Nutella Love

The First Day of Spring!

Lovely spring weather arrived this week 

and we have been soaking it up!

Popcorn on the balcony

in the afternoon sun

while wearing sunglasses?  

Yes, please!

And Rana's friend Felicitas joined 

us for our first ice cream cone of 

the season after school today. 

Mira is 1 Year & 9 Months Old!

Mira loves to play. 

She laughs, runs, throws herself around, climbs,

dances, makes animal noises, chitter-chatters, plays, 

reads, and gets into everything from morning to night. 

To her credit, she's very good at cleaning up her messes

when prompted, and sorts and puts away all of her toys

at home and in the Kita properly. And she often uses

a tissue or cloth to wipe the floor whenever she finds one.

Mira loves savory food and her appetite is practically 

insatiable. She particularly loves meat and cheeses, 

rice, olives, raisins, and yogurt. 

She's becoming more and more communicative every day, 

speaking in English, German, and Arabic. She says things like:

hello

ba-da (Arabic for "duck," also: animal crackers)

Mambo (penguin)

fish
baby
Kita (daycare, plus names of kids there)
helu (Arabic for "pretty")
hum (Arabic baby word for "food")

apple

banana, moos

water, moya

na-na (Arabic for "bottle")

arnab (Arabic for "grapes")

please and bitte

yes and ja

nein and la
more
ich auch (German for "me too!")
all done, halas, fertig

brush my teeth

tra-wash (Arabic for "take a bath," also: wash hands)

toilet (because she started training herself to use it!)

abbas (Arabic for "get dressed")

shoes, house shoes

aufräumen (German for "clean up")
open

get down/get up/get out

wa - "walk"

habibi (Arabic for "darling/my dear")

ni-night

bye-bye, tschüss, ciao-ciao

Our Little Duo

Matching dresses!

Running errands

Sharing a bed for a night or two

(because the little sister made a mess in her bed!)

Cool Dudes - A Comparison

Rana and Mira

each rocking the shades 

at almost 2 years old!

Rana is 6 Years & 9 Months Old!

Rana is officially 6 & 3/4!

This week, she's hosting the classroom pet penguin, Pete.

He accompanied her to a birthday party at a local indoor play 

area and took part in lots our family activities this weekend.

Rana has figured out first grade:

She's keeping track of her school work and homework, 

mastering her spelling words and starting to read, 

rapidly solving math problems, learning about money 

and how to tell time, teaching us interesting scientific 

facts about the human body, and much, much more. 

Interestingly enough, Rana is reading and spelling better 

in German, even though her English is still generally her 

stronger language. German phonics are much more clear-cut,

so it is easier to sound words out in German. Plus, the school

devotes a little more time (60%) to German and the students

speak German to each other. We're curious to see 

how things develop as time goes on. 

While Rana struggles sometimes because she doesn't 

have one or two best friends with whom she always 

likes to play, she has lots of friends and has made a 

long list of everyone she would like to invite over to our 

house for playdates and/or to her birthday party in June. 

Guess we'd better start planning now, huh Rana!?!