Happy Ayyam-i-Ha!

Decorating the house for Ayyam-i-ha!







Oliver opening one of his presents:



One of Sasha's Ayyam-i-ha presents:



She's slightly obsessed with being a bride. So her new dress became a wedding dress, and she immediately ran upstairs to get her silks to use in her hair and as wedding veils!



We had an Ayyam-i-ha party for adults and kids! The adults played the White Elephant gift exchange game:



They also did a craft with the sunrise and sunset times throughout the month of March in preparation for the Baha'i Fast:




The kids played outside and had a treasure hunt and balloon games:



Rock painting:




Fort making: ...and lots of other games!





Sasha and Oliver are developing such a beautiful relationship... they adore each other!








And Oliver wants to be with and do everything that Sasha is doing:



Beautiful Oliver:







Sasha found these little wooden people at our favorite craft store and decided to paint them "waldorf style." Waldorf is the philosophy of education that seeks to enhance children's creativity and imagination. Most of their dolls are faceless, so that the child can conjure up their own mental image of how the doll is feeling at different times.






My beautiful girl:





She's learning to knit using a loom:



Playing Reverse Musical Chairs: Finding a way to make sure everyone has a place to sit!



They did it!



Oliver loves being held like this:



Happy boy after his bath!



Sasha and Daddy built this log cabin together:



During the cold weather, we lit a fire almost every day and brought our activities to the living room:



Playing with some of her neighborhood friends:



She taught them how to finger-knit:




Sasha has always been interested in climbing, and has patiently been waiting for some backyard climbing structures. We finally found a great deal for one, and she loves it! Here she is doing one of her many tricks on it:



It's sturdy enough that even Daddy can play on it!




Coloring with her crayon rocks:





Oliver has learned to pull himself up and does so every chance he gets. Must be so exciting to see the world from new heights!




And lots more things to reach and pull off from up here:




We found this activity from a Montessori blog (can't remember which, now). It's a gratitude jar (which is supposed to be used during Thanksgiving, but I thought it was just a great idea to use throughout the year). It's just a jar with slips of paper inside and a pencil. Every time someone thinks of something that they feel grateful for, they write it on the paper and put it back in the jar. I was also inspired by another Baha'i blogger to make gratitude a daily habit. Every evening when we sit down for dinner, each of us talks about our day and all the things we felt grateful for during that day. I've found that it's a great exercise because even if we had a bad day, we are forced to put that aside and reflect on what good came from it. I highly recommend doing this every day!

Here's Sasha about to put something in the gratitude jar: