yet, lots of babbling and imitating of speech but no real words yet. He shows affection to us and his sister and copies whatever she does. He also has this cutest way of shaking his head meaning "no more" usually when he had enough to eat. And when he did what I asked him and I praise him, he smiles and claps hands cheering for himself.
We speak both English and Russian to him so that may be the cause of relatively delayed speech.

He still doesn't like milk, but doesn't mind other dairy products such as plain yogurt, cheese and porridge made with milk. Both he and Bella love fresh fruit and one of the favorite is peaches, we've been buying a lot of peaches this year.

In Baku they tried fresh figs, red currant, sour cherry, mulberry and some other fruit and berry that we usually don't find in typical american grocery store. They loved all that fruit and we even picked fresh figs at our summer house in Baku, and fresh apricots at a friend's yard. Bella still remembers our time spent in Baku and all the little friends and cousins she met there, and often she would ask me to go visit Baku again so that she can play with them again.

Beautiful creature

2007-10-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know the name of this lizard but I think it's pretty cool. It is bright green and sometimes it blows its cheeks in bright red bubbles, I couldn't capture the bubbles though. We often see this beautiful creature on our deck or patio.
PS: I just found these pictures of green anole here, that's probably what it is.

Adib with Grandma and Grandpa

2007-10-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Grandma's birthday is this coming Saturday.

Happy birthday to our Grandma, we love you very much!

School fun

2007-10-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

On the 1st of October Bella's school had fall festival and invited all the parents to participate. I went with Adib and he had fun sliding and watching the kids. However after a couple of hours he got tired and I had to take him home and let him nap. Bella stayed till the end of the day and they did hay-ride, jumping in the inflatibles, playing games and each child received a gift as well, a book and a set of crayons. They will have another festival in spring, I guess it is going to be similar.

Apples in Ellijay

2007-09-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 29th we spontaneously decided to take a trip to an apple orchard in Ellijay, a neighboring town in north Georgia. we went to the Hillcrest orchard which had "pick your own apples" event for the whole month and Michael and I were talking about it but didn't really make any plans on going there, and then suddenly we decided to go and check that stuff out. There is a bunch of apple orchards, apple houses in Ellijay, I guess it is the apple capital of Georgia being a peach state :-) It turned out to be a very nice place with a lot of fun activities for kids including petting zoo, wagon rides, slides, live music performance and apple picking of course. Too bad my camera didn't work, I didn't recharge the batteries ahead of time, so no pictures. It was the first time for Adib to see farm animals and get to pet them, he had such a great time chasing chicks, petting goats and sheep and even little puppies, he didn't want to leave the place. And he was also fascinated by live music, a young lady playing guitar and singing country songs as well as clogging ladies (a type of tap dance) on the stage. We also brought 2 sacks of apples with us. Here is a link to Hillcrest orchards.

There is also Apple festival in Ellijay coming up in October, the 2 week-ends, but I doubt we will be going because October is going to be pretty busy and we already planned our week-ends.

There are other festivals in North Georgia, in different towns, they usually have live concerts, puppet show, arts and crafts, petting zoo, pony rides, inflatables and other fun things for kids and of course southern food and music. Each festival also has its specialties.

In our town, Jasper, for instance, there is a marble festival every year, in october. There are marble mines here and people can take a tour to check them out during the festival. So next week-end we may visit the marble festival which was fun last year, and in addition Michael's brother will be coming with his beautiful family and stay over the week-end, so kids will have a blast with cousins.

So the exciting part of the year in the US is beginning, first festivals, then you see houses and yards decorated with pumpkins, yellow and orange flowers, funny scarecrows and ghosts in anticipating of Hellowin and Thanksgiving, lots of pumpkin pies and apple pies with whipped cream. The leaves on the trees turning red and gold, adorning the green hills which North Georgia is abundant with in spectacular colors, and then Christmas decorations, family get-togethers. The Holiday season is here!