About Me

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Hi. I"m living in the Northeast with my supportive hubby, 2 great girls and toddler son. I run a home based business around scrapbooking and rubber stamping and love everything about those crafts! I also work p/t as a Physician Assistant in Internal Medicine...back after a 10 year hiatus to take care of the kids--loving that, too!

Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year's Eve!!















Well, it's a little early in the day, but tonight, we are planning on going to my sister's house to wave a fond farewell to 2010! This might be the last time I actually get to write 2010. Anyway, I digress...We have had a great year and hope the upcoming one will hold even happier memories and fun and health for us all. Looking forward to 2011 with anticipation and optimism. We are wrapping up this year with a few family outings and memories while the girls are home on Winter Break. Mohammed joined us too, so it was great. We played in the snow, went tubing, Yasmeen earned her next TKD belt, blue stripe, and we made our traditional trip into NYC on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, it was super crowded and not very easy to walk around with 2 young kids and a toddler in a stroller, so we may have to find an alternate tradition until they are older, or we start missing NYC. We even experienced our 1st snowfall of the season (although most likely the last snowfall of the year!) the day after Christmas. See you all next year!!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Where does the time go...

























Well, it's been a couple of months since I last posted and there's just no excuse for that. We have been busy as usual with school in full swing, and of course, Girl Scouts, Tae Kwon Do, and dance, but I've just been lax with posting. So, consider this my catch up post! After my birthday, we celebrated Leena's 9th birthday with a fun American Girl themed party which she loved. We also made a trip to a local farm and completed a fun corn maze and spent some time in the kiddie area where Adam (and Yasmeen and Leena) thoroughly enjoyed playing in a big pen filled with corn and a ton of trucks. Another big event that occurred in October was the fact that both Leena and Yasmeen (and Mohammed, too) had their first horseback riding lessons. Turns out that a new friend of Yasmeen's at school has 2 horses and her mom invited us to come to the farm to let the girls ride. Once she saw how comfortable Leena was on the horse, she suggested that we pursue official lessons with Leena and even offered to do them for free. THAT was a big blessing, as both girls have wanted to learn to ride for a long time. The month ended with Halloween, of course. We attended Trunk or Treating at Leena's school and participated in the local tradition of heading out mid afternoon on Halloween dat with our neighbors for some yummy trick-or-treating. Leena dressed up as Cleopatra, Yasmeen went back and forth between a goth looking black widow and a geocacher, and Adam dressed up as a cowboy!! It was a totally FULL, but totally FUN month.
In November, the girls were off for "Jersey Week" where our township has combined days off due to election day, and the teachers annual convention. We visited another farm, went out to eat a few times, visited a playspace in another town, did a little geocaching in the rain (!) and celebrated Eid Al Adtha and Thanksgiving. Right after Thanksgiving, we took advantage of a few Black Friday sales, but mostly spent time together. One of our activities was going out to North Jersey to check out a Wolf Preserve. Even though it was bitter cold, it was fun and informative. Have to make a note to check it out again when it warms up a bit. Seems like the once school starts the pace picks up and we have one busy month after another...November was no different, that's for sure!
Soon after the month ended, we started December with a bang and a square dance. Leena's class was putting on a program with the rest of the 3rd grade at Triangle. She had a bit of pre-performance nerves and was mortified at having to dance with a BOY, but did really well. Adam's 2nd birthday was a couple of days later. We managed to avoid an ER visit this year (last year Leena needed stitches for a cut she obtained by running into an open door of our AC guys truck) and went back to Old Man Rafferty's for dinner with Gido and Shoo-Shoo, who flew in from Sunny Florida to freeze in the Jersey cold. The next day we celebrated with everyone else, including Nana, Papa, Titi, Tio, Joey, Elena and our family, of course. Adam scored big with a brand new Thomas train table, several trains, a huge firetruck and a snazzy Mercedes Benz pedal car. He was so wired he totally missed his nap and didn't even notice! So that brings us to today...I'm getting ready for SCRAMP in about an hour and a half and taking it easy this weekend. Hoping to get back in the swing of SCRAPPING, too, but if I keep up this pace, I may have to wait until my next LOAD in February! Have a wonderful month and see you soon!!